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Obama’s AUMF—–An Affront To Congress And A Blank Check For War
Obama’s AUMF—–An Affront To Congress And A Blank Check For War
After waging war on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) for six months, President Obama is asking Congress for its blessing. But whether or not he gets it, he plans to continue doing whatever he thinks is necessary to “degrade and ultimately destroy this terrorist group.”
Since he will not take no for an answer, Obama’s solicitation of the legislative branch’s input is a gesture of contempt rather than respect. Congress should assert its constitutional authority by rescinding the 2001 authorization for use of military force (AUMF) that Obama implausibly claims already gives him permission for his war on ISIS.
The 2001 AUMF authorized military action against the perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In a 2013 speech, Obama called upon Congress to “refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF’s mandate,” because “unless we discipline our thinking, our definitions, our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don’t need to fight.”
Last year Obama illustrated that danger by citing the 2001 AUMF as a justification for the military campaign against ISIS, which did not exist in 2001 and is no longer part of Al Qaeda. The ISIS-specific AUMF that he proposed last week repeals the 2002 resolution authorizing George W. Bush’s war in Iraq but conspicuously leaves in place the 2001 AUMF.
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Debt As Wealth; The Caution of Unfit Past Experience
Debt As Wealth; The Caution of Unfit Past Experience
With the G-20 recoiling itself back into the same kinds of mistakes made in the 1960’s, leading directly to the Great Inflation, we will have to take into account the other end of that, namely other forms of “stimulus.” With the global economy sinking, and worries about it beginning to resound beyond just inconvenient bears, there is growing official consensus on central banks taking a clearer approach but also that governments need to face up to “austerity.”
Paul Krugman has been leading the critique against what he sees is a disastrous and ignorant deformation against debt. In times like these, which he “predicted” based on too little government spending, Krugman derides fiscal sense as “cold-hearted.”
This misplaced focus said a lot about our political culture, in particular about how disconnected Congress is from the suffering of ordinary Americans. But it also revealed something else: when people in D.C. talk about deficits and debt, by and large they have no idea what they’re talking about — and the people who talk the most understand the least…
People who get their economic analysis from the likes of the Heritage Foundation have been waiting ever since President Obama took office for budget deficits to send interest rates soaring. Any day now!
The above quoted passage was taken from a column he wrote back on New Year’s Day 2012. While it has aged three years, given the global slowdown that was about to take place and the ineffectiveness of monetarism alone to dispel it, his words are being taken increasingly as both prescient and prescriptive. However, the logic behind his anti-austerity agenda is more of a sleight of hand than actual argument.
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ISIS CAPTURES CITY WHERE MARINES ARE TRAINING IRAQI TROOPS AFTER OBAMA SUBMITS WAR AUTHORIZATION
ISIS CAPTURES CITY WHERE MARINES ARE TRAINING IRAQI TROOPS AFTER OBAMA SUBMITS WAR AUTHORIZATION
Corporate poll says majority of Americans favor continued and expanded war
On Thursday ISIS fighters attacked and seized a large section of the Iraqi city of al-Baghdadi, located about 50 miles northwest of Ramadi in Anbar province.
They also advanced on the Ain al-Asad air base near the town where 320 U.S. Marines are training members of the Iraqi 7th Division.
The Pentagon reported “heavy fighting” in al-Baghdadi and said there were “reports of ineffective indirect fire in the vicinity of the base,” according to Reuters.
It also said Anbar is under “severe threat” by Islamic State fighters.
“Thursday’s fighting also demonstrates the continued ability of the Islamic State to remain on the attack despite coalition airstrikes. Still, U.S. officials maintain that the militants remain largely on the defensive,” the Washington Post reported.
Unconfirmed reports state ISIS has captured the air base and the Marines stationed there:
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Obama’s Force Authorization is a Blank Check for War Worldwide
Obama’s Force Authorization is a Blank Check for War Worldwide
The president is requesting Congress to pass an authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) resolution against ISIS. Congress has not issued a similar resolution since 2002, when President Bush was given the authority to wage war against Iraq. The purpose of this resolution is to give official authority to the president to do the things that he has already been doing for the past six years. Seems strange but this is typical for Washington. President Obama’s claim is that he does not need this authority. He claims, as have all other recent presidents, that the authority to wage war in the Middle East has been granted by the resolutions passed in 2001, 2002, and by article II of the Constitution. To ask for this authority at this time is a response to public and political pressure.
It has been reported that the president is going to request that the authority limit the use of ground troops. However it would not affect the troops already engaged in Syria and Iraq to the tune of many thousands. This new authority will acknowledge that more advisors will be sent. Most importantly it will appear to have given moral sanction to the wars that have already been going for years.
