Must see: Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fl) comments at David Friedman confirmation hearing
Several people have sent me this video and it really is a must see. This is Republican Senator Marco Rubio (Fl) speaking at the confirmation hearings for David Friedman as US Ambassador to Israel. He's awesome. This will be the best five minutes you will spend today.
Congress to freeze State Department funding until embassy moves to Jerusalem
In yet another slap in the face to President Hussein Obama, the Washington Free Beacon reports that the Republican-controlled Congress is freezing State Department funding until the US Embassy to Israel moves to Jerusalem.
A delegation of Republican senators is moving forward with an effort to
freeze some funding to the State Department until the U.S. embassy in
Israel is formally moved to Jerusalem, according to new legislation.
...
The effort is being spearheaded by Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), Marco
Rubio (R., Fla.), and Dean Heller (R., Nev.), all of whom support
efforts by the incoming Trump administration to move the U.S. embassy to
Jerusalem after years of debate.
“Jerusalem is the eternal and undivided capital of Israel,” Cruz said
in a statement. “Unfortunately, the Obama administration’s vendetta
against the Jewish state has been so vicious that to even utter this
simple truth—let alone the reality that Jerusalem is the appropriate
venue for the American embassy in Israel—is shocking in some circles.”
“But it is finally time to cut through the double-speak and broken
promises and do what Congress said we should do in 1995: formally move
our embassy to the capital of our great ally Israel,” Cruz said.
The legislation orders the White House to identify Jerusalem as
Israel’s capital, which the Obama administration has refused to do. The
bill will freeze a significant portion of the State Department’s funding
until it completes the relocation.
In the past, the Obama White House has been caught scrubbing captions
on official photographs that labeled Jerusalem as part of Israel. The
administration also was entangled in a Supreme Court case when it
refused to permit an American family to list its child’s birthplace as
“Jerusalem, Israel.”
Heller said the legislation could help repair America’s relationship
with Israel, which has become strained under the Obama administration.
Mark January 20 on your calendars. That's the date US-Israel relations make a significant change for the better.
“Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish state of Israel, and
that's where America's embassy belongs,” Rubio said in a statement.
“It's time for Congress and the President-Elect to eliminate the
loophole that has allowed presidents in both parties to ignore U.S. law
and delay our embassy's rightful relocation to Jerusalem for over two
decades.”
A statement from Heller said that some State Department funds would be withheld until the embassy was relocated.
The GOP measure is in line with President-elect Donald Trump's support for moving the embassy. His pick for ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, also supports that pledge.
...
“Jerusalem is the eternal and undivided capital of Israel,” Ted Cruz
said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the Obama administration's vendetta
against the Jewish state has been so vicious that to even utter this
simple truth – let alone the reality that Jerusalem is the appropriate
venue for the American embassy in Israel — is shocking in some circles.
And that's the best part: Once this bill makes its way through Congress and lands on the President's desk, the President will be Donald Trump, and not the Jew-hating mamzer who currently occupies the White House.
88 US Senators sign letter to Obama opposing UN-imposed 'solutions' in the Middle East, 2 of Israel's best friends don't sign
Greetings from Boston's Logan Airport where I am having a travel evening. I'm headed to... Chicago.
88 United States Senators have signed an AIPAC-drafted letter urging President Obama to oppose UN attempts to impose a 'solution' to the Israeli-'Palestinian' conflict. Two of Israel's best friends in the Senate - Marco Rubio (R-Fl) and Ted Cruz (R-Tx) did not sign the letter. Here's why. The letter says
The only way to resolve the conflicts between the two is through direct negotiations that lead to a sustainable two-state solution with a future state of Palestine living in peace and security with Israel. This outcome would provide Israel with greater security and strengthen regional stability. We remain optimistic that, under the right circumstances, Israel and Palestinians can successfully resume productive negotiations toward this goal.
My guess is that Rubio and Cruz don't agree with two-state anymore. I wonder why.
Linda Sarsour is an energetic purveyor of the “Islamophobia” myth, and has hysterically claimed that “Muslim kids” are being “executed” in the United States. She was instrumental in prevailing upon de Blasio
to end legal and necessary surveillance in Muslim communities in New
York. She is also a frequent visitor to the Obama White House, and has
claimed that the jihad underwear bomber was a CIA agent — part of what she claims is a U.S. war against Islam.
She is a practiced exploiter of the “hate” smear against foes of jihad
terror and Islamic supremacism, and has never apologized for using the Islamic honor murder of Shaima Alawadi to spread lies about the prevalence of hate crimes against Muslims in America.
