Tag Archives: Barack Obama

national news, political news

WH security breach getting more serious

As if it wasn’t bad enough that Omar Gonzalez bolted across the White House lawn and entered the president’s office/residence before being caught by security personnel.

Now we hear that the Iraq War veteran — who was packing a knife and had several hundred rounds of ammo in his car — got farther into the White House than it was originally reported.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/219227-knife-wielding-intruder-made-it-further-into-white-house-than

CBS News and the Washington Post report that Gonzalez walked through the entire East Room of the White House before he was overpowered by a Secret Service officer. The intruder reportedly had gotten past an officer when he entered the building.

Something is wrong with the president’s security detail.

Secret Service director Julia Pierson isn’t talking — yet — about what happened at the White House.

But how in the world does someone enter the world’s most heavily guard — supposedly — residence and traipse through one of the key rooms in the building before being stopped?

White House press spokesman Josh Earnest said President Obama stands behind the Secret Service. “The president does have full confidence in Director Pierson and other members of the Secret Service to do their very important work,” Earnest said.

Well, whatever you say, Mr. President.

Millions of out here are concerned about this incident, coming as it does with heinous terrorist organizations vowing to do serious damage to Americans at every level.

At every level.

There needs to be a serious review of every single security procedure dealing with the protection of the first family.

Now!

Uncategorized

U.S. not alone in this fight

Barack Obama wants it known that the United States is not fighting the Islamic State one-on-one, nation vs. cult.

The president of the United States said on “60 Minutes” that the country he leads is just a leader in the fight that comprises an international coalition of nations battling a despicable terrorist organization.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/barack-obama-isil-111395.html?hp=l2

I get that.

The harder sell will be to Americans who are likely to perceive that since we’re “leading” the air strikes against ISIL in Syria and Iraq that it, indeed, is our fight to win.

I’m willing to welcome the rest of the world to join us in this war against this clearly defined evil force.

There must be no illusions about how long this conflict will persist. As we’ve learned so painfully, the death of one key terrorist leader such as Osama bin Laden does not by itself necessarily weaken an organization he would lead. Al-Qaeda received a serious blow to its command and control when the SEAL and CIA commando team smoked bin Laden in May 2011. Others have surfaced to take his place.

As the world has learned, ISIL has emerged as a serious world threat.

Thus, the world must fight this menace. That is what the president seeks to do, build a worldwide coalition of nations willing and able to fight ISIL to the death.

It is not our battle to wage on our own.

business news, national news, political news

Economy becomes Democratic trump card

Who’da thunk this could happen?

The economy is looming as the Democrats trump card as they fight to retain control of the U.S. Senate and try to prevent Republicans from grabbing even tighter control of the House of Representatives.

Juan Williams: Economy could tip election to Dems

That’s the view, at least, of Juan Williams — one of Fox News’s token liberals.

Williams noted in an essay that President Obama is now using President Reagan’s legendary line from his 1980 campaign when he asked: Are you better off than you were four years ago?

Obama is turning that question on its ear for the GOP.

Are we better off today than we were four years ago, or six years ago, or even one year ago?

The answer unquestionably is a resounding “yes!”

The economic reality, though, hasn’t yet registered with Americans, according to RealClearPolitics.com, Williams reports. “RealClearPolitics has 55 percent of Americans disapproving of the president’s handling of the economy, to only 40 percent approving.” Why is that? My guess is that the GOP has done a better job of bad-mouthing the economy than Democrats have done talking it up.

The data tell a different story. This past month, we added 142,000 jobs to the economy, but that was seen as a “disappointment.” The previous several months registered more than 200,000 jobs monthly. The unemployment rate is now at 6.1 percent. Manufacturing is up. Exports are up, knocking down the trade deficit.

Will any of this work in Democrats’ favor when the mid-term elections are decided? That remains to be seen.

Still, it boggles my mind that the economy — which seemed to be in such a shambles just three years ago — now has become Barack Obama’s major bragging point.

Who knew?

national news, political news

Palin gets a pass for this goof

Former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin did it again: She got a fact wrong while speaking at the Values Summit.

I’d make a bigger deal out of it, but I won’t for a reason I’ll explain in a moment.

She referred to the “truth” being missing “at 1400 Pennsylvania Ave.” She was referring, of course, to the White House, which actually is at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Sarah Barracuda does this on occasion. I’ve spent too much emotional energy getting worked up over these gaffes and goober-like goofs.

I won’t go there this time. Why?

Well, the president of the United States, Barack Obama, once referred to the “57 states” of the Union.

