Category Archives: biden

A Proportional Response

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Photo: Iranian missiles over Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, courtesy of Mehr News Service under a Creative Commons 4.0 license.

There was significant activity on the military front in the Mideast last week. The events changed the calculus for diplomacy in the region and could lead to new opportunities for peace, if the principals are willing to consider them.

It started on Saturday when Iran launched an unprecedented retaliatory attack on Israel, primarily from its own soil, but also by Iran-backed groups in several other countries. Here are some details:

  • Missiles and Drones: Iran fired hundreds of missiles and drones from its own territory.
  • Saturation Strategy: The assault aimed to saturate Israeli and U.S. air defenses with drones and cruise missiles, clearing the way for Iran’s ballistic missiles.
  • Alerts and Intercept: Alerts began sounding across Israel at about 2 a.m. local time on Sunday (7 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, April 13). Virtually everything fired at Israel was intercepted before entering the country’s territory.
  • Drones: Iran launched 170 drones at Israel from Iran. Israeli Air Force jets shot down dozens of them, and U.S. aircraft operating from bases in Saudi Arabia and Jordan shot down between 70 and 80 more.
  • Cruise Missiles: None of the more than thirty cruise missiles fired by Iran crossed into Israeli territory.
  • Ballistic Missiles: Of the 120 ballistic missiles fired at Israel from Iran, only five got through Israeli and U.S. air defenses and hit Israeli territory. Roughly half of the ballistic missiles failed on launch or crashed in flight.
  • Targets: Four missiles hit Israel’s Nevatim Air Base, where Israeli F-35s are based. Another ballistic missile appeared to have been aimed at a radar site in northern Israel but missed its target.
  • Bases: According to Iranian authorities, underground missile bases or silos exist in all provinces and cities of Iran. These bases contain road-mobile transporter erector launcher trucks and other hardware.

The attack had been expected. It followed an April 1 Israeli strike on a building in Syria which killed seven officers from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards, including two generals. Israel claims the building was used by the Iranian military and the generals had directed the October 7 slaughter of 1,200 Israeli civilians. They claimed the Iranians were in Syria to meet with Iran’s proxies Hamas and Hezbollah to plot new attacks on Israel.

Iran said the building that was targeted was part of the Iranian embassy and complained an attack on a diplomatic mission violated international law. That’s more than a little pathetic when you consider that on November 4, 1979, Iranian thugs broke into the U.S. embassy in downtown Tehran, captured virtual every American working there and held ninety-eight of them hostage for 444 days. Irony is apparently lost on the Iranians. But as we see repeatedly there is a double standard when it comes to international law, one for the United States and Israel, another for Iran and its terrorist proxies.

Iran’s “Firsts”

Iran’s attack marks several “firsts” in this conflict. It was the first time Iran struck Israel directly. It was also the first time a “state” actor adopted the ways of the terrorists. Iran’s aerial bombardment was also indiscriminate, designed to terrorize civilians and inflict mass casualties. The picture above shows Iran’s rockets over the Al-Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques, which Muslims constructed on the site of the two Jewish Temples built on Mount Moriah. the Temple Mount. The mosques are under the custodianship of Jordan and are protected by the Israeli military. They are considered holy to Muslims. Clearly the Iranians don’t care if they are destroyed by falling debris from their missiles.

And in another first, the Iranian bombardment violated the rule of proportional response, a term of diplomacy. I’ve always had my doubts about the wisdom of a proportional response. The idea behind a proportional response is to avoid an uncontrolled escalation of hostilities and maintain a balance in the conflict. It can be argued that Israel’s response to the Hamas slaughter of October 7 was “disproportional.” For the same reason, Iran’s response to Israeli’s April 1 killing of Iranian generals was “disproportional.” When Iran and its proxies have promised to attack Israel over and over until Israel disappears, and with the Ayatollahs who run Iran extending their pledge to promise the destruction of the entire Jewish people, the idea of responding in a manner proportional to the provocation seems to be a useless exercise.

Everybody Else’s “Firsts”

So, Iran crossed the line. It certainly expected its barrage on Israel would result in mass casulties and great destruction. It would further demoralize a nation still reeling from the damage done on Octover 7. And it would proclaim Iran to be the new power in the Mideast. If you follow Iran’s social media, that’s exactly what happened. Only, it didn’t.