Interestingly it actually expands the ability of the president to wage war although the president publicly indicates he would like to restrain it. The new authorization explicitly does not impose geographic limits on the use of troops anywhere in the world and expands the definition of ISIS to that of all “associated forces.” A grant of this authority will do nothing to limit our dangerous involvement in these constant Middle East wars.
The war propagandists are very active and are winning over the support of many unsuspecting American citizens. It is not difficult to motivate resistance against an organization like ISIS that engages in such evil displays of horrific violence.
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OBAMA ASKS CONGRESS TO AUTHORIZE WAR THAT’S ALREADY STARTED
OBAMA ASKS CONGRESS TO AUTHORIZE WAR THAT’S ALREADY STARTED
As the U.S. continues to bomb the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, President Obama asked Congress today to approve a new legal framework for the ongoing military campaign.
The administration’s draft law “would not authorize long-term, large-scale ground combat operations” like Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama wrote in aletter accompanying the proposal. The draft’s actual language is vague, allowing for ground troops in what Obama described as “limited circumstances,” like special operations and rescue missions.
The authorization would have no geographic limitations and allow action against “associated persons or forces” of the Islamic State. It would expire in three years.
Speaking at New York University School of Law this afternoon, Harold Koh, the State Department’s legal adviser until 2013, said that the Obama administration is currently on shaky legal grounds, tying the airstrikes to a law passed days after 9/11.
Koh said that stretching the law like that is inconsistent with Obama’s stated goal of bringing the U.S. off of “perpetual wartime footing.” Acting without a new authorization from Congress “doesn’t promote the end of the ‘Forever War,’” Koh said.
Since August, the U.S. and other nations have carried out more than 2,300 airstrikes, according to data released by the U.S. military and compiled by journalist Chris Woods.
The administration currently justifies those airstrikes by invoking self-defense and the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force. Passed one week after the September 11th, 2001 and just 60 words long, that law in broad language gave the White House the power to go after anyone connected to the 9/11 attacks.
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The Minsk Peace Deal: Farce Or Sellout?
The Minsk Peace Deal: Farce Or Sellout?
Judging by the report on RT http://rt.com/news/231667-minsk-ceasefire-deal-breakup/
I conclude that the Ukraine peace deal worked out in Minsk by Putin, Merkel, Hollande, and Poroshenko has little chance of success.
As Washington is not a partner to the Minsk peace deal, how can there be peace when Washington has made policy decisions to escalate the conflict and to use the conflict as a proxy war between the US and Russia?
The Minsk agreement makes no reference to the announcement by Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, commander of US Army Europe, that Washington is sending a battalion of US troops to Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces how to fight against Russian and rebel forces. The training is scheduled to begin in March, about two weeks from now. Gen. Hodges says that it is very important to recognize that the Donetsk and Luhansk forces “are not separatists, these are proxies for President Putin.”
How is there a peace deal when Washington has plans underway to send arms and training to the US puppet government in Kiev?
Looking at the deal itself, it is set up to fail. The only parties to the deal who had to sign it are the leaders of the Donetsk and Lugansk break-away republics. The other signers to the Minsk deal are an OSCE representative which is the European group that is supposed to monitor the withdrawal of heavy weapons by both sides, a former Ukrainian president Viktor Kuchma, and the Russian ambassador in Kiev. Neither the German chancellor nor the French, Ukrainian, and Russian presidents who brokered the deal had to sign it.
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7 Fascist Regimes Enthusiastically Supported by America
President Barack Obama inspired a great deal of debate when, in December, he asserted that it was time for the United States to begin to normalize relations with Cuba and start loosening the embargo that has been in effect since the early 1960s. And many hard-right Republicans and neocons, from Texas’ Ted Cruz and Florida’s Marco Rubio in the U.S. Senate to House Speaker John Boehner, have been vehemently critical of Obama’s stand. Boehner has insisted that “relations with the Castro regime should not be revisited, let alone normalized, until the Cuban people enjoy freedom,” and Cruz has maintained that because Fidel and Raul Castro are “brutal dictators,” the embargo must remain. But given the United States’ long history of supporting one fascist dictatorship after another in Latin America, the embargo of Cuba has been the height of hypocrisy on the U.S.’ part. While it’s true that Amnesty International has often been critical of the Castro regime over the years, many of the other Latin American dictatorships that Amnesty International has criticized have been U.S. allies—and Cuba has hardly had the market cornered on human rights abuses in Latin America.
Below are seven of the worst fascist regimes in Latin America that the U.S. enthusiastically supported.
1. Chile: Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s Military Junta, 1973-1990
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The Latest US Invasion Of Iraq Begins: US Military Search And Rescue Teams Arrive In Northern Iraq
The Latest US Invasion Of Iraq Begins: US Military Search And Rescue Teams Arrive In Northern Iraq
Despite numerous explanations that no boots-on-the-ground will be on-the-ground in Iraq in the war against Islamic State, it appears, as CNN reports, that the US military has moved Search-and-Rescue (S&R) assets to Northern Iraq as part of a “constant rebalancing” depending on the evolving airstrike-only mission.
