FOXNews.com: Obama's new START strategy is already a failure

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Obama's new START strategy is already a failure Jun 28th 2013, 10:00 For nearly 40 years, the Soviet Union and the United States sat on the precipice of mutually assured destruction. Through luck and carefully crafted negotiations, both sides were able to avoid unleashing a wave of destruction that would end life as we know it.  Today, however the threat of a nuclear conflict between the major powers is practically nil. Obama's June 19 speech in Berlin was merely a smoke-and-mirrors performance. After failing to come to terms with President Putin over Syria at the G8 Summit in Belfast, he has gone for the low hanging fruit―strategic arms reductions. Nuclear weapons are the white elephants of the American military industrial complex.  Estimates by Global Zero in 2011 put America's spending and servicing on its nuclear arsenal at $61.3 billion―more than all other nuclear powers combined, and more than four times what Russia spends on its arsenal.  Nuclear weapons are the white elephants of the American military industrial complex. At a time of budget sequestration, the United States could indeed unilaterally cut its arsenal by one-third, as Obama proposed, thereby saving taxpayers billions while maintaining its deterrent power. The fact that Obama announced this new proposal in Berlin merely demonstrates his inability to accomplish anything truly meaningful with his Russian counterparts.  Increasing anti-American rhetoric from the Kremlin, along with its continued support of the Assad regime, shows that this administration is mishandling its negotiations with Russia. If the administration's last performance on nuclear negotiations with Russia is anything to go by, it is likely that this new proposal will not mention the issue of tactical nuclear weapons.  At current count, Russia has more than 3,000 tactical nuclear weapons. Pockets of secrecy continue to obscure the actual number.  These are the weapons that the president should be most concerned about. These battlefield nukes― highly mobile and of limited destructive capacity―could unleash massive damage if they were to fall into the wrong hands. Given Russia's track record on arms sales and its failure to keep track of all its stockpiles, these weapons are a genuine menace to the international system.  In the hands of terrorist or rogue states, these weapons could inflict massive amounts of damage, yet they are small enough that their deployment would not necessarily trigger the mutually assured destruction switch. Russia, which has been playing an increasingly adversarial role against the United States, is not likely to budge on this issue. Russia's conventional forces are far weaker, and therefore the tactical nukes help buttress its fighting power. Obama's renewed attempt at strategic arms reduction should not be heralded as a real victory.  The conflict in Syria continues to rage, with Russia and Iran supporting the Assad regime. Putin remains as anti-American as ever.   Rather, Obama's proposal should be seen as an attempt by the administration to mask its ineptitude in dealing with adversarial states.  The Obama administration needs to change tactics if it is to achieve a more just, peaceful and environmentally safe world. Hiding behind strategic arms reductions does nothing to stop the fighting in Syria or the unrest elsewhere in the world.  In terms of foreign relations, Obama is a Potemkin president.   Joshua Schoen lives and writes in New York City.

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FOXNews.com: Hillary Clinton -- supporting early childhood education through public-private partnerships

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Hillary Clinton -- supporting early childhood education through public-private partnerships Jun 28th 2013, 15:47 Last week I wrote about Hillary Clinton's June 13 speech at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) meeting in Chicago, describing her ability to place the issue of opportunities for women and girls in a broader context than women's rights — showing its relevance to prosperity for all, men included. She did the same with respect to the other two issues she spoke to in her speech — early childhood education development and job-creating economic development — indeed, treating them as virtually one and the same. Once again, she relied on compelling facts: - In the U.S. only 50 percent of our children receive any early childhood education, much of it the wealthier half, compared to China's goal of providing three years of early learning for 70 percent by 2020. Ideas, innovations, partnerships and public service are all part of the ethics and values that have become a way of life for Hillary Clinton. - The first five years of life have a dramatic effect on later adult development. Seven hundred new neural connections are formed every second, laying the foundation for the learning, behavior and health we need to grow up as productive adults. - According to pioneering research by Nobel-prize winning economist James Heckman of the University of Chicago, our nation saves seven dollars during a child's lifetime for every dollar we invest now in early childhood education. Those savings are measured by higher high school graduation rates, greater likelihood of future employment, lower expenditures for special education, lower incarceration rates and a reduction of other social ills. At the CGI meeting, Clinton launched a new partnership called "Too Small to Fail" to promote the latest brain development research and help parents to take steps to improve the health and well-being of children in their first five years. It will also work with businesses on expanding flexibility and support of young children. Clinton clearly articulated her belief in the importance of public-private partnerships as "one of the most important problem-solving tools." And during her speech, she offered a prime and very specific example: Mr. J. B. Pritzker, a leading member of the world-famous business and philanthropic Pritzker family of Chicago, who had announced at the CGI conference the issuance of "Social Impact Bonds" to finance pre-school education programs for at-risk children.  Such bonds are a new tool, sometimes called "results-based financing," that use private capital to achieve positive social outcomes, generating modest financial returns for private investors while simultaneously generating much greater returns in the form of cost savings for cash-strapped state and local governments. Pritzker announced at the conference a partnership with the investment bank Goldman Sachs to invest $7 million to fund the expansion of a successful pre-school program that reduces the need for special education at Granite District in Salt Lake City, Utah. Over several years, the new financing will benefit more than 3,500 children and save taxpayers millions of dollars. The bonds in which Pritzker and Goldman Sachs are investing will be repaid by the school districts only out of actual cost savings in special education, which are significant.  Data from a study conducted in 2006-09 demonstrated that 33 percent of low-income kindergarten students would have needed costly special education services paid for by taxpayers. But after participating in the District's pre-school program, 95 percent of these children no longer needed special education, saving taxpayers more than $2,600 per child each year for 12 years. Heckman, the award-winning economist, would say there are even bigger savings to taxpayers, which aren't even calculated in these numbers. Pritzker and Goldman Sachs will see a return on their bonds only to the extent that the projected cost savings in special education actually occur. In other words, all the risk is theirs, not the taxpayers' or the school district's. This is why Clinton took such pains to thank Pritzker during her CGI America speech and to praise his innovative investment in the Social Impact Bonds for early childhood education. She sees this as an important paradigm for "doing good while doing well," using the public-private partnership mechanism. If it can work in Salt Lake, she and Pritzker reason, it can work elsewhere — not only for early childhood education but in other areas of great social needs facing America. Ideas, innovations, partnerships and public service are all part of the ethics and values that have become a way of life for Hillary Clinton since I first met her in law school more than 42 years ago. And this is why, regardless of whether she seeks higher office in the future, she will certainly make an important contribution to the public good in the months and years ahead. Lanny Davis, a Washington attorney and principal in the firm of Lanny J. Davis & Associates, specializing in legal crisis management and dispute resolution, served as President Clinton's special counsel from 1996-98 and as a member of President Bush's Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board from 2006-07. He currently serves as special counsel to Dilworth Paxson and is the author of the new book, "Crisis Tales: Five Rules for Coping With Crises in Business, Politics, and Life," (Simon & Schuster March 2013). Follow him on Twitter at @LannyDavis.