She is also an enthusiastic supporter of the “Palestinian” jihad
against Israel. Given the general support for that jihad among Leftists,
and the hard-Left tilt of the de Blasio regime in New York, it is not
surprising that her hate-filled endeavors are taxpayer funded. But it is
scandalous nonetheless: a grim sign of the times.
That would explain her disdain for Rubio and Cruz, wouldn't it?
And Trump's failure to repudiate her endorsement has to make you wonder whether he's really as pro-Israel as he says he is.
Republican Presidential candidate Marco Rubio has promised a 'reset' of US-Israel relations if he is elected President of the United States.
"I believe my election or the election of someone like me, in and by
itself will help reset that relationship in the eyes of the world,”
Rubio said, the Jewish Insider's Jacob Kornbluh reported.
According to the Florida senator, the Obama administration
deliberately created distance between the U.S. and Israel in an effort
to improve the U.S. standing and its perception in the Muslim world.
"It's been a disaster," he added.
The Republican candidate said the Obama administration damaged the relationship with Israel by briefly suspending military sales during the last Gaza war,
and by making an implied threat that the U.S. won't use its veto power
in the UN Security Council against a possible resolution recognizing a
Palestinian state.
Rubio also slammed Obama for treating Iran's supreme leader with
"more respect" than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, due to Israel's
opposition to the Iran nuclear deal.
Marco Rubio (and Ted Cruz) got Barack Obama right, so why won't anyone else say so?
I have now watched the video of Chris Christie 'destroying' Marco Rubio on Saturday night, and I have to tell you that the people commenting on it have missed the boat. If you haven't seen it yet, the video is embedded here.
Yet Rubio also had an important point: Christie’s premise is dead
wrong. Obama has not steered the Titanic into an iceberg because he is
an unprepared, untested amateur. He has done it quite deliberately, at
times masterfully, because Obama believes in the policies that
constitute the iceberg. He is a movement leftist with a transformational
agenda and an Alinskyite’s understanding of the extortionate uses of
power. Authoritarian rule, government-controlled health care, open
borders, runaway spending, Islamist sympathies, crony-capitalist green
energy – these are not initiatives Obama stumbled into because he was
unprepared. Obama has studiously taken the country where he wants it to
go. And he has rolled over the old experienced hands to do it – so much
for amateur hour.
Obama is not the bumpkin of Christie’s portrayal. But Christie is not so
much wrong in this regard as calculated. Progressive-lite types like
Christie want Obama’s failed presidency to be seen as the consequence of
lack of experience rather than as policy-driven because they often
cooperate with Obama Democrats and sympathize with a number of their
policy preferences.
Christie couldn’t get enough of Obama after “Super Storm Sandy” –
regardless of how much it undermined Mitt Romney. At best, Christie has
been ambivalent in his opposition to Obamacare – carefully navigating
between his instinctive support of it and the intense opposition of more
conservative voters whom he knew he’d be courting in the 2016 GOP
primaries. And while Christie is trying to appeal to conservatives as
the adult in the room willing to speak hard truths about entitlements
and debt spending, his record as governor is: Talk a good game but do
essentially nothing about our basket-case state’s structural problems.
That is a big part of why, as Rubio pointed out, Christie’s tenure has
featured multiple credit downgrades.
The Christies of the Republican party insist that the country is in
disastrous shape because Obama was not up to the job. In truth, Obama
used Democratic congressional control when he had it to push through
Obamacare and Dodd-Frank; ever since, having taken the measure of
feckless GOP opposition, he has skillfully (albeit illegally) exploited
executive power to pursue progressive objectives. Obama has been plenty
up to the job as he intended the job to be done.
This reality is not helpful to a Christie, who wants to be seen as a
pragmatic problem-solver willing to “cross the aisle.” The logic of
Christie’s championing of bipartisan cooperation “to get things done”
has necessarily meant working in furtherance of Obama’s agenda (and, in
New Jersey, working closely with Democrats – which is how you get
multiple credit downgrades). No one courting the Republican base can
afford to be seen as complicit in Obama’s program. So, for Christie, if
Obama is to be portrayed as a failure, it’s got to be because Obama
wasn’t prepared to be president, not because of policies Republicans
have supported.
Rush Limbaugh wonders why only Rubio and Ted Cruz are willing to acknowledge that Obama's behavior has been a deliberate attempt to destroy the United States.
And I think... This is what I was talking about earlier when I say, "I
think some of these professional media analysts..." God bless them and
they do hard work, and many of them, they're just fine people. But I
don't know that they have the ability to see these debates the way
people watching the debates on TV see them. Meaning: I don't know how
big a faux pas this was for Rubio. Clearly it was not a positive;
clearly it was not his best. But I don't think it ruined his chances and
wiped him out like some in the media opined.
