Lieberman On The Issues Of The Day.

Joe Lieberman: Supreme Court Is Keeping White House in Check

 Former Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Getty Images)

Thursday, 03 Jul 2014 03:15 PM

By Bill Hoffmann

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The nation is blessed to have the legal wisdom of the U.S. Supreme Court in the wake of the 13 rulings it has made against the Obama administration in the past 18 months, former Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut tells Newsmax TV.

"It's unusual or maybe even unprecedented to have that many decisions,'' Lieberman said Thursday on "The Steve Malzberg Show.''

"The good thing to say for those who are worried is that we do have a Supreme Court … and the vision of the founders to exercise nonpolitical authority to keep our government within the bounds of the Constitution.''

Lieberman adds that while not perfect, it works quite well in keeping the White House in check.

"It's not a perfect system but when you've got an ideologically split court and 13 cases saying 9-0 the president or the administration exceeded its constitutional authority, that says something very powerful,'' Lieberman said.

"It should be reassuring to the American people about protecting their rights.''

In the most recent decision, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that, as a "closely held'' business, the art-sand-crafts chain Hobby Lobby is not required to pay for all of the birth-control methods mandated by the Affordable Care Act.

The owners of Hobby Lobby, citing religious concerns, said they did not want to pay for contraceptives they felt were equal to abortion, such as IUD devices and the "morning-after" pill.

Lieberman also commented on the ongoing crisis in Iraq, where the jihadist Islamic State  is attempting to take over to create a new religious state.

"You've got now a bunch of radical Islamist extremists who are essentially trying to knock down the borders between two countries and say, 'we're going to create our own Islamic state and woe to everybody there if they ever get to do that,''' he said.

"And one of the main causes of the problem there that allowed this radical group to take hold is that the U.S. did not come to the side of the opposition in Syria to Assad when it took shape three years ago.

"As a result, we created a vacuum into which this truly radical, anti-American group has come in from all over the world now.''

Lieberman fears that if the Islamic State is able to establish a home base "it's going to be just like what happened in Afghanistan when the Taliban was in charge.

"They're going to plot an attempt to carry out attacks against us. I'm not just saying that myself. Their leader has said that.''

Lieberman also urged the United States to stop financial support of the Palestinian Authority, until Hamas agrees to change its charter and declare it is no longer sworn to destroy Israel.

"I'd say suspend funding of the Palestinian Authority until Hamas changes. We have a law that says that American aid cannot go to a governmental entity in which terrorists are involved, and that specifically includes Hamas,'' Lieberman said.

"They tried to get around it by having the alliance between Hamas and the Fatah and the Palestinian Authority by putting into the cabinet people who were so-called technocrats. They're not officially members of Hamas but they've been approved by Hamas. It's pretty much the same thing.''

Lieberman said the Obama administration's stance has been to say it will not suspend aid unless it sees proof that Hamas is actually involved terror activities.

"I would turn it upside down and say suspend the aid until it's clear that Hamas is not involved, because based on what we know now they are, and that's contrary to American law.''

Still, the waters are somewhat muddied because Hamas has shown signs of cooperation, such as condemning recent killing of three kidnapped Israeli teenagers.

Lieberman, 72 — who served in the Senate from 1989 to 2013 and was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2000 — admitted he isn't holding his breath on defunding.

It "is something that I'm afraid won't happen,'' he said.

© 2014 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Information Not Money Is The Answer To Domestic Terrorism

Although we like Joe Lieberman, sometimes his liberal thought process gets the best of him.  His idea that local governments need more money to fight domestic terrorism is ludicrous   At best, the government needs to give more information to the locals. Boston is a great example. Had the local police known that the elder Tsarnaev brother had been interviewed by the FBI after the Russians had warned us, maybe the whole event might have been prevented.

It is not money that solves the problem, it is information. Lieberman is wrong and his ideas should be rejected.

Conservative Tom

Lieberman: Terror! Terror! Hurry, Throw Money At It!

May 10, 2013 by Sam Rolley 

UPI FILE

Senator Joe Lieberman wants to give more money to police.

Former Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) did his part to further the cause of making the United States more of a police state on Thursday; he told House lawmakers that because the Nation is at “war” with homegrown terrorists, local police agencies need more funding.

“We’re in a war and, as I said, it’s against an ideology that is not receding; it’s spreading,” he told lawmakers. “Particularly with homegrown terrorists, state and local law enforcers are in the best position to create the relationships within the communities that will allow them — and have allowed them in numerous cases — to stop terrorist attacks before they occur. And they’re simply not going to do it without funding.”

The formers Senator’s remarks were made during the first Congressional hearing addressing the Federal government’s failure to recognize a series of red flags that would likely have thwarted the Boston Marathon bombers’ terror attack.

The FBI was notified that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had ties to Islamic extremists by Russian intelligence officials and subsequently interviewed the terror suspect in 2011. According to Federal investigators, however, Tsarnaev was not tracked following the interview.

During his testimony, Lieberman told House lawmakers that it was remarkable that the Russian warning was not given more attention, because tensions stemming from the Cold War have traditionally chilled intelligence sharing between the two Nations except in the face of clear and present danger.

“This really should have raised it to a very high profile internally because of where it came from,” he said.

Also testifying on Thursday, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis expressed concern that, despite the warning from Russia, Boston law enforcement agencies didn’t receive information about Tsarnaev’s possible ties to terrorism until three days after the bombing.

Davis contended that it was “hard to tell” whether better information sharing would have kept the bombings from happening.

What’s remarkable about Lieberman’s suggestion that Congress should simply throw money at local law enforcement agencies in order to combat small time terrorists like the Tsarnaevs is that in the Boston event, intelligence sharing — which is cheap or free — was nonexistent, but militarized vehicles and expensive paramilitary equipment — much of which likely acquired with Federal grant money — was visibly plentiful in the days following the attack.

And it isn’t as if the United States isn’t already dropping serious cash in the name of protecting the homeland from terrorists. In the years since the 2001 attack on the World Trade Centers, “homeland security” has cost American taxpayers an unbelievable $791 billion.

Some of the expenditures contributing to that figure include:

• Some $20 billion in, often duplicative, Federal grants to agencies for terror fighting tools and training between 2002 and 2011.
• $461 million in homeland security funding for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives last year alone.
• A $11.7 billion budget for Customs and Border Protection and $2.2 billion in State Department funding in fiscal 2012 to provide border protection and screen people entering the country.