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FOXNews.com: Five myths about telephone snooping and our government

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Five myths about telephone snooping and our government Jun 28th 2013, 15:30 The recent revelation that our government captures and analyzes our telephone data has created a media frenzy, with histrionic headline writers and apoplectic commentators. Yet despite the outcry from the media, the ACLU and the Tea Party, according to a recent Pew/Washington Post poll, 56 percent of Americans have no problem with the program. All of the hype has generated lots of myths about the National Security Administration's (NSA) anti-terrorism, phone-monitoring program.  We can't allow hyperbole and fear to blind us to the reality that in order to stay safe, we have to give government access to certain information. This is not unconstitutional and it does not mean the government is spying on us. I have broken the myths down into five common misconceptions: We can't allow hyperbole and fear to blind us to the reality that in order to stay safe, we have to give government access to certain information. 1. Collecting my telephone data is unconstitutional. Our Constitution bans "unreasonable searches and seizures" and sets the basis for search warrants. "Administrative" searches targeting big groups such as airline travelers or drivers stopped by a roadblock for sobriety tests have been held constitutional.  The Bush-Obama program that allows the government to obtain our phone data is even safer legally, as it uses a process created by Congress relying on judge-approved warrants.  What makes the warrants unusual is that they apply to every American using a telephone. However, government can monitor only external features of calls: the number dialed and the duration. They cannot listen to the call itself.  Our calling data is certainly less personal than fingerprinting, tax returns and medical records under ObamaCare.  The Supreme Court will likely hold that the limited scope of the searches, minimal intrusion, and the need to avoid a terrorist event, coupled with the fact that the majority of Americans consider the program necessary, do not categorize the NSA program as "unreasonable." 2. This violates my privacy. You may feel whom you call is your private information, but legally it can be obtained in criminal, divorce, tort and almost any other lawsuit, even if you are not a party.  In a way, privacy in phone records is like privacy in so-called "snail mail": your right to privacy ensures others do not read the letter, but anyone can see the name on the envelope. 3. This proves the government is monitoring my telephone calls. Not true. The government is not listening to your calls. The NSA program simply uses telephone company records to analyze which numbers are being called and the duration of the calls. They have access to your phone records, not what you said. 4. Government employees should not be looking at my call data. With an estimated 20 trillion phone "transactions" in the database, the chances of becoming the subject of a human analyst's review of your records – especially if you're not a person of interest engaging in suspicious behavior – are infinitesimal.  A data set that large requires sophisticated computer programs to sift through and look for significant data anomalies that highlight people in sensitive positions who are talking to people who are talking to terrorists.  If TSA agents, commercial pilots, nuclear and chemical engineers, biologists, bomb experts and others with the ability to kill large numbers of Americans are talking to people who are talking to terrorists, I want our government to know.  Don't you? 5. My call information does not help fight terrorism. This would almost certainly be true if it was your information alone. But aggregated with other call information, it allows the government to see patterns which may predict a risk of terrorism.  Your credit card company monitors your buying patterns so it can alert you if it thinks your card has been stolen. The government's telephone data collection program does this in aggregate to identify patterns of calls which may be linked to a terrorist plot. The 9/11 terrorist attacks changed the rules. While our intelligence efforts before relied on feet on the ground and Mata Hari-style infiltration, we cannot rely on these techniques to protect us from radical Muslim terrorists. Our best tool is American ingenuity. This ingenuity allows us to create algorithms which sift through massive amounts of data to find patterns of information.  Yes, we are trading some privacy for greater safety. But that is a tradeoff we make every day, and in this case the benefits of thwarting even one terrorist plot outweigh the tiny burden of sharing our phone records. We must be smarter, more innovative and take advantage of our technological edge in our battle with terrorists. We must also preserve our liberty and constitutional rights. The current telephone data program does both. Gary Shapiro is president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)®, the U.S. trade association representing more than 2,000 consumer electronics companies. His latest book is "Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World's Most Successful Businesses," (William Morrow, January 2013). He is also author of the New York Times bestselling book, "The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream" Contact him on Twitter at @GaryShapiro.