By all measures, Iran’s attack was a complete failure. More than 95% of the incoming missiles and drones were intercepted before they reached Israel. Others were destroyed in unoccupied areas before they could reach the ground and detonate. Much credit is due the Israelis, who have a three-layer defense screen to protect against incoming ordinance. Some of that technology was built on top of American systems and some was developed jointly. But most was home-grown in Israel. It was a dramatic “first” which would give any would-be attacker pause before they tried again.

Israeli’s air force was also active in the skies that night. And they had help. Both American and British ships and planes were engaged helping to shoot down the Iranian fire. And in another remarkable “first,” and at a time when liberal opinion in the U.S. was elegantly wringing its hands about Israeli ruthlessness in Gaza destroying any possibility of Arab-Israeli cooperation, Jordan and Saudi Arabia came to Israel’s defense against the Iranian attacks.

The active participation of two of Israeli’s former enemies is a game changer. Iran must be feeling very isolated right now. And there is a possibility, remote perhaps but real, that the new coalition will provide a glimmer of hope for peace in a region that has not known peace for generations.

There is already evidence that Israel has taken this under consideration in determining a proportional response to this latest round of tit-for-tat. Rather than answer Iran with an equal barrage of missiles, Israel attacked one military base far away from civil population centers. It used air launched missiles. And one of its home-grown supersonic smart bombs easily penetrated Iranian defenses and destroyed an Iranian anti-aircraft battery. Without damaging Iranian nuclear facilities nearby.

A less than proportional response to give Iran much to think about, and to usher in the Passover season.

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Let the Games Begin

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Let there be no doubt. The 2024 State of the Union address kicked off the 2024 campaign for president. And it promises to be a raucous race.

I’ve watched many a state of the union in my day. But I’ve never seen one like the third state of the union of President Joe Biden. This was without a doubt a campaign speech. An in-your-face speech directed at the Republicans in Congress, the Republicans at home, and the Republican’s all-but-anointed candidate for president, Donnie Trump. Yes, my friends, it’s deja vu all over again.

The speech was also directed at Democrats, particularly those who have been wavering in the last few months under a constant barrage of anti-Biden rhetoric from Trump and his MAGA acolytates in government and throughout the conservative media. If you paid any attention to the MAGA house organs of 91-tear old Rupert Murdoch, like the New York Post and the Fox Channel, you’d think the 81-year-old Biden was ready for the grave and the only hope for the nation was the 77-year-old Trump.

I can report that Mr. Biden made it through about an hour and a half of fiery and combative engagement with his critics. It is recommended viewing, and you can find it here. Clearly frustrated by the criticism, he used his platform, throwing out the conventions of the traditional speech to defend his record and attack Trump, who will be his opponent in this 2024 rerun of 2020. He never used Trump’s name, choosing instead to repeatedly refer to “my predecessor” and to denounce Trump’s record and plans for a second term. And he made sure the Republicans in the chamber were equal targets of his rage. He even saved some for the Supreme Court.

  • On the border, which undocumented migrants have been breeching in search of asylum, Biden was able to report that bipartisan legislation which would greatly tighten border security was on the brink of passage when Trump torpedoed it. Why? Because Trump would rather the border crisis remain a campaign issue than see it alleviated giving Biden a “win”.
  • On Trump’s continuing desire to repeal the popular Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, Biden promised, “We stopped you fifty times before and we will stop you again.”
  • On a women’s right to choose, Biden contrasted his policy with Trump’s gleefully taking credit for the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, denying women the right to choose that had been recognized as law for fifty laws. With many members of the Court scowling from the front row, Biden criticized their 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson. That decision had led to Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration, now pending before the Supreme Court. Alliance, seeks to invalidate the FDA’s 23-year-old approval of the drug mifepristone, also known as RU 486. This is a pill which can be used to end a pregnancy during its first ten weeks. It is also widely used in treating miscarriages which occur in about 15% of pregnancies. Dobbs also led to a federal court decision in Alabama making in vitro fertilization (IVF) illegal in that state. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports about four million births per year in the U.S., meaning 1 to 2 percent of all U.S. births annually, are via IVF. With the Supremes looking on in distress Biden said, “Here are state laws banning the right to choose, criminalizing doctors, and forcing survivors of rape and incest to leave their states as well to get the care they need,” said Biden. “Clearly those bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade have no clue about the power of women in America. But they found out when reproductive freedom was on the ballot and won in 2022, 2023, and they will find out again in 2024.”
  • On foreign policy Biden pushed hard for continued aid to Ukraine, South Korea, Taiwan and Israel. And he attacked Russia’s Putin, who Trump has frequently praised. Trump said he would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO-member countries he views as not spending enough on their own defense.
  • On Social Security and Medicare Biden accused the Republicans of planning to cut payments. Trump talked about that again two days after Biden’s speech. Biden promised to defend them. And Biden defended his plans to increase taxes on profitable corporations and the top wage earners in the nation, while pledging people earning less than $400,000 a year will not see an increase.
  • And Biden attacked Trump over topics including the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, and his leadership, or lack thereof, during the Covid pandemic.

