On CNN’s State of the Union this morning, Representative Peter King (R., N.Y.) wasn’t shy about criticizing his Republican colleagues. He told host Candy Crowley that he found it “absolutely disgraceful” that so many House Republicans voted last week to curtail the NSA’s surveillance powers. 

“This is an isolationist streak that’s in our party, it goes totally against the party of Eisenhower and Reagan, Bush,” he said. “I mean, we are a party of national defense. We are a party that did so much to protect the country over the last twelve years.”

He continued with sharp criticism of Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.):

“When you have Rand Paul actually comparing Snowden to Martin Luther King or Henry David Thoreau, this is madness,” he said. “This is the anti-war left-wing Democrats of the 1960’s that nominated George McGovern and destroyed their party for almost 20 years. I don’t want that happening to our party.”

King recently said he’s considering a 2016 presidential bid. “It’s an opportunity to speak out on national-security and defense issues,” he told Politicker.

And he’s not the only Northeastern Republican to come out swinging against Senator Paul. New Jersey governor Chris Christie made headlines last week when he suggested that libertarian-leaning Republicans should explain themselves to those widowed and orphaned in the September 11 attacks. 

Here’s King: 

Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, says the NSA’s controversial phone-number-collection program, PRISM, should not be grouped with IRS and the troubling “data hub” that the Obama administration is building. Immense oversight and “strict requirements” for using the gathered information are the reason “there [are] zero privacy violations on this in the entire length of the program and 54 disrupted terrorist plots.”

Meanwhile, says Rogers, the program is “overseen by the court, the legislature, and the executive branch. No other program has this much scrutiny with very little information. There is more information in a phonebook than there is in this big pile of phone numbers.”

Appearing on Sunday’s Meet the Press, David Axelrod, senior adviser to the 2012 Obama reelection campaign, says it’s time for Anthony Weiner to go.

“At this point, it’s absurd. He is not going to be the next mayor of New York. He is wasting time and space.”

Can New Yorkers forgive him again?

“Americans believe in second chances, but not third chances. . . . I remember an old song from the 1970s that I loved called ‘How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away?’”

Was the IRS a “phony Washington scandal,” as President Obama called it in a speech earlier this week? Said Treasury secretary Jack Lew on Sunday’s Meet the Press, yes and no. It was mainly, he maintains, “extremely bad judgment.”

“After weeks and weeks of investigations . . . there is no evidence of any political involvement in the situations leading up to that situation. So the attempts to continue to raise this question in the absence of any evidence is what he [President Obama] was referring to” as a “phony scandal.”

What was the actual problem at the IRS? “The problem was bad judgment; it was career officials trying to operate their programs more efficiently, using bad judgment to do it.”

Treasury secretary Jack Lew appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday morning, where he spent his 15-minute segment diligently evading David Gregory’s questions about the state of the national economy –or, as in the clip above, assuring Americans that all is, in fact, well because of the Obama administration’s incredible success in, believe it or not, reducing the deficit.

“We’ve seen several pieces of legislation enacted that have reduced the deficit very substantially. We are seeing the most rapid reduction of the deficit since the end of World War II when we demobilized. We’re actually outperforming expectations in terms of how quickly we’re reducing the deficit, and we’re controlling health-care costs as a result of the Affordable Care Act.”

Do we need a “grand bargain” to get the country back on the right track, asked Gregory? “We cannot cut our way to prosperity,” Lew responded, adding, “We have already done a lot of deficit reduction. . . . Just recently the IMF [International Monetary Fund] said we’re doing too much too quickly.”

Nothing to see here, folks.

Is the NSA listening in on your phone calls? That’s what journalist Glenn Greenwald argued this morning on ABC’s This Week. He says The Guardian will soon publish a story showing the extent to which even low-level NSA analysts and private contractors have access to Americans’ personal emails and phone calls.

“The NSA has trillions of telephone calls and emails in their databases that they’ve collected over the last several years,” he told host George Stephanopoulos. “And what these programs are are very simple screens, like the ones that supermarket clerks or shipping and receiving clerks use. All an analyst has to do is enter an email address or an IP address, and it does two things, it searches that database and lets them listen to the calls or read the emails of everything that the NSA has stored or look at the browsing histories or Google search terms that you’ve entered.”

“It’s an incredibly powerful and invasive tool, exactly of the type Mr. Snowden described,” he added.

The House voted down an amendment last week that would have curtailed the NSA’s surveillance power. Some of the amendment’s opponents argued that the NSA’s invasiveness has been exaggerated.

