Obama General Discussion, vol. 3

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Never thought I'd have to say this but I agree. I wonder what people would think if they really looked into what he did at Bain and how he made his money. And into some of the things he did in MA. But as far as govt is concerned, he really benefits from the comparison to people like Palin.


wasn't his job to fire people?

how was he as governor of Mass? a bunch of my relatives live there, including my grandparents before they passed away, and i always got the sense that he was a fairly successful new england-style Republican (read: sane). what's your take?


I don't think it was just a bad week for the economy-I think it will just get worse.


well, it was the job numbers that came out for May that were really bad, and they were trying to pass it off on the double-whammy of gas prices and the effects of the tsunami, and this was after several months of good jobs numbers. i hope it was just a stumble ... but we'll see.

i hope you're wrong on this one. :)
 
wasn't his job to fire people?

how was he as governor of Mass? a bunch of my relatives live there, including my grandparents before they passed away, and i always got the sense that he was a fairly successful new england-style Republican (read: sane). what's your take?

I guess his job was to fire people-but maybe it's the way he went about that. Getting very rich off the suffering of the workers. And some seemingly shady dealings. That's just the American way, I guess.

Yes he was fairly successful and sane. I just didn't care for the flip flopping and the backpedaling about some of the positions he took in order to be successful in Democratic MA. He did the health care thing in MA in order to look good for running for President (even worked with Ted Kennedy on it)-but now that so many people are against it he's changing his tune about it. Basically his put downs of MA too, after he was finished here. He just seemed like a user. That's just my opinion-and of course he's no different from the rest of them in that regard. In all of those regards.
 
Gas prices have been improving in my area for the last three weeks. When I got home from school, they had past $4. They're now around $3.85.
 
He doesn't vote or get involved in politics but he felt compelled to say that. Guess he wanted some publicity.

We know of at least one Chicago rapper who won't be getting an invite to the White House anytime soon.

Lupe Fiasco called out President Barack Obama this week, calling his fellow Chicagoan "the biggest terrorist."

The comments came in an interview with CBS News Tuesday while discussing the political content of his music.

"My fight against terrorism, to me, the biggest terrorist is Obama in the United States of America. I'm trying to fight the terrorism that's actually causing the other forms of terrorism. You know, the root cause of terrorism is the stuff the U.S. government allows to happen. The foreign policies that we have in place in different countries that inspire people to become terrorists."

As political as the statement sounds, Fiasco, who grew up on the West Side, says he doesn't vote or get involved in politics.

Source: Lupe Fiasco Calls Obama a "Terrorist" | NBC Chicago
 
I dislike freshly deputized internet lawyers. A good case example of this is the long wait America's had for a constitutional justification from Obama for bombing Libya. There were many Obama supporters who crawled out of the woodwork trying to spout some crap about an afternoon of Googling proved that ratified NATO or UN treaties justified Obama's actions, all the while neglecting the fact that the Administration's refusal to cite those cases was a strong indicator they were full of it.

So, on June 15th, Obama finally deigned to tell the American people what authority he had to go to war.....

WASHINGTON — The White House is telling Congress that President Obama has the legal authority to continue American participation in the NATO-led air war in Libya, even though lawmakers have not authorized it.

In a broader package of materials the Obama administration is sending to Congress on Wednesday defending its Libya policy, the White House, for the first time, offers lawmakers and the public an argument for why Mr. Obama has not been violating the War Powers Resolution since May 20.

On that day, the Vietnam-era law’s 60-day deadline for terminating unauthorized hostilities appeared to pass. But the White House argued that the activities of United States military forces in Libya do not amount to full-blown “hostilities” at the level necessary to involve the section of the War Powers Resolution that imposes the deadline.

“We are acting lawfully,” said Harold Koh, the State Department legal adviser, who expanded on the administration’s reasoning in a joint interview with White House Counsel Robert Bauer.

The two senior administration lawyers contended that American forces have not been in “hostilities” at least since April 7, when NATO took over leadership in maintaining a no-flight zone in Libya, and the United States took up what is mainly a supporting role — providing surveillance and refueling for allied warplanes — although unmanned drones operated by the United States periodically fire missiles as well.

It's the Passive-Aggressive Exemption to War. Just as long as Americans don't die we can cruise missile/drone target the shit out of anything we want.