Nobody’s perfect.

national news, political news

Pick an AG successor quickly, Mr. President

Here’s a tidbit that will surprise no one.

Senate Republicans are insisting that President Obama delay nominating a successor to Attorney General Eric Holder until after the new Congress takes office in January.

Imagine that.

You see, Republicans smell victory in the mid-term elections. They believe they’ll comprise a Senate majority when the new Congress convenes. That makes it theoretically more problematic for the president to get a nominee confirmed. That’s how it goes these days: Democrats and Republicans look to stick it to each other, no matter what.

It also forces the president to select someone who is, um, less controversial. With Republicans holding the Senate majority, Obama will have to find a safer choice for AG than he otherwise might select.

We’ll see probably in fairly short order what the president is thinking about when to make a nomination announcement. Does he follow the advice of Republicans or does he move quickly while Democrats still run the Senate, which has to confirm whoever is nominated to be attorney general?

If this mid-term election is going to be decided in a Battle of the Political Bases — Progressives vs. Conservatives — then my guess is that the president will move sooner rather than later.

So … why not go for someone who will be as courageous and out-front on issues — such as voting rights — as Eric Holder has been?

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Bully for the Brits; shame on Congress

Two nations separated by an ocean are engaging the air war over Syria in entirely different manners.

The British Parliament came back into session at the behest of Prime Minister David Cameron to debate and vote on whether the United Kingdom should join the coalition fighting the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Parliament voted to get into the fight.

On this side of the Atlantic, the U.S. Congress is, well, on recess.

http://www.msnbc.com/andrea-mitchell/watch/congress-on-recess-as-airstrikes-continue-333908547996

Which legislative body is being more responsible and responsive to a burgeoning international crisis?

I doubt you should think it’s the Congress of the United States of America.

The Brits have this one down correctly.

Prime Minister Cameron was right to call his colleagues back into session. Parliament was right to debate the issue and then take a critical vote.

President Barack Obama operates in a different form of government, in which the legislative branch is co-equal with the executive branch. Lawmakers in both congressional chambers operate under their own sets of rules. Democrats set the rules for the Senate; Republicans do the same in the House of Representatives.

I get that these folks have to campaign for their offices. Still, why have they spread hither and yon across our vast country at this time — while our young servicemen and women are risking their lives while trying to put down a despicable terrorist organization?

International news, military news, national news

ISIL is a cult, period

Let’s quit trying to suggest that the Islamic State has anything at all to do with religion.

As in Islam, from which it draws its filthy name.

I’ve made a pact that I’m now going to refer to ISIL as a “cult.” I’ll conceded it’s not an original thought. I’m appropriating it from someone who said it on a news-talk show the other day. If I could remember who said it, I’d credit him specifically.

ISIL doesn’t represent anything about Islam.

I shall concede that I am not a Muslim scholar. I have enough trouble trying to understand my own Presbyterian faith, so I cannot pretend to know much at all about Islam.

However, I am quite comfortable lumping ISIL with other infamous cults.

The worst of them in recent times, for me at least, is the Jonestown cult that committed mass suicide in its Guyana jungle compound in 1978 after gunmen murdered Congressman Leo Ryan and others who had gone there to investigate what was going on with the cult gathering organized by the late Jim Jones.

I would rank ISIL as worse than the Jonestown cult, given the nature of the beheadings they’ve shown the world and the manner in which they treat Muslims, Jews and Christians.

As I have noted already, one group victimized by the ISIL cult has been women in general. Thus, it gladdens my heart to hear about the young major in the United Arab Emirates leading a recent air strike against ISIL in Syria. The major, I hasten to add, is a woman. (See the previous post on this blog.)

President Obama has noted already that “no god” condones the kind of violence that ISIL has brought to others. Indeed, the term “Islamic State” is an insult to a great religion.

Do these monsters represent “religious extremism”? No. They represent something far worse.

national news, political news

Holder builds solid legacy at Justice

Eric Holder might have been the poster child for partisanship.

He’ll stay on the job as U.S. attorney general until the Senate confirms his successor, but the time has come to say something about his time at the Justice Department and to wonder what lies ahead for what is certain to be a stormy confirmation process.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/eric-holder-legacy-111330.html?hp=t2_3

I’ll just say it up front: Holder has been a great attorney general.

That doesn’t mean his time at Justice has been free of mistakes. He’s made some.

Chief among the blunders is likely the Fast and Furious gun-tracking program that strangely put firearms in the hands of dangerous drug-runners, who then used the weapons to bring considerable misery to federal law enforcement authorities.