Here’s Greenwald’s description of the program:

Today is the 60th anniversary of the Korean War armistice. Over on the homepage, William C. Latham exhorts us to “recall the unpredictable nature of modern warfare, and [to] celebrate and preserve the uneasy peace that began 60 years ago in Korea.” Latham argues that the Korean War remains vitally instructive. I couldn’t agree more. 

If you want to demonstrate how difficult it is for a democratic government to conduct a stratetic foreign policy, the Korean War is the textbook case. Back in 2010, on the 60th anniversary of the start of the war, I wrote a piece for NRO (“Echoes of Korea“) arguing that the lack of foresight in U.S. policy made the Korean War inevitable. Because we couldn’t agree to defend Korea before the war, we had to fight a war to defend it. Then, because we couldn’t agree on what our aims were, we fought without strategic purpose and had to settle for an inconclusive armistice. 

Sure, today we have a happy, strong, and prosperous South Korea. But with a strategic foreign policy the U.S. could have achieved the same result — or better — without firing a shot. 

The key mistake was the decision to withdraw U.S. forces from South Korea in the two years before the Korean War started. Someone in the Truman administration should have realized that this decision made a North Korean invasion almost inevitable, and that a decision to defend the South after that would only maximize the loss of American lives and minimize the prospects for a favorable outcome. It made no sense to defend the South after an invasion that we could have prevented in the first place simply by making our intentions clear and leaving our troops in place. The decision facing Truman in 1948 should have been simple: either commit to defending South Korea and leave the garrison in place, or leave the South to its own devices and withdraw the garrison. Withdrawing the garrison while retaining some vague commitment to defending South Korea made absolutely no sense. In Shield of the Republic (1942), Walter Lippmann railed agaisnt the U.S. habit of making commitments abroad that exceeded the assets it had to back them up — what he called a bankrupt foreign policy. He was right, and we made exactly the same mistake in Korea. 

Today we honor the nearly 45,000 Americans who lost their lives fighting “for democracy.” But the real reason they died was the Truman administration’s failure to devise a coherent national-security strategy fast enough after the end of World War II. From my 2010 article:

So why did Truman withdraw U.S. forces from South Korea in 1949? The unanswered questions that Korea raised for U.S. strategy in the pre-war period — chiefly, how vital was our interest there, and how far should we be ready to go in defending it — made it almost inevitable that the U.S. would make grave strategic mistakes, and indeed it did. Once the war broke out, those unresolved questions fed right into the policy failures of the Korean War itself: the inability to define an attainable war aim, the inability to gain consensus for a coherent strategy, the inability to avoid conflict at the highest levels of the administration.

I don’t mean to blame the Truman administration, mind you. I like Dean Acheson a lot and discount the theory that his infamous “perimeter” speech had anything really to do with the invasion. There was something terribly inevitable about the mistakes the Truman administration made. The thing is to understand why they made the mistakes they made, because we’re still making them, and for the same reasons.

Deadly fighting has Egypt reeling this weekend. According to state-controlled al-Ahram, the health ministry announced that 38 people (now updated to 46) have been killed in clashes between security forces and Islamic-supremacist supporters of the imprisoned deposed president, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood claims that the actual death toll is 120, with some 4,500 others wounded.

The Egypt Independent reports that hundreds of Morsi supporters stomed the campus of ancient al-Azhar University after attacking local residents with rocks and bottles. As I recount in the latest issue of NR, when General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the army ousted Morsi, Sisi gathered by his side some key Islamists who supported the coup — including al-Azhar’s grand mufti, Ahmed el-Tayeb. My argument then, as now, is that Islamic supremacism is the dominant ideology in Egypt, and for all the hoopla about turning away from sharia and toward real democracy, the Islamists would not go quietly:

When Egyptians overwhelmingly approved the constitution last December, Morsi’s approval rating was 60 percent. It nosedived in the following months because Egypt slipped deeper into chaos: food shortages, starvation, rising crime, and — emblematic of sharia cultures — increasing repression of religious minorities and women. Nevertheless, Egypt as a whole has not shed its Islamic-supremacist character.

Thus, the Islamist flank of General Sisi’s ad hoc support network vanished within days. The army killed scores of rioters — Islamists and their jihadist shock troops demanding Morsi’s restoration. The al-Nour party [the fundamentalist "Salafist" party that is a sometime rival and sometime ally of the Brotherhood, and that briefly supported the coup] quickly bolted, though not before blocking the secularist effort to appoint Mohamed ElBaradei as prime minister (he was later appointed vice president for foreign affairs). Meanwhile, for green-lighting Morsi’s ouster, Grand Mufti Tayeb was scalded by Islamist scholars. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the globally renowned sharia jurist and Brotherhood totem, announced that most of the al-Azhar faculty found the coup to be a profound affront to Islam.