...
Let's get to the audio sound bites. I want to start with this. It's
the fastest way to get into this. Because this is important, folks.
This is really, really important. There are only two people that I'm
aware of that are making a consistent point of this. Rubio, actually, is
atop of this. Rubio and Cruz are the only two in the entire Republican
field. Carly Fiorina may have said something like this occasionally.
With Rubio, it's a theme. With Cruz, it's close to a theme. And the
real question is: Why do the other Republicans in the field disagree?
Why do they not say it themselves, that Obama is doing what he's
doing on purpose and by design? That is a brilliantly conceived and
flawlessly executed plan to transform America into something it was not
founded to be. This is something crucially important to Republican
voters. To people inside the Beltway, it's kind of a chuckle. "There
they go again, those right wingers!" To people inside the Beltway, to
the elites, to the establishment, Obama's just the latest Democrat to
come along.
He's no different than any other Democrat. "It's just the Democrat
Party, and they have a president." They don't see the country in crisis
in any way. Not because of the economy, not because of immigration,
not because of foreign policy. In no way are we in a crisis. And, as
such, they don't see what Obama's doing as anything except maybe a
young, inexperienced -- this is Christie's point -- incompetent boob.
Well, that's not who Obama is. Rubio's opponents are using it to
disqualify him. "See! Obama doesn't know what he's doing, and Rubio's
the same kind of guy, just a few short years in the Senate running for
president. We can't afford it.
"Meanwhile, the governors! We're the guys. We're the tough guys.
We've had to make tough decisions," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The
governors will not admit who Obama is. The governors will not admit it,
and Trump does not agree that Obama is purposely doing this. Trump
thinks he's a blithering incompetent. This is crucially important.
...
He's one of two people saying it. Now, folks, you go out and talk to
actual Republican primary voters. You go out, outside of Washington,
outside New York, go out to where these primaries and caucuses are being
held, and you will find that this is exactly what has propelled
Republicans to the polls in droves in 2010 and 2014. It's not the
belief, it's not the theory, it is the knowledge that Obama's doing this
on purpose, and there isn't and hasn't been any push-back. And
Republican voters are livid. Obama has said he's doing it on purpose.
He has said his purpose is to transform the nation. Everybody knows
that Obama is an Alinskyite.
The real question is -- and I was talking about this over the weekend
with my good buddy, Andrew McCarthy. The real question is, why are
these other guys not saying it? Why does Chris Christie make fun of
it? Why does Donald Trump pooh-pooh it? Well, Trump I have to leave
out of this, out of this theory. But Trump also, just for the record,
said he thinks Obama's an incompetent boob, doesn't know what he's
doing. Christie's point is Obama's incompetent, he doesn't know what
he's doing because he's inexperienced just like Rubio doesn't know what
he's doing 'cause he's experienced. It's Barack Obama 2 in that Rubio
would be inexperienced senator, elected president, we don't want to do
that again.
Rubio's point, no, no, no, no, no. Obama's not incompetent. He's
not inexperienced. He's doing exactly what he wants to do. And none of
these Republican moderates will go there. You want to know why? You
want to know why? You want to know why they cannot agree that Obama's
doing this on purpose? Very simple. They cannot agree that Obama's
doing it on purpose. They do not dare say that Obama's doing it on
purpose because they have all worked with Barack Obama, in one way or
another, every one of these governors, many of them, and even a lot of
Republicans in the House and Senate have worked with Obama to advance
certain elements of the agenda.
...
I think the real important question here to ask and answer is why
won't anybody but Rubio and Cruz say it? Because that's essentially, if
you had to encapsulate what the Republican primary is, it's about
that. Like they keep harping on, Christie -- or it might have been
Trump, I don't know who it was -- jumped on Rubio, maybe it was a
moderator in the post-debate analysis. Why does he keep campaigning
against Obama? Obama's not on the ballot. Obama's seven years old.
Obama's in his last year. Why does he keep running against Obama?
Because Hillary and Bernie Sanders want to continue what Obama has
started, and it is the transformation of America. The Republican base
is fully aware of it. The Republican primary voters have been begging
the Republican Party to stop this since 2010, since 2009 when Obama took
office.
...
