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The Administration defends Iran's cheating! (See 2 below.)
Obama begs? (See 2a and 2b below.)
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Obama, like the Palestinians, has proven one thing Golda said! He is an expert at missing great opportunities.
He has missed and/or bungled the opportunity to improve: race relations, the economy and respect for America in the world. He has missed or made worse our relations with our friends while allowing our adversaries to gain advantages.
Finally, he has caused his party to lose power but he has increased our deficit many fold and all this in just 6 years.
Yes, Obama, you have brought about change! What do you have in store for us in the next two years? Time will tell! (See 3 below.)
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Much as Obama and Kerry would like, Jerusalem is not up for grabs! (See 4 below.)
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My friend, Tom Glaser, reports on the mutual Israeli-Savannah commerce benefits. (See 5 below)
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Mitch McConnell plans a functioning Senate. That could prove refreshing.
Like McConnell or not, he is a very savvy politician and knows how to get things done unlike Harry Reid, who is so partisan he would screw his mother for votes. (See 6 below.)
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I have said repeatedly, the Courts is the institution that will save our nation. Stay tuned(See 6 below.)
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Just returned from a committee meeting in Athens, so am publishing some items I posted earlier but still relevant!
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Dick
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1)Hillary Clinton’s Empathy Deficit
‘Smart power’ shouldn’t include shrill lectures for our friends.
Hillary Clinton is being pilloried by pundits on the right for saying, at a recent speech at Georgetown, that America’s leaders should “empathize” with America’s enemies. But what’s so wrong about that?
“This is what we call smart power,” she said, using the phrase that was supposed to define her tenure as secretary of state. “Using every possible tool and partner to advance peace and security. Leaving no one side on the sidelines. Showing respect even for one’s enemies. Trying to understand, in so far as psychologically possible, [and] empathize with their perspective and point of view.”
As a matter of politics, “empathize” was a lousy word choice, a reminder that Mrs. Clinton is as tin-eared as she is ambitious: Expect a GOP political attack ad if and when she runs for president.
But empathy isn’t sympathy. Understanding an enemy’s point of view does not mean taking their side. Respect is not solidarity. “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles,” Sun Tzu teaches in “The Art of War.” “If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
It’s good advice. Mrs. Clinton isn’t wrong to adopt it. Her problem is that she appears to be a singularly lousy empathizer.
In April 2005 Vladimir Putin said the collapse of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” In 2006 a Russian dissident in London was poisoned by polonium—a nuclear attack in miniature—leading to a breakdown in relations between London and Moscow. In 2008 Russia invaded Georgia. That same year, educational manuals for Russian social-studies teachers took the view that Joseph Stalin was “the most successful Soviet leader ever.”
What about the Great Terror of the 1930s, in which millions of Soviet citizens were killed by Stalin’s henchmen? That, according to the manual, happened because Stalin “did not know who would deal the next blow, and for that reason he attacked every known group and movement.” Commenting on the Terror, Mr. Putin allowed that the killing was terrible “but in other countries worse things happened.”
Such was the man Mrs. Clinton had every reason to “understand” when she arrived at the State Department in 2009. What conclusions was she supposed to draw about someone whose core ambition was to restore the reputation, and the former borders, of the old Soviet Union? That the time had come to clink glasses and announce a reset?
Or take Iran. In her most recent memoir, Mrs. Clinton asks: “If Iran had a nuclear weapon tomorrow, would that create even one more job for a country where millions of young people are out of work? Would it send one more Iranian to college or rebuild the roads and ports still crumbling from the war with Iraq a generation ago? When Iranians look abroad, would they rather end up like North Korea or South Korea?”
These are the kinds of questions that often confound Americans who too easily assume that the things democratic politicians want for their people are the same things dictators want for themselves. South or North Korea? That’s easy: Tehran’s ties to Pyongyang run deep because both capitals see themselves resisting American imperialism. Nuclear weapons or a better economy? That’s easy, too, since the former allow you to bully your neighbors and dominate the region, while the latter merely create a growing middle class demanding greater civic and political freedoms.
If Mrs. Clinton made a serious effort to see things from the ayatollahs’ point of view, maybe she’d get this. If she had real respect for them, she wouldn’t suppose that they are merely too stupid, or blinded by prejudice, or stuck in the past, to understand their own values and self-interest. Why do liberals who celebrate diversity seem to think that, deep down, all people want the same things?
Here’s another question: If Mrs. Clinton is at least prepared to attempt a show of empathy for the Putins and Khameneis of the world, why so little empathy for American allies? In March 2010 a minor Israeli official announced the approval of some additional construction in a Jerusalem neighborhood, mischaracterized as a “settlement,” when Vice President Joe Biden was in the country. It was an ordinary bureaucratic bungle by the Israeli government.
So what did Mrs. Clinton do? She called Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to yell at him. “I told the Prime Minister that President Obama had viewed the news about East Jerusalem as ‘a personal insult to him, the Vice President, and the United States,’ ” as she recounts in her memoir.
Such has been the pattern of the Obama administration, whose foreign policy record Mrs. Clinton cannot escape or finesse: misplaced understanding toward our adversaries, shrill lectures for our friends. The next president needs to make it the other way around.
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By Jonathan S. Tobin
Obama administration figures used the annual Saban Forum on Middle East issues in Washington this past weekend to launch their counter-offensive against efforts to pass new sanctions against Iran. Both Vice President
The Foreign Policy scoop discusses Iran’s efforts to violate international sanctions to purchase components that could be employed at their Arak plutonium plant that last year’s interim deal compelled the regime to shut down nuclear activity. The allegations are found in a confidential report from a panel of experts that advises a United Nations Security Council committee that oversees compliance with sanctions. The findings showed a marked increase in procurement of equipment related to heavy water production in recent months.
Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry spoke at the event to tout the wisdom of the decision to allow the negotiations with the Islamist state to go into a second overtime period instead of the finite period they promised a year ago when they were extolling the virtues of a weak interim deal that we were told would soon be followed by an agreement that would end the nuclear threat. But Kerry’s talk of progress toward a deal and Biden’s stereotypical bombast about Iran not getting a bomb on this administration’s watch was given the lie by the report published today in Foreign Policydetailing American charges that Iran is already going on a spending spree buying material that could be used to nuclear-weapons grade plutonium for a bomb.
