Tag Archives: Barack Obama

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U.S.-Iran breakthrough, or breakdown?

President Obama made a historic phone call today.

He telephoned Hasan Rouhani, president of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The two men chatted for about 15 minutes, after which President Obama informed the world that he believes a deal to derail any Iranian effort to build a nuclear weapon could be struck.

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/27/20722870-obama-and-rouhani-make-history-with-phone-call-thawing-three-decade-freeze-between-us-and-iran?lite

Some folks are hailing the phone call as a thawing of a 34-year-old freeze between the two nations. The last phone call between U.S. and Iranian heads of state occurred in 1979 when Jimmy Carter was president of the United States. It all went to hell later that year when Iranian “students” stormed our embassy in Tehran and held Americans hostage for 444 days.

Rouhani is sounding as though he wants to normalize relations with the United States and rejoin the world community. He’s launched something of a charm offensive of late, talking to a U.S. news network and speaking calmly at the United Nations. I am not totally comfortable plunging ahead with such an effort. I hope Barack Obama retains a degree of skepticism and moves very carefully.

We need to remember that for decades Iran has declared virtual war against the “Great Satan,” meaning the United States. It has declared its intention to wipe Israel off the face of the planet. It has supplied arms and other know-how to international terrorist groups, such as al-Qaida. It arms the Syrian dictator in his war against rebels. It has cozied up to Hezbollah and Hamas, two sworn enemies of Israel. The incendiary statements of Rouhani’s immediate predecessor as president also should not be dismissed and tossed aside.

A single phone call shouldn’t signal a “thaw.” It well might mean that it’s time to turn the temperature up just a bit to begin the thawing of relations.

But just as the late President Ronald Reagan said of Soviet strongman Mikhail Gorbachev, “Trust, but verify,” it is good to seek multiple verifications of any statement that comes from an Iranian president that might signal a new era in relations between two longtime enemies.

Here’s hoping today’s phone call has opened the door to that new era.

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Debt ceiling battle getting serious

The Affordable Care Act takes effect soon, which won’t end the fight to end it.

Before we get back to that old fight, another old battle — a much more critical one — is being waged in Washington, D.C. It’s about the debt ceiling. Failure to increase it by Oct. 17 could send the nation into default on its obligations. Does anyone really and truly understand the cataclysm that will occur if we fail to pay our bills?

Congress has the authority to increase the amount of money the federal government can borrow to, um, pay its bills and meet its financial obligations. The Republican majority in the House of Representatives, though, is attaching a laundry list of demands on any bill to increase the debt ceiling. The list includes items that have nothing to do with the debt ceiling. They include approval of the Keystone pipeline project and federal tort reform.

President Obama says he won’t negotiate over the “full faith and credit of the United States of America.” He contends — correctly in my view — that the GOP-led House is “blackmailing” the president over the nation’s financial obligations.

President Reagan went through this as well. He scolded Republicans who ran the Senate for threatening the nation’s economic well-being by blocking efforts to increase the debt ceiling. GOP Senate leaders relented and listened to the Gipper.

This time around, House GOP leaders are telling a Democratic president to stick it in his ear.

I am not going to accept the notion that Reagan’s approving the debt ceiling 18 times during his presidency was more acceptable then because the national debt was so much smaller than it is today. The consequences of failing to act are just as grave now as they were during President Reagan’s tenure.

The major difference between then and now — as I see it — is that one major party has been hijacked by individuals who see themselves as institutional reformers. I see them as attempting to destroy the very government they took an oath to serve.

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Tea party support hits the skids

This is a most interesting report: The Gallup Poll organization says 22 percent of Americans support the tea party movement, which I’ve taken to calling the “insane wing” of the Republican Party.

The Gallup survey gives the tea party its near-lowest rating since the movement hit its peak around the time of the 2010 mid-term elections.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/324771-tea-party-hits-a-low-point-

It begs the question: Why are tea party darlings in the U.S. Senate, such as Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, getting so much air time and print space? I think it’s because they’ve been yapping the loudest and have discovered some secret formula for getting their faces on national television.

Gallup isn’t exactly a lefty-leaning polling group. The Gallup group actually tends to lean to the right, but its findings often are cited as being authoritative.

Cruz is the latest tea party golden boy to hog the spotlight, blabbering on for 21-plus hours in an attempt to derail the Affordable Care Act in the Senate. He ended up voting with the rest of them to keep funding the ACA, which seems to suggest that his Senate floor gabfest was all for show.

I’m suspecting that showboating is beginning to wear thin among Americans who want their federal government to actually do something on their behalf.

That, of course, is anathema to the tea party wing of the Republican Party.

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Leave health care act alone, poll says

Would it surprise you to learn that a new poll says that Americans do not want Congress to defund the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare”?

It surprised me.