See, the post-debate analysts who are either on sight or in studios,
television studio, I really -- this is not a criticism of them. I don't
want anybody to get the wrong idea. I think when you start making fun
of Rubio for repeating that Obama's doing it on purpose, you don't
understand how important that is to the Republican base, which is what
this primary is all about. It's fundamental. And by the same token,
defining conservatism, being able to, is fundamental. It's what this is
all about. And if you can't do it, if your definition of conservatism
is ignorant or wrong, I guarantee you you're gonna pay for it when it
comes time to vote.
I think Rush got it right. The only candidates for whom the American citizens in Israel will come out to vote are Rubio and Cruz. We all get that they are the only two candidates that will try to undo what Obama has wrought. And one of the things Obama has wrought is trying to set Israel on a path toward destruction (God Forbid).
Here's hoping that New Hampshire voters don't listen to the media tomorrow.
It's official: Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) endorses Marco Rubio
South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, the first black Republican Senator in the deep South since reconstruction, has endorsed Senator Marco Rubio (Florida) for the Republican nomination for President. This came to me by email today.
Israel,
Our
nation’s future is on the line this election. We must nominate a strong
conservative leader who will fight at all costs for our country
and put our citizen’s needs before their own.
And Israel, we need the person that can defeat
Hillary Clinton next fall to be our nominee.
That’s why today, three weeks before the
all-important primary in South Carolina, I’m standing up for and endorsing Marco Rubio.
Israel, I spent a lot of time thinking and praying over this decision. This is an
important election, and I did not take this decision lightly.
There
are a number of good
candidates on our side, but I am voting for Marco Rubio as our next
president because he will not only restore our great nation -- he will
take us
into a New American Century.
I’m proud
to stand with Marco as part of the next generation of
conservatives. Marco has a proven conservative record of standing up to
the Washington establishment and pursuing conservative solutions for the
21st
Century. And that’s exactly the type of leader we need in the White
House next year.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz's vile smear of @marcorubio
Democratic National Committee Chairthing Debbie Wasserman Schultz ("I wear my support for Israel to work on my sleeve every day, but I support a nuclear-armed Iran if mein fuhrer says it's the right thing to do") has slammed fellow Floridian and Republican Presidential candidate Marco Rubio for holding a fundraiser at the Texas home of a 'collector of Nazi memorabilia.'
I know Harlan Crow, who is on the board of trustees of the American
Enterprise Institute where I am a resident fellow, and I have been in
his house. He is well known for his collection of historic artifacts.
In his garden he has placed statues of totalitarian leaders which he
has purchased after the fall of totalitarian regimes. That doesn't mean,
Madame Chairman, that he endorses those regimes; it means he celebrates
their downfall. To suggest that he is a Nazi sympathizer is a vile
smear.
In a particularly ludicrous aside, Wasserman Schultz says one reason
Rubio should cancel the fundraiser is that he "represents a sizable
Jewish population in our home state of Florida." Of course anti-Semitism
and Nazism are repugnant regardless of how many Jews live in your
constituency. Wasserman Schultz gives new meaning to the term cheap
shot.
My guess is that Wasserman Schultz is less concerned about Republican fundraisers than she is about criticism from her South Florida constituents,
Jewish and gentile, who oppose her vote against disapproving President
Obama's nuclear deal with Iran. Her vile smear against Harlan Crow and
her hamhanded attack on Marco Rubio are an attempt at distracting
attention from her vote.
Maybe Mr. Crow can purchase a statue of Hussein Obama after January 2017 so that Wasserman Schultz can get the point into her pea brain.
Which is harder to get: Tom Brady's text messages or Hillary Clinton's emails?
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
Which is harder to get: Tom Brady's text messages or Hillary Clinton's emails?
Let's go to the videotape.
So he's a Dolphins fan - what can you do? And yes, I heard that Brady came out for Trump this week. Fortunately, that matters less in the US these days than it used to.
Well maybe the candidates talked about those things because they are the antithesis of the views of Obama and the current Democratic candidates. That's not pandering to any of those three core Republican groups - it's showing how the Republican candidates are different from the Democrats.
How about Huckabee, Rubio, Kasich etc talk about Israel's sturdy and effective border fence? https://t.co/1WSyFQN0N1
I would be cool with that (although as longtime readers know, I don't think it's anywhere near as effective as it's touted to be). But in that case, wouldn't you ask 'why talk about Israel's border fence when we should be talking about America's?
No, it offends me that so much time was wasted on things all GOPs agree on. https://t.co/3vezaywGMM
Having read an awful lot of comments... I don't think so. It seems that unfortunately, the GOP of my generation and my children's generation still includes a lot of the John Birch Society types that kept my parents (and most Americans to this day) away from the Republican party. Perhaps that's why many of the Republican candidates feel the need to 'pander' (as Coulter insists on calling support for Israel) to Jewish voters.
