Daily Archives: August 4, 2012

2012 Primary, Civility, Dirty Tricks, Jobs, Obama, Stuck on Stupid, True Talking Points

Labor Dept. Waives 60-Day Jobs Notice To Help Obama Get Good Press…

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That’s right…. SCREW THOSE DEFENSE WORKERS! They probably voted for McCain anyways…..

This is cruel.

Investors Business Daily:

Politics: An administration that doesn’t want layoff notices required by law going out days before the November election is telling defense contractors they don’t have to send them for the cuts required by sequestration.

As the heads of major defense contractors Lockheed Martin, EADS North America, Pratt & Whitney and Williams-Pyro testified recently before the House Armed Services Committee, they are bound by law to give employees 60 days’ notice if their jobs are going to be terminated as a result of sequestration cuts scheduled for Jan. 2.

Federal law under the WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice) Act required employers to give workers a minimum of 60 days notice before potential mass layoffs.

That means layoff warning notices could go out to hundreds of thousands of workers just days before the presidential election, a prospect President Obama and his administration do not relish.

Some $500 billion in defense-spending reductions are scheduled to kick in beginning Jan. 2.

These cuts come on top of $487 billion in Defense Department cuts recently approved and threaten to not only to put our national security in jeopardy but also gut the skilled workforce in the aerospace industry.

Robert Stevens, chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, told lawmakers that his company alone is looking at laying off roughly 10,000 employees from its 120,000 workforce.

The layoffs would be the result of cuts to its largest programs, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the Littoral Combat Ship.

To avoid the electoral consequences of these cuts, the Department of Labor (DOL) is informing defense contractors that since sequestration hasn’t actually happened yet, and some in Congress are trying to find ways around it, it might be nice if they didn’t obey federal law and send out the pink slips just this once.

Otherwise, outraged voters might give President Obama a pink slip a few days later.

2012 Primary, Treason, True Talking Points

Congress votes to ignore checks and balances on political appointees…

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We do not often post pieces from New American, but no matter what you think of them, this particular piece is spot on. I don’t know about you, but amending the Constitution by legislative fiat creeps me out. Aside from the fact that the law is royally unconstitutional, is LESS Congressional oversight of the Executive what we really need right now? There are some on the GOP who still just don’t get it and the Democrat leadership is off in Saul Alinsky land.

New American:

By a vote of 261-116, the House of Representatives passed a bill rewriting Article II of the Constitution and divesting the Senate of the power to accept or reject the appointment of many presidential nominees.

Last year, the Senate passed the measure by a vote of 79-20, so it now goes to the desk of President Obama for his signature.

“Important positions will be filled faster, government agencies will be more capable of offering valuable services to their constituents, and the overall confirmation process will be more efficient,” said Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Dozens of key management positions in the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Commerce, and Homeland Security (including the treasurer of the United States, the deputy administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, the director of the Office for Domestic Preparedness, and the assistant administrator of FEMA) will now be filled by presidential edict, without the need of the “advice and consent” of the Senate, a phrase specifically removed from the process in the text of the bill.

Although the House vote occurred on Tuesday, the Senate voted to surrender its constitutional check on the executive over a year ago on June 29, 2011.

Despite a last-minute attempt by some House leaders to put the measure to a voice vote, thus allowing members to vote in favor of the legislation without being listed on the record, a roll call vote was taken, and the name of every congressman who voted to unconstitutionally neuter the legislative branch is listed.

The process began last March when Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and 15 cosponsors, including Republicans Lamar Alexander (Tenn.); Scott Brown (Mass.); and Mitch McConnell (Ky.), introduced S. 679, the “Presidential Appointment Efficiency and Streamlining Act.” The measure struck from many current laws the “advice and consent” requirement for many executive branch appointments, giving the president unchecked power to fill key administration positions.

In a memo sent to Capitol Hill in advance of Tuesday’s vote in the House, Thomas McClusky of the Family Research Council reminded lawmakers, “The United States Constitution does not bestow kingly powers on the President to appoint the senior officers of the government with no process.”

Although McClusky’s reading of the Constitution is accurate, as of Tuesday it is no longer the law of the land. According to proponents of the measure, the bill benefitted from such strong bipartisan support (95 Republicans joined 166 Democrats voting in favor of passage) because its sole purpose is to relieve the backlog of unconfirmed appointees by eliminating the confirmation requirement for about 200 offices.