The Republican response was made at first by the usual gang of idiots. Members of Congress heckled Biden from the cheap seats. Then the party of Lincoln, who was turning over in his grave, turned to unknown Senator Katie Britt of Alabama. Britt’s major contribution to the argument was to tell a story of a sex trafficker, with the clear implication that the case was a typical result of Biden border policy. The problem was that fact checkers quickly discovered the incident occurred between 2004 and 2008, when Biden was not in the White House in any capacity.

What the Republicans should have done is just have Trump himself give the response. The Republican party is already a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump Corporation. Instead, Donnie was limited to making mean comments from the sidelines, also known as his own social media platform, Truth Social. Truth Social crashed at the start of Biden’s speech and didn’t recover until near the end. Trump posted a couple of new conspiracy theories about the Bidens and a chart attacking the bipartisan immigration bill which only revealed Trump’s lies and proved that the bill would have promoted border security and efficiency.

Trump let us know exactly what kind of a campaign we can expect from him at his first campaign appearance post State-of-the-Union. At one point, Mr. Trump slurred his words and pretended to stutter in a mocking imitation of President Biden, who has dealt with a stutter since childhood.

Trump at Georgia Rally, March 9, 2024

That’s the work of a backyard bully. a pathetic and small man. Not a man fit for public office.

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The Supremes Vote

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One thing is clear about this year’s election for president. The Supreme Court intends to cast its vote. The Court, driven by the conservative majority, rushed to hand Donald Trump a victory the day before Super Tuesday, the day fifteen states, including Colorado, hold primary elections. It even went as far as to announce on a Sunday that it would be handing down a ruling the next day. And it leaked the subject so loudly every story that night predicted it would be a decision in Trump v. Anderson.

In Trump v. Anderson, all nine justices agreed that states lack the power to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment against presidential candidates. All nine justices ruled in favor of Trump on this question. I’d like to pat myself on the back here because I predicted this outcome not long ago. I’d like to, but I won’t, because nearly every other court watcher made the same prediction.

The case centered around whether former President Trump could be barred from the ballot using a rarely invoked provision of the 14th Amendment. The Colorado Supreme Court had previously ordered the exclusion of Trump from the Republican primary ballot in the state. This U.S. Supreme Court decision reverses that ruling.

The key issue was whether Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which addresses insurrection and rebellion, applied to Trump’s eligibility to run for president again. The Court held that Congress, rather than individual states, is responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates. In legalize, it is not self-executing. Therefore, Trump can appear on presidential ballots this year, putting an end to efforts to ban him under this constitutional provision.

As I predicted, the Court would not sit by while some states denied Trump access to the ballot while others permitted his name to appear. Maine and Illinois had followed Colorado in removing him. A dozen other states had ruled in Trump’s favor.

The ruling warned of the dangers of a “patchwork” of decisions around the country that could send elections into chaos if state officials had the freedom to determine who could appear on the ballot for president. “The result could well be that a single candidate would be declared ineligible in some states, but not others, based on the same conduct,” the ruling said.

Minutes after the ruling, Trump hailed the decision in an all-capital letters post on his social media site, writing, “Big win for America!!!”

But was this a win for the Supreme Court? I think not.

In making its ruling, the Court cited Section 5 of the 14th Amendment, which reads, “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” They read section 5 as requiring congressional action to implement section 3. But textualism be damned, the language does not say that. And does not put the power to enforce solely in the hands of Congress. The five conservative judges are simply making it up.