Sure hope you can't tell Ann Coulter's views by the company she keeps...
In the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Republican Presidential candidate Marco Rubio sets out his foreign policy vision for the United States. One of its key pillars deals with Iran.
My foreign policy would restore the post-1945 bipartisan presidential
tradition of a strong and engaged America while adjusting it to meet the
new realities of a globalized world. The foreign policy I propose has
three pillars. Each can be best described through an example of a
challenge we face in this new century, but they all reveal the need for
all elements of American power—for a dynamic foreign policy that
restores strength, promotes prosperity, and steers the world toward
freedom.
The first and most important pillar of my foreign policy will be a
renewal of American strength. This is an idea based on a simple truth:
the world is at its safest when America is at its strongest. When
America’s armed forces and intelligence professionals, aided by our
civilian diplomatic and foreign assistance programs, are able to send a
forceful message without firing a shot, the result is more peace, not
more conflict. Yet when the United States fails to build or display such
strength, it weakens our global hand by casting doubt on our ability
and willingness to act. This doubt only encourages our adversaries to
test us.
The
Obama administration’s handling of Iran has demonstrated this with
alarming clarity. Tehran exploited the president’s lack of strength
throughout the negotiations over its nuclear program by wringing a
series of dangerous concessions from the United States and its partners,
including the ability to enrich uranium, keep the Arak and Fordow
nuclear facilities open, avoid admitting its past transgressions, and
ensure a limited timeline for the agreement.
How did a nation with
as little intrinsic leverage as Iran win so many concessions? Part of
the answer is that President Obama took off the table the largest
advantage our nation had entering into the negotiations: military
strength. Although the president frequently said that “all options are
on the table” with regard to Iran, his administration consistently
signaled otherwise. Several senior officials openly criticized the
notion of a military strike, and the president himself publicly said
that there could be no military solution to the Iranian nuclear program.
This was underscored by a historic reluctance to engage throughout the
Middle East, from pulling troops out of Iraq at all costs to retreating
from the stated redline on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
President Obama became so publicly opposed to military action that he
sacrificed any option that could have conceivably raised the stakes and
forced the mullahs into making major concessions. Iran recognized that
it could push for greater compromise without fear that the United States
would break off the talks. The president’s drive for a deal caused him
to forsake a basic principle of diplomacy with rogue regimes: it must be
backed by the threat of force. As president, I would have altered the
basic environment of the talks. I would have maneuvered forces in the
region to signal readiness; linked the nuclear talks to Iran’s broader
conduct, from its human rights abuses to its support for terrorism and
its existential threats against Israel; and pressured Tehran on all
fronts, from Syria to Yemen.
It is true that Iran, in response to
these displays of strength, may have broken off negotiations or even
lashed out in the region. History, however, suggests that even if Iran
had created more trouble in the near term, increased pressure would have
eventually forced it to back down. That is exactly what happened in
1988, when Iran ended its war with Iraq and its attacks on oil tankers
in the Persian Gulf after the Reagan administration sent in the U.S.
Navy. More recently, after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iran halted a
key component of its nuclear program.
It’s not too late to
mitigate the damage of the administration’s mishandling of Iran. By
rescinding the flawed deal concluded by President Obama and reasserting
our presence in the Middle East, we can reverse Iran’s malign influence
in this vitally important region and prevent Iran from developing
nuclear weapons. The security of the region, the safety of Israel, and
the interests of the entire world require an American approach toward
Tehran marked by strength and leadership rather than weakness and
concession.
This is excellent. And by the way, the mentions of Israel above are the only two times it's mentioned in the entire article.
By an overwhelming 98-1 margin the Senate has passed a bill which purports to give Congress a say on President Hussein Obama's proposed nuclear deal with Iran (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) was the only senator to oppose the bill. He
said in a statement that he objected that the deal was not to be
presented to the Congress as a treaty.
"A nuclear-arms agreement
with any adversary—especially the terror-sponsoring, Islamist Iranian
regime—should be submitted as a treaty and obtain a two-thirds majority
vote in the Senate as required by the Constitution," he said.
Cotton is right of course. But I'm afraid he's closing the barn door after the horse has escaped.
The Senate bill would require a competed deal to be submitted to
Congress, which could then vote to approve or disapprove the nuclear
deal within 30 days. Sanctions on Iran could not be lifted during this
consideration.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob
Corker (R-Tenn.), after the vote, suggested that passage of the bill
allows Congress to take "power back" from President Obama. He also said
it ensures the Congress will play "an appropriate role" in the nuclear
talks.
