$1 billion weapons deal for Saudi Arabia

WASHINGTON -- Barring last minute opposition from Congress, Saudi Arabia is poised to receive a hefty $1.3 billion weapons package that includes 13,000 “smart bombs” from the United States by the end of the year. But don’t necessarily expect it to be used to fight ISIS.
Critics say the payload of sophisticated weapons will instead bolster the Saudis' continuing air war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. That campaign is drawing fire from human rights groups, who say the kingdom has been targeting civilians with American-made weapons, and may be responsible for war crimes.
“President Obama is poised to sell thousands of bombs and warheads to a government that unlawfully targets civilians,” Amnesty International, which has been lobbying hard for Congress to kill the deal, said in a statement Thursday.
More than 5,700 people, including at least 2,577 civilians — 637 of them children — have been killed in the eight months Saudi Arabia has led a coalition of Gulf States in the bombing campaign, according to the United Nations. Another 2.3 million have been displaced. Meanwhile, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights found that "almost two-thirds of reported civilian deaths had allegedly been caused by coalition airstrikes.”
“By selling the Saudis the weapons included in the latest deal, the U.S. will be further implicated in possible war crimes committed in Yemen and it will be helping to fuel an unnecessary war,” charged Daniel Larison, senior editor at The American Conservative magazine.
“At the same time the Saudis are using U.S. weapons in Yemen, they and the other members of their coalition have withdrawn their small contributions to the campaign against ISIS and diverted their resources to the fight that they consider to be more important,” he added.
The coalition has denied the accusations in published reports. Saudi Arabia is determined to beat back the Houthis, who deposed President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, in February. The Houthis are said to be getting support from the Iranians, and the conflict is largely seen as part of a regional stuggle between the Sunni Gulf States and Shia Iran.
After strikes killed 70 people at a wedding in Yemen in September, Saudi officials warned not to jump to conclusions. They have since blocked an international inquiry into war crimes there.  “We need to be careful about facts and fiction,” Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters at the time.
The concerns, however, have not escaped members of Congress, which has had 30 days to review the deal before it goes through.
While Sen. Bob Corker, R-TN., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, supports the action in Yemen, he has requested “that the committee be notified of future weapons shipments to Saudi Arabia resulting from this proposed sale,” according to an email forwarded to Foxnews.com from the committee.
He is joined by ranking member Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., who has raised alarms about the human rights issue, along with other Democratic members.
They are not expected to stop the sale, however. It is the most recent in a long line of arms deals brokered with Riyadh -- $90 billion worth since 2010, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Reached for comment, the State Department, which engineered the sale, called Saudi Arabia “a key U.S. strategic partner within the region,” and that “the purchase of these munitions will rebuild Saudi Arabia’s inventory, helping them to meet their defense requirements over the long term.”
On the human rights issue, the State Department says it has “noted our concern several times regarding civilian casualties and deaths in Yemen,” and has encouraged the coalition to investigate “credible accounts of civilian casualties.”
“Ultimately, we want to see a diplomatic solution,” the agency said, and noted the start of peace talks in December, in concert with a seven-day ceasefire.
Saudi Arabia, a long time ally of the U.S. in the Middle East, has nonetheless been the subject of criticism on a number of fronts. In addition to its human rights record in Yemen, the kingdom has been cited for abuses at home, including beheadings over the last year for crimes such as “sorcery” and “apostasy” against Islam. The legal system is based on sharia law, and religious freedoms there are all but non-existent, say critics.
Saudi Arabia is also the birthplace of Wahhabism, the radical fundementalist strain of Islam practiced by global terror groups like ISIS today. While the kingdom has partnered in counterterrorism operations with the U.S. and its Gulf neighbors, it is also accused of turning a blind eye while the country’s elites pour billions into extremist mosques, madrassas, and terror-related organizations across the globe.
Tafheen Malik, one of the shooters in the recent San Bernardino attack, came to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia.
“At a minimum they have to stop aiding and abetting Wahhabism; I would hope that the administration would make that a condition,” said former Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., who is now the Jerry and Susie Wilson Chair in Religious Freedom at Baylor University, and lobbies often on Capitol Hill for protection of religious minorities in the Middle East conflict zones.
Saudi officials have long denied the complaints and have often pushed back against detractors. Early this year, they blocked an arms agreement with Sweden after its foreign minister Margot Wallstrom called the kingdom a dictatorship and criticized the sentence of 1,000 lashings it imposed on a blogger there. The kingdom called her remarks "offensive."
But the issue has become so pronounced in recent months due to the terror attacks in Europe, that world leaders are speaking out more. In a moment of candor this week, the German Vice Chancellor accused the kingdom of financing terror.
“We have to make clear to the Saudis that the time of looking away is over,” Vice Chancellor Gabriel Signar told Bild am Sonntag newspaper in an interview.
“Wahhabi mosques all over the world are financed by Saudi Arabia,” he added. “Many Islamists who are a threat to public safety come from these communities in Germany.”
Critics like Wolf say the U.S. has been trying to get Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states to step up their game in the fight against ISIS and maybe such a lucrative weapons package sends the wrong message.
“You need American intelligence, American special ops, but you need boots on the ground from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan,” he said. “They need to start participating. This is absolutely critical before giving them weapons and aid.”
Corker is not as willing to blame Saudi Arabia so quickly.
“(Corker) also believes the U.S. should encourage greater involvement of our coalition partners in the fight against ISIS, but he thinks the perception of U.S. disengagement resulting from the Obama administration’s approach to the region, especially after the Iran nuclear deal, is hindering that effort,” his office said Friday.
A breakdown of the munitions being sold to the kingdom can be found on the State Department website.