Meanwhile, in Libya:

Almost three months into the campaign of air strikes, Britain and its Nato allies no longer believe bombing alone will end the conflict in Libya, well-placed government officials have told the Guardian.

Instead, they are pinning their hopes on the defection of Muammar Gaddafi's closest aides, or the Libyan leader's agreement to flee the country.

...

The problems within Nato are mirrored among rebel fighters on the ground in Libya. In Misrata the militia leaders, few with military experience, have failed to coalesce into a co-ordinated army which can undertake manoeuvre operations. A second obstacle to an advance is the lack of heavy weapons which would allow them to punch through the ring of Gaddafi forces facing them – and then hold that ground against counterattacks.

While some militia leaders have told their troops to dig in, others have refused, leading to troops facing artillery fire out in the open. The result, last Friday, was slaughter; after British Apaches launched their first attacks on the Misrata front the night before, Gaddafi's forces hit back with an unprecedented barrage of thousands of Russian-made Grad rockets. The Apaches did not reappear in daylight to attack the rocket launchers and rebel units suffered 31 deaths and 120 other casualties.

It seems inevitable now that more Libyans have/will have died as a consequence of months of prolonged fighting compared to the dissolution of the rebel army in Benghazi, and still Ghaddafi will stay in power.
 
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One key to the Administration’s legal argument is to separate U.S. kinetic actions in Libya from the broader NATO action. I have just explained why I believe that those U.S. kinetic actions, considered in isolation, are “hostilities” under the WPR. But I do not think it is right to consider U.S. kinetic actions in isolation from the broader NATO effort.

As Bobby noted, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, the person “responsible to NATO’s highest military authority, the Military Committee, for the conduct of all NATO military operations,” is Admiral James G. Stavridis of the U.S. Navy. In other words, the officer in formal command of NATO military actions is a member of the U.S. Armed Forces. Other members of the U.S. Armed Forces presumably work up and down NATO’s chain of command. In addition, as the FT reported a few days ago, based on a DOD memo: “Although it is working under NATO, the US is by far the largest contributor to operation Unified Protector.” The United States supplies a huge portion of the funding (approaching a billion dollars) and (at least through May) about 75% of reconnaissance and refueling missions, as well as other forms of support to the NATO effort in Libya. Basically the U.S. Armed Forces are doing most of the heavy lifting in the conflict short of pulling all the triggers, and the triggers that are being pulled by non-U.S. military forces are technically the responsibility of a member of the U.S. Armed Forces. In this light, it is quite natural to conclude that the transfer of authority to NATO brings members of the U.S. armed forces into responsibility for all NATO attacks on Libya, not just the ones fired by U.S. Forces.

The language of the WPR supports this conclusion (but I do not think the language is necessary to this conclusion). Section 8(c) provides: “For purposes of this joint resolution, the term ‘introduction of United States Armed Forces’ includes the assignment of member of such armed forces to command, coordinate, participate in the movement of, or accompany the regular or irregular military forces of any foreign country or government when such military forces are engaged, or there exists an imminent threat that such forces will become engaged, in hostilities.” (emphasis added). This definition is relevant because is applies to the entire WPR and the WPR clock in Section 5(b) is tied to the introduction of U.S. Armed Forces into hostilities in Section 4(a)(1) and related reporting duties. On its face this language describes exactly what is going on: the U.S. is assigning members of the U.S. Armed Forces to command and participate in the movement of the regular military forces of France, Great Britain, and other nations that are engaged in hostilities in Libya. The fact that this command and participation happens via NATO seems irrelevant; the fact is that U.S. Armed Forces are helping those nations engage in military hostilities. Thus both the reality of the heavy U.S. participation in the NATO effort, and the WPR attribution rule, suggest that the NATO actions should be viewed as the actions of U.S. Armed Forces for purposes of the WPR. That would mean that the relevant bombing campaign for purposes of whether the U.S. is involved in “hostilities” is much broader and (because it involves NATO fighter jets and other forces, not just drones) more dangerous and more likely to lead to casualties than the drone attacks, considered in isolation.

and:

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It is instructive to compare President Obama's actions with those of his predecessor, George W. Bush, who sought legal justification for his decision to engage in waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques," which constituted torture. Bush wanted above all to be able to deny that he was violating the anti-torture statute and other laws and treaties. So he found a small group of lawyers in the OLC, headed by John Yoo, and asked for their opinions. This short-circuited the usual process through which the OLC collected views from various agencies and then used them to develop legal opinions for the executive branch. That is, Bush (assisted by his Vice-President, Dick Cheney) arranged matters so that decisions about waterboarding and enhanced interrogation techniques would be in the hands of lawyers he knew would tell him yes; the normal process of collating opinions was short-circuited and other lawyers were effectively frozen out.