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FOXNews.com: ObamaCare turns one -- here's what America still needs to know

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ObamaCare turns one -- here's what America still needs to know Jun 28th 2013, 13:30 When the Supreme Court deemed the Affordable Care Act constitutional one year ago, it was a monumental moment in our nation's history.  It meant that essential, historic reform of the American health care system would move forward. It meant guaranteed health care access for millions of Americans who hadn't had access before. It meant a re-energized focus on medical quality and the development of a more efficient health care delivery system. Collectively, we must all take responsibility for the cost of health care by losing weight, eating healthier and quitting smoking. Twelve months after the court's decision, though, there are still more questions than answers. Will insurance exchange programs be up and running by the due date? Will Americans understand these exchanges, what they will cover, and how to enroll? Will states expand Medicaid, as encouraged by the ACA? And what impact will the ACA have on hospitals, the economy and jobs? One of the few certainties at this point is that reimbursement for medical services will decrease. health care providers will be paid less to deliver more care.  Our challenge is to find ways to work more efficiently and decrease costs, while continuing to deliver high quality care. With implementation of the ACA, hospitals face some relief but also new pressures. Expanding health insurance to about 30 million more Americans will mean hospitals won't have to shoulder as much of the cost of caring for the uninsured. However, all of those additional patients will need thousands more physicians than are working now. The ACA does take some steps toward driving down health spending; for example, it will stop reimbursing hospitals for preventable re-admissions, creating a financial incentive for doctors to get treatment right the first time. That's certainly a start, but with a growing elderly population and a still-recovering economy, more needs to be done.  Specifically, four items should be at the top of the list – Medicaid expansion, hospital consolidation, salaried physicians and obesity. Here's more: - Medicaid expansion was expected to cover 17 million uninsured Americans, but states can opt out.  In Ohio, the coverage of  275,000 low-income, uninsured Ohioans is at risk as politicians argue that Medicaid expansion would strain the state budget or expand the government's role in health care.  That is simply wrong -- medically, economically and morally -- if we as a country believe that all Americans should have access to health insurance. - Consolidation will be a growing trend in health care as providers look for ways to draw on each other's resources and expertise.  Technological advances have become too expensive for all hospitals to be all things to all people. Instead, hospitals will come together to form networks of care, with certain hospitals acting as centers of excellence. - Physicians should be salaried, not paid on a per-procedure or per-patient basis.  At Cleveland Clinic, all doctors are salaried employees of the hospital. They are paid the same, regardless of how many tests they order or how many surgeries they perform. The intent is not to get a bigger paycheck but to do what's best for the patient. - By 2020, half of all Americans are likely to suffer from one or more chronic diseases, a majority of them weight-related.  The ACA does not address this issue, but we simply cannot control health care spending without addressing Americans' weight.  We have to create incentives to keep people healthy, through programs that encourage wellness and prevention. When people are healthy, health care costs go down. This is a time of unprecedented transformation in health care. We've truly entered a "new normal" in health care, and everyone is working quickly to adapt.  However, this isn't a topic to be dealt with by health care providers alone. Collectively, we must all take responsibility for the cost of health care in this country by losing weight, eating healthier and quitting smoking. After all, the state of our nation is only as good as the state of our health. Toby Cosgrove, M.D., is president and CEO of the Cleveland Clinic.

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FOXNews.com: Obama's climate change plan masks hidden agenda

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Obama's climate change plan masks hidden agenda Jun 28th 2013, 12:00 President Obama's climate change action plan won't do much to curb global warming, but it will please liberals who delight in extending government control over large segments of the economy. The president argues that the overwhelming majority of scientists, including some early skeptics, agree the planet is warming and greenhouse gas emissions are the primary culprit. As CO2 composes 80 percent of those gases, Obama targets coal-fired electric utilities and opportunities to reduce fuel use in heavy transportation. The president proposes reducing U.S. emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels through strict EPA regulation and oversight, when the market forces are already accomplishing that goal without imposing a command and control regime.   No one can reasonably believe that China can be persuaded to rearrange its entire automobile and electrical generation industries to suit the predilections of American environmentalists In 2011, the last year data is available, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions were already down 8.5 percent from 2005. Simply put, by responding to changing consumer preferences, Detroit started making more fuel efficient vehicles even before the president started phasing in tougher mileage standards in 2012.  Recently, more abundant and cheaper natural gas inspired electric utilities to start switching out of coal where most cost effective. If current trends continue, as is likely, these market driven adjustments in U.S. energy use will take America's greenhouse gases well below the president's target by 2020 without needless and costly government intervention. If left alone, the power sector in the Midwest, for example, will continue to phase out coal in most cost efficient ways—by strategically replacing it with natural gas, and purchasing nuclear, hydro and other renewal power from other parts of the country. This will keep down electric utility rates. Instead, the president will micro-manage the process by imposing strict and inflexible requirements on each electric utility similar to corporate fuel economy standards now imposed on car and light truck manufacturers. This will limit flexibility, result in the overuse of natural gas, and unnecessarily raise both natural gas and electricity prices to manufacturers, other commercial users, and homeowners. Similarly, competition from rail, complemented by short-haul light trucks, already imposes pressures on long-haul trucking companies and heavy truck manufactures to conserve fuel in the most cost effective ways. But the president's program will micro manage their efforts out of the EPA, and raise the cost of moving goods around the country without cutting CO2 emissions very much. All this will make U.S. manufacturing and other commercial enterprises less competitive and send more jobs to China, where businesses pollute with reckless abandon. With an economy about half the size, China already emits twice the greenhouse gases as either the United States or Europe. Every three years, its emissions grow enough to replace the savings the United States would accomplish over 15 years. Other developing countries, like India, are similarly adding to the problem. The president proposes to bring China and other nations along through diplomacy, but he has not be able to obtain Beijing's cooperation on the value of the yuan, cyber-piracy or even detaining Eric Snowden.  No one can reasonably believe China can be persuaded to rearrange its entire automobile and electrical generation industries to suit the predilections of American environmentalists—especially when American approaches to regulation are delivering growth at less than one-third the pace accomplished in the Middle Kingdom. The president wants the new EPA standards for power plants finalized by June of 2015 and implemented in 2016. This hasty time table is necessary to lock in a new regime before its wisdom is debunked and another round of negotiations with China, India and others fail. Global warming will go unmitigated, and U.S. economic growth and jobs creation will be further harmed; however, the president's desired legacy will be served. As with Obama are, the scope of command and control over the private economy will be extended. Peter Morici is an economist and professor at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, and widely published columnist. Follow him on Twitter @PMorici1.