That all of this is going on while the Iranians have successfully strung along American diplomats in the nuclear talks further diminishes the credibility of the pledges uttered by both Biden and Kerry. At best, Biden’s boast about a bomb not happening on Obama’s watch might be true. The weak agreements the president has promoted in order to vainly pursue his long-sought goal of détente with Iran may not result in an Iranian bomb being produced before January 2017. But the erosion of the sanctions and the West’s agreement to tacitly recognize an Iranian right to enrich uranium combined with an inability to do much about Arak, force Tehran to allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to find out about their military applications research or to get the Iranians to negotiate about their ballistic missile program, may lead to one being produced on the watch of his successor.
This is significant in and of itself as evidence of Iran’s intention to push ahead toward a bomb on both uranium and plutonium based plants. But it is even more significant because one of the administration’s principle talking points against further sanctions is that the existing laws (to which the administration had to be dragged kicking and screaming) are not only working but that Iran isn’t cheating on them or the interim accord. The evidence of Iranian activity not only debunks these assurances, it also illustrates that U.S. intelligence about what Iran is doing, which is crucial to monitoring compliance with any further agreements on Iran’s part, may not be up to the task of discovering what is really going on in their nuclear facilities.
All of these developments make it obvious that the only thing that can rescue diplomacy with Iran is for the U.S. to increase pressure on Tehran, not to play nice with the regime, as Obama always seems inclined to do. Last year, the administration beat back an effort to pass more sanctions that would have shut down Iran’s oil trade but would not have gone into effect unless diplomacy failed. The result of their conscious decision to play with a weak hand was a predictable failure. Faced with similar results as last year, the Obama foreign policy team is undaunted and is pulling out the stops again to foil the majority of both Houses of Congress that want more sanctions.
The new Congress should ignore both Biden and Kerry and take it as a given that in the absence of real pressure, Iran will never give in on its nuclear ambition. The news about Iranian cheating as well as Kerry’s failure to get even a weak nuclear deal makes it imperative that both the House and the Senate should pass sanctions that remain the only option short of force that might have a change to derail Iran’s nuclear quest.
2a) Top Iranian Official: Obama Begs to Meet Rouhani
by Tova Dvorin
The head of the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei insists that US President Barack Obama is chasing after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, according to footage provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
"When you see the American president knocking on every door just to meet our president for a few minutes, this is no trivial matter," Mohammad Golpayegani stated in an IRINN (Iranian news channel) broadcast. "Some people lurk in the UN corridor just to get the chance to shake (Obama's) hand, and he does not deign to even do that."
"Yet he sends mediators and goes to such efforts (in order to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani)," he continued. "This demonstrates our strength."
The statement follows news that Obama had sent a secret letter to Khamenei in October without informing its regional partners (Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) in which he called for cooperation against Islamic State (ISIS) and a nuclear agreement.
Earlier that month, American and Arab officials revealed to the Wall Street Journal that Obama has moved closer to Iran and its terror proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, citing "secret channels of communications" to Iran via senior Shi'ite sources in Iraq.
2b The Gods Have Made Them Mad
)It used to strike me as impossible for global warming to cause cold weather. Then I realized that I could chill a soft drink in the oven if there were no room left in the refrigerator to bake a cake.
2b The Gods Have Made Them Mad
)It used to strike me as impossible for global warming to cause cold weather. Then I realized that I could chill a soft drink in the oven if there were no room left in the refrigerator to bake a cake.
Up until then I did not know that the same cause can have opposite effects. In my unenlightened state, it never occurred to me that carbon dioxide could cause both excessive heat and excessive cold, both drought and flood.
I should have known. After all, we calm hyperactive children with stimulants and cure addiction to drugs with addicting drugs. When the government goes too far in debt, it borrows more money. We achieve diversity through uniformity. We overcome racism with racism. When children don't learn, we send them to schools that don't teach. We question authority by believing the authorities.
We exercise our reproductive freedom with birth control pills and abortions. The pills, you see, both prevent a woman from giving birth and make her free to reproduce, as if no one had a baby before the invention of the Pill. An abortion both kills a baby and gives life.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton quieted raging mobs in Pakistan by telling them they had every right to be angry, and now he tells criminals that the police are unfair to them. He claims to seek trust between minorities and the police by saying the police are racists. Rioters speak truth to power by intimidating powerless witnesses into lying.
They can afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted by setting fire to neighborhoods where no one is comfortable and all are afflicted.
Barack tells looters and arsonists that he too is angry. Michelle tells single mothers on welfare that she too has it rough. Heads they win, tails we lose.
Obama thinks that siding with our enemies against our friends will leave us with no enemies and lots of friends. Hillary Clinton thought that the way to protect Benghazi was to send security away and hire people who hate us. Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.
Obama reduced the number of people looking for work by having them give up on finding jobs. He gives out massive quantities of free food that his wife tells people not to eat. College students have learned one thing, at least: that they can protect themselves from disease and prevent unwanted pregnancies by having sex with people they hardly know using condoms. We pride ourselves on the knowledge we think we gain through entertainment and demand that our schools be entertaining. We teach all of our children to be leaders.
Madonna praised Obama for being a Muslim and for championing gay rights. She takes the name of a woman adored for her perpetual virginity and sleeps with Dennis Rodman. Bill Clinton advised high school students to wait until they are married. Al Gore burns as much fuel as all of us combined and blames us for filling the air with carbon dioxide. Barack Obama is for the little guy and once took Air Force One to New York City for a date with his wife. Bill Clinton held up air traffic in Los Angeles so that he could get a haircut. Or so they said. He tried to get high on marijuana without inhaling.
Here in Austin the government decided that the freeway lanes were too wide and that traffic congestion could be reduced by driving a lot of buses around empty. The City Council thinks it can somehow get people onto buses that won't come to them where they are or take them where they want to go. Democrats say that Sarah Palin lied about death panels, and President Obama said that an old woman should take pain pills instead of having an operation. He reduces illness by killing the young and letting the old die. He has cut insurance prices by doubling them. He has reduced inequality by making us less equal. He humanizes himself by getting a dog.
So global warming causing cold weather is no more irrational than anything else the establishment says.
Obama and the Democrats won. He won in 2012 by getting more votes than Romney did, and the Democrats won in 2014 with the non-votes of the people who did not show up at the polls.
I lost both times, so I'll write with an eraser and erase with a pencil. I'll make my truck go faster by hitting the brakes and slow it down by flooring the accelerator.
I must admit, however, that I have yet to figure how to know when the brakes will brake and when they'll accelerate. If I could understand that, perhaps I could understand when and under what circumstances carbon dioxide heats the air and when it cools it. Then I wouldn't risk causing a drought with a rain dance. Meanwhile, I had better catch one of those empty buses. If enough people stop caring where we are headed, perhaps they won't be empty anymore.