Congressional Republicans, of course, jumped all over the Fast and Furious program as a monumental failure. It was meant to allow gun merchants to sell firearms to drug dealers with the hope of tracking their movement. It didn’t work.

Congress sought to get him to testify about Fast and Furious and he just enraged the GOP more by refusing to cooperate fully.

So, that project has failed.

Another mistake was Holder’s decision not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act when it stood as federal law. Whether one agrees with the law that essentially prohibited same-sex marriage or not, the AG took an oath to defend the laws of the land, no matter what. He failed in that regard. DOMA, though, later was thrown out by the Supreme Court, which made the refusal to defend it more or less a moot point.

However, Holder has served as a civil rights champion. He has elevated the discussion of equal protection for all Americans to a level not heard since the days of the late Robert F. Kennedy, when he was AG from 1961 to 1964.

As the nation’s first African-American attorney general, Holder has standing on this issue that none of his predecessors enjoyed. Holder recommitted the federal government to civil rights when he went to Ferguson, Mo., in the wake of the shooting death of a young black man by a white police officer.

Politico reports: “Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont praised Holder for ‘restor[ing] the Civil Rights Division to its historical mission’ and declared that ‘his dedication to defending Americans’ voting rights, at a time when these constitutional rights are under attack, has been supremely important.’”

Holder is seen by his foes as a polarizing figure. Perhaps he is, but that’s more a function of the divisions in American society he revealed by his commitment to creating a more just society for all Americans.

So, what lies ahead? As with virtually everything involving the Obama administration, I’m guessing we’re going to see a brisk challenge to whomever the president nominates to succeed Holder.

I’m hoping the next attorney general will get the thorough vetting he or she deserves, but that the Senate will act quickly to get that individual on the job.

military news, national news, political news

We're worried about presidential salutes?

On a day when the president of the United States delivered an important speech to the United Nations, the mainstream conservative media got all worked up over — what? — a salute the president delivered to a Marine.

He snapped a salute while holding a cup of coffee.

Stop the bleeping presses, will ya?

http://taskandpurpose.com/sorry-presidential-salute-isnt-real-thing/

This is huge!

The presidential salute is a relatively new custom. It began with Ronald Reagan. George H.W. Bush didn’t return salutes from military ceremonial troops. Bill Clinton did; so did George W. Bush. Barack Obama does it, too. Retired General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower didn’t return salutes when he served as president, either.

There’s nothing written in the social protocol for presidents that requires them to return salutes. They’re civilians who happen to serve as commander in chief.

Yes, it’s good that they return the salute smartly. Presidents with no military experience — e.g., Clinton and Obama — need to be taught how to do it. They’ve learned how to return the salute.

But let’s not get all worked up over a Latte Salute. Let’s recall the strange moment when President Bush tried to return a salute while trying to control a restless dog. (See the picture included in the attached link.)

Let’s also focus on things that really matter.

national news, political news

McCain might run again … for the Senate

John McCain confounds me .

The Arizona Republican is at once an admirable man, a genuine war hero, an annoying gadfly, a petulant loser and a real-life expert on foreign policy.

The senator, who’s 78, says he might run for a sixth term in 2016 but observers say he’s going to get a serious tea party challenge if he suits up for another senatorial campaign. He got a stout challenge in 2010, but thrashed former U.S. Rep. J.D. Hayworth by 25 percentage points.

McCain gets ready for race of his life

I think he ought to run at least once more if he’s up to it.

McCain’s biography is well-known. He was a Navy aviator, shot down over Hanoi during the Vietnam War and held captive for more than five years. He suffered terrible torture at the hands of his captors.

His career in public office has been marked by amazing ups and downs.

McCain has run twice for president, nominated by the GOP in 2008, when he lost to Barack Obama.

He’s been a friend of the “liberal” media, which has ticked off conservatives to no end. He’s no liberal, however. He’s voted consistently with the right wing of his party throughout his lengthy career.

Yet … when he carps about President Obama’s decisions he sounds like a sore loser.

Still, he maintains friendships with colleagues on the other side, particularly those with whom he shares combat experience. He has defended the character of his friends John Kerry and Chuck Hagel, both of whom now serve in the president’s Cabinet.

Indeed, my favorite McCain moment might be the time he scolded Senate newcomer Ted Cruz, R-Texas, when Cruz questioned Hagel’s patriotism when Hagel was being examined by the Senate to be defense secretary.

McCain is one of those senators I’d like to meet one day. It won’t happen. If I had the chance I’d likely ask him: Senator, do you confound and confuse some of us intentionally, or is that just a byproduct of a complex personality?