Joel B. Pollak - Page 290

Isaac Herzog, the leader of Israel’s political opposition, whose visceral dislike of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is well-known, has declared that he supports Netanyahu in his efforts to oppose the Iran deal, which the U.S. Congress is about to consider. “I had a meeting yesterday where I learned about the deal and I think it is bad for Israel. [Netanyahu and myself] will certainly cooperate when it comes to the security of Israel. As an Israeli patriot, this deal is dangerous,” Herzog said in an interview quoted by the Times of Israel.

The nuclear deal reached with Iran on Tuesday is clouded by uncertainty about whether the Iranian regime will live up to its relatively weak commitments. One outcome is almost certain, however: Israel will launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran, hoping to weaken the regime and stop, or slow, its nuclear program.

Late last month, several Middle East policy experts–including prominent former Obama administration officials–warned that negotiations with Iran were heading in the wrong direction. “The agreement will not prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapons capability,” they said, and warned that the terms would “fall short of meeting the administration’s own standard of a ‘good’ agreement.” They suggested that any Iran deal would have to cover five crucial elements–each of which, they suggested, were lacking in the emerging terms of the agreement.

Secretary of State John Kerry has called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reaction to the Iran deal “way over the top,” even as others in the region have chimed in with their own criticisms of the deal, the Times of Israel reports.

In defending the nuclear deal reached with Iran in Vienna today, President Barack Obama said that the agreement cut off Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon. In fact, it does the opposite. The deal makes it far easier for Iran to develop nuclear weapons for four basic reasons. First, it allows Iran to continue hiding much of its nuclear research. Second, its main restrictions last for only eight years. Third, it lets Iran continue developing ballistic missiles. And third, it provides billions of dollars in sanctions relief that Iran will use to further its nuclear aims.

Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, reacted to the nuclear deal reached with Iran in Vienna on Tuesday morning by warning that the terms of the deal violated the conditions laid down by 367 members of Congress in a letter earlier this year.

On Tuesday, world powers reached a nuclear agreement with Iran after nearly two years of intense talks, and a decade of confrontation. U.S. President Barack Obama hailed the deal, and threatened to veto any attempt to stop it. The Iranian regime, too, celebrated it as a victory for diplomacy. Israel, meanwhile, panned a “terrible deal” and a “mistake of historic proportions.” So who is right?

Nearly two weeks after 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle was murdered on San Francisco’s Pier 14 by an illegal alien and convicted felon who was released from prison earlier this year, President Barack Obama has failed to contact the victim’s family or mention her in public. Yet Obama took the time to write (and release) 46 personal letters this month to felons imprisoned for non-violent drug offenses whose sentences he has commuted.

Former Secretary of State and U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president in 2016 laid out her proposed economic policy in an address to the left-leaning New School for Social Research in New York on Monday.

In a speech laying out her economic policy, Hillary Clinton is set to attack companies like Uber and Airbnb in the “sharing economy” or “contractor economy,” arguing that such companies undercut wages. Her proposed alternative is to use government regulations to guide economic activity. Previews of her speech have set off alarm bells in Silicon Valley, and are sure to surprise millennial consumers, whose loyalty to the Democratic Party has has largely been blind, and who presumed that the party of government shared their love for technology.

The Associated Press reports that world powers will announce a formal deal with Iran in Vienna on Monday. Though there are still minor details to be finalized, the two diplomats who spoke to the AP confirmed that a deal will be reached, though they “cautioned that final details of the pact were still being worked out and a formal agreement still awaits a review from the capitals of the seven nations at the talks.”

Kevin Williamson of National Review Online attacks the conservative base of the Republican Party in his latest column, “WHINOS: On the Martyrdom of the Holy, Holy Base.”

Mexican authorities have undertaken a desperate manhunt for former Sinaloa drug cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán after he escaped from the Altiplano maximum security prison near Mexico City. It was the second time Guzmán escaped from prison; the first was in 2001.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an angry warning Sunday about an impending nuclear deal between the world’s major powers and Iran, as negotiators drew close to a final agreement on Sunday. “We will not pay the price for this,” Netanyahu said, in a statement recalling the manner in which the West had abandoned Czechoslovakia to the Nazi regime at the Munich negotiations in 1938.

Kathryn Steinle, the young woman killed last week by an illegal alien and convicted felon while she walked with her family on San Francisco’s Pier 14, was laid to rest in her home town of Pleasanton, California on Thursday.

Diplomats at nuclear talks in Vienna failed to reach an expected deal on Friday, as Iran balked at signing an agreement with the Western powers on “Quds Day,” an annual day of virulent protest against the U.S. and Israel that the Iranian regime stages throughout the world.