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Not so long ago, most people believed that God controlled the weather. Now the scientific establishment believes, or at least pretends to believe, that warm weather, cold weather, floods, and droughts are caused by carbon dioxide released into the air by the burning of fossil fuels, that, in other words, human beings control the weather. They think that we can prevent the climate from changing on a planet that has had billions of years of changing climates. The scientific establishment has put humanity on the throne once nigh universally said to belong to God.
Of course, these scientists believe that hot, cold, wet, and dry are great evils, more deadly than nuclear warfare and nerve gas attacks according to the Secretary of State, who for some bizarre reason is in charge of pipeline safety, and they believe that enemies of science deserve the blame for these evils, implying thereby that the reverence once reserved for God belongs to Tea Partiers, Pro-Lifers, Fundamentalists, Big Oil, Texans, Red Staters, the One Percent, Sarah Palin, and Rush Limbaugh.
So they are confused, but we could hardly expect otherwise from people who think that the same thing causes opposite effects. They use Ritalin to calm rambunctious boys. They cure indebtedness with debt and freely reproduce with abortions. Health care means for them killing the aged and infirm.
Churches have been so inclusive that there is hardly anyone left.
President Obama’s administration demands praise for driving people out of work so they can spend more time with their families, and he and his wife take separate vacations.
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3) How Barack Obama Became the Anti-President
President Obama is about the loneliest president of modern times. The sixth year of every two-term presidency usually comes with the loss of party colleagues and a drop in approval ratings. Obama has suffered that and more. Why?
What a contrast to Bill Clinton, who had the magical capacity to connect with crowds and with individuals of all kinds. He did it (and still does) with genuine empathy and without condescension. He won the admiration of the people at large and developed the necessary presidential relationships — on a one-on-one basis — with key members of Congress.
By Mort Zuckerman
President Obama is about the loneliest president of modern times. The sixth year of every two-term presidency usually comes with the loss of party colleagues and a drop in approval ratings. Obama has suffered that and more. Why?
His Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, kept all the Senate seats in his second term and had an approval rating at this point in his presidency of 65 percent, compared to Obama's 41 percent. In fact, Obama's low approval ratings are almost as bad as George W. Bush's (32 percent), which were in free fall during his second term.
] Personality counts a lot in leading a country as diversely volatile and adventurous as the United States, especially when the other party controls Congress. Obama had the luxury of a Democratic Congress in his first term, but in four years he developed few personal friends in either party. He endures, rather than enjoys, the small talk and the backslapping of retail politics. His relationship with Democrats on Capitol Hill is frosty, and that is being generous. This is a president who doesn't really like the kind of politicking that involves the personal lobbying of Congress for his programs and legislation. He doesn't have to imitate Lyndon Johnson, who got things moving by grabbing legislators by their lapels and reminding them what he knew of their misdemeanors. But being aloof doesn't cut it either.
As Washington Post White House correspondent Scott Wilson put it a few years ago, "Obama is, in short, a political loner who prefers policy over the people who make politics in this country work." His lack of personal fellowship was captured by Todd Purdum in a 2013 Vanity Fair profile. He described Obama precisely: "He is "a community organizer who works alone." So it is no wonder that his circle of close advisors remains the same cluster of personal friends that predated his presidency.
Obama is rather like another intellectual president, Woodrow Wilson, who preferred solitude, time with his family and making policy himself. As Arthur Schlesinger Jr. wrote, nobody ever called him "Woody." Like Wilson, Obama has total confidence in his own intellectual powers and his capacity to formulate public policy. He just thinks through problems on his own and doesn't seem to depend on others for their opinions. But the isolation of both men carried a price. It has cost Obama heavy resistance, as it did Wilson dearly when he failed to create his precious League of Nations.
In his first year in power, Obama decided to focus on health care reform. And careful reform was necessary to help millions of uninsured. But many thought a more urgent demand was the economy — jobs, jobs, jobs. The public ranked lack of work as its most important concern. Obama chose health care reform because he thought this would give him a place in American history. He misjudged his ability to "bend the cost curve" of health care. Alas, his political relationships with Congress were so limited and so susceptible to partisanship that they ultimately overwhelmed whatever he might have been able to do to advance his health care program. Indeed, Obama's signature legislation ultimately became a political burden, dramatically undermining his public support and diminishing his political capital.
It is almost mysterious how little he connects with people. In his six years in office, his relationships have been impersonal, and his lack of rapport with Congress has become a serious issue. He does not possess the natural instinct to relate to the emotions, hopes, and insecurities of political leaders, not to mention the countless small acts of flattery and social favor exchanges that go along with the presidency. Wilson had a supporting staff that made up for his limitations in private dealings and negotiations. Obama does not. Obama's only real executive training has been the management of his political campaign. He quite simply dislikes the idea of inviting a bunch of congressmen and senators over to the White House for a drink or a movie, even though those are the kinds of ceremonies that are the price of admission if you want to be a politician and you don't control Congress.
Secondly, and critically, economics was the commanding domestic issue of Obama's initial years. The most urgent issue of jobs and coping with the lack thereof was a subject that did not come naturally to him. But when people couldn't pay their home mortgages, they were looking for a president who connected with them on these issues. They were met by an aloof and diffident Obama.
What a contrast to Bill Clinton, who had the magical capacity to connect with crowds and with individuals of all kinds. He did it (and still does) with genuine empathy and without condescension. He won the admiration of the people at large and developed the necessary presidential relationships — on a one-on-one basis — with key members of Congress.
Turns out Obama is instinctively distant in his private dealings and negotiations with Congress. No wonder mistrust has suffused the White House and Congress connection that is key to making a divided government work. Many Republicans considered Obama's inaugural address unusually confrontational, according to The Wall Street Journal. There was not a finger, let alone a hand, extended across the aisle, and the result is that Obama and John Boehner, the Republican leader of the House, are hardly on speaking terms.
It also didn't help that Obama's lack of executive experience left him reliant on the instincts and institutional memories of others. The American people, having rejoiced in his election as the first black president, felt that Obama didn't grasp emotionally what they were feeling and going through.
Obama's rhetoric has always exceeded his program. In his first inaugural address he stated that "our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions" was over. Many read this as a promise that he would go beyond the perennial economic short fix and make some hard choices to put government more in balance with its resources. What did he do? He pushed his Affordable Care Act, compromising the opportunity for a serious effort to address our fiscal mess.
