Tag Archives: Barack Obama

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Air strikes 'authorized'

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Here we go once more.

The commander in chief “authorizes” the use of military force but leaves the door open to possibly not actually using it.

http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2014/08/07/obama_authorizes_renewed_airstrikes_in_iraq_107354.html

The enemy this time is in Iraq, the Sunni Muslim extremists seeking to overthrow the Shiite government. President Obama today announced a humanitarian mission to help those who are stranded in northern Iraq by the onslaught of the Sunni fighters.

What’s next? The president said he has “authorized” the launching of targeted air strikes against those who would threaten a small detachment of U.S. forces sent to protect American consulate officials in Irbil.

A part of me wants the president to make good on the threat. However, a bigger part of me hopes the Iraqi government can push the insurgents back, defeat them on the battlefield and forgo the use of U.S. military might in a conflict our ground forces ended more than a year ago.

As RealClearPolitics.com reported: “‘As commander in chief, I will not allow the United States to be dragged into fighting another war in Iraq,’ Obama said.

“Even so, he outlined a rationale for airstrikes if the Islamic State militants advance on American troops in the northern city of Irbil and the U.S. consulate there in the Kurdish region of Iraq. The troops were sent to Iraq earlier this year as part of the White House response to the extremist group’s swift movement across the border with Syria and into Iraq.”

No one should want the United States to re-enter the fight in Iraq. However, the United States, with its investment in lives and money already deposited in Iraq, needs to protect its interests in that country.

If air strikes are needed, then we must not be reluctant to exert our considerable force.

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Cease-fire holds … now what?

They’ve stopped the shelling in Gaza, for now.

So might there be a more permanent solution on the horizon? No one’s counting on that just yet.

Obama: ‘I have no sympathy for Hamas’

President Obama made it quite clear Wednesday that the United States stands firmly behind Israel’s right to defend itself against the aggression launched by the hated terror group Hamas. He is right, of course.

The United States must stand foursquare with its primary ally in the Middle East and it must be fully aware — always — of Israel’s belief that the countries that surround it are not be trusted completely.

Hamas, let us remember, is nothing more than a terrorist cabal that started this fight with Israel by launching rockets into Israeli neighborhoods. Israel responded with extreme force. Yes, civilians have died and all civilized people mourn the deaths of innocent people.

Who’s responsible for that? Hamas.

Obama also is clear that any permanent peace must rely on Palestinian Authority involvement. The trouble with the PA, though, is that it has aligned itself with Hamas. It has included Hamas in a form of “unity government,” which enrages Israel — and understandably so.

So, the shooting has stopped for the time being.

My hope is that the voices talking to each other can be heard while the explosive noise remains silent.

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Gov. Perry overreaching?

Texas lawmakers think Gov. Rick Perry might be overreaching his own self with regard to the planned deployment of National Guard forces to protect Texans against the influx of … children.

Seems that the governor is using his executive authority to spend $75 million in public money for this deployment, which some lawmakers think is an overreach.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2014/08/some-lawmakers-question-perrys-border-funding-move/

Interesting, eh?

I don’t know enough about the details of what kind of power the governor has in these matters, but it does intrigue me that this governor, who’s been so critical of federal overreach by the White House might be getting into a bit of a jam at home over the very same issue.

“The Legislative Budget Board has authority to move money around the budget in between legislative sessions. Perry, however, bypassed formal board action to free $38 million to pay for the Guard in the early stages of its deployment and to help fund a DPS border surge,” the San Antonio Express-News reported in its blog.

State Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, says the deployment doesn’t make sense in the first place.

He’s right. It doesn’t. The Guard can do little to stop the flow of children fleeing Central America.

The lame-duck governor, though, says he’s doing it for symbolic reasons.

Whatever. It now might against state law for him to just spend the money willy-nilly.

The irony is fairly rich, don’t you think?

 

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Go for it, Mr. President

Congress had a chance to act on the border crisis in Texas and other states bordering Mexico.

It didn’t.

Now it appears President Obama is going — get ready for it — to take executive action to at least put an immediate, if temporary, fix on the crisis.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2014/08/texas-businessmen-obama-executive-action-on-immigration-appears-imminent/

Holy cow! Will the Congress sue him over that one, too?