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FOXNews.com: Lessons from the Paula Deen drama

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Lessons from the Paula Deen drama Jun 27th 2013, 17:22 Two confessions first. I am not a Food Channel watcher. And I really like Paula Deen. The first time I witnessed Ms. Deen on a television program, I, like so many other folks around this country, was enchanted by this earthy, saucy and larger-than-life  personality with the big heart of gold. That is Ms. Deen's public performance. And though I have never met Ms. Deen, I have a very strong hunch that this is who Paula Deen is. "I am not an actress," she declared tearfully in Wednesday's interview with Matt Lauer on "The Today Show." I believe her. Ms. Deen is her act, on- and off-stage. The Paula Deen drama reminds us of the leadership qualities we so fervently need in our leaders. This act has also become her undoing. Allegations of racial slurs were compounded when Ms. Deen, under oath, seemed to show little perspective on the impact that racially offensive language has on members of a target group.  She escalated her own drama when she failed to show up for an appearance on "The Today Show" a week ago and hastily posted three apology videos, instead. Her professional fortunes are unraveling as sponsor after sponsor:  The Food Network, Smithfield Foods, Caesars Entertainment, Wal-Mart, Home Depot -- is severing the relationship. It is tragic to watch a much-loved heroine in a public free-fall. We can spin many stories out of what is happening to Paula Deen.  Ultimately, this is a story of a business leader who has failed to show up under crisis. At a time when most Americans are resolutely cynical about our business leaders and politicians, the Paula Deen drama reminds us of the leadership qualities we so fervently need in our leaders, and in ourselves, if we want to fashion a collectively better future. - Self-awareness is not a luxury item. Being self-aware is not a leisure-time pursuit for folks who have nothing better to do. The more people a leader impacts with her words and actions, the more central self-awareness is to ensuring that the impact is positive, intended, and sustainable. Self-awareness, moreover, is not a lightning jolt that a leader gets once and is then done with. It is a daily practice.  Impactful leaders are mindful and willing to self-correct. They are able to evolve beliefs and values in the face of new scientific research or cultural shifts, as we have so potently seen in the many "perspective conversions" around gay marriage rights. "I is who I is, and I will not change," as Paula Deen firmly stated in her interview with Matt Lauer, is not a mindset that fosters self-awareness. - Crisis yearns for a quick response. When things go wrong, great leaders notice and respond quickly. They respond clearly. And they manage their emotions. Rudy Giuliani did this magnificently in his response to 9/11. He was not only the mayor of New York City, he was also an affected citizen. But he showed up moment by moment, voice shaking with emotion, tears welling up in his eyes -  and he acted. Ms. Deen's "Today Show" interview needed to happen last Friday, when Ms. Deen was a no-show on the same program.  Three consecutive YouTube apologies in one day were the acts of a person who was unable to commit to clear and simple action. And while her emotion-laden chat with Matt Lauer made for great TV viewing, it also revealed a leader whose emotions had paralyzed her ability to take charge. - Ditch the victim thinking. The more successful a leader is, the more folks will seek to vilify the leader, in turn. Barack Obama knows this. George W. Bush knows this. Oprah Winfrey knows this. Personal attacks can become cruel and vicious. And in a social-media-universe, this cruelty is instantly teleported. Ms. Deen launched into her chat with Mr. Lauer by describing her distress about the lies folks were telling about her.  Such display of a victim mindset is a leadership dead-end. It does not support a forward-moving leadership story.  Any leader who plays the success game needs to also learn to play the "I will not wither under personal attacks" game.  Victim thinking is leadership jail; it seems to have imprisoned Ms. Deen. We are a culture that likes to let people off the hook. Because most of us are so acutely aware of our own flaws and shortcomings, we yearn to forgive because we all wish to be forgiven, in turn.  Paula Deen's ultimate leadership stumble is her muddled mix of apology and defiance. It makes forgiveness, the very thing she seems to crave, impossible to attain. Great leaders know how to fail with grace. Fully, deeply fail. And own it. Achim Nowak is an international authority on leadership presence and the author of "INFECTIOUS: How to Connect Deeply and Unleash the Energetic Leader Within" (Allworth Press, 2013). He coaches entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 executives around the world.