Passage of the legislation clears
the way for U.S. negotiators to continue to work on a nuclear deal with
Iran ahead of a June 30 deadline with little fear of interference from
Congress. Negotiators reached a framework agreement in April.
A
vote to disapprove a nuclear deal with Iran would not kill it. President
Obama could veto such a measure, and the House and Senate would then
need two-thirds majorities to override his veto.
The founding fathers must be rolling over in their graves. They thought they had set out a procedure that ensured a real balance of powers. Now, the United States has become a dictatorship with Senate approval.
The power play that is behind this bill is nothing short of astounding. And you thought the Israeli Knesset was the only deliberative body in the world that was powerless?
The panel voted 19-0 to approve
legislation worked out between Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn.,
and Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, who took over as ranking Democrat after
Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey was indicted on federal corruption
charges. Menendez was co-author of the legislation with Corker.
The deal shortened the congressional review period for any agreement
from 60 days to 30 days and eliminated a requirement that the president
periodically certify that Iran is keeping to the terms of any agreement
and "has not directly supported or carried out an act of terrorism
against the United States, or a United States person anywhere in the
world."
That provision was replaced by one
requiring periodic reporting on Iran's support of terrorism. Another
provision aimed at soothing Republican concerns would require the
president to certify that any deal would not harm Israel's security,
replacing a bid by some GOP members to require Iran to accept the Jewish
state's right to exist as part of any agreement.
The compromise makes clear that Obama can waive U.S. sanctions if Congress approves a nuclear deal or if it fails to act.
The Wall Street Journal points out that the nuclear deal is still Obama's one-man deal - he will continue to have free reign over it.
As late as Tuesday morning, Secretary of State John Kerry
was still railing in private against the bill. But the White House
finally conceded when passage with a veto-proof majority seemed
inevitable. The bill will now pass easily on the floor, and if Mr.
Obama’s follows his form, he will soon talk about the bill as if it was
his idea.
Mr. Obama can still do whatever he wants on Iran as
long as he maintains Democratic support. A majority could offer a
resolution of disapproval, but that could be filibustered by Democrats
and vetoed by the President. As few as 41 Senate Democrats could thus
vote to prevent it from ever getting to President Obama’s desk—and 34
could sustain a veto. Mr. Obama could then declare that Congress had its
say and “approved” the Iran deal even if a majority in the House and
Senate voted to oppose it.
My friend Noah Pollak is disappointed.
The way Corker & Graham wrote their bill, Obama will win Congressional approval of Iran deal with only 34 votes. Ponder that.
— Noah Pollak (@NoahPollak) April 14, 2015
Traitor is strong language, but in the aftermath of Tuesday’s vote on
a bill that was supposed to reaffirm the Senate’s constitutional power
to consent to President Obama’s as yet still undefined and undisclosed
nuclear treaty with Iran there is no other way to describe the actions
of Senator Bob Corker, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations
The bill Corker rammed through the Foreign Relations Committee is worse than no bill at all.
What Corker’s bill does is, in its post-markup form, require the
president to submit for congressional review the final nuclear agreement
reached between Iran, the U.S. and its five negotiating partners. The
bill does maintain the prohibition on the president waiving
congressionally enacted sanctions against Iran during the review period.
However, the review period in the measure has been shortened from 60
days to an initial 30 days. If, at the end of the 30 days, Congress were
to pass a bill on sanctions relief and send it to the president, an
additional 12 days would be automatically added to the review period.
This could be another 10 days of review if the president vetoed the
resulting sanctions bill.
Corker’s legislation in effect lowers the threshold for approving the
Iran deal from 67 votes to 41 – a craven betrayed of the Senate’s
constitutional role as the final word on whether or not the United
States agrees to a treaty.
...
More importantly, Corker betrayed American interests and the
interests of our allies in the greater Middle East; from Israel, to
Saudi Arabia, to India no nation now within the range of Iran’s fast
growing missile technology is secure from the threat of a nuclear armed
Islamist Iran.
And make no mistake – it is the combination of Iran’s expansionist Islamism and nuclear weapons technology that is the threat.
...
The “growing support” for Senator Corker’s information, was not for
him to cave-in to Obama, but for the Senate to exercise its real
constitutional role in the approval – or disapproval – of Obama’s treaty
to legitimize Iran’s nuclear weapons program. And that means “advice”
while the treaty is negotiated and “consent” after the President
concludes the agreement.
