Barack Obama then and now: Interfering in a civil war
During his speech in which he announced he would be running for president Barack Obama had this to say:
It’s time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of someone else’s civil war.
He was speaking about the civil war which had broken out in Iraq after the United States disposed of Saddam Hussein. (He also went on to say that he had a plan which would bring home all combat troops by 2008, but that is another story for another post.) Yet here we are a few short years later and what did Barack Obama do when a civil war broke out in Libya? He put American lives in danger in order to “resolve the political disagreement that lies at the heart of someone else’s civil war.”
He has yet to give the American people a justifiable reason for bombing Libya and his regime has given conflicting and muddled answers when asked what the goal of the mission is; because there is no clear goal there is no exit strategy. Barack Obama rushed into war because the United Nations told him to and we don’t even know who the rebels are that we are supporting; he consulted foreign nations and did not consult the United States Congress. And to top it all off Dear Leader doesn’t even have the courage to call our engagement in Libya what it is–war.
Many of those points sound an awful lot like the criticisms Barack Obama had of President Bush while he was on the campaign trail, while some go well beyond anything that the former president could be accused of doing.
Amid rumors that the Obama regime is considering supplying the Libyan rebels with weapons and possible training, the Obama regime has ordered the CIA into Libya to determine exactly who these rebels are.
The Obama administration has sent teams of CIA operatives into Libya in a rush to gather intelligence on the identities and capabilities of rebel forces opposed to Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, according to U.S. officials
One of the concerns that many Americans share–both on the left and on the right–is the fact that nobody seems to know who these rebels are, and a NATO leader has admitted that there is a “flicker” of al Qaeda and Hezbollah fighters in the mix. If the regime is willing to admit that a “flicker” of terrorist and terrorist sympathizers are part of the insurrection against Gaddafi then we can assume that the actual number is probably higher than just a “flicker.”
This means that while the United States is aiding these rebels that we are also aiding portions of both al Qaeda and Hezbollah and we are now in the process of seriously considering arming these terrorist organizations. What could possibly go wrong here?
Barack Obama rushed into war without even knowing who the rebels were and who we were supporting and only now is he sending in the CIA to find out who the United States is siding with? It seems to me that the United States should have found out who the rebels were BEFORE we committed to helping them achieve their goals.
Barack Obama started a war against Libya when he decided that the United States had a moral obligation to intervene in that country’s civil war and only now that the United States has committed herself to the aid of the rebels have we deemed it necessary to determine who are allies are in this war. With the revelations that we may be supporting, at least partially, al Qaeda and Hezbollah in the war effort, one has to wonder why the hell Barack Obama didn’t find it necessary to find this out beforehand.
Nothing has been confirmed, but George Stephanopoulos is reporting that his sources have told him that a tentative budget deal has been reached which includes $33 billion in spending cuts. If this is true and we couple these spending cuts with the combined $10 billion is spending cuts from the two continuing resolutions this brings the total spending cuts to $43 billion–less than half of the cuts that the Republicans promised the American people while running for office in 2010.
The Republicans were swept into power on the premise that they would stop the out of control spending in Washington and would cut $100 billion in spending, but it appears to me as if the Republicans seriously displayed their hand and threw away all of the momentum they had gained on this issue during the campaign season. If the Republicans were serious about cutting $100 billion they would have begun negotiations with a number much higher than that in order to allow the compromise to be closer to the $100 billion mark, yet the Republicans didn’t even open up the negotiations with the promised $100 billion, settling for $61 billion instead. This was the beginning of their downfall.
Shortly after negotiations began on the budget the Democrats began warning the American people that the Republicans were setting up the possibility that the government would have to be shut down because they refused to compromise with the Democrats. This was done simply to intimidate the Republicans–still leery of the repercussions from the government shutdown in the 1990’s–and it worked. As a matter of fact, it worked twice. The Democrats were basically challenging the Republicans to shut down the government and the Republicans blinked.
The Democrats in the Congress, as well as the president, will now be able to claim a tactical victory on the budget because they were able to claim that they cut the budget while at the same time spinning it to say they were able to avoid the “draconian” cuts that were proposed by the Republicans. Meanwhile the Republicans are going to have to go home and explain to their constituents why they failed them.