The process by which heads of executive branch departments are appointed and confirmed is set forth by Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. The “Appointments Clause” provides that the president:

shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

Now, as soon as President Obama adds his signature to the bill, the checks and balances established by our Founding Fathers as a protection against tyranny will be eliminated, as well as the concept of enumerated powers.

Culture War, Europe, Jihad, True Talking Points

Another Islamic “Honor Killing” in England…

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Shafilea Ahmed
Cheshire Police handout photo of murdered teen-ager Shafilea Ahmed.

The Blaze:

LONDON (TheBlaze/AP) — In a startling case, the Pakistani parents of a teenage girl have been found guilty of murdering a daughter who rebelled against a forced marriage to her cousin — a conviction that was clinched with the girl’s younger sister testifying that she saw her parents suffocate her older sibling.

Justice Roderick Evans on Friday sentenced Iftikhar, 52, and Farzana Ahmed, 49, to life for killing their daughter, Shafilea, in 2003. The couple — first cousins from the Pakistani village of Uttam — were ordered to serve a minimum of 25 years in prison.

“She was being squeezed between two cultures – the culture and way of life that she saw around her and wanted to embrace, and the culture and way of life you wanted to impose on her,” Evans said during the sentencing at the Chester Crown Court in northwest England.

In Britain, more than 25 women have been killed in so-called honor killings in the past decade. Families have sometimes lashed out at their children, often believing they have brought them shame by becoming too westernized or by refusing a marriage.

Culture War, Editorial, History, True Talking Points, War

Taking Your Citizenship Seriously Is a Matter of Life and Death – UPDATED

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by Chuck Norton

By happenstance I found myself helping a kind young lady get her car ready for a trip. I asked her where she was going and she said “Texas”. I asked “Anything fun?” and she  answered, “I hope so. I am going to a retreat for military widows”. Something had taken away my breath. Then she let it all come out. Her husband was killed in Iraq and she has two young children, the youngest never got to meet her father.

I was crushed.

Why?

I was in the military during the first Gulf War under President George H.W. Bush. This was my generation’s war and it didn’t seem right that this sweet young lady standing in front of me had to pay the price.

How is this related to citizenship?

During my time our military was in Iraq with 500,000 men led by General “Stormin'” Norman Schwarzkopf. We were in a MUCH better position to finish the job than President Bush the younger. But Bush the elder wanted to make the United Nations happy. You see the UN did not want to offend some Islamic countries by “allowing” the Christian United States oust an Arab dictator, no matter how bad he was. Since all George H.W. Bush could talk about in speeches was “the vision of the UN’s Founders” he complied with the UN and had our military pull out with the job unfinished.

Understand; “everyone” in the military knew that some day, some way, we would have to come back to finish the job. This was the topic of many a conversation between officer and enlisted alike.

President Bush the elder encouraged Saddam Hussien’s domestic enemies to try to oust him, but without our help they were simply outgunned. Saddam slaughtered many of the Kurds in the North and genocided the Marsh Arabs in the South. He want on a reign of terror rooting out his internal enemies. The result was hundreds of mass graves and it is estimated that his reign of terror resulted in 680,000 dead – and that is only counting Kurds and Shiites. Saddam went on to fund terrorist groups including the PLO and Al-Qaeda.

You cannot do evil and expect good to come of it. Take a moment to consider the suffering brought about by a decision to just make the easy choice.

George H.W. Bush was an “establishment guy”. The “establishment” GOP had always opposed Ronald Reagan and Reagan probably would have had a convention fight on his hands if he had rejected their insistence that George H.W. Bush be brought on to the ticket as Vice President. When Vice President Bush became President Bush (41) it did not take him long to abandon the Reagan legacy, raise taxes, get all “internationalist” on us and pretty much go back to big government business as usual, which is why he ended up being a one term president. So damaging was President Bush’s single term that even Mitt Romney was saying on television that “I don’t want to go back to the time of Reagan/Bush”.

It is my generation that let this happen and the consequences of our lazy citizenship was standing in front of me in the form of this sweet, heart broken young lady who is raising two children on her own. She told me of the fights she had with the VA and other benefits the government tried to deny her and her children. It took everything I had to hold back the tears. All I could do was apologize to her and take responsibility as I explained to her how my generation had dropped the ball. She graciously accepted my apology, but of course, she had figured out long ago the reality that had just hit me in the face.

Get along to go along, big government business as usual, can never be allowed to happen again. The consequences of allowing it to happen are dire and very real. I am grateful that a new generation of Americans is at trying to get the Republican Party back on track.