Obama's practice is different, but it has disturbing similarities. Normally, Obama would have asked the OLC for its opinion, and as noted above, the OLC would have polled legal expertise in various agencies, consulted its precedents, had long discussions, and then come up with a scholarly opinion that is normally binding on the executive branch. Instead, Obama routed around the OLC, asking for opinions from various lawyers, including the White House Counsel and the Attorney-Advisor for the State Department. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that from the outset Obama was prospecting for opinions that would tell him that his actions were legal, and once he found them, he felt comfortable in rejecting the opinion of the OLC.

...Lest I be misunderstood, let me make clear that there is no single way that the Executive Branch has to be organized. The Constitution does not speak to it... The President may disregard the OLC without violating the Constitution.

However, there are good reasons why these practices and customs were implemented. They were designed to prevent Presidents from treating their lawyers like so many guests at a cocktail party that they can causally survey in order to pick out their friends. These procedures exist because there is almost always a prominent and skillful lawyer in the Administration who will tell the President pretty much what he wants to hear.

The OLC's procedures are designed to prevent precisely this sort of cherry picking. If the President can simply canvas the opinions of enough such lawyers he is not restrained very much by the law.
Indeed, it is particularly relevant here that one of the lawyers who supported the President's position on Libya is the White House Counsel. The White House Counsel's office, as it has developed over time, is much closer to the political arm of the President's operations, and much much less likely ever to cross the President. White House Counsels who do not facilitate the President's political goals do not remain long as White House Counsels. Not surprisingly, the White House Counsel's office does not have the same academic or judicious traditions of the OLC. Whether or not one thinks that the OLC is likely to say yes to the President simply because it sits in the Justice Department, the White House Counsel's office is likely to be ten times more flexible.

Sorry for the carpet-bomb of Libya-related quotes, but I think Obama's actions on this issue speak fundamentally to the disastrous role he's had in reinforcing Bush's Executive Branch powers.
 
Sorry for the carpet-bomb of Libya-related quotes, but I think Obama's actions on this issue speak fundamentally to the disastrous role he's had in reinforcing Bush's Executive Branch powers.



i don't know what to add or disagree with, but i will say that i generally agree with you.

at a minimum, i feel better about his judgment in wielding greater power than i did Bush (or would McCain/Palin), but the fact that even Obama uses such expanded power shows how it's impossible to reign in executive power once it's been expanded.

not that this adds much to anything, but i felt like your posts should be at least acknowledged because you're on the money.

if anything, the GOP now seems newly isolationist because of Afghanistan fatigue and disagreement with Obama on Libya is a nice campaign issue. so at a minimum, i don't see either party having the stomach for more adventures in the desert.
 
if anything, the GOP now seems newly isolationist because of Afghanistan fatigue and disagreement with Obama on Libya is a nice campaign issue. so at a minimum, i don't see either party having the stomach for more adventures in the desert.

When will both side agree that our military operations are really fucking expensive and are being purchased with a credit card?


That said, I don't consider veteran healthcare part of military operations. It is a right as a service member. Expensive yes, but not negotiable.
 
When will both side agree that our military operations are really fucking expensive and are being purchased with a credit card?
They can agree all they want but until there is drastic reform in Washington, private industry lobbying for defense contracts will continue to be an incentive for representatives to authorize bombardment brown people overseas.
 
It's about time. What about the rest?


President Barack Obama is expected to announce the approval of a plan that would result in the 30,000 U.S. "surge" forces being withdrawn completely from Afghanistan by the end of 2012, an administration official said.
 
yeah, withdrawn from Afghanistan and deployed to Libya ;)

Why by the end of 2012? I know I'm being a bit hyperbole, but why can't we just bring them home now? It's a lost cause and we got Osama. Mission Accomplished. Nation Building just isn't going to work when our own nation is falling apart.
 
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The U.S. Justice Department entered the court battle over a tough new Indiana abortion law that disqualifies Planned Parenthood of Indiana from the Medicaid program, siding with the organization in its request Thursday for a court order blocking the statute as unconstitutional.