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/most-americans-against-defunding-obamacare-cnbc-survey-4B11231267?ocid=msnhp&pos=7

CNBC’s latest survey suggests, therefore, that congressional Republicans are playing with fire in their attempt to gut a law that Congress approved, President Obama signed and the Supreme Court affirmed.

They contend the law is “failed.” How they know that is beyond me, given that it hasn’t even been implemented yet. Those all-knowing GOP lawmakers, though, are prescient enough to predict what they do not yet know.

The stakes in this game are getting a bit too rich for my stomach. The House has approved a spending measure that takes money away from Obamacare. The president will have none of it. Neither will the Democrats who run the Senate. Failure to approve the spending measure, thus, means the government could shut down.

All this is a precursor to an even bigger battle over whether to boost the nation’s debt ceiling. The tea party goofballs within the GOP don’t want to do that. Never mind that their patron saint, President Reagan, raised the debt ceiling 18 times during his two terms in office (1981-89).

Yep, Republicans are playing with fire, which is going to burn them. I don’t care about that. I do care about suffering the damage myself, especially if my retirement income starts flying out the window.

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Talk to us, Mr. President … but not to me

This is what I’m talking about.

House Speaker John Boehner recently criticized President Obama for negotiating with the Russians over how to rid Syria of its chemical weapons while stiffing congressional Republicans in the building federal budget debate. I called such criticism utterly without merit, given that Boehner already had declared he wouldn’t talk to Obama personally about budget matters.

Then he reiterated his no-negotiation line just this past weekend. The government might shut down over a dispute regarding the Affordable Care Act. And still, Speaker Boehner won’t talk to the president?

http://thehill.com/homenews/house/323381-boehner-obama-should-negotiate-but-not-with-me

Ridiculous. And by that I mean precisely that Boehner has subjected himself correctly to a torrent or ridicule.

The speaker of the House second in line to presidential succession after the vice president. That means he or she is very important person regarding any matter dealing with the federal government. Whoever is speaker ought to be at the center of every discussion, every negotiation, every major or minor detail.

So why is Boehner — who seems to have lost control of his House Republican caucus to the tea party wing of the GOP — now standing aside while others seek to work out some kind of deal with the White House?

Does he not understand the ridicule to which he is subjecting himself and the high office he occupies?

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Insanity tightens its grip on House GOP

Insane.

That’s the only word I have to describe what congressional Republicans have just done. They’ve approved a spending measure that includes defunding the Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama’s signature achievement so far in his presidency.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-passes-gop-spending-plan-that-defunds-obamacare/2013/09/20/4019117c-21fe-11e3-b73c-aab60bf735d0_story.html

The president and his Democratic allies in the Senate have said categorically they will have none of that. They’ve been joined by sensible Senate Republicans who say that defunding “Obamacare” is the wrong approach to deal with this issue.

All this sets up a possible — some might say probable — shutting down of the federal government in 10 days.

House Speaker John Boehner is declaring victory because, he said, the House has approved a continuing resolution to fund the government while taking money away from “Obamacare,” which he has called a “failed policy.” Failed? How does he know that? It hasn’t even been implemented fully yet.

This targeting of a law approved by Congress, signed by the president and affirmed by the Supreme Court simply astounds me.

The consequences of this fight are even more mind-boggling. Suppose the government shuts down — except for “essential” services. Parks will close. Services the people expect will cease. The anger that this tactic will produce seems almost incalculable at the moment. Who will pay for this? The Republican Party leadership in the House of Representatives.

That doesn’t matter to the tea party wing, the insane wing of the GOP, most of whose members were not around when the GOP tried this before. Voters rose up and slapped them bald-headed at the next election.

The worst news of all is that this round of haggling is merely a prelim to the main event, the upcoming fight over whether to raise the debt ceiling. If Congress chokes on that one, then the hurting really starts.

It’s insane, I’m telling you. Insane.

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Boehner angry because Obama won’t negotiate?

U.S. House Speaker John Boehner’s office has released a video that criticizes President Obama for negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Syria while refusing to negotiate with Republicans over federal budget issues.

Hold on a minute, Mr. Speaker.

Here’s the video:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/09/19/boehner_why_is_obama_willing_to_negotiate_with_putin_but_not_republicans.html

I recall clearly during a previous budget battle that Boehner declared quite openly and vocally that he was finished negotiating with the president. He wouldn’t talk to Obama about budget matters, apparently out of anger over the way the budget talks had broken down. The speaker said there would be no more face-to-face contact with the president. Nothing. None.

Now he’s upset because Obama is talking to Putin about the Russians’ proposal to have Syria turn over its chemical weapons arsenal to international inspectors, even after Putin wrote an essay for the New York Times that criticized the United States for considering itself an “exceptional” nation.

I figure that President Obama thinks he has more to gain with Putin — a former head of the KGB spy agency — than with Boehner, whose own political party has been commandeered by a faction within it.