They should have just stopped there. Instead, they tossed their historic deference to the states overboard. Colorado was ruling on a state election. And a primary election at that. They also never reviewed Colorado’s judgment finding that Trump had engaged in an insurrection. As a matter of litigation history, that finding of fact, supported by extensive evidence, remains valid. What they did was in effect to destroy section 3 of the thirteenth amendment. Insurrectionists are now free to try to overthrow the government one year and, if you fail, you can always run for election next year.

That the three liberal justices objected to what they branded, “overreach,” is no surprise. What did surprise is that Justice Amy Coney Barrett agreed with that assessment. Barrett, the sixth member of the conservative majority, was Trump’s third and final nominee to the Court.

In her short concurring opinion, Barrett did everything a good conservative textualist is not supposed to do, acknowledging that the Court was playing politics rather than interpreting the law. “The Court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile season of a Presidential election. Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up,” Barrett wrote. “For present purposes, our differences are far less important than our unanimity: All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home.”

I think not. What Americans should take home is that the Court remains highly politicized and that textualism, originalism, or whatever the conservatives call it, is a farce.

Meanwhile, what five of the six conservative judges have done here is to throw fourteenth amendment law under the bus. The fourteenth amendment forms the constitutional framework for civil rights and prohibits the states from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law and from denying anyone equal protection under the law. Many of these lawsuits are filed at the state level. Absent explicit federal legislation, there is no telling how future civil rights and equal protection cases will fare.

The campaigning by the Court, or at least the conservative majority, continues unabated. It hurried to decide this “disqualification” case, rendering its opinion just sixty days after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled. That allowed Trump his “victory lap” the day before a major election.

At the same time the Court is dragging its feet deciding Trump’s absurd position that a president has “total immunity” from prosecution after he leaves office. Both the United States District Court and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has unanimously rejected that argument. Judge Tanya Chutkan, the trial judge in the case, wrote “neither the Constitution nor American history supported the contention that a former president enjoyed total immunity from prosecution.” The late President Richard Nixon’s acceptance of a pardon following his resignation is a case in point.

The Supremes have refused to expedite Trump’s appeal in the immunity case, despite a request by the Special Counsel. It will not even hold an oral argument until the week of April 22. Meanwhile, it stayed trial proceedings by the district court until it rules. The justices are obviously playing along with Trump’s strategy of delay, delay, delay. Most observers think it unlikely Trump will be tried on felony charges from his role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection before the election.

Should Trump regain the White House, one of his first orders of business will undoubtably be to order “his” Justice Department to dismiss the federal cases against him.

Who said justice delayed is justice denied? I can name six names.

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Enter the Supremes

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Update December 28, 2023

There are reasons why journalists usually write analysis and commentary only after a breaking event has settled. Today Maine’s Secretary of State, Shenna Bellows, disqualified former President Donald Trump from appearing on the state’s 2024 Republican primary ballot. Her decision was based on the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which prohibits anyone who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States from holding office.

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Who the Hell is Tommy Tuberville?

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Embed from Getty Images

9-11 Insert

This is the twenty-second year since the 9-11 attacks. An entire generation has passed. My memories of that day written two years ago can be found posted here.

In a Washington Post op-ed published on Monday night, the civilian secretaries of the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force sharply criticized Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the Alabama Republican “who is blocking the confirmation of our most senior military officers,” as they put it. It was a most remarkable document. And one which must have been a great comfort to the military leadership in China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

Tuberville is an anti-choice conservative and a staunch supporter of Donald Trump. He is an Alabama dilettante who decided after a successful career as a football coach, he might like to be a United States senator. The people of Alabama, one of the least educated of the United States, agreed and sent him to Washington in 2021.

Tuberville has single-handedly placed a “blanket hold” on the appointments of all “general and flag officer nominees” in all branches of the U.S. military. He strongly opposes what he calls “Defense Department policies that ensure service members and their families have access to reproductive health” — and, more specifically, to abortion services — “no matter where they are stationed.” The gist of this policy is that service members in states where abortion is now illegal or sharply restricted may travel at government expense to jurisdictions where it is permitted, a policy Tuberville and other Republicans strongly oppose.

