Conservative Blogger
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Rubio: It's 'Capitulation Monday' for Obama on Iran, Cuba
Sen. Marco Rubio said Monday, July 20, will go down in history as President Obama's "Capitulation Day," as it marked the day that the United Nations Security Council voted to lift international sanctions on Iran in returning for limits on its nuclear program, and when embassies were opened in Washington and Havana.
"History will remember July 20, 2015, as Obama's Capitulation Monday, the day two sworn enemies of the United States were able to outmaneuver President Obama to secure historic concessions," the Florida Republican said in a statement.
Events at the United Nations, Washington and Havana, he said, are proof that "we have entered the most dangerous phase of the Obama presidency." He accused Obama of "flat-out abandoning America's vital national security interests to cozy up to the world's most reprehensible regimes."
The U.N. Security Council vote took place Monday morning, U.S. time, in Brussels. The Obama administration moved forward with the vote despite sharp bipartisan resistance in Congress. The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., have urged the administration not to move forward with the vote, arguing that it undercuts Congress and the Senate's Constitutional mandate to review all international treaties.
Killed in her sleep: Illegal immigrants suspected in Mass. grandma's death faced deportation
A Massachusetts woman killed as she slept in her bed by a bullet fired through her ceiling would be alive today, if the men accused of shooting her had been deported, according to anti-illegal immigration activists.
Mirta Rivera, 41, a nurse and grandmother from Lawrence, was shot July 4 from an upstairs apartment where two illegal immigrants lived despite being under federal deportation orders, according to the Boston Herald. Dominican Republic nationals Wilton Lara-Calmona and Jose M. Lara-Mejia both had long histories of sneaking into the U.S.
The case, as well as a pending murder case in neighboring Connecticut involving an illegal immigrant accused in the stabbing death of a woman, comes after the July 1 murder of Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco helped propel illegal immigrant crime into a hot-button national issue.
“This has been happening all over the country for several years,” said Dan Cadman, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and a retired federal immigration official. “I hope the American public is stirred up and angry about it.
“There are families all over the country that are grieving because they lost their mother, father, brother, sister, child or spouse needlessly.”“But I hope they realize there are so many more victims,” he added. “There are families all over the country that are grieving because they lost their mother, father, brother, sister, child or spouse needlessly.”
- Dan Cadman, Center for Immigration Studies
Lara-Calmona, 38, was deported in April 2012 and arrested for re-entering the country last November, the Herald reported. Lara-Mejia, 35, was nabbed crossing the border in August 2013 and ordered deported in April 2014, but apparently ignored the ruling.
The suspects and a third roommate, Christopher Paganmoux, were charged with trafficking heroin and cocaine after police investigating the shooting found drugs in their home. But the bullet hole in Lara-Mejia’s second-floor bedroom, which penetrated the ceiling above Rivera’s bed, and a Sears and Roebuck .270 bolt-action rifle that matched the bullet found in Rivera’s mattress, are expected to lead to murder charges.
In Norwich, Conn., Jean Jacques, 40, a Haitian illegal immigrant who got out of prison in January after serving 17 years for attempted murder, has been charged with stabbing Casey Chadwick, 25, to death and stuffing her in a closet last month. Jacques’ prison file was marked "Detainer: Immigration," according to the Norwich Bulletin.
But the case seems to have sparked the same sort of finger-pointing between local, state and federal officials as was seen in the aftermath of the Steinle murder. In that case, ICE officials said they had requested that San Francisco hold Steinle’s alleged killer, Francisco Sanchez, until they could pick him up and evict him from the country. San Francisco refused, with its sheriff later saying it was only a “request,” and that he was not allowed to comply with it.
Connecticut officials say Jacques was released in January to the custody of the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but was never deported. While ICE spokesman Shawn Neudauer told the newspaper he was barred by law from discussing Jacques' case, Connecticut last year became the first state to enact legislation that prohibited law enforcement agencies from holding people simply because federal authorities asked that they be held for deportation.
The measure was touted as a way to strengthen immigrant families and it does not extend to convicted felons such as Jacques or people with a "final order" of deportation.
Because local and state governments rarely pass comprehensive codes detailing their level of non-cooperation with the federal government on illegal immigration, and because the federal government itself has refused to enforce its own immigration laws, it is difficult to say where the blame lies, said one expert.
“We have two-tiered sanctuary policies,” said Bob Dane, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). “You have it at the local level, where cities refuse to cooperate, but you also have it at the national level. The Obama administration won’t enforce the laws federally, and the local communities won’t locally.
“You could make the case that America is now a sanctuary country,” Dane said.
UN Security Council endorses Iran deal, Tehran diplomat lashes out at US
The U.N. Security Council on Monday unanimously endorsed the Iran nuclear deal, though the show of support was interrupted shortly afterward by a war of words between the American and Iranian ambassadors.
Iran's ambassador lashed out at the U.S. mere moments after the vote, in retaliation for U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power bringing up Tehran's human rights record.