Harry Reid Cartoon

Senate Democratic leader Reid: Scalia used 'racist' rhetoric

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid on Thursday slammed controversial comments Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said a day earlier that suggested some black students would benefit from being at a “slower-track school.”
Reid blasted Scalia’s comments, which he called “racist ideas,” from the Senate floor.
Scalia on Wednesday suggested it's possible that some black students would be more comfortable at a "slower-track school" instead of the University of Texas' flagship campus in Austin, where Scalia said some of those students are "being pushed ahead in classes that are too fast for them."
Scalia made the comment while the court heard arguments in an affirmative action case.
"The idea that African-American students are somehow inherently intellectually inferior from other students is despicable," Reid said. "It's a throwback ... to a time that America left behind a half a century ago."
He also said the idea that black students should be pushed out of top universities is “unacceptable.”
"That Justice Scalia could raise such an uninformed idea shows just how out of touch he is with the values of this nation," Reid said. "It goes without saying that an African-American student has the same potential to succeed in an academically challenging environment as any other student."

Rubio's provision to kill ObamaCare risk corridors stirs debate

The Affordable Care Act promised participating insurance companies and cooperatives payments in the first three years if they lost too much money.  Thanks to a provision successfully pushed last year by Senator Marco Rubio, insurers are only getting about 13 cents for every dollar they say they are owed.
“Insurance companies are willing to be a part of the exchanges, only if the federal government promised them that when they lost money they would get bailed out; bailed out with taxpayer money,” said Rubio, in an interview with Fox News.  “We've taken that away.  We should not be bailing out private insurance companies who hire great lobbyists.”
ObamaCare includes risk corridors. They require some profitable insurance companies to pay into a pool to subsidize those with deep losses.  If the amount insurers need surpasses the total that profitable companies have paid in, the federal government makes up the difference. This year, that amount is about $2.5 billion.
Rubio’s provision bans that government payment.  Because of it, health insurers will only receive about 13 cents for every dollar ObamaCare promised them.
"There is a growing recognition about the instability facing consumers in the market,” said Clare Krusing, the press secretary for America's Health Insurance Plans, an insurance industry group, in a statement.  “Nearly 800,000 Americans have faced coverage disruptions as a result of the significant and unexpected shortfall with the risk corridors program.  Congress and the Administration must act to make sure consumers are protected."
Rubio supporters claim the senator’s provision is the most significant legislative setback for the Affordable Care Act since President Obama signed it into law in March 2010.  Some failing health-care cooperatives blamed Rubio’s provision for their insolvency.  Health insurance analysts said insurance companies will likely raise premiums as a result.
One analyst said Rubio’s measure has disrupted the insurance market, though these missed government payments are unlikely to force large, private insurance companies from the ObamaCare exchanges.
“I don’t think you will have large sustainable companies drop out, for this reason,” said Gail R. Wilensky, an economist and senior fellow at Project HOPE who also led Medicare and Medicaid under President George H.W. Bush.  “What you will have companies drop out, if when they look in the future, they don’t see a way that this can be a self-sustaining business.”
Supporters of the risk corridor payments point out the government used a similar scheme previously, during the administration of President George W. Bush, when administering the Medicare prescription drug benefit in its formative years.
“The whole idea of risk corridors was that insurance companies were diving into a new market. By definition, they were reaching for people who hadn’t had insurance before under different rules, and they were taking a risk,” said Alice Rivlin, a former vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board and budget official in the administration of President Bill Clinton.
“There’s always an exploration process in a new market. People have to learn, both the buyers and the sellers have to learn what’s possible.  The Rubio provision is simply undermining the process of learning. It’s destabilizing the market.”
Rubio is pushing the ban on these federal payments for next year as well. 

Univ. of Texas panel OKs guns in classrooms ahead of 'mock shooting' protest

Days before a planned 'mock shooting' demonstration just outside the campus of the University of Texas in Austin, a panel on Thursday recommended policies that would allow concealed handguns in classrooms. 
UT President Greg Fenves will review the recommendations before a final vote of approval by university regents. Concealed weapons would be mostly barred from university dormitories.
Texas state lawmakers are requiring public universities to allow concealed handgun license holders to bring weapons on campus starting Aug. 1, 2016. Universities were told to draw campus gun-zone maps, with the provision they not try to ban weapons from most of campus.
Texas students and faculty have vigorously protested allowing guns in classrooms. The panel that developed the recommendations says its members don't want guns in classrooms, but a ban would violate Texas law.
The groups Come and Take It Texas and Dontcomply.com announced plans for the Saturday demonstration that would include cardboard guns and fake blood, in an effort to support gun rights.
The Austin campus is the site of one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history: sniper Charles Whitman killed 16 people in 1966, shooting dozens of victims from a perch atop the central clock tower.