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FOXNews.com: Supreme Court has reexamined Voting Rights Act, now it must look at Roe v. Wade

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Supreme Court has reexamined Voting Rights Act, now it must look at Roe v. Wade Jun 27th 2013, 17:11 "Character, not circumstance, makes the person." -- Booker T. Washington The Supreme Court's narrow 5-4 decision to strike down a central component of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, "freeing nine states, mostly in the South," writes The New York Times, "to change their election laws without advance federal approval," is a welcome recognition that times have changed and that especially Southern states must not forever bear a "mark of Cain" for past discrimination against racial minorities. Reaction from "civil rights groups" and liberal media outlets was predictable.  Writing in The Washington Post, Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) accused the Court of plunging "a dagger into the heart of the Voting Rights Act."  If the Supreme Court sees at least one of its past decisions in need of updating in light of progress on civil rights, shouldn't the greatest civil right of all -- the right to life -- be re-visited? It's more like removing a dagger from the back of nine states and numerous counties, including Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan. The conservative Project 21 black leadership network, which was largely ignored by the media, had a different reaction. It maintains, "increased fairness" had accompanied "evolving racial opinions of the American people" and thus the Voting Rights Act, as written, is no longer necessary. Cherylyn Harley LeBon, a former senior counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, said, "This ruling recognizes that people can change, that America has changed and that a law that presupposes guilt must be reformed to reflect the beauty of human nature." Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice, said the law was a form of "geographic profiling" and was based on "outdated stereotypes." The New York Times reports, "The decision had immediate practical consequences. Texas announced shortly after the decision that a voter identification law that had been blocked would go into effect immediately, and that redistricting maps there would no longer need federal approval." Unlike in 1965, today there are numerous anti-discrimination laws on the books. If someone can prove they were denied the right to vote based on race, legal remedies can be pursued. Selma today, is not the Selma of 48 years ago. America has changed. In another decision involving race, the Court "punted" on an affirmative action case, ordering lower courts to re-examine whether race-based admission policies at the University of Texas violate the rights of white applicants.  Abigail Fisher, who is white, sued the university when she was denied admission in 2008. She believed the denial was based on race.  The University of Texas argued its policies are designed to achieve greater "diversity."  ABC reports, "The justices ruled that the lower court should have required the university to prove that its program was narrowly tailored enough to produce the diversity objectives it was designed to achieve. They said 'race-neutral' options must be unworkable for race-based affirmative-action policies to stand." The subtle bigotry in all of this is the attitude by too many liberals that racial minorities are in constant need of government help in order to achieve anything.  The fact that the "war on poverty" was lost long ago has been lost on those who seem frozen in time. That many born into difficult circumstances have overcome by hard work, avoiding teen pregnancy and not committing criminal acts never seems to be looked on as a lesson for others, but rather as an anomaly. One element of the Supreme Court's ruling on the Voting Rights Act offers some hope when it comes to an equally outdated and wrong decision -- abortion.  If the Court recognizes the need for updating the Voting Rights Act, shouldn't Roe v. Wade be re-examined?  In light of medical advances that have made it possible for a child to survive outside the womb at much earlier stages, sonograms, born-alive legislation to protect babies who survive abortions and informed consent laws requiring full disclosure of abortion alternatives, should we really hold on to a ruling based on a 40-year-old legal case? If the Court sees at least one of its past decisions in need of updating in light of progress on civil rights, shouldn't the greatest civil right of all -- the right to life -- be re-visited? Cal Thomas is America's most widely syndicated newspaper columnist and a Fox News contributor. Follow him on Twitter@CalThomas. Readers may e-mail Cal Thomas at tmseditors@tribune.com.

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FOXNews.com: A year of pain, uncertainty with my husband Pastor Abedini imprisoned in Iran