Of course, as the ‘unnamed source’ was so quick to explain, this was in no way a response to threats from The UAE to pull out of the coalition unless S&R assets were placed in Iraq since, cynically speaking, the UAE demands are only the result of US demands that it demand it anyway.
However, as Bloomberg notes – on the heels of selling 170 M-1 Abrams tanks to Iraq indirectly ‘stimulating’ the US economy (“middle-class economics” don’t forget) – US allies are now withholding military power in an effort to get Obama to do more in Syria (which once again cynically-speaking – gives the President further excuse to provide billions in fresh military contracts to General Dynamics & Northrop Grummond) all in the name of peace, prosperity and the American way of life.
U.S. allies in the fight against Islamic State extremists are withholding military capabilities as leverage on President Barack Obama to do more in Syria, according to Bloomberg.
At issue are calls from the U.A.E. for U.S. pilot-rescue teams to be positioned closer to the Syrian battleground, where they’d be primed for quicker action, and from Turkey to impose a protected safe zone in Syria. Their demands create problems for Obama, who officials have said is wary of drawing the U.S. more deeply into Syria’s turmoil.
Underlying that issue is disagreement over Obama’s decision to make fighting Islamic State the priority over efforts to remove the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Middle Class Shrinks Further as More Fall Out Instead of Climbing Up
Middle Class Shrinks Further as More Fall Out Instead of Climbing Up
The middle class that President Obama identified in his State of the Union speech last week as the foundation of the American economy has been shrinking for almost half a century.
In the late 1960s, more than half of the households in the United States were squarely in the middle, earning, in today’s dollars, $35,000 to $100,000 a year. Few people noticed or cared as the size of that group began to fall, because the shift was primarily caused by more Americans climbing the economic ladder into upper-income brackets.
But since 2000, the middle-class share of households has continued to narrow, the main reason being that more people have fallen to the bottom. At the same time, fewer of those in this group fit the traditional image of a married couple with children at home, a gap increasingly filled by the elderly.
This social upheaval helps explain why the president focused on reviving the middle class, offering a raft of proposals squarely aimed at concerns like paying for a college education, taking parental leave, affording child care and buying a home.
“Middle-class economics means helping working families feel more secure in a world of constant change,” Mr. Obama told Congress and the public on Tuesday.
Still, regardless of their income, most Americans identify as middle class. The term itself is so amorphous that politicians often cite the group in introducing proposals to engender wide appeal.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Russian Sanctions Might Be Obama’s Greatest Blunder
Russian Sanctions Might Be Obama’s Greatest Blunder
One of the greatest foreign policy blunders of the Obama Administration was the push by the U.S. for economic sanctions against Russia. That led to Russia fleeing into the arms of China for refuge. In response, Russia, Europe’s largest and most populated country, is now intent on moving its vast storehouse of resources eastward, strengthening America’s largest emerging rival.
Over the last two years, the two countries have completed a $700 billion agreement for Russia to deliver energy to China, amounting to about 17% of Chinese annual supply, for a period covering twenty years, with China financing much of the initial costs of pipeline construction.
What Russia has done, in that one move, is to help repair a major hole in China’s military armor, making it invulnerable to a U.S. cut-off of sea bourn energy supplies, which until now was one of the greatest fears of Chinese military strategists.
From the Chinese perspective, this is a gift that fulfills its wildest dreams. It’s also a gift that could severely undermine the West’s plans to deliver expensive Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) to China and Asia, while already facing competition from Qatar and Australia LNG, will now also run up against Russian pipeline gas through China.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Obama Vows To Fight For Climate Policies In State Of The Union But What He Didn’t Mention Was Just As Telling
Obama Vows To Fight For Climate Policies In State Of The Union But What He Didn’t Mention Was Just As Telling
President Barack Obama could not have signaled more clearly in his 2015 State of the Union address that he intends to fight for his legacy on climate change in the face of a hostile, anti-science GOP-led House and Senate.
But it was what the President didn’t mention that could negate his climate legacy: free trade deals like the Trans Pacific Partnership that undermine local efforts to lower emissions, projects like Keystone XL that lock us into decades of continued dirty energy use, and the exporting of American-made coal, crude oil and natural gas to overseas markets.
Which is not to say that every policy position Obama laid out regarding energy and the environment entirely matched his lofty rhetoric about climate change.
At this moment — with a growing economy, shrinking deficits, bustling industry, and booming energy production — we have risen from recession freer to write our own future than any other nation on Earth. It’s now up to us to choose who we want to be over the next fifteen years, and for decades to come.