I believe the speaker ought to be angry with those within his own House Republican caucus.

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Help me understand this budget fight

A lot of things go over my head. I’ll admit to being a bit slow on the uptake at times.

Take the budget battle that’s building into a donnybrook — yet again — on Capitol Hill. I’m puzzled over why the Republican congressional leadership has allowed the tea party wing take it over and threaten to hijack the government because it dislikes a duly enacted law that’s been upheld by the Supreme Court.

The Affordable Care Act has become a bargaining chip in the budget battle. The right-wing crazies in Congress say they’ll approve a continuing resolution on the budget only if it defunds the ACA, President Obama’s signature legislative achievement. If they don’t get the resolution approved in about 10 days, the government shuts down.

Think about this for a moment. We’re still at war in Afghanistan; Social Security checks will need to go out to those who need them; so will veterans disability payments; roads are crumbling; Colorado residents are digging out from horrific weather events in their state … and there might be more weather-related misery occurring in Texas as storm clouds migrate north from Mexico.

You get the picture, yes?

Meanwhile, House Speaker John Boehner, a so-called “establishment Republican” who’s been whipsawed by the tea party cabal within his caucus, says the GOP-led House has “no interest” in shutting down the government. Who’s he kidding?

Everyone who hates “Obamacare” has forgotten that Congress passed the law, the president signed it, it survived a Supreme Court challenge when the high court ruled that the law indeed is constitutional. It has been settled.

What’s more, the Affordable Care Act hasn’t even been implemented fully — and still congressional Republicans have declared it a “failed policy.” Aren’t there independent studies out there showing that premiums have increased at a slower rate than predicted and aren’t there 30 million or so Americans who are about to have health insurance?

The moronic push to defund the health care law would deny those folks insurance. That’s a good thing for the country?

While our so-called “leaders” wage budget war, a lot of other pressing needs are being ignored. Does anyone remember immigration reform?

I don’t understand a lot of things. This battle is really pushing me to the limit.

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Obama is winning the Syria debate

With all due respect to the Republican chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, President Obama is emerging as a victor in the struggle to rid Syria of the chemical weapons it now says it possesses.

Mike McCaul, R-Texas, said on Fox News Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is the big winner here and that President Obama has been reduced to a bit player in this ongoing drama.

Well, that’s about what we’ve come to expect from a leading House Republican.

http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/middle-east-north-africa/322295-rep-mccaul-obama-no-victor-in-syria-deal

Living as I do in the heart of Anti-Obama Country, I am acutely aware of the negative views of the president’s handling of the Syria crisis. I am not happy with the way he’s handled some developments in this crisis. I wished initially he hadn’t backed off his threat to strike Syria in retaliation for that government’s gassing of civilians.

But consider what’s happened.

* Barack Obama issued the threat to hit Syrian military targets to dissuade Syria from using chemical weapons in the future.

* Russia, one of Syria’s main allies, steps in with a plan to get Syria to turn its chemical weapons over to international inspectors.

* The Syrians, who at first denied having the weapons, agreed.

* Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart agree to the deal and have given Syria a timetable to comply.

I agree the deal is fraught with danger. Syria might not comply, forcing the United States to follow through with its strike threat.

What was the catalyst for all this? The president’s initial threat to hit Syria.

Does that make Barack Obama look stronger or weaker? I believe it strengthens the president. Of course, those in the opposing party say he is weakened by all this. I would suggest that a strategy that results in Syria giving up its chemical weapons without having to bomb them into doing it takes us closer to an end to a serious crisis.

That view, of course, will be a non-starter for those who think the worst of the 44th president of the United States.

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Strike won’t start a new ‘war’

President Obama’s speech on Syria is worth reading over and over.

Of particular note should be the president’s assertion that a strike against Syrian military targets will not thrust the United States into another ground war.

He said it Tuesday night. He’s been saying it time and again since declaring his intent to hit the Syrians for gassing civilians on Aug. 21. The declaration has fallen on deaf ears. But read it here.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/09/10/full_speech_president_obama_addresses_the_nation_on_syria.html

Obama said it once again in a nationally televised speech to the nation. Will it persuade the doubters? I’m not taking that one to the bank. I have not been a doubter on that fundamental point, which is that the United States will not commit to a war with no end.

The president made it as clear as he could. Any military strike — if it comes — will have a specific set of goals. It will be brief, it will be intense and it will be intended to deter Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad from using the chemical weapons again.

The speech, of course, came during a period of intense diplomatic activity. Russia entered the picture with a plan to persuade Syria to surrender the chemical weapons and turn it over to international inspectors.

Again, the speech is worth reading. It’s attached to this blog post. Pay careful attention to the pledge that a strike — if the diplomatic initiative fails — will be a limited engagement.

I do not see a war on the horizon.