Struggling to defuse the tension, the new interim president, Adly Mansour (plucked by Sisi from the High Constitutional Court), issued a “constitutional declaration” under which Egypt will be governed in the post-Morsi transition. Its opening articles reaffirm that Islam is the religion of the state and that sharia, derived from ancient Sunni canons, is the main source of legislation.

Naturally, the secularists, progressives, and religious minorities professed shock. “We did not take to the streets to give legitimacy to religious-based political parties that were about to erase Egypt’s identity,” thundered the Maspero Youth Union, one of the savvy progressive groups spotlighted by the media as Morsi fell. But these groups are actually trying to create a new Egyptian identity. The current one, Islamic supremacism, will not be easily erased.

This has already gotten very ugly, and given Egypt’s dire economic straits, it is just the beginning.

My favorite story this week:

Homeland Security’s Future Home: A Mental Hospital

Also, it’s years behind schedule and $1 billion over budget. But then you probably guessed that.

Despite the official Secret Service explanation, Courtney Scott, Treasurer of the Missouri College Republicans, told National Review that she’s skeptical she and a small group of College Republican were turned away from President Obama’s speech Wednesday at the University of Central Missouri because the event had reached capacity.

“So far I can tell, they were not at capacity if there were people leaving and people with tickets who didn’t even get in. I find it very difficult to believe the whole place was already full,” Scott said.

After protesting on the other side of campus in a designated “public speech zone,” she and a group of five other College Republicans traveled across campus, without their protest signs, to watch the speech.

At about 3:40 p.m., an individual, whom Scott believes to have been a police officer because of his clothing, which included a hat emblazoned with the letters “PD,” stopped the group short of the gymnasium where Obama was scheduled to speak. He told them that they would not be able to proceed further. The group showed him their tickets, but the man said the doors had already closed and that they could not be let in.

The tickets stated that the doors opened at 1:45 p.m. and did not state when the doors were scheduled to close. President Obama was scheduled to begin speaking at 4:00. However, Scott said that Air Force One did not arrive at Whiteman Air Force Base, which is located 15 minutes away, until 4:15. President Obama did not begin speaking until around 5:00.

According to Scott, the security officer said the lack of a stated door-closing time on the tickets was also a security measure.

After speaking with the officer, Scott said, “They made us leave the entire area.”

Scott said the group watched the speech in the overflow capacity viewing room.

According to Scott, the event was supposed to be able to hold 2,500 people and only 2,500 tickets were given out. The fact that the group had several extra tickets (ten College Republicans had originally hoped to make the speech, but four cancelled) “kind of implies there was room,” she said. In addition, Scott spoke to a gentleman in the viewing room who had gained access to the event but had left because of the heat and the wait.

National Review has partnered with the Independent Women’s Forum to host a series of debates on the issues facing women today. Register here to attend the inaugural event on September 19.

Charles Krauthammer described New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s attack on Kentucky Senator Rand Paul’s foreign-policy views “fearless,” “electrifying,” and “an extremely important moment.” Christie’s remarks touched off a kerfuffle between the two Republican politicians, both of whom are seen as contenders for their party’s presidential nomination in 2016. In Krauthammer’s words,

It was an extremely important moment. Rand Paul represents the sort of isolationist wing of the Republican party; by this direct, fearless attack on him by Christie, I think he takes up the mantle of the majority of the GOP, which is interventionist. And that’s a really important moment.

When Special Report host Bret Baier pointed out the growing influence of “a libertarian strain” within the party, the syndicated columnist replied, “that’s what makes what Christie did in taking it on so important and electrifying.”

Working frantically to kill Representative Justin Amash’s NSA amendment, General Keith Alexander, the spy agency’s chief, opened his calls to lawmakers’ cell phones with a joke – yes, I already had your number.

That detail and many more are in my deep dive into the how the vote came to be over at the home page.

Amash’s amendment would have required the NSA to limit its collection of phone records and other “tangible things” to only those individuals under a Patriot Act investigation. Practically speaking, that would instantly halt the government’s practice of collecting the phone logs of every American.

Behind the scenes, GOP leadership in the House was deeply opposed to bringing the proposal – offered as an amendment to the DOD appropriations bill – to the floor and was planning to kill it in the Rules Committee that decides which amendments get voted on.