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A year of pain, uncertainty with my husband Pastor Abedini imprisoned in Iran Jun 27th 2013, 14:00 I would have never imagined that I would spend my ninth wedding anniversary – coming up on June 30th – alone, with my husband in captivity in Iran for his faith.  Nor could I have imagined that when Saeed and I said our vows for better or worse, just how those vows would be tested as I waited and prayed for my husband's return to our family one year later. On June 22, 2012, as I had so many times before, I kissed my husband goodbye in the early hours of the morning for what was intended to be a short trip to Iran to obtain the final approval from the Iranian government on a non-sectarian orphanage.  While our family was hopeful this trip would mark the opening of the doors to the orphans we had longed to make a part of our family, we were also excited for Saeed's prompt return so we could get started on our summer plans.   We had dreamed of a secure future in which our family would take the long-awaited trip to Disneyland Saeed had promised our son Jacob for his fifth birthday. I could not have imagined that when Saeed and I said our vows for better or worse, just how those vows would be tested as I waited and prayed for my husband's return to our family. But two days before his hopeful return, the picture of our family's future dramatically changed.  On July 28, 2012, Revolutionary Guards forced my husband off of a bus in Iran and put him under house arrest.  Suddenly, I was forced to trade certainty for uncertainty. My ideas and conceptions of the future were stripped of their relevance and value, and plans that I had no reason to change were forcefully overturned.  What would the future look like now? For the last year, I have been traveling into a future that I once thought would follow some semblance of normalcy.  Life was now anything but normal.  The future became even more uncertain when, on September 26, 2012, my husband was forcibly taken to Evin prison – a place with memories that haunt our family.   You see, when I was a young girl, my 18-year-old uncle was executed without warning in Evin prison because his political views differed from the new radical Regime. Our family knows all too well the uncertainty of Evin. The only certainty I knew was hard to swallow: there would be no Disneyland for Jacob's fifth birthday, not because I would not gladly take him, but because Jacob, with the tenacity of a young man beyond his years, said he would not go without Daddy.   Saeed would miss our children's first day of school, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and every memorable event in between.  For now, there would be no regular nightly routine of tucking our children into bed together or quiet moments shared between a husband and wife. Even with Iran's record of persecuting religious minorities, I never imagined my husband being arrested and sentenced to eight years in prison solely for his Christian faith.   As I sit here today, I would give anything to see that picture of our family come together again. All the little things that define our family are treasures to me now.  I would not have chosen the future in which I have to dry my children's tears, and blink back my own, as I tell them I still don't know when Daddy is coming home—but this is our family picture now. Yet, even as our hearts are strengthened as hundreds of thousands of people take up the global cause of my husband's freedom, our family is faced with the brutal reality of his absence.   Like hundreds of other families of Iranian prisoners of conscience, we face daily uncertainty. There's been much discussion already about how Hasan Rouhani, the new president-elect of Iran, will deal with the West – how he will deal with the many issues facing Iran. Unfortunately, Rouhani, despite his reformist claims, does not offer any more certainty than his predecessor or any solace to me or my children.  While I hope for change, I cannot place my hope in one man. But I do pray the heart of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who ultimately controls Iran's treatment of prisoners of conscience, is softened towards his people, towards my husband, and towards others being held captive because of their beliefs.   I pray that the fog of uncertainty lifts to reveal a clear future, reuniting Saeed in the warm embrace of our family. Naghmeh Abedini currently resides in Boise, Idaho with her two young children. The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) is representing her and her family in the fight for Pastor Saeed's freedom. To learn more about her family's story, and how you can help her husband, Saeed Abedini, visit SaveSaeed.org.

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FOXNews.com: The truth shall keep us free -- Edward Snowden has awakened a giant

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The truth shall keep us free -- Edward Snowden has awakened a giant Jun 27th 2013, 11:00 Which is more dangerous to personal liberty in a free society: a renegade who tells an inconvenient truth about government law-breaking, or government officials who lie about what the renegade revealed?  That's the core issue in the great public debate this summer, as Americans come to the realization that their government has concocted a system of laws violative of the natural law, profoundly repugnant to the Constitution and shrouded in secrecy. The liberty of which I write is the right to privacy: the right to be left alone. The Framers jealously and zealously guarded this right by imposing upon government agents intentionally onerous burdens before letting them invade it.  Whatever one thinks of Snowden's world-traveling odyssey he has awakened a giant. They did so in the Fourth Amendment, using language that permits the government to invade that right only in the narrowest of circumstances. The linchpin of those circumstances is "probable cause" of evidence of crime in "the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."  If the government cannot tell a judge specifically what evidence of crime it is looking for and precisely from whom, a judge may not issue a search warrant, and privacy -- the natural human yearning that comes from within all of us -- will remain where it naturally resides, outside the government's reach. Congress is the chief culprit here, because it has enacted laws that have lowered the constitutional bar that the feds must meet in order for judges to issue search warrants. And it has commanded that this be done in secret. And I mean secret. The judges of the FISA court -- the court empowered by Congress to issue search warrants on far less than probable cause, and without describing the places to be searched or the persons or things to be seized -- are not permitted to retain any records of their work. They cannot use their own writing materials or carry BlackBerries or iPhones in their own courtrooms, chambers or conference rooms. They cannot retain copies of any documents they've signed. Only National Security Agency staffers can keep these records. Indeed, when Edward Snowden revealed a copy of an order signed by FISA court Judge Roger Vinson -- directing Verizon to turn over phone records of all of its 113,000,000 U.S. customers in direct and profound violation of the individualized probable cause commanded by the Constitution -- Vinson himself did not have a copy of that order. Truly, this is the only court in the country in which the judges keep no records of their rulings. At the same time that Vinson signed that order, NSA staffers, in compliance with their statutory obligations, told select members of Congress about it, and they, too, were sworn to secrecy. Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden was so troubled when he learned this -- a terrible truth that he agreed not to reveal -- that he mused aloud that the Obama administration had a radical and terrifying interpretation of certain national security statutes. But he did more than muse about it. He asked Gen. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, who was under oath and at a public congressional hearing, whether his spies were gathering data on millions of Americans. Clapper said no. The general later acknowledged that his answer was untruthful, but he claimed it was the "least untruthful" reply he could have given. This "least untruthful" nonsense is not a recognized defense to the crime of perjury. After we learned that the feds are spying on nearly all Americans, that they possess our texts and emails and have access to our phone conversations, Gen. Keith Alexander, who runs the NSA, was asked under oath whether his spies have the ability to read emails and listen to telephone calls. He answered, "No, we don't have that authority." Since the questioner -- FBI agent turned Congressman Mike Rogers -- was in cahoots with the general in keeping Americans in the dark about unconstitutional search warrants, there was no follow-up question. In a serious public interrogation, a committee chair interested in the truth would have directed the general to answer the question that was asked. Since that deft and misleading act, former NSA staffers have told Fox News that the feds can read any email and listen to any phone call, and Alexander and Rogers know that. So Alexander's "no," just like his boss's "no," was a lie at worst and seriously misleading at best. This is not an academic argument. The oath to tell the truth -- "the whole truth and nothing but the truth" -- also makes those who intentionally mislead Congress subject to prosecution for perjury. President Obama is smarter than his generals. He smoothly told a friendly interviewer and while not under oath that the feds are not listening to our phone calls or reading our emails. He, of course, could not claim that they lack the ability to do so, because we all now know that he knows they can. These Snowden revelations continue to cast light on the feds when they prefer darkness. Whatever one thinks of Snowden's world-traveling odyssey to avoid the inhumane treatment the feds visited upon Bradley Manning, another whistleblower who exposed government treachery, he has awakened a giant.  The giant is a public that has had enough of violations of the Constitution and lies to cover them up.  The giant is fed up with menial politicians and their media allies demonizing the messenger because his message embarrasses the government by revealing that it is unworthy of caring for the Constitution. Think about that: The very people in whose hands we have reposed the Constitution for preservation, protection, defense and enforcement have subverted it. Snowden spoke the truth. Knowing what would likely befall him for his truthful revelations and making them nevertheless was an act of heroism and patriotism.  Thomas Paine once reminded the Framers that the highest duty of a patriot is to protect his countrymen from their government. We need patriots to do that now more than ever. Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written seven books on the U.S. Constitution. His latest is "Theodore and Woodrow: How Two American Presidents Destroyed Constitutional Freedom."