While Obama went on to list a number of achievements made in growing domestic renewable energy capacity under his watch, he also continued to pay lip service to an “all of the above” energy strategy—a strategy scientists tell us we most definitely do not have 15 more years to continue subscribing to.
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What the Heck Is Happening to US Manufacturing?
What the Heck Is Happening to US Manufacturing?
The worst month in the Southeast since the Financial Crisis.
Despite President Obama’s emphatic assurances in the State of the Union Address that “our economy is growing and creating jobs at the fastest pace since 1999,” there have recently been some uncomfortable squiggles, so to speak.
The collapse in the prices of oil, natural gas, and natural-gas liquids has started to make its imprint on the largest hydrocarbon producer in the world, namely the US of A. Oilfield layoffs and project cancellations are raining down on the oil patch on a daily basis. Suppliers are hit too. Many energy stocks are in the process of evisceration. Energy junk bonds are in a rout.
But consumers love it – those who aren’t losing their jobs over it – because they spend less on fuel. Consumers are voters. So politicians love it because voters love it. Hence, it’s good for the economy. I get that.
These sorts of squiggles have been worming their way into national numbers. For example, Markit’s Services PMI for December dropped to 53.3, down for the sixth month in a row, after having peaked in June. This was “not just a one-month wobble,” the report said, as the economy “lost significant growth momentum at the close of the year.” But it remained above 50, the dividing line between expansion and contraction. It’s still an expansion, and “growth is merely slowing from an unusually powerful rate rather than stalling.”
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Europe Gets Cold Feet on “TTIP,” Americans Should Too, But Obama Needs it for his Legacy
Europe Gets Cold Feet on “TTIP,” Americans Should Too, But Obama Needs it for his Legacy
As almost always, the U.S. government and European Commission are on the same page, reading from the same script. This year they have one overriding goal in common: to create the world’s biggest “free” trade area by passing the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) into national and supranational law on both sides of the Atlantic.
To this end the White House is furiously lobbying Congress to grant it fast track authority for the passage of not only TTIP, but also TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership). It is to be Obama’s swansong legacy. And with the pro-“free” trade Republicans firmly back in control on the Hill, he’s almost certain to get what it wants.
As such, TPP and TTIP negotiations will likely remain closed off from the public until the deals are finalized, by which time it will already be too late: just as happened with the passage of NAFTA in 1994, a largely compliant Congress will sign along the dotted lines without questioning what they’re actually signing into existence.
While some members of Congress are quite happy to waive their rights to actively participate in the lawmaking process, others are wary of granting sole authority to documents that have yet to be seen. Here’s what independent senator Bernie Sanders had to say on the issue in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman:
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Is Keystone Still Viable Amid Low Oil Prices?
Is Keystone Still Viable Amid Low Oil Prices?
On Monday the Keystone XL pipeline project crossed another hurdle when legislation approving construction of the proposed line to connect Canadian oil sands crude with Gulf Coast refineries was passed by the United States Senate.
The bill sailed through 63 votes to 32 in the Senate, which is now in the hands of the Republicans following November mid-term elections, along with the House of Representatives, which passed the same Keystone legislation last week.
With the bill well on its way to becoming law, it will up to President Obama to decide on whether or not to veto it, a decision he has held off for six years. Obama has criticized the project as adding to greenhouse gas emissions, despite an environmental assessment to the contrary by the State Department released a year ago, and because he argues it would help Canadian producers to deliver crude for export, against the claims of the proponent, TransCanada Corp, which maintains the oil will be processed in US refineries and consumed domestically.
While the political machinations of Keystone, with all the horse trading it inevitably entails, certainly make for some excellent headlines, an equally pressing question is whether the project is even viable with today’s oil prices, which dropped further on Monday to below $46 a barrel in North America.
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Experts Say That Battle on Keystone Pipeline Is Over Politics, Not Facts
Experts Say That Battle on Keystone Pipeline Is Over Politics, Not Facts
WASHINGTON — In 2009, the Obama administration approved a 986-mile pipeline to bring 400,000 barrels of oil sands petroleum a day from western Canada to the United States. Almost no one paid attention. Construction on the pipeline, called the Alberta Clipper, was quietly completed last year.
In that same period, the administration considered construction of a similar project, the Keystone XL. So far only in the blueprint stage, this pipeline has become an explosive political issue that Republicans are seizing as their first challenge to President Obama in the new Congress.
The Republican-controlled House is set to pass a bill to force approval of Keystone on Friday and the Senate is expected to pass the measure in coming weeks. Republicans say the pipeline will create jobs and spur the economy while environmentalists and some Democrats say it will destroy pristine forests and create carbon pollution. Mr. Obama has vowed to veto the bill.