But minutes before the final decision was rendered, after an animated conversation with Amash on the House floor, Speaker John Boehner changed course, deciding to allow a vote on the amendment after all. It was a peculiar decision: not only was Boehner deeply opposed to the amendment, Amash has been something of a thorn in his side over the past two years.

Amash’s amendment, and his willingness to flout the norms of Congress to get it to the floor, prompted considerable gnashing of teeth on the part of top GOP officials and their aides. That anger was reflected in a Politico story that came out in the hours after the vote that quoted “several” Republicans calling Amash a stubborn “child.”

An important part of the criticism leveled at Amash was that his amendment violated House rules and only because GOP leadership held his hand through the drafting process was it ever able to come to the floor.

For my story I reviewed emails and other documents detailing the back-and-forth and interviewed over a dozen people close to the situation, and what emerged was a different picture.

Rules Committee aides did provide considerable assistance to Amash, but one of the reasons the assistance was needed was because others, including GOP leadership, were lobbying the House parliamentarian’s office to rule the amendment “out of order.” It was a super inside baseball tactic that left few fingerprints, but its beyond clear that many procedural roadblocks were thrown up to block the amendment.  

In order to ensure Americans understand how to access the benefits available to them when many provisions of the Affordable Care Act go online October 1, the Obama administration announced last month that it is setting up a call center that will be accessible to Americans 24 hours a day. 

One branch of that call center will be located in California’s Contra Costa County, where, reportedly, 7,000 people applied for the 204 jobs. According to the Contra Costa Times, however, “about half the jobs are part-time, with no health benefits — a stinging disappointment to workers and local politicians who believed the positions would be full-time.” The county supervisor, Karen Mitchoff, called the hiring process “a comedy of errors” and said she “never dreamed [the jobs] would be part-time.”

The Times indicates that a job posting advertised all of the jobs as full-time, and one call center employee, who said no reason for the apparent change was provided, told the paper, ”It reminded me of that George Clooney movie where he goes around the country firing people [Up in the Air]. The woman said, ‘I know you were led to believe you would be full-time, but things have changed. . . . You are actually ‘part-time intermittent.’”

The Contra Costa employees are currently in training, and the call center — one of three based in California — is set to go live on October 1. 

This week on Need to Know, Jay and I welcome Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute. We note that it’s become scandalous to even mention the actual numbers of crimes committed by young black males in America – and then proceed to mention them. We reflect on New York’s success in dramatically reducing murder and other crimes and wonder whether the city council’s recent vote to ban “stop and frisk” is the first step of a retreat from success. 

We consider the Weiner saga and Jay notes that if Huma Abedin were not 1) Muslim, and 2) attractive, she would not have gotten swoons from the likes of Tina Brown. Both Clintons get a few frowns from both of us (not unusual), but Jay notes that Bill had something Weiner conspicuously lacks.

We then consider whether Holder’s gambit to convince blacks and Hispanics that he (and by extension, the Democrats) are saving them from having their voting rights abridged by Republicans will work.

We close with some thoughts about Hezbollah, Ho Chi Minh, Greek Nazis, and Mel Gibson. Join us!

Toure, a liberal MSNBC analyst, argued today that George Zimmerman is Peruvian-American, not actually Hispanic, and that Republicans “are in their mansions because they don’t care” about the black community or black-on-black crime.

Toure explained that Republicans are “talking about black-on-black crime to block the conversation around a Peruvian-American, not a Hispanic, a Peruvian-American shooting a black man.” 

Toure continued a common liberal rhetorical tactic by comparing the shooting of Trayvon Martin to the brutal racist lynching of Emmett Till.

He also said that the real reason conservatives have even begun talking about the problem of crime in the black community is “to stoke white racial anxiety to bring more white people into the fort . . . to bring people to the polls.”

NRO Columnist Avik Roy spoke today on MSNBC to discuss how Republicans should deal with Obamacare going forward.

He explained that many Republicans are resisting the movement led by Senator Mike Lee to defund Obamacare now with the threat of shutting down the government. Instead, Roy argued that Republicans should focus on real healthcare reform alternatives, rather than on simply repealing the bill, saying that: “Republicans will fail to repeal the law if they don’t have a compelling replacement strategy.”

Roy won faint praise from liberal host, Ari Melber, who told Roy: “It’s a low bar, but I will say I’ve always thought you were actually better at explaining some of the policy on this than Mitt Romney was.”