In the Post op-ed, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, and Army Secretary Christine Wormuth write that the policy on reproductive access is fully legal and “critical and necessary to meet our obligations to the force.” Tuberville‘s hold, they assert, is “putting our national security at risk” by preventing the Pentagon “from placing almost 300 of our most experienced and battle-tested leaders into critical posts around the world“:

Three of our five military branches — the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps — have no Senate-confirmed service chief in place. … Across the services, many generals and admirals are being forced to perform two roles simultaneously. … Each of us has seen the stress this hold is inflicting up and down the chain of command, whether in the halls of the Pentagon or at bases and outposts around the world.

Washington Post Op-Ed, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, and Army Secretary Christine Wormuth

Tuberville‘s claim that “holding up the promotions of top officers does not directly damage the military,” the three secretaries conclude, “is wrong — plain and simple.”

So, who is this guy who doesn’t mind doing the work of our foreign adversaries? He’s a Republican of course. Elected in 2021, he was the head football coach at Auburn University from 1999 to 2008. He was also the head football coach at the University of Mississippi from 1995 to 1998, Texas Tech University from 2010 to 2012, and the University of Cincinnati from 2013 to 2016. In 1976 he was awarded a B.S. in physical education from Southern Arkansas University. SAU’s ranking in the 2022-2023 edition of Best Colleges, Regional Universities South, is #94.

Adding to his unimpressive educational record, Tuberville has no military experience. And here’s the best part of the Tuberville saga, Tommy reportedly doesn’t live in Alabama! A published review of campaign finance reports and property documents related to Tuberville “indicate that his home is actually a $3 million, 4,000-square-foot beach house he has lived in for nearly two decades in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.”

If true, this would seem to make Tuberville ineligible to represent Alabama in the Senate. The Constitution itself clearly states:

Every member of the Senate shall be . . . at the time of his election, a resident of the state from which he shall be chosen.

Constitution, Article 5, section 3

I have been waiting for the Senate, which details the qualifications for Senators on its own web site, to begin an investigation. I will not hold my breath. This is just what the people of Alabama and the Republican party apparently want in a senator.

Yes, there is a way to override the hold. The Senate rules allow for a process called cloture, which can be used to end a filibuster or break a hold on a nomination or bill. Cloture requires the support of sixty senators to pass, which means that it can be difficult to achieve in a closely divided Senate. The Democrats can’t do it alone. No Republican is willing to break the hold.

It is further evidence that, whatever the original plan for the United States Senate was, it is one of the framers most failed experiments. Only an amendment to the Constitution can tame the monster the Senate has become. And that will not happen any time soon.

The country be damned.

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The One That Counts

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Donald Trump‘s dance card is filling up. Trump has now been indicted by a third grand jury, this time for his actions following the 2020 election. Trump is accused of attempting to stop the peaceful transfer of power and deny the right of American citizens to elect their president. There has never been anything like this in the history of the United States. The outcome will determine what kind of a nation we want to be.

This is the Case that Counts

In a series of investigations, two previous indictments, two impeachments, and several civil lawsuits, Trump has been accused of crimes committed as president and after he left office. The charges range from business fraud to the illegal retention of classified material to the destruction of evidence.

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The Supremes: The Gods Themselves

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Supreme Court Building, exterior

Following its tradition of recent years, the Supreme Court of the United States spent the last few weeks of June releasing its most controversial decisions of the term. It then adjourned for its usual three-month vacation. This is the last of a series of posts analyzing those decisions.

As is their habit, the reporters who cover the Supreme Court of the United States wrote summarizing the court’s decisions for the term that ended in of June. Some surprised me in concluding that this term was less traumatic than the last. Those of that view concluded that the Court was mindful of the decline in public respect for the institution that followed the 2022 decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, overturning the fifty-year-old precedent holding that women had the right to control matters of their own reproductive health.

It is true, the decisions of the term just ended avoided the use of the term “overruled” the conservative supermajority applied with such glee in Dobbs. But I see little to cheer in their recent work. They have continued to erode at rights Americans have taken for granted. And they do with without regard for precedent, without deference to the elected branches, and without consideration for the principle that their jurisprudence be as limited as possible. Instead, they have set themselves up as the most powerful branch of government, the final arbiters of the most fundamental elements of our social intercourse. We have entered the age of SCOTUS uber alles.

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