Charles Krauthammer analyzed Obama’s Syrian war plan, which he said is being resisted because it has no clear objective.
Given the bumbling, the hesitation, the zig-zags of Obama’s policy up until now which is entirely incoherent, do you trust him to be the one to respond adequately, wisely if and when a response happens? Because once you sign on to this, no matter what’s in the resolution, you sign on to Obama conducting the operation and the follow-up, which could happen. The assumption is we do it – we go home – nothing happens… Could be true – but is unlikely to be true.
On the O’Reilly Factor he debated a delusional Bill O’Reilly who has apparently been asleep for the past five years. He has no idea why some conservatives would oppose Obama on Syria except for partisan reasons. Krauthammer sets him straight.
Ann Coulter on Fox and Friends Tuesday morning, said “you can’t trust Democrats to be Commander in Chief’:
And expanded on what that on Hannity, Tuesday night:
After first noting how much more Saddam Hussein had gassed the Kurds, Coulter showed a healthy degree of skepticism, asking, “what is our proof by the way?” She quipped that “we need to check with Hillary here to make sure the chemical gas was not released by a Syrian upset by a YouTube video – um – you cannot trust these people on national security, they are Democrats…”
When he was a candidate in 2008, Barack Obama made it clear that, as he told the German people, he was a “citizen of the world.” During his first four years in the White House, as the Obama team boasted, this meant his management style consisted of “leading from behind.” A significant part of “leading from behind,” of course, was making American foreign policy subordinate to the United Nations.
Now, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wants to hold Obama to that promise. He issued a general warning that any strikes against Syria to punish it for chemical weapons would be illegal without UN Security Council approval:
As I have repeatedly said, the Security Council has primary responsibility for international peace and security,” Ban said at a news conference. “The use of force is lawful only when in exercise of self-defense in accordance with article 51 of the United Nations Charter and or when the Security Council approves such action.
He also warned that a military strike against Syria could unleash more turmoil and bloodshed in a crisis that has already killed more than 100,000 people.
Twitchy: ‘So ronery’! Obama’s terrible relationship with Congress sparks snark:
Reporters are starting to notice that the president has pretty much no relationship with members of Congress, on either side of the aisle.
A new use-of-force resolution for Syria sets a 60-day deadline, with one 30-day extension possible, for President Barack Obama to launch military strikes against the regime of Syria President Bashar Assad — and it will also bar the involvement of U.S. ground forces in Syria.
The revised resolution was crafted by Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman and ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, following several days of negotiations. The panel could vote on the proposal by Wednesday.
Aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) were also involved in the discussions over the revised resolution.
During a Tuesday Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Syria, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had a tense exchange with Secretary of State John Kerry over the finer points of the Constitution.
“Make me proud today, Secretary Kerry,” the Kentucky senator began after voicing his concerns over reports President Barack Obama may act on Syria even if Congress disapproves. “Stand up for us and say you’re going to obey the Constitution and if we vote you down — which is unlikely, by the way — you would go with what the people say through their Congress and you wouldn’t go forward with a war that your Congress votes against.”
Sen. Paul then asked Secretary Kerry to be more specific on what the White House plans to do if Congress votes against intervening in Syria.
“I don’t know what the decision is,” Kerry answered, “but I’ll tell you this … [President Obama] still has the Constitutional authority and he would be in keeping with the Constitution.”
Paul disagreed, saying he doesn’t believe the president has the authority to order military action in a foreign country — especially after Congress votes against it:
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), one of the most outspoken opponents of military action in Syria, wouldn’t rule out the possibility Tuesday of launching a standing filibuster over the issue in the Senate.
“I can’t imagine that we won’t require 60 votes on this,” Paul told reporters on an afternoon conference call. “Whether there’s an actual standing filibuster — I’ve got to check my shoes and check my ability to hold my water. And we will see. I haven’t made a decision on that.”
Whether you were at the beach, at the lake, boating or barbecuing, I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend. Mine was jammed packed with activities, so blogging was light.
Via Shadi Hamid, who is the Director of Research at the Brookings Institute’s Doha Center:
Walid Shoebat is dubious – Hamid apparently has connections to or at least sympathies toward the Muslim Brotherhood…
…the question that needs to be answered is: Why would someone like Hamid – an apparent Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer – choose to help push a narrative that Barack Obama is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood?