Power, during the session, had raised concerns about Iran's support for terror proxies and reiterated a U.S. demand that Iran release all unjustly held American prisoners. Iran's ambassador fired back, blaming the U.S. for instability in the region and calling Power's criticism "ironic."
"The country that invaded two countries in our region and created favorable grounds for the growth of terrorism and extremism is not well placed to raise such accusations against my country," Iranian U.N. Ambassador Gholamali Khoshroo said, calling past U.S. actions in the region "feckless" and "reckless."
The exchange, which came as Israel's representative continued to assail the deal itself, hung over what was nevertheless the first formal step at the international body toward implementing the deal and rolling back U.N. sanctions.
The movement at the U.N. still faces resistance in Washington, where lawmakers had wanted the Security Council to wait until Congress formally reviews the landmark agreement. The White House says the Security Council's actions won't take effect for another 90 days, but congressional lawmakers had urged President Obama to halt Monday's vote -- and allow Congress to vote first.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., on Monday called it an "end-run around Congress."
"I don't know why they're going to the United Nations [first]," Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told "Fox News Sunday."
Cardin and Barrasso were joined by several top-ranking lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in urging a pause at the U.N.
Congress has 60 days to review the deal -- and then vote for or against it, or take no action. "I think they should have gone to the United Nations after the 60-day review," Cardin said. "They don't gain anything by doing it earlier."
But the Obama administration argued that they were still showing deference to Congress, and that the U.N. shouldn't be hamstrung during that review period.
"They have a right to [vote on the deal], honestly. It's presumptuous of some people to suspect that France, Russia, China, Germany, Britain ought to do what the Congress tells them to do," Secretary of State John Kerry told ABC's "This Week." "They have a right to have a vote. But we prevailed on them to delay the implementation of that vote out of respect for our Congress so we wouldn't be jamming them."
The vote Monday authorizes a series of measures leading to the end of U.N. sanctions that have hurt Iran's economy. But the measure also provides a mechanism for U.N. sanctions to "snap back" in place if Iran fails to meet its obligations.
The resolution had been agreed to by the five veto-wielding council members, who along with Germany negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran. It was co-sponsored, and approved, by all 15 members of the Security Council.
The document specifies that seven resolutions related to U.N. sanctions will be terminated when Iran has completed a series of major steps to curb its nuclear program and the International Atomic Energy Agency has concluded that "all nuclear material in Iran remains in peaceful activities."
All provisions of the U.N. resolution will terminate in 10 years, including the snap back provision.
But last week the six major powers -- the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany -- and the European Union sent a letter, seen by The Associated Press, informing U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that they have agreed to extend the snap back mechanism for an additional five years. They asked Ban to send the letter to the Security Council.
Following the endorsement, Israel's ambassador to the U.N. Ron Prosor blasted the move.
"If the international community refuses to see this as a tragedy, that is a grave strategic error. But if it is aware of the tragedy, and it still chooses to pursue this dangerous path, that is a catastrophe," he said.
U.S. Ambassador Power, in remarks that drew the rebuke from Iran's representative, said the nuclear deal doesn't change the United States' "profound concern about human rights violations committed by the Iranian government or about the instability Iran fuels beyond its nuclear program, from its support for terrorist proxies to repeated threats against Israel to its other destabilizing activities in the region."
She urged Iran to release three "unjustly imprisoned" Americans and to determine the whereabouts of Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who vanished in 2007.
"But denying Iran a nuclear weapon is important not in spite of these other destabilizing actions but rather because of them," Power said.
Under the nuclear agreement, Iran's nuclear program will be curbed for a decade in exchange for potentially hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of relief from international sanctions. Many key penalties on the Iranian economy, such as those related to the energy and financial sectors, could be lifted by the end of the year.
Des Moines Register calls on Trump to drop of out 2016 race
They all want Trump To quit, why?
At a conservative summit in Iowa Saturday, Trump, whom several polls had shown to be leading the Republican field, dismissed McCain's reputation as a war hero, saying of the Arizona Republican who was held for five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, "I like people who weren't captured."
In an opinion piece published late Monday, the Register said Trump's comments were "not merely offensive, they were disgraceful. So much so, in fact, that they threaten to derail not just his campaign, but the manner in which we choose our nominees for president."
The paper went on to say that if "[Trump] had not already disqualified himself through his attempts to demonize immigrants as rapists and drug dealers, he certainly did so by questioning [McCain's] war record."
The Register, which broke a 40-year run of backing Democrats in presidential elections by endorsing Mitt Romney in 2012, was the latest voice to pile on Trump for his comments, joining veterans groups, Republican colleagues and President Barack Obama's spokesman, who defended McCain and called on Trump to apologize.
Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said Monday that Trump's "asinine comments" were "an insult to everyone who has ever worn the uniform — and to all Americans."
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said veterans "are entitled to an apology."
Trump appeared to back off some of his rhetoric Monday, telling Fox News' Bill O'Reilly that "if there was a misunderstanding, I would totally take that back." However, Trump also said he "used to like [McCain] a lot. I supported him ... but I would love to see him do a much better job taking care of the veterans."
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