Barack Obama then vs now: Iraq vs Libya
During his speech on the Libyan war Barack Obama attempted to justify involving the United States in the civil war of another country by stating the following:
Qaddafi declared he would show ‘no mercy’ to his own people,” said President Obama. “He compared them to rats, and threatened to go door to door to inflict punishment. In the past, we have seen him hang civilians in the streets, and kill over a thousand people in a single day.
“Now we saw regime forces on the outskirts of the city,” Obama said. “We knew that if we waited, if we waited one more day, Benghazi, a city nearly the size of Charlotte, could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.”
“But when our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act,” said Obama. “That’s what happened in Libya over the course of these last six weeks
He made the case before the American people that because Qaddafi was willing to slaughter his own people that the United States was obligated to intervene. Because he did not seek the prior approval of the Congress he was seeking to prove to the American people that the vital interests of the United States were at stake, but did you notice that little qualifier in his last statement? He could not make the argument that this incursion was based on the fact that America had a vested interest in starting another war in the Middle East so he fell back on a humanitarian platform when he stated that America’s “values” were at stake.
30 years ago today: President Reagan shot
March 30th 1981, I was a freshman in highschool and honestly did not pay attention to politics at all because I was just a kid of 14 years old, but this is a day that most people remember and I still remember hearing the news.
I was in machine shop when my teacher came in and gave us the news, I honestly did not know what to think. I guess I was in shock.
Shortly before 2:30 Eastern time a deranged man named John Hinkley Jr.–in an attempt to impress Jodi Foster, with whom he was obsessed–fired six shots with a .22 caliber pistol at President Reagan, hitting the president as well as James Brady, police officer Tom Delahanty, and secret service agent Tim McCarthy (who shielded the president with his body and took a bullet aimed at the president.)
President Reagan–known for his optimism and sense of humor–was rushed to the hospital where he famously quipped to the surgeons who were about to save his life, “I hope you are all Republicans,” to which the surgeon replied, “We’re all Republicans today.”
After the Congress agreed to the second continuing resolution which would allow the government to operate until April 8th I voiced my displeasure with the fact that Republicans seemed to have given in to the Democrats and were not going to come close to their promised budget cuts of $100 billion (which I don’t feel went far enough in the first place.) I also wrote that it was time for the Republicans to draw a line in the sand and stop passing short term continuing resolutions; the time is now for agreeing to a long term budget with the promised cuts.
While it is still true–and disappointing–that the Republicans are not even going to come close to fulfilling their promise to cut $100 billion from the budget, it looks as if they may finally be ready to draw that line in the sand. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, stating that “time is up” has vowed that there will be no more continuing resolutions. He is claiming that the House will push forward with a long term budget which includes over $60 billion in cuts.
It is good news that the Republicans may be digging in their heels here because we simply cannot expect the Congress to continue passing short term “solutions” to our fiscal crisis. The time to act is now and Democrats are practically daring the Republicans to shut down the government because they feel as if the Republicans–haunted by the repercussions of the last government shutdown–will blink and cave in to their will.
Even this measure does not go far enough and we know that when the final budget is passed it will contain less than half of the $100 billion budget cuts we were promised. While this is disappointing, it will be even more disappointing to see the Republicans blink because they fear political repercussions in 2012.
In my opinion the Republicans have already let us down on this issue because they already dropped the ball when the pressure was on them, but taking a small stand now will be a step in the right direction. I only hope they have the political courage to do so, I just don’t know if they do.
New Hampshire is “Wisconsin on steroids”
For better or worse Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker gained national fame for his stance against public employee unions in his state, but Wisconsin is not the only state which is looking to crack down on the public sector unions and New Hampshire is one of those states. While New Hampshire hasn’t gained the publicity which Wisconsin gathered, the president of the Professional Firefighters New Hampshire called the pending legislation “Wisconsin on steroids.”
