A Tiny Bit of Law-Breaking by Iowa Democrats

Today on NRO

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: America’s current revolutionary inspiration seems to derive more from Robespierre than Madison. Obama’s Ideal Revolution.

KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON: Encryption is challenging the ability of both cops and robbers to snoop on private communications. The Pedophile Phone?

JAMES LILEKS: If eating eggs is just like infanticide, why leap over the whole actual infanticide part of modern society? Speaking Up for Poultry.

DAVID HOROWITZ: The Islamic State’s beheadings have achieved what all the warnings from conservatives never could. Thank You, ISIS.

SLIDESHOW: The Battle for Kobani.

Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty

October 9, 2014

A Tiny Bit of Law-Breaking by Iowa Democrats

Out in Iowa, the state Democratic party released a web video of Senator Tom Harkin filling out his early-vote ballot:

According to this news report in Iowa, “taking photos or video of your own marked ballot is illegal in Iowa.”

The law declares, “The use of cameras, cellular telephones, pagers, or other electronic communications devices in the voting booth is prohibited.” The Iowa Democratic party may argue that because Harkin isn’t inside a voting booth, they’re in the clear. But if the law aims to prevent taking pictures of completed ballots, and it’s illegal to take picture of the ballot in the booth on Election Day . . . why is it okay to take a picture of the completed ballot for absentee voting?

Is There an ISIS Threat at Our Southern Border or Not?

Yesterday we noted the surprising statement from Representative Duncan Hunter, Republican of California, that “at least ten ISIS fighters have been caught coming across the border in Texas” by the U.S. Border Patrol.

That statement generated a pretty firm denial from DHS Wednesday:

“The suggestion that individuals who have ties to ISIL have been apprehended at the Southwest border is categorically false, and not supported by any credible intelligence or the facts on the ground,” a DHS spokesman said in a statement today. “DHS continues to have no credible intelligence to suggest terrorist organizations are actively plotting to cross the southwest border.”

But then a few hours later, the government watchdog group Judicial Watch released a shocking statement with some more specific claims about Islamic State members being caught — but with no named sources attached to it:

Islamic terrorists have entered the United States through the Mexican border and Homeland Security sources tell Judicial Watch that four have been apprehended in the last 36 hours by federal authorities and the Texas Department of Public Safety in McAllen and Pharr.

Judicial Watch’s release also noted:

In late August JW reported that Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED). High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources confirmed to JW that a warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border has been issued. Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning this imminent terrorist threat.

Because we haven’t heard about any car bombs in cities near the U.S.-Mexican border, one might conclude this is merely chatter and rumors.

But then there’s this wrinkle, from KVIA, the ABC affiliate in El Paso, Texas, August 31, 2014:

Fort Bliss officials announced Sunday morning that several recent security concerns have forced them to increase security at the entry gates.

Officials told ABC-7 that their concern for safety will affect vehicle, motorcycle, bicycle and pedestrian access to the installation through 5 a.m. Tuesday morning.

ABC-7 asked Fort Bliss spokesperson Lt. Col. Lee Peters if this was related to the alleged Islamic State threat in Juarez.

He said, "Based on [Department of Defense] guidance from recent nationwide incidents, and our own internal assessments coupled with recent media reporting, we decided to implement increased security measures on Bliss. These changes are not as a result of a specific threat but rather to simply get prudent security measures in place to protect our military, employees and visitors."

Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, is directly across the border from . . . Ciudad Juarez.

So apparently someone in our government was indeed on alert about “several recent security concerns” in late summer.

The Eyes of the World Are on the Turkish–Syrian Border City of Kobani

The good news:

A dozen U.S.-led airstrikes destroyed numerous ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq on Wednesday, the Pentagon said, as the U.S. intensifies its efforts to save the besieged Syrian border city of Kobani. Eight of the strikes came near Kobani itself, destroying five armed vehicles, a command-and-control compound and other important structures, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. All coalition aircraft returned safely, it said.

The bad news:

But [Turkish president Recep Tayyip] Erdogan said Tuesday that Turkey would not get more deeply involved in the conflict with the Islamic State unless the United States agreed to give greater support to rebels trying to unseat the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. That has deepened tensions with President Obama, who would like Turkey to take stronger action against the Islamic State and to leave the fight against Mr. Assad out of it.

When an ally is uncooperative with the Obama administration, what happens? Anonymous criticism to the New York Times, of course:

“There’s growing angst about Turkey dragging its feet to act to prevent a massacre less than a mile from its border,” a senior administration official said. “After all the fulminating about Syria’s humanitarian catastrophe, they’re inventing reasons not to act to avoid another catastrophe.

“This isn’t how a NATO ally acts while hell is unfolding a stone’s throw from their border,” said the official, who spoke anonymously to avoid publicly criticizing an ally.

The worse news:

Syrian Kurds once sided with Assad and are close to Turkey’s Kurdish terrorist group, the PKK, which also explains Ankara’s reluctance to help. Yet Mr. Erdogan also faces growing domestic pressure to act. At least 21 people died in the last two days in Turkish protests calling for intervention. Turkey also doesn’t want ISIS to control most of its southern border.

The even worse news:

If Kobani were to fall to IS in the face of U.S. declarations that it is waging a war against IS militants, history would, in a sense, be repeating itself. The United States stood by idly and watched Saddam Hussein massacre Kurdish and Shi‘a populations at the conclusion of the Gulf War, with long-term deleterious consequences for U.S. credibility in the region. This is in addition to the U.S. abandonment in 1975, and again in 1988, when Kurdish civilians were subjected to chemical attacks by Saddam’s forces.

Our Andy McCarthy puts his finger on the problem:

Turning back the siege of Kobani should primarily be the responsibility of our purported NATO “ally” Turkey, and Obama seems to be trying to ratchet up the pressure on Erdogan’s Islamist regime to act. Erdogan, however, is playing his usual double games: Claiming he can’t act in the absence of a broader Syria strategy that targets the Assad regime . . . while simultaneously warming relations with Assad’s sponsors in Tehran; rhetorically condemning Sunni terrorism . . . while continuing to support the anti-Assad jihadists who collude with al-Qaeda. There is also the complication that the anti–Islamic State opposition on the ground in and around Kobani prominently includes the PKK, which both the U.S. and Turkey have designated as a terrorist organization.

All that said, though, Obama has once again made extravagant commitments while simultaneously imposing caveats (e.g., “No U.S. boots on the ground”) that make his commitments impossible to fulfill. What he most projects is the weakness and lack of seriousness that promote the very “violent extremism” he says he intends to “degrade and ultimately destroy.”

ADDENDA: A perfect observation from Emily Zanotti: “Last night, after two fundraisers in New York, Barack Obama settled down for a quiet, up-to-$32,000-per-plate dinner at the home of (I am not making this up) a billionaire property tycoon named (still not making this up) Rich Richman, but only after he sent a massive fundraising email to potential Democratic donors, labeling the Republicans as the ‘party of billionaires.’”

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