I rather doubt it. Indeed, the speaker of the House of Representatives — which did pass a version of a bill to deal with the problem — has invited the president to use his power to act.

He surely should, given that Congress choked on the issue.

I’m no longer going to refer to this as an “immigration” crisis. It clearly is a “refugee” matter, given that the young people who have flooded to the country are fleeing repression, corruption, enslavement, even death. Those individuals are refugees by anyone’s definition.

They should be treated as refugees, not criminals, which is how many in Congress and around the country continue to view them.

What’s the president going to do — reportedly — to solve this issue by himself?

Obama met with some Texas business executives to discuss the problem, according to the San Antonio Express-News. They indicate that the president is looking at all legal options available to him. “The businessmen said they voiced their support for expanding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which pushes back deportations of young immigrants who aren’t legally in the country,” the Express-News reported on its blog.

So, does the president take action where the legislative branch has failed so far? Absolutely. Will the House of Reps take issue on this action, should it come, by adding it to its list of gripes against the president?

Pardon me while I laugh.

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Hey, Congress … slackers!

A friend reminds me of one more laughable element related to Congress bailing without approving a refugee-crisis-repair bill.

It is that Republican critics of President Obama have been so very fond of blasting him for “all the vacations” he takes while crises are erupting.

They fail, of course, to acknowledge that the president never is off the clock. He’s away from the Oval Office or a week or two, then he’s back — with the goal of tending to business. That has been the case dating back for many decades, involving presidents of both political parties.

So, what about Congress?

Well, those fine ladies and gents are going to campaign for re-election, which means they’ll be out raising money; some of them are known to jet off to faraway places for what they call “fact finding missions.” Some of those “trouble spots” involve a variety of choice beachfront condos, mountaintop vistas, lots of exotic meals.

You get my drift here, yes?

This will be my final point on this subject before I move on, but I’ll just say once more with feeling.

The border crisis involving the young people fleeing their home countries for safety in the United States was billed as a national crisis. If it’s a national crisis, then why didn’t the House and Senate stay in session until dealing with it?

I guess they had more important things to do.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/house-gop-pass-border-bill-109662.html?hp=l1

One final bit of advice: Next time the president of the United States takes some time away from the office, I want his critics in Congress — and in the conservative media — to keep their collective traps shut.

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Congress quits on border crisis

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This is just about perfect.

Congress yaps at President Obama to do something about the refugee crisis on our southern border. The president responds with a hefty emergency spending request. Congress then says it’s too much. Then both chambers fight among themselves. The House of Representatives approves a much smaller plan, while the Senate croaks.

Then the Congress goes home for the rest of the summer.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/house-gop-pass-border-bill-109662.html?hp=t1

OK, so what’s Barack Obama going to do now? Will he — heaven forbid! — invoke some executive authority to get something done?

This is an utterly ridiculous state of affairs.

The border is choked with refugees, mostly youngsters, fleeing repression in Central America. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has called out the National Guard. For what purpose remains a mystery, given that the guardsmen cannot arrest anyone. Members of Congress, chiefly Republicans, accuse the president of allowing the crisis to build. They demand action. Then the president acts and Congress fails to follow through.

Now they’re heading home, or perhaps on some “factfinding” junkets to exotic locations. They’ll schmooze with supporters at faux “town hall meetings,” hearing from the home folks about what a rotten job the president is doing. Or if they represent voters who support the president, they’ll get a snootful about what a rotten bunch the Republicans have become.

Meanwhile, that so-called crisis our border goes unattended.

This isn’t how representative democracy is supposed to work.

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As for impeachment …

Now that so many pundits and politicians are talking about impeachment these days in Washington, D.C., I believe I’ll share an important date that’s about to pass.

On Aug. 9, many Americans will commemorate — some will cheer it, others will mourn it — the resignation of the 37th president of the United States, Richard M. Nixon.

You see, Nixon resigned because he was certain to be impeached for some serious “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment; the full House was certain to ratify them; the Senate then seemed certain to convict the president.

It then fell to at least one key friend of the president, Sen. Barry Goldwater, to give him the straight scoop: You don’t have enough support in the Senate to save you from conviction, Mr. President.