As the first African-American to be elected to the presidency, Obama's message was optimistic and spiritually uplifting, and a delighted press nurtured his image. But his initial romance with the public cooled quickly. He seemed unable to create a consensus. The best he could do was to attack successful people as millionaires and billionaires and "takers," as he heaped insults on Wall Street "gamblers."
Most clearly, he hasn't sought out potential alliances with Republicans and now comes across as one of the more divisive presidents in modern history, a sharp contrast to the great presidents who were uniters. His class warfare language has only intensified partisan gridlock.
The result is the fading of his romance with the American public. He lacks the warmth and approachability of a Bill Clinton or a Ronald Reagan and comes across as too cool for America and too inexperienced to educate people out of their anxiety.
Obama's personality over time has been hard to read and hard to trust, particularly when he has seemed to be seeking to transform America into a European-style nanny state, marked by a bloated public sector, burdensome regulations, high taxes, unsustainable entitlements and, accompanied as these factors usually are, by weak economic growth. This was not the vision of Americans, who are increasingly unhappy that we seem to
have a leftist-leaning ideologue in the presidency. As The New York Times' Maureen Dowd put it, this was a man who doesn't seem to like the bully pulpit, just the professor's lectern. Even the millennial generation, one of his core voting groups, has begun to drift away. The result is that America today is even more deeply divided than when Obama started his first term.
These days, Obama is belatedly trying to deal with growing economic inequality. But he lacks the policies that will generate the type of job growth needed to reverse years of economic decline, and he has now wasted most of his political capital.
Looking at other dimensions of Obama's performance, Kimberley Strassel contributed a devastating portrait in a recent Wall Street Journal article. He is, she asserted, "a lousy boss." Although every administration has dysfunction and churn, "rarely, if ever, has there been one that has driven more competent people from its orbit — and chewed up more professional reputations." She goes on to say that "The president bragged in 2008 that he would assemble in his cabinet a 'Team of Rivals.' What he failed to explain to any of the poor saps is that they'd be window dressing for a Team of Select Brilliant Political Types Who Already Had All the Answers: namely, himself and the Valerie Jarretts and David Axelrods of the White House." She described Obama as a boss who doesn't listen, views everything politically and always thinks he's right.
And then there's this: Obama has had over 195 golf outings, over 400 fundraisers, and over 130 vacation days. It seems like he spends as little time as humanly possible doing his job as president. Governing seems to be secondary to being a celebrity. When he came back from his summer vacation on Martha's Vineyard, he immediately left Washington to attend several fundraisers and then claimed we don't have a strategy for ISIS terrorists.
All this at a time when pessimism about the economy is widespread. The U.S. has lost 3 million full-time jobs and now has over 3 million more part-time positions than at the start of the economic meltdown in 2007. Roughly 45 percent of American families today have a median income that is lower than at the end of the recession, with an average drop of roughly $4,500 in spending power annually. No wonder too many families still work too many hours for too little to show for it. If income inequality is the defining issue of our time, Obama has failed here more than any president in the modern era.
Obama is seen as the anti-president. He sometimes acts in manners at odds with the framers of the Constitution. For example, as University of California-Berkeley law professor John Yoo points out in the National Review, rather than negotiate with Congress, Obama granted executive exemptions from immigration law to a large class of illegal immigrants. Rather than seek legislative repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, "the president ordered his Justice Department to stop defending the law in court," says Yoo. He changed the work requirements of welfare reform by executive order, even though the measure had passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.
Keep in mind that Obama told us again and again that this time would be different. But he is responsible for the long painful slide from hope and change to partisan gridlock. He turns out to be the odd case of a pragmatist who can't learn from his mistakes. He has failed to fill the leadership void. He doesn't lead, and he doesn't understand why we don't feel led.
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4) Jerusalem is Not up for Grabs
by Efraim Inbar
BESA Center Perspectives
BESA Center Perspectives
No Israeli government will survive or support any concessions made on Jerusalem and it is time for the U.S. and the international community to recognize this.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has blamed the sudden deadlock in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on Israel's plans to build additional apartments in Gilo, a southern Jerusalem neighborhood beyond the Green Line. This indicates America's profound misunderstanding of the situation. With over 40,000 residents, Gilo is to be part of Israel under any agreement. More importantly, the peace negotiations have little chance of succeeding as long as the Palestinians demand the partition of Jerusalem.
The Palestinians and most of the international community fail to understand that the past offers made to divide Jerusalem – by Ehud Barak at the Camp David summit in 2000, and repeated by Ehud Olmert in 2007 – were divorced from the strong attachment a majority of Israelis feel towards the eternal city. The willingness of Barak and Olmert to divide the city completely lacks domestic political support. Furthermore, strategic considerations also dictate that Israel hold onto greater Jerusalem as a united city.
Israeli public opinion is committed to maintaining the status quo in Jerusalem. All polls show that over two thirds of Israelis feel that Jerusalem should remain the united capital of Israel, while only 20 percent favor dividing the capital between the Jewish state and a future Palestinian state. The group of Israelis expressing the strongest support in favor of Jerusalem remaining the undivided capital of Israel (almost 80 percent) is between the ages of 18 and 24. Of this group, even stronger support was expressed by Ultra-Orthodox and religious Israelis who are the fastest growing segments in the Jewish population. When asked whether Israel should relinquish control over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the holiest place in the world for Jews, over 70 percent of Israelis disagreed.
After Barak's offer in 2000, over 250,000 people demonstrated in opposition to Barak's violation of the Jerusalem taboo – the largest rally ever held in the city. The electrifying hold of Jerusalem on the Jewish psyche is not sufficiently appreciated. Moreover, an Orthodox injunction against visiting the Temple Mount has eroded, allowing a growing number of Israelis the spiritual experience of ascending the Mount and conjoining the metaphysical past and future. Such feelings are politically potent, foreclosing the possibility that Israelis will sit idly by and abide a transfer of sovereignty in Jerusalem.
In 2000, the division of Jerusalem lacked the necessary majority in the Knesset and Barak's coalition subsequently disintegrated (for this and other reasons). Similarly, in 2008, Prime Minister Olmert experienced coalition difficulties because he placed Jerusalem on the negotiators' agenda. No Israeli government is likely to survive concessions regarding Jerusalem. If elections are held in the near future, the strength of the opposition to any concessions in Jerusalem is only likely to grow.