“An election version of ‘The Apprentice.’ You would take two dozen candidates and divide them up into two teams–say, a team of governors and a team of senators. And then you’d send them around the country, different primary states, have them compete against each other, do different things…”

A source at the international nuclear talks in Vienna indicates that a deal with Iran is likely on Friday, probably due to a U.S. collapse on a new Iranian demand that an international arms embargo be lifted as part of the deal.

A convicted felon who went to federal prison in 2006-7 is leading a White-House backed effort to lobby Congress to pass whatever nuclear deal emerges from ongoing talks with Iran in Vienna. Robert Creamer, who served time for fraud and tax charges, and who is married to Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), is coordinating pro-Iran efforts through the liberal Ploughshares group, which held a conference call with President Barack Obama’s aides earlier this week, as reported by Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told CNN’s Brianna Keilar that she had been fully compliant with all relevant laws and regulations regarding her email during her service in the Obama administration, despite using a private email address, maintaining a private server at her New York home, selecting which emails to turn over for archival purposes, and deleting the rest.

As the list of Western concessions to the Iranian regime continues to grow, Iran is demanding the lifting of a worldwide arms embargo as a condition of any nuclear deal. Thus far, the U.S. is resisting, but Russia and China have already agreed in part.

“San Francisco: It’s the New Rome.” That’s the anonymous comment overheard by Politico’s Mike Allen–or one of his sources–at the Aspen Ideas Festival, the summer gathering of the nation’s intellectual elite (and the people with enough money to be seen with them). It is an acknowledgment of the city’s new power–and its decadence.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Western powers had “collapsed” to nearly every single Iranian demand so far in the nuclear talks.

Though only Lopez-Sanchez will face a court, Governor Jerry Brown, Attorney General Kamala Harris, and President Barack Obama share in the blame, as do local officials.

July 4th marks the climax of the American Revolution, remembered with fireworks, family, and fun. But this year, there are three other revolutions that overshadow our own. The first is the French Revolution. Unlike the Americans, who preserved their religious

Trump is selling opposition politics to Americans who, rich or poor, enjoy greater power as consumers than they ever will as voters. The media do not understand consumer behavior, which is why so many outlets have failed. But Trump “gets it”: his companies not only provide value for investors, but good service to customers.

The man suspected of gunning down a young woman at random at a popular San Francisco tourist spot on Wednesday has been “deported to Mexico several times,” according to a report by the local ABC News affiliate.

San Francisco locals are still reeling after last weekend’s Gay Pride celebrations saw Dolores Park trashed by revelers. The park was only recently re-opened after an expensive renovation.

Star Trek celebrity and gay marriage activist George Takei told a Phoenix news station Monday that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a “clown in blackface.” Takei was referring to Thomas’s recent dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges, the 5-4 decision in which the Supreme Court found that there is a “fundamental” right to same-sex marriage in the Constitution. “He is a clown in black face sitting on the Supreme Court. He gets me that angry. He doesn’t belong there,” Takei said.

The Obama administration has yet to question American Alan Gross about his lengthy imprisonment in Cuba–six months after he returned home in a prisoner swap that set the stage for full normalization of U.S.-Cuban relations this week, the Daily Beast reports. Though Gross spent more than five years in a Cuban prison, and could potentially provide valuable intelligence on the regime, as well as information about political prisoners, the Obama administration showed no interest.

Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes–who lacks any prior qualifications for the post–has explained to the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Monday that the administration believes that a bad Iran deal is worth doing because political reform inside the Iranian regime is more likely with the deal than without. Or, to use Rhodes’s own words: “We believe that the kiss of the nuke deal will turn the Iranian frog into a handsome prince.”

President Barack Obama’s poll numbers are surging, and for the usual reason: the left is happy. After a week in which the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare (again) and established same-sex marriage as a “fundamental right”; in which final negotiations on

Judge Richard Posner writes at Slate.com that the dissent by Chief Justice John Roberts in the gay marriage case is “heartless.” It is a false charge, and part of the effort to shame opposing views–about which Justice Samuel Alito warned in his own dissent.

President Barack Obama delivered a stirring eulogy Friday for the Rev. Clementa Pinckney and eight others who were murdered in their church earlier this month by a white racist who hoped his act of terror would ignite a racial war. The first part of Obama’s remarks were a fitting and inspiring tribute to the victim, whom he knew personally. The second half was a regrettably political speech that exploited the pulpit for partisan ends–and claimed the murderer had been “used by God.”

This week saw a sudden flurry of attempts to rid America of symbols of the Confederacy–not just the flag at the South Carolina State House, but statues, street names, and even songs. While many welcomed the changes as a way to heal

In the Obamacare case, the Court pretended to know what was really in the minds of legislators in spite of their explicit words (and evidence of their actual intent). In Texas Housing, the Court has ruled that the federal government can decide what is really in the minds of ordinary people, whether they intend to discriminate or not.