Syria's Assad buying 'a great deal' of ISIS oil, US official says

The ISIS terror group and the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad have engaged in "millions and millions of dollars of trade" despite being at war with each other, a top U.S. Treasury official said Thursday. 
Adam Szubin, the Treasury's acting under secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said that while some of the oil produced in ISIS-held areas was able to make its way to Kurdish-held areas and Turkey, the "far greater amount" ended up in areas under Assad's control.
Szubin did not estimate the monetary value of the oil trade between ISIS and Assad. However, in remarks prepared for delivery at the Chatham House international affairs think tank in London, Szubin noted that ISIS was selling as much as $40 million in oil per month and had made more than $500 million in black market sales.
"Our sense is that ISIL is taking its profits basically at the wellhead," Szubin said, using another acronym for the terror group, "and so while you do have ISIL oil ending up in a variety of different places that's not really the pressure we want when it comes to stemming the flow of funding - it really comes down to taking down their infrastructure."
Szubin also said ISIS has seized between $500 million and $1 million from bank vaults captured during its spread across Iraq and Syria last year.
The official's remarks came days after Turkey and Russia had traded accusations over the acquisition of oil from the terror group after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane last month.
Earlier this month, Russia's deputy defense minister accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family of personally profiting from the oil trade with ISIS militants. The allegations were rejected by Erdogan, who vowed to resign if Moscow could prove its accusations, and the U.S. government.
"We never said oil smuggling from ISIL is not a problem," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said at the time. "[But] there is no Turkish government complicity in some operation to buy illegal oil from ISIL. We just don't believe that to be true in any way, shape or form."
Russia has been carrying out its air campaign in Syria since Sept. 30, using warplanes at an air base in Syria's coastal province of Latakia, as well as navy ships and long-range bombers flying from their bases in Russia. While Moscow said its action has been focused on ISIS, the U.S. and its allies have criticized Moscow for also striking moderate rebel groups opposed to Assad, whom Russia staunchly supports.

Tom Brokaw Cartoon

Federal judge rejects Texas effort to block resettlement of Syrian refugees

U.S. District Judge David Godbey

AUSTIN, Texas –  A federal judge knocked Texas for offering "largely speculative hearsay" about extremists possibly infiltrating Syrian refugees seeking to resettle in the state, rejecting another attempt by Republican leaders to keep out families fleeing the war-torn country.

U.S. District Judge David Godbey's Wednesday ruling cleared the way for the last of 21 Syrian refugees, many of whom are children under the age of 15, to resettle in Houston on Thursday.

The first dozen arrived earlier this week despite Texas mounting the most aggressive campaign of nearly 30 states that have vowed to ban Syrian refugees following the Paris attacks. Texas is the only state that has taken the U.S. government to court in an effort to block resettlements, but Godbey signaled skepticism about the lawsuit filed last week.

"The fact that this Court is required to assess the risk posed by a group of Syrian refugees illustrates one of the problems with this case," Godbey wrote in a three-page order. "The Court has no institutional competency in assessing the risk posed by refugees."
Godbey, who was appointed to the Dallas court by former President George W. Bush, added that such questions are generally left to the discretion of the federal government.

The Obama administration says refugee vetting is rigorous and can take up to two years. The Justice Department first responded to the lawsuit by telling the court that states can't block resettlements, after which Texas abruptly dropped a request to halt the first wave of refugees from coming to Dallas.

But the second try from Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, filed Wednesday, said there was new "evidence" that refugees pose potential danger. He cited public comments this week from Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, who said federal counterterrorism officials have indicated that individuals with terrorist ties have attempted infiltrating the U.S. refugee program. McCaul did not go into detail.

Paxton also argued that Texas law enforcement officials have concerns about refugee vetting. Godbey said that although the court recognizes the risks of terrorism, the state had failed to show "competent evidence" that the latest arrivals have intent to cause harm.

Texas "argues that terrorists could have infiltrated the Syrian refugees and could commit acts of terrorism in Texas. The court finds that the evidence before it is largely speculative hearsay," Godbey wrote.

Paxton spokeswoman Cynthia Meyer said the "safety and security of Texans is our utmost priority" and that the office will continue seeking information about arriving refugees.

Despite the ruling, Texas' lawsuit over refugee resettlements is not over. A hearing is likely to come in January, said ACLU attorney Rebecca Robertson, who is representing a resettlement nonprofit that Texas also sued.

Even as governors in some states say Syrian refugees aren't welcome, resettlement agencies and volunteer groups with refugees continue welcoming them. In Indiana, a couple and their two young children arrived at the invitation of the Roman Catholic archdiocese in Indianapolis, which went on with plans to resettle them despite calls from Gov. Mike Pence not to do so.

Pence and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott were among more than two dozen Republican governors who said they would refuse any new Syrian refugees following the deadly Nov. 13 Paris attacks, which have been linked to the Islamic State group operating in Syria.