Bob Corker has betrayed that constitutional principle and the world
will be a much more dangerous place for his inexplicable failure to
grasp the existential threat a nuclear armed Islamic Republic of Iran
poses to the United States and in that willful blindness he has in
effect betrayed all peoples who share the values of freedom of
conscience, freedom of religion and freedom of speech and will be
threatened by a nuclear armed Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Wall Street Journal argues that Corker had no choice.
Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker
deserves credit for trying, but in the end he had to agree to
Democratic changes watering down the measure if he wanted 67 votes to
override an Obama veto. Twice the Tennessee Republican delayed a vote in
deference to Democrats, though his bill merely requires a vote after the negotiations are over.
It also has a more nuanced take on what ought to happen.
Our own view of all this is closer to that of Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson,
who spoke for (but didn’t offer) an amendment in committee Tuesday to
require that Mr. Obama submit the Iran nuclear deal as a treaty. Under
the Constitution, ratification would require an affirmative vote by two-thirds of the Senate.
Committing
the U.S. to a deal of this magnitude—concerning proliferation of the
world’s most destructive weapons—should require treaty ratification.
Previous Presidents from JFK to Nixon to Reagan and George H.W. Bush submitted nuclear pacts as treaties. Even Mr. Obama submitted the U.S.-Russian New Start accord as a treaty.
The
Founders required two-thirds approval on treaties because they wanted
major national commitments overseas to have a national political
consensus. Mr. Obama should want the same kind of consensus on Iran.
But
instead he is giving more authority over American commitments to the
United Nations than to the U.S. Congress. By making the accord an
executive agreement as opposed to a treaty, and perhaps relying on a
filibuster or veto to overcome Congressional opposition, he’s turning
the deal into a one-man presidential compact with Iran. This will make
it vulnerable to being rejected by the next President, as some of the
GOP candidates are already promising.
The case for the Corker
bill is that at least it guarantees some debate and a vote in Congress
on an Iran deal. Mr. Obama can probably do what he wants anyway, but the
Iranians are on notice that the United States isn’t run by a single
Supreme Leader.
Well yes, unless the next President is - God Forbid - Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren.
The Tea Party also has criticism of other Senators.
Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), at the request of Corker, agreed to
withdraw an amendment to provide compensation for American victims of
the 1979 Iran hostage crisis from fees collected for violations of Iran
sanctions.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who planned to introduce an amendment that
would have required the president to certify to Congress that Iran
recognizes the state of Israel, wilted and settled for language
asserting that the nuclear agreement would not compromise U.S. support
for Israel’s right to exist.
Affirmation of Israel's right to exist is of course is a foundational
principle of American foreign policy that was never questioned until
Obama became president and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill became not
so much the leaders of an opposition party, as a collection of craven
cowards who wish only to avoid the unpleasantness actually having
principles and standing for them would entail.
No, it wasn't questioned. And it's high time the questioning should stop. How many days until Obama's term ends?
The campaign site of Marco Rubio, who officially announced himself as a candidate for President on Monday, has a Stand with Israel page on his campaign site (Hat Tip: Sunlight).
He knows who his friends are.
It's kind of funny reading the Leftist media's critiques of Rubio. This is the New York Times (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
He enters the fray
with surprisingly low support. Despite four years of national
prominence, he has averaged 6 percent of the vote in primary polls over
the last few months. That’s the same or worse than five candidates who
are thought to have a much smaller chance of winning the nomination: Ted
Cruz, Rand Paul, Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee and Chris Christie. Mr.
Rubio is acceptable to many but, so far, the first choice of few.
Mr.
Rubio’s struggle to break through is a powerful reminder that winning a
presidential primary is not just about skill as a politician. It’s
about positioning, and Mr. Rubio, at the moment, is in a much worse
position than many assessments of his political talent would suggest. In
basketball terms, he’s boxed out.
His central problem is that Jeb Bush
has found considerable support from the party’s mainstream conservative
and moderate donors in the so-called invisible primary — the
behind-the-scenes competition for elite support that often decides the
nomination.
I don't think the country wants another Bush v. another Clinton. And ultimately, as the field thins, if Rubio ends up being the only conservative in the race, I think he will gain support. Then again, I would say the same thing about Ted Cruz. (You all should know by now that I am a big fan of both of them).
If Rubio were both serious and talented enough to move his party away
from its most inhibiting orthodoxy, in defiance of those donors, his
candidacy would represent a watershed. His appeal to constituencies
outside of the GOP base would be both sincere and persuasive.