My state representative– Ken Weyler–recently introduced legislation which would strip public union employees of all collective bargaining rights if their current contract was allowed to expire, rendering those without a contract as employees at will. While the Wisconsin law will deny the public sector unions from negotiating benefits, the proposed New Hampshire takes this one step further–hence the “Wisconsin on steroids” statement.
The amendment says that once a contract ends, workers become “at-will employees whose salaries, benefits and terms and conditions of employment shall be at the discretion of the employer.”
400 people showed up in protest at the State House to voice their displeasure with the legislation, and while this hasn’t gained the national recognition that Scott Walker received after Barack Obama called out the dogs, this bill goes even further than the Wisconsin bill and it will be interesting to see how this plays out as we move forward. We can rest assured that as this bill moves forward the union thugs will send out their minions in mass to protest this legislation.
Obamacare: Sen. Inhofe claims nearly half of Oklahoma residents will lose their Medicare benefits
According to Senator Inhofe nearly one half of the residents of Oklahoma who receive Medicare benefits will lose their Medicare benefits, while those that do retain their benefits will see a reduction of over $3,ooo in services.
Since President Obama signed the so-called health-care reform bill into law, it has miserably failed American families and businesses,” Inhofe said. “Even though a handful of the law’s provisions have been implemented, it has already resulted in higher costs and loss of current coverage
Oklahoma is a low-supply state for primary-care physicians, with fewer than 11.5 primary care physicians for every 10,000 people,” he noted. “As a result of Obamacare, the percentage increase in Medicaid enrollment will be almost four times greater than the percent increase in primary-care physicians.”Obamacare will also have a negative impact on small businesses, due to a lack of business tax-credits in the Obamacare law, Inhofe added. Only 26.2 percent of small businesses are eligible for small business tax credits under Obamacare, he said
Jamie Gorelick to head the FBI?
Barack Obama is in the market for a new director of the FBI and it is being reported that Jamie Gorelick is on the short list of candidates to fill that position.
As a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration Jamie Gorelick wrote the memo that became policy which prohibited organizations such as the FBI and the CIA to share information. The 911 commission found that part of the blame for the success of the attacks was due to the lack of intra-agency communication. In other words the “Gorelick Wall” was partly to blame for the failure of the United States government to stop the September 11th attacks. So why the “Gorelick Wall” in the first place? Many believe it was set up to hinder investigations into the Clintons’ money laundering schemes.
The Obama regime believes that the longer the healthcare reform law challenge takes to make its way to the Supreme Court, the more time the regime will have to implement different aspects of the law. And the regime also believes that the more aspects of the law which are in place before the Supreme Court hears the challenge the more difficult it will be to repeal the law. Because of this, the Obama regime has tried to delay the process as long as possible so that more of the “reforms” will become law before the Supreme Court hears this case.
It has been suggested by opponents of this sweeping “reform”–myself included–that with an issue as important as this one the law should be fast-tracked through the system so that the Supreme Court can hear this case as soon as possible. The Obama regime maintains the position that there is a system in place and that system should be allowed to operate normally–ignoring the fact that we may have a constitutional crisis at hand.
Today we may have gained a small victory against this law which many people feel is unconstitutional as the healthcare reform law has now been placed on the fast-track.
Last Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted a motion by The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) to fast-track an appeal of a decision by a federal district court in February that dismissed its lawsuit against Obamacare.
Here is what ACLJ Senior Counsel Ed White had to say about the ruling which will now expedite the healthcare reform law challenge:
The case is now on an expedited process through the court of appeals, rather than the normal process, which can take months before you even get to (file) your brief and months and months — and sometimes even up to a year — before there’s oral arguments,” said White.
“The sooner we get a decision from the Supreme Court, the better for everyone, because small businesses right now are going to have to start to change how they are giving health care to their employees and to look into this, spend a lot of money looking at that. The states are now spending a lot of time and effort getting into compliance, so if Obamacare is eventually found unconstitutional then you’ve wasted all this time and money.
This law includes many new regulations which will have dire consequences on small businesses–while large businesses and unions receive exemptions from the law (over 1,000 to be more precise)–and it seems to me that when the constitutionality of this legislation is in doubt that this challenge should be heard as quickly as possible.
America's Watchtower 