Is he trying to get out in front of Saad’s claims or is there another motive?
It is indeed interesting that just days after Khairat Al-Shater’s son – who allegedly claimed his father had information on Obama that would land the U.S. President in jail – is arrested, an apparent friendly to the Obama administration is tweeting out this article.
Then again, moves like this don’t help quell the rumors….
Obama hits bottom and keeps digging. His unequivocal support of the vicious Muslim Brotherhood has undermined national security and been an overwhelming destructive force for freedom across the world.
Discover the Networks: “The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) was established in July 1981 by U.S-based members of the Muslim Brotherhood with a background as leaders of the Muslim Students Association (MSA). As author and terrorism expert Steven Emerson puts it, ISNA “grew out of the Muslim Students Association, which also was founded by Brotherhood members.” Indeed, Muslim Brothers would dominate ISNA’s leadership throughout the Society’s early years. Striving “to advance the cause of Islam and serve Muslims in North America so as to enable them to adopt Islam as a complete way of life,”ISNA was highly dependent upon Saudi funding during its early years.”
“Obama Addresses American Islamist Convention” By the Counter Jihad Report, September, 2, 2013
“Over the last half-century, you’ve upheld the proud legacy of American-Muslims’ contributions to our national fabric and this gathering is a testament to that tradition,” Obama says to ISNA.
The Syrian Electronic Army is claiming credit for defacing the recruitment website of the US Marines.
Marines.com, which is operated separately from the official Marines website, was changed in the early morning hours on Monday to display a message from the hacker(s). The message told US soldiers that Obama is “a traitor who wants to put your lives in danger to rescue Al Qaeda insurgents,” and encouraged Marines to defy orders and concentrate on defending their homeland instead. It also suggested that the army of the Syrian government should be considered an ally to Marines, rather than an enemy.
The defacement also included several photos purporting to be those of US military personnel, holding messages opposing military intervention in Syria (it should be noted the authenticity of these photos has not been verified anywhere that I could locate at the time of this writing). The same photos have been circulating around corners of the internet for days on social media and sites like Reddit. The Syrian Electronic Army has also been tweeting those photos for the last several days as well.
You know when we used to claim that the Democrats were playing games with foreign policy and national security to advance their petty animal partisan interests?
A former US army chief has claimed that Barack Obama is eyeing intervention in Syria that would go beyond a mere deterrent against chemical weapons to damage the military capacity of the Assad regime.
General Jack Keane, a former vice chief of staff of the US Army, told BBC Radio 4 that he had spoken to senior Republican senators who had been briefed by the US president on Monday, and had been assured that Mr Obama planned to do significant damage to the forces of Bashar al-Assad.
So far as we know, most everyone in the government was expecting the bombing would start on Saturday afternoon, Washington, D.C., time. Government officials, above all those with expertise in military operations, were told to cancel their Labor Day vacations and show up for overtime work. No golf for them! Then President Obama–in the face of most all the advice from his “national security team” (I even heard a national radio network broadcaster call it “the war cabinet”)–changed his mind. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. Surprisingly.
How? Why?
The story about the sudden change of mind has been carefully fed to the scribblers. It’s been written and rewritten many times. But it doesn’t make sense, unless you believe in sudden epiphanies, or bolts from the blue, or ongoing revelation, and there’s no evidence that the president believes such things.
So I ask again: How? Why? We don’t have an answer, which suggests to me that we’re missing some key element in the story.
Presidential decisions are sometimes driven by real events in the real world, and sometimes by private conversations among a very small group of intimates. During the Carter years, for example, it was said that you never knew what he was going to do until the last conversation prior to handing down his verdict. If you were an intimate, you wanted to be the last person on his dance card before the band started to play. Other presidents have had different methods, but personal interplay is always important.
Note that this sort of “process” greatly favors people with offices in the White House. They only have to walk down the hall, whereas the cabinet secretaries have to drive across town, or even across the river. That takes time. Access=influence, so the guys and gals down the hall, including the gal who shares the living quarters, have more of it than those across town or on the other side of the Potomac.