But
Rubio is not that politician. He is no likelier to succeed at persuading
Republican supply-siders to reimagine their fiscal priorities than he
was at persuading nativists to support a citizenship guarantee for
unauthorized immigrants. In fact, nobody understands the obstacles
facing Marco Rubio better than Marco Rubio. But rather than abandon his
reformist pretensions, or advance them knowing he will ultimately lose,
Rubio has chosen to claim the mantle of reform and surrender to the
right simultaneously—to make promises to nontraditional voters he knows
he can’t keep. My colleague Danny Vinik proposes that
Rubio wants to "improve the lives of poor Americans" but he must
"tailor [his] solutions to gain substantial support in the GOP, and
those compromises would cause more harm to the poor." I think this makes
Rubio the most disingenuous candidate in the field.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s campaign, which officially kicks off
Monday, has so far attracted paltry support from Republican voters,
according to polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as nationally. He’s down near Chris Christie! Yet, when we talk about him in the FiveThirtyEight office,
we usually put Rubio in the top tier, in front of everyone except Jeb
Bush and Scott Walker, the two candidates at the top of the polls.
Why? Rubio is both electable and conservative, and in optimal proportions. He’s in a position
to satisfy the GOP establishment, tea party-aligned voters and social
conservatives. In fact, Rubio’s argument for the GOP nomination looks a
lot like Walker’s, and Rubio is more of a direct threat to the Wisconsin
governor than he is to fellow Floridian Bush.
To win a presidential nomination, you need to make it past the party
actors (i.e., elected officials and highly dedicated partisans). You can
have all the strong early poll numbers in the world (hello, Rudy Giuliani),
and your candidacy can still fail if party bigwigs come out against
you. Rubio has a real chance of surviving — or even winning — the
invisible (or endorsement) primary.
Rubio doesn’t have the flaws the other two official GOP candidates
have. He’s a hawk on foreign policy (with an 89 percent conservative
foreign policy score in National Journal’s vote ratings), so he’ll be able to avoid the pitfalls of Rand Paul’s candidacy. And Rubio isn’t anywhere near as extreme
as Ted Cruz and has not alienated his fellow senators, so we shouldn’t
expect mainstream party members coming out of the woodwork to stop
Rubio. But he’s a solid conservative; statistical ideological ratings
put him right in line with the average Republican in the 113th Congress.
Rubio also vowed to reverse course on Obama's recent diplomatic endeavors with Iran,
with which the United States is working to finalize a nuclear pact, and
Cuba, with which Obama has opened diplomatic relations.
"I think from a national-security perspective, this deal with Iran is an
extremely dangerous one," Rubio said when asked what he would do on his
first day as president. "I think the next president of the United
States is going to have to deal with that on day number one."
Of the diplomatic opening with Cuba, Rubio said, "I would reverse every single one of the decisions that [Obama] made."
Report: Rubio a candidate for 2016 Republican nomination
Some of you may recall that for a while now, I've been saying that I'd find a Marco Rubio candidacy for the Republican nomination for President very exciting. Now, reports ABC News, it looks like it's going to happen (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
Leading the effort to raise the $50 million or more he’ll need to run in
the Republican primaries will be Anna Rogers, currently the finance director for American Crossroads, the conservative group started by Karl Rove that raised more than $200 million to help elect Republicans over the past two elections.
Rogers will begin working at Rubio’s political action committee on February 1 and would become the finance director of Rubio’s presidential campaign.
Rubio, 43, will gather on Friday and Saturday at the Delano Hotel in Miami with 300 supporters and major donors to his Reclaim America PAC to discuss his political future.
Aides expect Rubio will make a final decision in the comings weeks, but
his schedule for the next month already looks more like the schedule of a
presidential candidate than a senator.
ABC News has learned Rubio plans to skip all votes in the Senate next
week and instead take a campaign fundraising swing through California with events in Beverly Hills, Newport Beach, Rancho Sante Fe and Costa Mesa. He also plans fundraising stops in Texas and Chicago.
Rubio has also scheduled a book tour that will take him to all the early primary states. A senior aide to the Florida senator tells ABC News Rubio’s book tour will include stops in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and Nevada. The first stop is tentatively scheduled for February 13 in Des Moines.
Here's wishing Marco Rubio all the success in the world. If you need someone to work on your campaign among American ex-pats in Israel (there are lots of us), please call. Promise to repeal FATCA and you'll get lots of votes here.
Marco Rubio explains the difference between Reagan and Obama, and outlines a post-Obama foreign policy
Here's Marco Rubio speaking at CPAC on Thursday about the difference between Ronald Reagan and Barack Hussein Obama. In the speech, Rubio outlines a vision of a post-Obama foreign policy, and explains Obama's delusion that he can change the world with the force of his personality.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