Jerusalem's importance to Jews is not only historical and religious. The city also holds strategic importance in controlling the only highway from the coast of the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River Valley, along which military forces can move with little interference from Arab communities. Jerusalem is the linchpin for erecting a security zone along the Jordan Rift that Israel insists on. If Israel wants to maintain a defensible border in the East, it needs to secure the east-west axis from the coast to the Jordan Valley, via an undivided Jerusalem. Keeping Greater Jerusalem, which includes the settlement blocs that President Bush recognized as realities that must be accommodated in a future settlement, is a strategic imperative. The military importance of Jerusalem and Jerusalem's central role in the eastern line of defense for Israel cannot be ignored, especially given the immense potential for political upheaval east of the Jordan River. Designing stable defensible borders in accordance with current, but transient, state-of-the-art technological and political circumstances is strategically foolish. The turmoil of the past few years in the Arab world suggests the need for great caution.
The partition of Jerusalem is also a bad idea given the history of cities such as Berlin, Belfast or Nicosia. Why should Jerusalem be different?! Jews have held a majority in the city for the past 150 years, while Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim political entity.
Moreover, the Arab minority in the city has clearly shown its preference for living under Israeli rule. Many Arabs have moved to the Israeli side of the security barrier being built around Jerusalem. Polls show that a large majority of Jerusalem's Arabs oppose being subject to Palestinian rule. Their choice is understandable, since Jerusalem offers the quality of life of a modern Western city; while only a few kilometers away, a Third World standard of living and religious intolerance are the norm. An undivided Jerusalem is the best guarantee for a better life for all Jerusalemites.
In sum, the unreasonable Palestinian demand to divide Jerusalem is an obstacle towards a better future.
Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, is a professor of political studies--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5)
Israel Economic Impact Benefits Savannah
By Tom Glaser
Recently, I was asked to look into the potential of a national study to measure the economic impact of Israeli company activity in the United States. Massachusetts is the only state I know that has done such a study, and not surprisingly, it documented the enormous benefits there in terms of capital investment, tax collections, and job creation. After all, Boston—one of our nation’s top cities—is widely known to be a magnet for Israeli companies along with New York and and the Bay area
If a national study were to be commissioned, I’m sure we would also find Israel-based economic activity and benefits accruing to smaller cities currently not on the Israeli radar screen. Akron, Ohio has done a great job of attracting interest in Israel, and Savannah, Georgia would be one of those places already benefiting from and with enormous potential for even more business development with Israel.
Why Savannah? And what can other small U.S. cities learn from their experience?
Full disclosure: In 1979, I started my chamber of commerce professional career in Savannah, and having retired a year ago as president of the Atlanta-based American-Israel Chamber of Commerce, Southeast Region, now known as Conexx—America Israel Business Connector, I am moving back to Savannah to enjoy the next phase of our life. So I have a natural interest in promoting one of America’s favorite and most beautiful small cities and sharing why Savannah is a prime location for Israeli companies.
Logically, the Israeli business activity in Savannah parallels the local economic drivers. As one of the major shipping areas in the United States, it is the fastest growing east coast port for container traffic. ZIM–Israel’s national shipping line–has been one of the top customers of the Georgia Ports Authority for over 30 years. According to Brian Black, VP for ZIM’s South Atlantic District, “Savannah’s port continues to be very important to ZIM where we are currently the third or fourth largest carrier. On the east coast, Savannah is second only to New York as ZIM’s most important port.”
Aerospace is a key sector, and the long time joint venture of Savannah-based Gulfstream Aerospace and Ben-Gurion Airport-based Israel Aerospace Industries exemplifies the beneficial synergies. Beginning in 1999, the two companies have collaborated on producing small jet planes primarily for business but including some military use. Starting with the Galaxy that was acquired by Gulfstream from IAI in 2001 and renamed the G200, the two companies since 2011 have jointly produced the G280 super mid-sized business jet where Gulfstream holds the design certificate and IAI the production certificate. IAI builds the fuselage, empennage and landing gear in Israel, and assembly is done by Gulfstream in the U.S.
Manufacturing has been another important economic driver in Savannah, particularly where the port is an advantage. Two recent announcements by Israeli manufacturers are eagerly anticipated by economic developers, governments, employees, and the local Jewish community.
Sdot Yam-based Caesarstone is investing up to $100 million to build a manufacturing plant in nearby Richmond Hill, Georgia that will employ 180 people and be operational in early 2015. Caesarstone makes engineered quartz surfaces that are used as countertops, vanities, wall cladding floors, and other interior surfaces. Among their new employees are 16 Israeli families (total of 46 new Israelis including their children). According Adam Solander, executive director of the Savannah Jewish Federation and Jewish Educational Alliance, their arrival will be “transformative” for the local Jewish community that cares about Israel but is not as knowledgeable as it should be. The December 21st annual Chanukah torch run will be celebrated this year in their honor as a way to welcome the new Israeli families to the community.
During last June’s state trade mission to Israel led by Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, the Haifa Group, a leading global supplier of potassium nitrate for agriculture and industry, announced plans to build a new Controlled Release Fertilizer plant in Savannah. The project represents a $12 million investment that will create nearly 30 jobs, and the groundbreaking ceremony was held in September. Expected to become operational by the first quarter of 2015, the facility will enable Haifa Group to effectively serve the North American market, bringing both production capabilities and the supply chain closer to its business partners.
Renée Rosenheck, senior project manager for the Georgia Department of Economic Development, was the lead staff professional on both projects. She points out that 2014 marks the 20th year of Georgia’s representation in Israel. In the past, the department’s focus has been on exports to Israel, but now it is more on foreign direct investment (FDI) prospects, specifically manufacturing and kibbutz companies such as Caesarstone.
Along with the state’s representative in Israel, Ronen Kenan, who contacts these prospects on a regular basis, the department has sent several key staff executives to Israel in the last year, and Renée visits Israel at least twice annually. Israel is one of the department’s key markets for 2015, and in addition to Haifa Group and Caesarstone, the department also landed innoBots in Gainesville, Georgia. Rosenheck enjoys her role as the GDEcD’s primary leader for Israel projects, working closely with Ronen and Conexx, and feels her facility in Hebrew and understanding of the Israeli culture has been an important asset. “This year, Georgia was recognized as the #1 state for business by CNBC and Site Selection magazine. The Israelis are seeing potential in Georgia, and appreciate the ongoing support they receive from the state. There are currently a handful of Israeli manufacturing prospects in plastics, food processing, and headquarters,” she says.