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FOXNews.com: Mainstream media ignore current events in coverage of Voting Rights decision

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Mainstream media ignore current events in coverage of Voting Rights decision Jun 26th 2013, 14:14 The South doesn't need to rise again. It has the evening news shows for that.  Tuesday, the Supreme Court struck down as key part of the Voting Rights Act and the broadcast networks took us back in time to the civil rights era 37 separate times. ABC, CBS and NBC underscored their support for the law by filling their broadcasts with images straight out of Jim Crow. Pictures of police dogs attacking protesters, police officers beating and arresting African-Americans filled the screens in photograph or video. The court ruling stated that "history didn't end in 1965," but you'd never know it by watching the networks, especially ABC.  That network used 21 separate images and videos of the civil rights era and it wasn't just to show off the its spiffy archive of news footage. It was to depict the law as one correcting great injustices.  The Supreme Court struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 and the broadcast networks took us back in time to the civil rights era 37 separate times. But those injustices were two generations ago – from an era before an African-American president sat in the White House. They also predated much of what makes up 21st Century America – from iPods, Twitter and the Internet to predictions that America will soon be a majority minority nation. None of that was good enough for journalists to dwell on events in the 21st Century. Instead, they were clearly angry over the decision. The historic images were the visual expression of that anger. But there were ample examples of more current comments that made it hard to distinguish between journalists and the activists they interviewed. NBC "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams began with the subtlety of civil rights era Democrat Bull Connor. "As one reporter put it today, the U.S. Supreme Court has driven a stake through the heart of the most important civil rights law ever enacted – the Voting Rights Act."  Williams also teased the story by saying the court "goes after the very heart of the most important civil rights law in U.S. history." Correspondent Pete Williams echoed the anchor's theme and hyperbolic wording. "The court's conservatives today followed through on a threat they made four years ago to strike at the heart of the Voting Rights Act unless Congress updated it," he said. Over a backdrop of images showing African-Americans being abused and arrested, ABC's Terry Moran explained, "This is why the Voting Rights Act was passed." That broadcast followed up with an interview with omnipresent civil right hero Rep. John Lewis. The Georgia Democrat managed to be interviewed on all three evening news shows, MSNBC, CNN and still pen an op-ed for The Washington Post. CBS anchor Scott Pelley said the court "essentially knocked down one of the pillars of the civil rights movement."  In a follow-up report from Mississippi, correspondent Mark Strassmann interviewed people on both sides of the issue. But he made sure he summed up the issue the way he and other journalists viewed it – from the left. "The weight of history on this community might be lighter, but it has not fully lifted." Lefties on the Web and in print were even more upset, though they used some of the identical phrasing.  The liberal Huffington Post echoed the heart theme with a headline saying : "Civil Rights Icon: Supremes 'Put A Dagger In Heart Of Voting Rights Act'…"  Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis repeated that in a piece he wrote for The Washington Post, claiming: "The Supreme Court has stuck a dagger into the heart of the Voting Rights Act." That phrase is one he also used on CBS "Evening News" and ABC's "World News with Diane Sawyer." Across the media, hearts were getting abused so much, it looked more like an episode of "True Blood."  The New York Times' Adam Liptak certainly had heart. "The Supreme Court on Tuesday effectively struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by a 5-to-4 vote, freeing nine states, mostly in the South, to change their election laws without advance federal approval," he wrote.  Liberal Rick Ungar went even further than just the heart in an op-ed he wrote for Forbes. "In a 5-4 decision along the ideological lines one might expect, the Supreme Court today cut out the heart and soul of the Voting Rights Act of 1965," he claimed. On MSNBC, Chris Hayes said "Section 5 is often referred to as the heart of the Voting Rights Act." In the background, he had a graphic saying "Killing the Voting Rights Act." Surprisingly, the graphic lacked a vampire slayer, stake in hand. Rachel Maddow followed up her own reading of the Lewis quote, by paraphrasing it. "The thing about the dagger in the heart, is that the patient is still alive," she explained. Although Lewis turned up in so many locations it looked like he had embraced cloning, that wasn't the issue. He is a veteran of the civil rights movement and a natural for this story. The bigger issue is which Democrat issued the "heart" talking point and how did he/she get so many "journalists" to embrace it so quickly? Was it Lewis? Even when liberals weren't being heart-felt, they were still upset.  One of The Washington Post's many liberal columnists, Dana Milbank complained about "conservative activism," echoing the standard left-wing talking points for the justices striking down sweeping government regulation.  The New York Times editorial board unsurprisingly called the decision "another damaging and intellectually dishonest ruling." The constitutionally ignorant Times claimed "the 5-to-4 ruling usurped Congress's power," forgetting the Supremes also have a wee bit of power. The hardcore left went even more apoplectic.  Salon editor at large Joan Walsh blasted the ruling as "The ugly SCOTUS voting rights flim-flam."And it wouldn't be crazy without at least one Hitler/Holocaust comparison, in this case, brought to us by MSNBC's Michael Eric Dyson. He went on the "Martin Bashir" show to bring the lunacy in a comment about Justice Clarence Thomas. "A symbolic Jew has invited a metaphoric Hitler to commit holocaust and genocide upon his own people." That was pretty much in character for liberals who included Minnesota Democratic State Rep. Ryan Winkler Minnesota using Twitter to call Justice Thomas "Uncle Thomas." He later apologized. Had he been conservative saying that to a liberal, you'd need the back of a milk carton to find his remaining career. All in all, Tuesday's decision brought out a typical mainstream media reaction. Next up, the same folks will be showing clips from "Birth of a Nation" to make their point.  No, wait, that might be too subtle. Dan Gainor is the Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center's Vice President for Business and Culture. He writes frequently about media for Fox News Opinion. He can also be contacted on Facebook and Twitter as dangainor.