He quit on Aug. 9, 1974 and saved the nation the trauma of a certain conviction.

What did he do — allegedly? Well, he ordered the FBI to stonewall efforts to find the truth about who was responsible for the burglary of the Democratic National HQ office at the Watergate office complex.

That’s the real deal, folks. That’s the kind of behavior that gets presidents impeached.

The talk today? Well, it’s not even clear what in the world critics of the 44th president, Barack Obama, have in mind. They keep yammering about overuse of executive authority, even though this president has used it far less than his predecessors over the past century.

If this ridiculous discussion continues in the months to come, let’s keep in mind what happened four decades ago. A president abused his power in a serious way and had the good sense to quit his office before the U.S. Senate ran him out of town.

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Is Obama wrong about Congress's incompetence?

President Obama’s critics hammer him constantly because of his expressed frustration over the do-nothing Congress.

Is he wrong about his “friends” on Capitol Hill? Far from it. Consider this week’s follies.

* The House of Representatives shelved plans to vote on a $659 million bill that would address the border crisis involving all those young refugees fleeing into the United States illegally.

* Then the Senate failed to muster enough votes on a larger, $2.7 billion, package to tackle those very problems.

* Then the House leadership postponed that body’s five-week summer recess, citing the logjam over this refugee issue.

All of this seems to be forcing the president to take, um, executive action to get something done about a problem that supposedly has risen to the level of “national emergency.”

Except he can’t do that, because the Republican-controlled House has just voted on party lines to sue the president over his alleged overuse of executive authority.

Obama has been poking fun at Congress because it cannot work with the White House, among its own members, with members of the other party, or get anything done on behalf of the people who sent them there.

And they’re just itching to get out of town for the rest of the summer.

Ridiculous.

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Dysfunction reigns in U.S. House

How much more chaotic can it get in the People’s House?

Probably a lot more than what we’re witnessing, but we we’re getting now is a sideshow worthy of a circus barker.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/31/politics/congress-immigration/index.html

The House of Representatives canceled a planned vote on a border security/immigration bill after leaders failed to get enough support among rank-and-file members to support it. It would cost about $659 million, far less than the $3.7 billion President Obama requested when the child refugee crisis erupted on the nation’s southern border.

Meanwhile, the Senate is wondering what to do with a larger bill.

What happens now? Well, Congress is about to take a five-week summer recess, which means that, all of a sudden, the border crisis isn’t quite as “urgent” as House leadership proclaimed it to be.

As I recall, they were yammering at the White House to do something about it. The president responded with his emergency spending request, but the persistent critics said, “Not so fast, Mr. President. We aren’t going to write a blank check here.”

Now the House has come apart at the seams yet again over a possible solution proposed by that guy who lives down the street in the White House.

This is effective governance? I think not.

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Surprise! House votes to sue Obama

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Well, that vote took not a single political observer by surprise.

The U.S. House of Representatives, in a party-line vote, has decided to sue President Obama because he has assumed too much executive authority to suit their tastes.

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/213859-house-votes-to-sue-obama

Who knew?

The vote was 225-201. Five Republican House members voted against the lawsuit idea; zero Democrats voted for it.

Now what?

Well, the House is going to file a lawsuit on the grounds that the president abused his executive authority by postponing the employer mandate requirement in the Affordable Care Act. House Speaker John Boehner says Obama “changed the law” when he did that, and that he overstepped his authority in going over Congress’s head.

This might be the most bizarre political stunt since independent counsel Ken Starr uncovered Bill Clinton’s foolishness with the White House intern — giving Republicans enough ammo to impeach the 42nd president of the United States.

Boehner hopes to prove that Congress has standing to sue the president. He’ll probably get it. Then he’ll have to prove that Obama somehow broke the law in exerting his authority as president, or that he’s liable for damages created by his action — which, incidentally, is what Republicans who hate the ACA actually favor.

This is goofy beyond belief.

Interestingly, the five GOP “no” votes came mostly from the nut-case wing of the Republican House caucus. These are the folks who would rather impeach the president rather than merely sue him.

You know, I’m kind of glad Congress is getting the hell out of Washington for the next five weeks. It’s obvious the gasbags who run the House of Reps aren’t interested in actual governing.

Go home, y’all.