Renée also sees Israeli Logistics technology companies as a good fit for the Savannah area. Conexx and the Israel Economic Office to the U.S. South have partnered with the Georgia Department of Economic Development for the past two years on bringing delegations of Israeli companies to the Georgia Logistics Summit with side trips to Savannah to meet with the Georgia Ports Authority and logistics companies there as well as the Home Depot, UPS, and The Coca-Cola Company among others located in Atlanta.
The City of Savannah government and the area’s economic development agency SEDA are also keen to promote and nurture business activity with Israel. Mayor Edna Jackson is a particularly outspoken advocate, citing her close interaction with the Jewish community as an inspiration. Jews have been an integral part of Savannah since 1733 when the British colony of Georgia was founded there by General Oglethorpe. During the civil rights movement, the Savannah Jewish community was at the forefront with African Americans in leading and lending their support, and Jewish merchants on West Broad Street (now MLK Boulevard) hired blacks in their stores. “They understood that we had to be a diverse community”, says the mayor.
In 2012, the Savannah Jewish Federation continued this long time collaboration and leadership by underwriting the flights for Mayor Jackson’s trip to Israel where she attended an international conference of mayors. This 10-day visit, also strongly supported by the Consulate General of Israel to the Southeast, gave the mayor an opportunity to see the country in unique ways beyond what the other mayors experienced. In Jerusalem, she visited Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design and met with former MK Yuli Tamir, the art school’s president. Dr. Tamir reciprocated by coming to Savannah to visit Savannah College of Art & Design, the world’s largest private art college, and some exchanges between the two schools have resulted. Mayor Jackson and local economic developers see the potential for leveraging SCAD’s leadership in Digital Media as a way to attract Israeli start-ups seeking to penetrate the U.S. market.
While Savannah is already benefitting by the Israel economic relationship, I believe the best is yet to come. The lesson for other small U.S. cities is to leverage their natural strengths and make connections for Israeli companies with their most important economic drivers. They will find willing partners in their state economic development agencies and regional organizations such as the America-Israel chambers, the Israeli Consulates, and Israel Economic missions. If they follow this game plan, we may find in the next 10 years that the powerful impact of Israeli economic activity will have spread throughout the United States and not be concentrated in just a few major cities.
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6) Mitch McConnell Interview Transcript
By Christina Bellantoni
McConnell talked with CQ Roll Call on Dec. 5. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
CQ Roll Call’s Niels Lesniewski interviewed incoming Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Dec. 5. A lightly edited transcript follows.
Q: I’m pleased to have the chance to talk to you a little bit about the way forward for next year and, and what’s going to change around these parts when you switch titles, although not offices. Literally. And I think I first wanted to just start with: you’ve talked a lot about how to get the Senate functioning again. And I saw the interview that you did yesterday with Greta. And I’m just curious how much you think that that’s actually realistic? That, that, that you’re not going to run into a scenario where, a couple of months down the road, you’re facing a predicament of trying, of having to fill the tree because things get unruly or something like that?
McConnell: Well I think it is achievable. A reasonable percentage of the calls — up to half the calls I got after the election were from Democratic senators. I’m not implying that they were happy I won, but they were awfully curious as to whether I really meant it early last year when I pointed out that we needed to run the Senate in a very different way. So I think it’s not just Republicans who would like to see the Senate run differently. I think there are a reasonable number of Democrats as well. And I think you know what that means. You call up a bill, it’s open for amendment, always a bit chaotic.
But you process a number of amendments, particularly the ones that are the most significant to both sides, and you move to a completion of the bill. I’ve never said I would never fill up the tree but I think it ought to be an exception rather than the rule, and that we ought to give members an opportunity to participate. And we intend to do that and I think there’s going to be bipartisan gratitude — for having a chance to be relevant, to not be marginalized. And the classic example I’ve used — I’m sure you’ve heard me say it before — was Mark Begich in Alaska who was here for a full six years and never had a roll call vote on an amendment on the floor of the Senate, which Dan Sullivan tells me he used on virtually a daily basis. So the notion that protecting all of your members from votes is a good idea politically, I think, has been pretty much disproved by the recent election. So I do think that can be accomplished. I think there are — if you look at the Keystone vote I think that the pool of folks who were anxious to actually make legislation … rather than just scoring points every week, actually try to get outcomes.
Q: If you look at your agenda — I was looking at the calendar. With the Senate convening on January the 6th and, and running pretty much through President’s Day weekend nonstop, what is your plan for an agenda for that first sort of work period?
McConnell: Well let me say, we, we’ve been planning this going back to the Spring of 2014. I’ve had multiple meetings with then-ranking members, telling them what I will now tell you. The worst experience any majority can have is that you convene and you look around and nothing’s ready to go. So what I said to the members who hoped they would be chairmen: let’s don’t have that problem. Be thinking now about legislation that you have, preferably that enjoys some Democratic support because we certainly didn’t think we were going to have 60 and we don’t.
Q: Right.
McConnell: You know there are not many things, other than the budget, that we’re going to be able to do with 54 votes. So clearly we’re looking for things that we think would make a difference, improve the country, and enjoy some bipartisan support. And, by the way, we intend for you to bring it out of committee. Amazingly enough, I’m not — there may be occasions where I feel like I have to Rule 14 something that I’ve crafted here, but I want that to be an exception too. We want committees to actually function.
Q: Are there things that don’t necessarily need to go through committee because everyone knows what they are —
McConnell: Well there may be —
Q: — like medical device or Keystone or something?
McConnell: There, there may be occasions, but, but, but we want to — look, what happens in committee if the committee functions, more often than not, not every time but more often than not, a bill comes out with bipartisan support. If that happens, then there’s an interest out here on the floor in actually passing it. (Chuckle) And so I think there were two messages in last year’s election. One is pretty obvious. People were mad as hell at the president — and wanted to send a message. We all got that. Our new members were also hearing, and I was hearing as well, that people didn’t like the fact that the Congress was dysfunctional. Now they may have been confused about where the dysfunctionality was cause the president kept pointing to the House. Factually, that’s not accurate. The dysfunction was in the Senate. And so we didn’t make much progress on the country’s agenda. And in my view it’s because the Senate basically hadn’t done much of anything, with a couple of exceptions, for the last four years. And that’s going to change.
Q: One of the things you mentioned, the budget resolution is one area where you don’t need Democratic votes. How aggressive are you going to be or would you like to be in terms of rolling back Obamacare as part of the reconciliation process?