Ergo, it may well be that somebody got to the president late Friday and said something that got him to reverse course. Those who believe that Valerie Jarrett is the eminence grise of the Obama years will wonder if she prevailed over the War Cabinet, as when she–once? several times? accounts vary…–lobbied against the Kill bin Laden operation. Those who think Chief of Staff Denis McDonough is the key actor will point to the long walk he took with his boss on Saturday morning as the key event. Those who think Michelle does foreign policy (and those who don’t think first ladies are key players on ALL policy matters should report for reeducation) will look there for the answer.
Unlike most political gridlock within the Beltway, this scenario is fraught with conflicted interests and strange bedfellows. Consider the political dilemmas: Republicans, and some Democrats, have been critical of the president for ignoring his own “red line” ultimatum to the Assad regime, arguing that American credibility and prestige is on the line. Most GOP members have also demanded that any strike be pre-cleared by Congress (though some have contended that the president has wide authority to act as he sees fit). At long last, Obama has decided to do something to enforce the threshold he himself established. Can Republicans now turn around and oppose him after lambasting his fecklessness? Will they vote down an authorization of force resolution upon which they’ve insisted? And one end of the Republican spectrum is Sen. Rand Paul, who is forcefully opposing any US intervention in Syria. At the other are Rep. Peter King and Sen. John McCain, who huddled at the White House yesterday. With whom will the rank-and-file align? Will GOP leadership take a position on the question? On the Democratic side of the aisle, the picture is just as murky. I suspect leadership will follow the White House’s lead and apply enormous pressure to support the president. Some partisans will line up behind the leader of their party; others have antiwar constituents and consciences to grapple with. Whether or not members believe a “targeted” Syria strike is wise, Pelosi and Reid will likely argue, the president will look extraordinarily isolated and weak if he loses the vote. He’s already beenhumiliatingly rebuffed by the Brits, and the Russians are actively supporting Assad. The French are sort of on board, but equivocating. If Obama loses a Congressional vote against that backdrop, his political clout will suffer yet another setback after a long, tough summer — a conspicuous failure that could have a cascading effect across his already-endangered second term agenda.
Barack Obama knows that America’s military is a big stick, but unfortunately Roosevelt’s advice about speaking softly doesn’t seem to have stuck. Because Barack Obama recklessly shot off his mouth about a “red line” in Syria, he’s demanding that our nation insert itself into a civil war between terrorist groups, both of which have chemical weapons, to protect his ego. Happily, the American people recognize what a foolish move this would be. AReuters/Ipsos poll shows that only 9% of Americans currently support bombing Syria. This is why Barack Obama has punted his Syrian War to Congress. He’s hoping that it’ll be foolish enough to vote in favor of war to give him the political cover he needs to bomb. Not only should Congress vote against the war in Syria, if Obama bombs that country anyway, Congress should immediately cut off funds for the war and move to impeach him. Why?
Finish reading at the link.
Speaker Boehner says he’ll support Pres Obama’s request for authorization to use military force against Syria.
In a display of utter political incoherence, President Obama plans to meet with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocates in Russia while visiting the Kremlin, even as he attempts to lobby Russian President Vladimir Putin for support on an international military action against Syria. Russian opposition to American intervention in Syria has been a major factor in Obama’s decision to seek approval from Congress for military action in Syria. On Saturday, Obama blasted the UN Security Council, a veiled reference to Russia, by calling it “completely paralyzed and unwilling to hold [Syrian President Bashar] Assad accountable.”
Yossef Bodansky: Did the White House Help Plan the Syrian Chemical Attack?
here is a growing volume of new evidence from numerous sources in the Middle East — mostly affiliated with the Syrian opposition and its sponsors and supporters — which makes a very strong case, based on solid circumstantial evidence, that the August 21, 2013, chemical strike in the Damascus suburbs was indeed a pre-meditated provocation by the Syrian opposition.
The extent of US foreknowledge of this provocation needs further investigation because available data puts the “horror” of the Barack Obama White House in a different and disturbing light.
On August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major and irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and representatives of Qatari, Turkish, and US Intelligence [“Mukhabarat Amriki”] took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors. Very senior opposition commanders who had arrived from Istanbul briefed the regional commanders of an imminent escalation in the fighting due to “a war-changing development” which would, in turn, lead to a US-led bombing of Syria.