That would be President Obama's Justice Dept. Also intervening in Arizona's efforts to enforce immigration laws the fed's won't. Obama's EPA hellbent to punish Texas for daring to challenge that agency's usurpation of the legislative branch in making laws. Obama's LRB telling an American company where it can build its own plant. Obama's FTC going after "Big Oil."

Barack the Moderate. LOL
 
it's awful when the justice department stands up to protect the reproductive rights of poor women.

clearly, America's problem is too much regulation.
 
That would be President Obama's Justice Dept. Also intervening in Arizona's efforts to enforce immigration laws the fed's won't. Obama's EPA hellbent to punish Texas for daring to challenge that agency's usurpation of the legislative branch in making laws. Obama's LRB telling an American company where it can build its own plant. Obama's FTC going after "Big Oil."

Barack the Moderate. LOL

Would you mind federal involvement in restricting abortion or gay marriage?

Isn't it more honest to say that you don't like the WAY Obama's government intervenes in "state affairs"? rather than that you oppose Big Government in general?
 
Would you mind federal involvement in restricting abortion or gay marriage?

Isn't it more honest to say that you don't like the WAY Obama's government intervenes in "state affairs"? rather than that you oppose Big Government in general?
He would prefer gay marriage be put up to a national vote with months and months in advance so the LDS and the like can rally up the troops and make it about keeping your children heterosexual. That way, he knows which side will win.
 
Would you mind federal involvement in restricting abortion or gay marriage?

Isn't it more honest to say that you don't like the WAY Obama's government intervenes in "state affairs"? rather than that you oppose Big Government in general?

It's extremely hard to find anyone who TRULY opposes "big government", most that call themselves conservatives want government to act in their best interest and then they consider it "small government".

Reagan was BIG government. But conservative revisionist history we'll teach us otherwise.
 
Would you mind federal involvement in restricting abortion or gay marriage?

Isn't it more honest to say that you don't like the WAY Obama's government intervenes in "state affairs"? rather than that you oppose Big Government in general?

I'm a Tenth Amendment guy. Unfortunately, laws related to your two examples, abortion and gay marriage, have too often been written by judges rather than legislatures the past 40 years leading to social acrimony.
 
Unfortunately, laws related to your two examples, abortion and gay marriage, have too often been written by judges rather than legislatures the past 40 years leading to social acrimony.

Is it that you don't understand the concept of the common law system under which you live?

Or that you'd prefer to be like France and have a civil code?
 
I'm a Tenth Amendment guy. Unfortunately, laws related to your two examples, abortion and gay marriage, have too often been written by judges rather than legislatures the past 40 years leading to social acrimony.

So I'm understanding that you would oppose any federal measures on these issues whether pro or con?

DOMA etc, you're against. . .standing on principal.
 
Is it that you don't understand the concept of the common law system under which you live?

Or that you'd prefer to be like France and have a civil code?

I live in a sovereign constitutional republic consisting of 50 states. A republic because the lawmakers are elected and constitutional because the powers of the government are limited by a constitution.

It is neither republican when unelected officials make laws nor constitutional when the federal government exceeds its enumerated powers and intrudes on states rights.
 
So I'm understanding that you would oppose any federal measures on these issues whether pro or con?

DOMA etc, you're against. . .standing on principal.

DOMA was passed to protect states from having other state laws imposed on them through the Full Faith and Credit Clause and to define marriage for federal purposes.
 
So you would not be opposed to federal involvement in non-constitutional issues such as marriage?

Not getting into all this again but clearly a working definition of all words in any piece of legislation or regulation is a necessity. Be it "wage," "citizen," or "marriage." Suffice it to say that until recently there was no ambiguity whatsoever as to the definition of marriage.
 
Not getting into all this again but clearly a working definition of all words in any piece of legislation or regulation is a necessity. Be it "wage," "citizen," or "marriage." Suffice it to say that until recently there was no ambiguity whatsoever as to the definition of marriage.

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to lure you into a fight over gay marriage.

I AM trying to lure you into a fight over whether you aren't actually rather selective in what you mean when you say you oppose "big government" especially big federal government. :wink:

Of course I wouldn't expect you to use the words "Big Government." Indeed liberals don't even use that term.

I lived for 11 years with a truly bloated local government and I can talk for hours about its evils.
 
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