McConnell: Well I would say two things. Number one: we certainly will have a vote on proceeding to a bill to repeal Obamacare… it was a very large issue in the campaign. And, the reconciliation process does present an opportunity and we’re reviewing that to see what’s possible through reconciliation.
So, we’re certainly gonna keep our commitment to the American people to make every effort we can to repeal it.
It is a statement to the obvious, however, that Obama — of Obamacare — is the President of the United States, so I don’t want people to have [unrealistic] expectations about what may actually become law with Obama — of Obamacare — in the White House. But we intend to keep our commitment to the American people.
Now, that doesn’t mean we might not also want to target parts of the law that we know enjoy bipartisan opposition. It is a lot of concern about the 40-hour workweek, a lot of concern about the individual mandate. We actually have a show vote on the medical device tax as you know.
Q: Yes
McConnell: And 79 senators, including that great conservative Elizabeth Warren, said they didn’t like the medical device tax, so we will go at that law—which in my view is the single worst piece of legislation passed in the last half century — in every way that we can.
Gruber has made clear that it required all kinds of deception in order to get it passed. We were saying that at the time, but everybody just assumed we were just hard nosed partisans … but, virtually everything Gruber has said confirms what we were saying during that debate in 2009. But, yeah, to sum it up: we have a strong obligation to the American people to do everything within our power to get rid of it.
Q: Can you talk a little bit about your, and I, again, I’m going to go back to the transcript of the conversation you had yesterday on Fox, but the, you want to bring all of the appropriations bills through regular order through the committee and to the floor, and I have two sort of questions about that.
The first is: have you thought about whether or not you’re going to keep your own seat on the appropriations committee?
McConnell: Yeah, I probably will, but I have not been active in committee work since I became leader. But, I think it is to the advantage of my state to have the opportunity to come to meetings occasionally and to vote in person, rather than just by proxy. So, yeah, I do intend to do that because occasionally it’s helpful to be there in person and to directly participate. Obviously, I’m not going to be a very active member of the committees that I serve on.
Q: On the appropriations: If bringing all twelve to the floor, that’s if you say a week for each bill, that’s going to consume most of the May, June, July work period…
McConnell: Right.
Q: Is that something that both your members and the democrats should be prepared for that to be the focus?
McConnell: Well, if you believe one of the biggest problems confronting the country is overregulation by this administration, the single most effective way to begin to rein in the aggressive regulators, who in my view have done great damage to this economy, is in the bills that fund the regulators.
So, we intend to give a very high priority — passing a budget is essential and will happen. Step two; pass the individual bills that fund the government and those bills will reflect widespread concern about the way the government has been run.
In other words, what have these people employed in these departments been doing to our economy?
EPA is a perfect example of great importance in my state. Not only from a mining point of view, but from an agriculture point of view. You’ve got the crusade on CO2 emissions, you’ve got now the Ozone regulation, you’ve got the waters of the US, which, would put them in charge of virtually every puddle on every farm in America.
In my view the single biggest reason this has been such a tepid recovery after the recession of 08 is the government itself.
So, you betcha, passing individual appropriations bills is going to be a high priority. I know it will be time consuming, but I think it’s an important way for us to spend our time.
Q: Okay, I wanted to ask, I was in, as you probably well know, I was in Kentucky around the election and the Sunday before when I was at the parade at Madisonville, with the whole line of Corvettes uh and I know that the Vice President is a fan of the Corvettes, as I’m sure you did as well.
McConnell: I actually didn’t know that.
Q: My lead question on this is if you would be interested in inviting the VP for a Corvette summit since everyone is talking about a bourbon summit.
McConnell: Yeah, look, I have a good relationship with the Vice President. But the Vice President is not a free agent. He is a part of the administration and he will you know, do what the President asks him to do. And the President and I did have a chance to talk this week and hopefully that will not be as unusual as all of you thought it was. And the reason you thought it was, is, it was unusual. Hopefully we will have a greater opportunity to talk about the way forward more frequently and obviously how much I deal with the Vice President will be determined by the President.
Q: Fair enough. I wanted to ask on a couple of other items. Senator Lott , one of your predecessors here of course, just yesterday was encouraging you to deal, I think his term was “sternly” with possible renegade conservatives within your conference as well as, I think the term he used was “co-opt” newcomers, your newly elected flock. How do you plan on dealing with issues of party discipline and people who either on the conservative side or the more moderate wing may want to go their own ways or cause trouble or something of that sort?
McConnell: Well, this is not directed at you, but it strikes me as kind of an under-reported story that the real party um, infighting going on right now is not among the Republicans, it is among the Democrats. We’ve had these series of votes on confirmations here in the Senate the last few days, so we are on the floor a lot. Most of my conversations have been with Democrats. If their insistence. Um, not that I’m not talking to the Republicans, but they are the ones in disarray. They are the ones criticising Obamacare publicly as a mistake, a political mistake. They are the ones who are suffering the embarrassment of having the President veto a bill that has just been negotiated between the Democratic majority in the Senate and the Republican majority in the House.
McConnell: Um I think that’s what you ought to keep your eye on because that’s what makes possible on a bipartisan basis getting to 60 votes. Which we will need to do on virtually everything except the budget. On our side if you look at the new class I think you can safely say that um every single one of them — I always think there is sort of two kinds of people in politics: those that want to make a point and those that want to make a difference. And I think we’ve just added 12 new members to the make a difference caucus. And I think we, you know, have some occasional differences over tactics, but I think we are gonna have a broad support within our conference for right of center progress. I mean, what we want to be is a responsible right of center governing majority.
McConnell: We don’t intend to engage in rhetoric nor actions that rattle the public, that rattle the market. We want to be, as I just said, a responsible right of center governing majority and see what kind of progress we make for the country. Now what we can’t control is what the President does with legislation we put on his desk. I guess we will just have to wait and see. But um I think that we are going to be able to make significant progress here in the Senate.
Q: I few quick other items if I may. One of which is a sort of substantive policy questions. Do you think that there is any way to move forward with immigration as sort of a big picture legislative item as long as the executive actions are in effect?
McConnell: Well I can tell you for sure that what the president did after the election makes it unlikely that it is an early item for this Conference. But no one believes the current immigration system is not broken. And um at some point I believe it would be appropriate to do something to secure the border and maybe to address other parts of the legal immigration system as well. The President has taken it upon himself to deal with the question of the just about 11, so called 11 million. That’s the most challenging part of this issue. So I think the takeaway for your purposes today is it’s in my view not an early item for consideration in the Republican Senate. But that’s not an endorsement of the status quo either. Because, I think, you know, that there is much wrong with the way things are going now on this issue and need to be corrected.