The opposition forces had to quickly prepare their forces for exploiting the US-led bombing in order to march on Damascus and topple the Bashar al-Assad Government, the senior commanders explained. The Qatari and Turkish intelligence officials assured the Syrian regional commanders that they would be provided with plenty of weapons for the coming offensive.
Amid the political turmoil in Egypt, an egregious targeted campaign of violence against Christians is being left out of the headlines.
Muslim Brotherhood supporters have reportedly paraded nuns through the streets like prisoners of war. Countless churches are being destroyed. Some that have stood for over a millennium have been forced to close their doors for the first time.
Though our political leaders attribute this targeted persecution as the unfortunate collateral damage of national conflict, these disturbing events are in reality part of a broader trend of systemic violence being perpetrated by radical Islamists across the Middle East — specifically targeting Christians.
More than 60 churches have been burned, and dozens of Christians have been attacked and killed since the military’s ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi. While Christians have long been a minority in Egypt, the persecution of Egypt’s Christian population — the largest in the Middle East — dramatically escalated under the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule and has spawned unthinkable destruction in the wake of the Brotherhood’s ouster.
The notion that this devastation is merely the result of political crossfire or the unintended consequence of civil strife is willful ignorance. Making up 10 percent of Egypt’s population, Christians are not an outside coalition of religious extremists; rather, they represent an established community of more than 8 million individuals that have managed to live peacefully with their Muslim neighbors for centuries.
Though President Obama has highlighted the plight of “religious minorities” in Egypt, calling for “respect” from all sides, he has yet to acknowledge that the principal targets of this violence are, in fact, Christians, refusing to even use the word “Christian” in his limited remarks. Worse yet, the president has refused to address the radical Islamic forces behind the targeted violence.
The White House was directly asked about this disturbing situation at a recent news conference: “With people being killed, Christians in particular being targeted, churches being destroyed, what’s the president’s red line in Egypt?” Unbelievably, the White House spokesman joked, “Well, I didn’t bring my red pen out with me today.”
In a surprise ruling, a three judge panel of the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals issued a unanimous opinion supporting the right of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients to unionize in order to assure equitable access to benefits, along with an uninterrupted flow of payments should the federal government be forced to temporarily shut down due to congressional budget stalemates.
“For too long so-called Food Stamp beneficiaries have been denied access to union representation seeking to protect their rights,” said Justice Gavin Moore Freestuff. In a sharply worded rebuke to attorneys representing the National Taxpayers Union, which sought to block a ruling by the newly reconstituted National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Justice Freestuff cited recent court precedents establishing the right of home health care workers, nannies, babysitters, and dog walkers to pay compulsory dues which unions could then use to influence elections.
Yes – it’s satire. Justice “Freestuff” would be our first clue. Sadly – not much of a stretch in 2013 ObamAmerica.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka received some tough news on Labor Day: his union just lost 40,000 members over his support for Obamacare. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union officially decided to cut ties over the legislation, but it isn’t for the reasons you may think.
“It is with regret but resolve that we have come to the point where the International Longshore and Warehouse Union must cut formal ties with the AFL-CIO,” ILWU International President Robert McEllrath wrote in a letter to Trumka.
Richard Daughenbaugh, a father of six and construction worker, did not know his killers, say police. But at 1 a.m., he found himself exchanging words with members of a mob that numbered in the dozens.
“The suspects allegedly beat Daughenbaugh using no weapons other than their own bodies while others in the group tried to stop anyone from helping, police said,” the paper reported. “A woman fishing nearby tried to step in and stop the assault and was struck, police said. Her companion was attacked as he jumped in to defend her. And when the woman tried to call 911, two women from the group allegedly grabbed her phone and threw it. She eventually retrieved it and called 911.”
Translation: Several people beat Daughenbaugh. Several people beat the fishermen who tried to help. And several people beat the witnesses who tried to dial 911. And lots of others watched and cheered.
Richard Daughenbaugh died soon after.
The Register picks it up again, quoting a police spokesman: “The phrase ‘mob mentality’ is probably accurate here. Once the assault began, acquaintances of the suspect jumped in.”