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FOXNews.com: Supreme Court issues two illegitimate decisions on same-sex marriage

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Supreme Court issues two illegitimate decisions on same-sex marriage Jun 26th 2013, 16:00 Wednesday, the Supreme Court did what many of us had hoped would never happen – they have invalidated both Proposition 8 in California and Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) I'm furious. It's an illegitimate decision, in the same discredited vein as Dred Scott and Roe v. Wade. We at the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and tens of millions of other Americans will never accept it.  It's wrong, plain and simple. There's a stench to these decisions that has stained the Supreme Court. We will do everything in our power to preserve marriage across the country because marriage as God created is the most important social institution we can offer men, women and children. In my view, the worst of the two decisions is the Proposition 8 case. The National Organization for Marriage and our allies fought with everything we had to preserve marriage, the foundation of society itself. We were the largest contributor to putting Proposition 8 on the ballot, actively campaigned for its passage, and contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to help preserve it through many legal challenges. The Supreme Court has blown it, rewarding corrupt public officials and judges and invalidating the right of the people of California to define marriage in the way that marriage has actually existed throughout human history – the union of one man and one woman. Over 7 million Californians voted in favor of Proposition 8. Not content to let voters have their say, homosexual activists from Hollywood and New York hired celebrity lawyers Ted Olsen and David Boies to sue and the case now known as Hollingsworth v. Perry began.  Frankly, I've never seen such corruption in the judicial system as I have seen in this case.   First, a homosexual judge in a long-term gay relationship was assigned the case, and refused to disclose his relationship before declaring that marriage is unconstitutional.  Then Stephen Reinhardt, the senior judge in the uber-liberal Ninth Circuit wrote the appeals court opinion invalidating Proposition 8 despite the fact that his own wife advised the lawyers challenging the initiative. To make matters worse, the elected officials responsible for defending the vote of the people and who swore an oath to do so – then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, current Governor Jerry Brown, and state Attorney General Kamala Harris – shamefully abandoned their duty and left marriage defenseless. The Supreme Court has rewarded this corruption and effectively given negligent public officials a pocket veto over ballot measures they don't like. All they have to do now is refuse to defend a law passed by the people, and it will crash and burn in the courts. Despite the loss of marriage in California, the Supreme Court has taken pains to limit the impact of their decision to California by basing their ruling on narrow legal grounds.  It does not apply to any other state – at least for now. But you can bet that homosexual activists and their rapacious lawyers won't let it rest at that. And that brings me to the federal Defense of Marriage Act ruling. In a separate case the Court invalidated Section 3 of DOMA. The ruling will force the federal government to recognize same-sex relationships as "marriages" in the few outlier states that have bought into the lie and rejected thousands of years of history and common sense. And it will create chaos as same-sex couples move to other states that have held true, and demand the same recognition from and in those states.  The Supreme Court clearly also got that case wrong, but the ruling is not nearly as important as the Prop 8 ruling. Its impact is limited only to certain federal benefits and does not require any state to accept gay 'marriages' performed elsewhere. That section of DOMA was not challenged and remains fully in effect. Marriage is hanging by a thread in America. It lost today in California, and those responsible will be coming after every remaining state that refuses to abandon the truth of marriage.  NOM will do everything in our power to preserve marriage across the country, because the institution of marriage as God created is the most important social institution we can offer men, women and children. Brian Brown is president of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM).

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