Q: The other policy area I wanted to touch on was one that you’ve been involved with for a very long time, which is campaign finance. And there were some reports this week that you were interested in attaching something to the omnibus related to the way parties are allowed to coordinate. I was curious if you could talk about that as well as what your sort of agenda is for campaign finance issues in the next couple of years.
McConnell: Well we — that’s not on the agenda. But the issue you mentioned is an absurdity in the current law. Which if fixed would have no adverse implications either way. Under current law, a national party committee has a statutory limit on how much it may spend on it’s own candidates by state. But then if it wants to do more that, independent expenditures, it has to engage in the follow absurdity:
Some outside group is set up, you hope their friends and allies do the right thing and you make a sort of blind transfer into this outside group. But 100% of that money is what we call “hard money,” it’s limited and disclosed. This is not Citizens United kind of thing, this is party committees and you hope for the best. And everybody who has chaired a senatorial committee of either party says it’s absolutely absurd. So what I have suggested is that we fix that by discontinuing the practice of the congress dictating to national party committees how they spend their money. If a particular party committee, we’re talking about basically six committees, the RNC and the DNC, the republican and democratic committees in the house and senate, six national party committees. Rather than Congress trying to micro manage how they spend their funds which are given by people in limited and disclosed amounts. Let them spend it how they choose to. This is not [INAUDIBLE] money. This is not — this is unrelated to all these groups that are sprung up on the outside. And as I said, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a single chairman of any of these committees in the past that doesn’t think this is absurd. So I have suggested and I think it’s being discussed on a bi-partisan basis whether or not this would be an improvement over the current system. Let me just sum it up: It would strengthen the parties, who have frankly have not as much clout anymore, much of the firepower, it is now outside the parties. I don’t think there is anything good about weakening the parties.
And as the plaintiff in the McCain-Feingold case, this is exactly what I predicted. Which was when you took, which was called “solve funding non-federal money (inaudible)” away from the state parties it would be spent on the outside.
And while I’m not opposed to all of that, I think everyone ought to be able to have their fair say. I do think weakening the parties is not good policy.
So, sorry for the lengthy answer, but that’s the discussion we’ve had on a bi-partisan basis here at the end of the year and we’ll see what happens.
Q: Okay, I’m sort of stepping back from the, I know it’s not entirely minutia, but stepping back from that minutia to the broader question of operating the Senate. Do you have a particular, I think I have some idea what your answer might be, but do you have a particular predecessor in the role of Majority Leader who you sort of have particular historical interest in, who you might either try to fashion yourself after or anything of that sort?
McConnell: Well you’ve read what I’ve said about this in the past, I think. I’m a big fan of Mike Mansfield, who ran the Senate totally different from Lyndon Johnson. In more recent times I’ve thought George Mitchell — I’m picking Democrats here because I don’t want to pick amongst Republicans. I’ve served with many of them and I thought that they were outstanding.
So the fact that I’m citing a couple of Democrats should not be interpreted as meaning that I was not a fan of Republicans.
But, you know, with all due respect to my current counterpart. I do not approve with the way the Senate was run. I don’t think it was good for the institution and ultimately I don’t think it was good for his own party. So you can anticipate a different approach.
Q: This situation with Senator Paul in his re-election and potentially also running for President if he chooses to do so. You’ve already said you’re behind him in that effort. Is there anything you’re working in terms of, or what help are you willing to provide in terms of dealing with this question of the two lines that appears on the ballot issue that appears in Kentucky law?
McConnell: Well let me just say, I’m a friend and enthusiastic supporter of Senator Paul’s efforts.
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6) GOP pins hopes of dismantling ObamaCare on the courts
The GOP is refocusing its attention on the courts as it searches for any way to weaken President Obama’s signature healthcare law while he continues to wield a veto pen.
Twenty-five Republicans asked the Supreme Court to take on another lawsuit against ObamaCare on Thursday, this time against a controversial Medicare advisory board that the party has assailed as a “death panel.”
Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.), who is leading the charge in Congress against the Independent Payment Advisory Board, said legal challenges against ObamaCare “make a lot more sense” than writing repeal bills that are guaranteed a veto.
Roe is among a growing number of Republicans who are acknowledging that the party cannot overcome the president’s veto even after its midterms sweep. Many are now arguing that a shift in strategy is needed to take down the law before 2016.
“We won’t have 67 votes in the Senate. We could conjure up a good number in the House, but you’ll never get a veto overridden in the Senate,” he told The Hill. “[Obama's] going to veto it.”
The reach to the Supreme Court is part of a flurry of recent legal action that reflects a growing consensus within the GOP that the party must rely on courts instead of Congress to strike down ObamaCare, especially as more pieces of the law are put into place.
Republicans' request came in the same week that another GOP-backed case advanced in court, this one against the individual mandate. That challenge, Sissel v. HHS, went before a federal appeals panel on Wednesday, arguing that mandate’s taxes originated in the wrong chamber and are therefore unconstitutional.
House Speaker John Boehner also announced late last month that the House would be filing its long-awaited case against the president’s “unilateral actions” in shaping the healthcare law.
The party’s court-centered approach was given fresh hope last month when the justices announced they would take up King v. Burwell, which concerns ObamaCare subsidies in 34 states. Legal scholars and health policy experts have warned that the case is the biggest legal threat against the law since 2012.
Republicans in the next Congress will almost surely vote again to repeal the healthcare law in full. The GOP’s Senate takeover will give he party more power against ObamaCare than any time in the law’s history, but the majority isn’t enough to override a veto.
Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell openly acknowledged for the first time this week that the chance of a major rewrite of ObamaCare is unlikely in the next two years.
Instead, he said the Supreme Court’s ruling on King v. Burwell could be the party’s best shot for an ObamaCare “do-over.”
“The chances of [Obama] signing a full repeal are pretty limited,” McConnell said at a Wall Street Journal event Monday. “Who may ultimately take it down is the Supreme Court of the United States.”
The rough political climate surrounding the law could factor into the justices’ decision, making the time ripe for a GOP win at the court.
Todd Gaziano, executive director of the Pacific Legal Foundation, which is arguing the Sissel v. HHS case, said some justices could factor in “the fact that the popularity of ObamaCare continues to plummet.”
“What might be in the back of their subconscious is that the American people in the two most recent elections have thrown out the people who enacted this law,” he said.
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