In Columbus, Ohio a few members of the Mayors Against Illegals Guns group tried to rally support for universal background checks. But with dismal numbers they were soon drowned out by the numbers of pro gun supporters that showed up. “As a gun owner, I’m a responsible person and I think it’s responsible to ask to have all gun owners have a background check,” said Blanche Luczyk. “It’s just common sense. Any responsible person who is willing to take the ownership of a gun should be willing to have that background check.” Luczyk was one of a half dozen members of the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns who hosted the rally in the Arena District on Friday, according to 10tv.com.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka received some tough news on Labor Day: his union just lost 40,000 members over his support for Obamacare. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union officially decided to cut ties over the legislation, but it isn’t for the reasons you may think.
“It is with regret but resolve that we have come to the point where the International Longshore and Warehouse Union must cut formal ties with the AFL-CIO,” ILWU International President Robert McEllrath wrote in a letter to Trumka.
Pro-Choice: The Justice Department has asked a federal court to stop 34 school districts in Louisiana from handing out private-school vouchers so kids can escape failing public schools, just like the president’s daughters.
He didn’t say it on the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech,” but President Obama, along with Attorney General Eric Holder, also has a dream — one of leaving every black child in the Pelican State behind, trapped in schools that cannot educate them.
Almost simultaneously with the president’s speech, Holder’s Department of Justice filed suit in federal court to stop Louisiana’s statewide voucher program.
Passed in 2012, the program guarantees a voucher to students from families with incomes below 250% of poverty and who attend schools graded “C” or below.
Liberals are all for choice when it comes to having children, but not when it comes to educating them. The irony of Obama’s speech is that he pretended to honor a man who fought to have black children attend schools they were barred from as his administration fought to keep them in schools they can’t escape from, a form of educational apartheid that’s both separate and unequal.
Radiation levels in a leak at Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant are 18 times higher than previously thought, the plant’s operators reported Sunday.
Radiation around the site is at 1,800 millisieverts per hour — strong enough to kill a person within four hours of exposure, the BBC reports. In addition, theTokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) says it has discovered a leak on another pipe emitting radiation levels of 230 millisieverts an hour.
This problem is much bigger than Amsterdam. The number of humans affected by this is estimated to be in the millions, and these women wanted to make a statement about it to those who walk by them every day.
The Hemisphere Project, a partnership between federal and local drug officials and AT&T that has not previously been reported, involves an extremely close association between the government and the telecommunications giant.
The government pays AT&T to place its employees in drug-fighting units around the country. Those employees sit alongside Drug Enforcement Administration agents and local detectives and supply them with the phone data from as far back as 1987.
The project comes to light at a time of vigorous public debate over the proper limits on government surveillance and on the relationship between government agencies and communications companies. It offers the most significant look to date at the use of such large-scale data for law enforcement, rather than for national security.
The scale and longevity of the data storage appears to be unmatched by other government programs, including the N.S.A.’s gathering of phone call logs under the Patriot Act. The N.S.A. stores the data for nearly all calls in the United States, including phone numbers and time and duration of calls, for five years.
A husband-and-wife bakery shop team in Oregon were forced to close their shop doors and move to cheaper digs — their home — after gay-rights activists hounded them and drove away contract business because they refused for Christian reasons to bake for a same-sex wedding.
Aaron and Melissa Klein own and operate Sweet Cakes by Melissa. In the past few months, they’ve faced heated scrutiny — some in the form of physical threats — from those in the gay-rights crowd who decried their May refusal to bake for a lesbian couple who wanted to marry.
Representative Louie Gohmert substituted for Hannity on last Friday’s radio show (Aug. 30, 2013). In the second hour, there was a discussion with ICE Council President Chris Crane on Obama’s inability to do the job that is constitutionally authorized to the Executive branch—securing the sovereignty of this nation by securing U.S. borders.
Chris Crane has been troubled by Obama’s actions that resemble a dictator—ignoring constitutional law while making his own laws through policy. Chris Crane is not alone—many Americans share the same concerns and wonder what it will take for Congress to act.
The Texas Grand Jury relied upon an nineteenth century provision of common law, which states (and here I translate from the original Texan), He Got What He Got Because He Needed To Get It.
Nice Deb 