Thursday, August 29, 2013
Joe Biden Wanted Bush Impeached For the Very Thing Obama is About to Do
In 2007, Senator Joe Biden repeatedly threatened to impeach President George W. Bush should he attack Iran without congressional authorization. Senator Obama agreed that Bush did not have the power to order a strike on Iran. This was not mindless, partisan saber rattling: Vice President Dick Cheney and the neoconservative establishment were actively pushing Bush to take military action against Iran.
Now, in 2013, Biden is the vice president and Obama, as president, is undoubtedly going to strike Syria in response to a brutal chemical weapons massacre outside of Damascus. However, the administration has not lifted a finger to approach Congress for authorization, illustrating Obama’s and Biden’s blatant hypocrisy in regards to the imperial presidency.
On Hardball, Biden emphatically and passionately told Chris Matthews that Bush had “no constitutional authority … to take this nation to war against a county of 70 million people unless we’re attacked or unless there is proof we are about to be attacked. And if he does, if he does, I would move to impeach him.” Biden was absolutely correct to point out the illegality of Bush’s intentions and threaten him with impeachment.
Bush and Cheney, who marked their administration with a series of special-interest foreign policy blunders, certainly had their fair share of controversy. Few Americans need to be reminded their administration went so far as to invade Iraq on fabricated, inconclusive evidence. However, Biden and then-Senator John Kerry, who is now Obama’s secretary of state, both voted to give Bush the authority to attack Iraq. Less controversially, Congress also gave the Bush administration broad, overarching power in Afghanistan in the name of the artificial War on Terror.
Gun Bill in Missouri Would Test Limits in Nullifying U.S. Law
Unless a handful of wavering Democrats change their minds, the Republican-controlled Missouri legislature is expected to enact a statute next month nullifying all federal gun laws in the state and making it a crime for federal agents to enforce them here. A Missourian arrested under federal firearm statutes would even be able to sue the arresting officer.
The law amounts to the most far-reaching states’ rights endeavor in the country, the far edge of a growing movement known as “nullification” in which a state defies federal power.
The Missouri Republican Party thinks linking guns to nullification works well, said Matt Wills, the party’s director of communications, thanks in part to the push by President Obama for tougher gun laws. “It’s probably one of the best states’ rights issues that the country’s got going right now,” he said.
The measure was vetoed last month by Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, as unconstitutional. But when the legislature gathers again on Sept. 11, it will seek to override his veto, even though most experts say the courts will strike down the measure. Nearly every Republican and a dozen Democrats appear likely to vote for the override.
Richard G. Callahan, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, is concerned. He cited a recent joint operation of federal, state and local law enforcement officials that led to 159 arrests and the seizing of 267 weapons, and noted that the measure “would have outlawed such operations, and would have made criminals out of the law enforcement officers.”
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Rand Paul won’t back Lindsey Graham in Republican primary
The disagreements between Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are no secret. The two have clashed on various political issues, most notably on foreign policy, highlighting the gap between the new faces in the Republican Party and the Old Guard establishment that almost always chooses politics over principle.
For example, after Paul’s filibuster in March, during which he raised awareness to President Obama’s drones policy, Graham and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) slammed the emerging non-interventionism in the Republican Party. More recently, the South Carolina Senator has downplayed conservative efforts to challenge the Obama Administration on domestic policy.
But even as he faces three different conservative primary challengers in his bid for re-election, Graham doesn’t seem ready to back down from positions he has taken that are out-of-touch with many Republicans in South Carolina.
During an interview with The State, a South Carolina-based newspaper, Paul indicated that he wasn’t going to get involved in the primary and delineated some of the problems Graham may face as he makes his case for re-election.
“You know, at this point my position is that I am trying to stay out of races that have incumbents, so that’s what my decision is at least for now,” said Paul when asked if he would back one of Graham’s primary challengers.
“[W]e have some disagreements. And if anything, I think he’s probably been more forceful in pointing out the disagreements,” Paul noted after a follow up question. “I frankly think that people, really of America but also South Carolina, probably aren’t that excited about sending good money after bad to Egypt and these far flung places.”
Congress Should Veto Obama’s War
“Congress doesn’t have a whole lot of core responsibilities,” said Barack Obama last week in an astonishing remark.
For in the Constitution, Congress appears as the first branch of government. And among its enumerated powers are the power to tax, coin money, create courts, provide for the common defense, raise and support an army, maintain a navy and declare war.
But, then, perhaps Obama’s contempt is justified.
For consider Congress’ broad assent to news that Obama has decided to attack Syria, a nation that has not attacked us and against which Congress has never authorized a war.
Why is Obama making plans to launch cruise missiles on Syria?
According to a “senior administration official … who insisted on anonymity,” President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons on his own people last week in the two-year-old Syrian civil war.
But who deputized the United States to walk the streets of the world pistol-whipping bad actors. Where does our imperial president come off drawing “red lines” and ordering nations not to cross them?
Neither the Security Council nor Congress nor NATO nor the Arab League has authorized war on Syria.
Who made Barack Obama the Wyatt Earp of the Global Village?
Moreover, where is the evidence that WMDs were used and that it had to be Assad who ordered them? Such an attack makes no sense.
Firing a few shells of gas at Syrian civilians was not going to advance Assad’s cause but, rather, was certain to bring universal condemnation on his regime and deal cards to the War Party which wants a U.S. war on Syria as the back door to war on Iran.
Does Obama know he’s fighting on al-Qa’ida’s side?
If Barack Obama decides to attack the Syrian regime, he has ensured – for the very first time in history – that the United States will be on the same side as al-Qa’ida.
Quite an alliance! Was it not the Three Musketeers who shouted “All for one and one for all” each time they sought combat? This really should be the new battle cry if – or when – the statesmen of the Western world go to war against Bashar al-Assad.
The men who destroyed so many thousands on 9/11 will then be fighting alongside the very nation whose innocents they so cruelly murdered almost exactly 12 years ago. Quite an achievement for Obama, Cameron, Hollande and the rest of the miniature warlords.
This, of course, will not be trumpeted by the Pentagon or the White House – nor, I suppose, by al-Qa’ida – though they are both trying to destroy Bashar. So are the Nusra front, one of al-Qa’ida’s affiliates. But it does raise some interesting possibilities.
Maybe the Americans should ask al-Qa’ida for intelligence help – after all, this is the group with “boots on the ground”, something the Americans have no interest in doing. And maybe al-Qa’ida could offer some target information facilities to the country which usually claims that the supporters of al-Qa’ida, rather than the Syrians, are the most wanted men in the world.
There will be some ironies, of course. While the Americans drone al-Qa’ida to death in Yemen and Pakistan – along, of course, with the usual flock of civilians – they will be giving them, with the help of Messrs Cameron, Hollande and the other Little General-politicians, material assistance in Syria by hitting al-Qa’ida’s enemies. Indeed, you can bet your bottom dollar that the one target the Americans will not strike in Syria will be al-Qa’ida or the Nusra front.