UPDATE – A reader sent us the following message:

Bigger factors were happening and had to be considered before we went against the UN mandate to get Iraq out of Kuwait. Don’t think if we would have gone in and removed him that the situation would have solved itself. WW3 was diverted by not going in in which saved thousands of lives. By containing him and restricting air space proved the best course of action. Remember at that time, The UN mandate was to get military forces out of Kuwait, not to overthrow a government. This was a joint action with members. ANY aggressive action with forces in the field would have prompted a HOLY war against western aggression. The surrounding countries to Iraq, were already at this time planning the breakup of Iraq and there oil reserves. This would have caused a power vacuum in the region as it did in the second gulf war. They knew this, so they avoided the aftermath by containment not invasion.

Also consider Israel which was another BIG factor in this. In the further study of tactics used and not used in desert storm need to be looked at but not by military means but by the other political, economical, territorial and cultural aspects of the region. The Pres did what he had to do and he did it.

Political Arena Editor responds – This was the spin and conventional thinking at the time, but as a matter of political science, and as a matter of history such a case is not very convincing. How often have “containment” policies stopped madmen from being madmen? With that said, while my piece was philosophical in nature, the challenge is more policy directed so I offered this policy response:

In other words, President H.W. Bush made a political decision to please the wrong people. Sir, there are five reasons in history, mostly recognized by international law, that cause a country to lose its sovereignty:

1 – If you invade other countries – /check

2 – If you screw around with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT) – /check
3 – If you mass slaughter your own people – /check
4 – If you fund terrorism/piracy – /check5 – If you violate a cease fire agreement – which Saddam did later

And then Saddam invented a 6th – Mass eco-terrorism when he lit up the oil wells and made a huge mess that the rest of the world had to clean up.

It would have been better to let a few countries in “the coalition” drop off and finish the job. I was in the military during that time as well, and “everybody” knew that we would have to go back. Why? because it was obvious that letting such an evil to fester was going to be a problem; understanding this even at the time wasn’t rocket science. I got out of the military in ’94 and I cannot count how many conversations I had about when circumstances would cause us to come back and finish the job.

I am well aware that we asked Israel to stand down – the whole Israeli angle –  I get it. Sir it is called making a trough, but correct political decision when there are no “clean” answers.

The UN Mandate? Really? Really? Was this about defending an ally we had a treaty with (Kuwait) and preserving the Straight of Hormuz and preventing Saddam from invading Saudi Arabia and toppling the House of Saud – OR was it about trying to make the UN the super-sovereign?

So let us examine the consequences of President H.W. Bush’s decision and just look at what happened before the 2003 invasion.

1 – We left and Saddam wiped out the Marsh Arabs in the south (where was the UN then huh?)

2 – He made war on the pro-Western Kurds in the North of Iraq and even used chemical WMD’s on them – for which later we had to institute the no fly zone.

3 – Saddam continued to fund terror multiple terror groups including Al-Qaeda

4 – While Saddam destroyed and/or shipped out most of his WMD cache, he continued to actively pursue a long range missile program, preserved his WMD programs in static and was stockpiling raw materials in violation of the sanctions and the cease fire agreement, so he could go back into WMD production any time he wanted (I read the David Kay and Charles Duelfer Inspection Team Reports).

5 – After we left we encouraged elements inside Iraq to try and overthrow Saddam, but without much support from us, so they got wiped out. Saddam went on a purge that would have made Stalin green with envy. There are several estimates that Saddam killed up to 680,000 people he considered political enemies – NOTE – many of those people killed threw in their hat with us and/or were sympathetic to our first war with Iraq – and now they are in thousands of mass graves that are STILL being found to this day in Iraq. Of course there were also the political prisons and torture camps.

This is why history shows us time and time again that it is beyond foolish to let evil fester. I said this before the 2003 invasion and I am saying it now and I was far from the only one.

Quite simply – George H.W. Bush’s head was misguided from the get-go, his often stated desire of achieving the goals of the U.N.’s Founders was wrong headed to put it mildly. He broke the first rule of foreign policy, which is that there are no permanent allies, just permanent interests; and look at the good people who have been made to pay the price for that one very bad decision.

2012 Primary, Dirty Tricks, Elite Media, Mitt Romney, Obama, Sarah, Stuck on Stupid, True Talking Points

86% of Romney Elite Media Coverage Negative; Obama Coverage “Gushing” With Approval…

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Their coverage of McCain/Palin was not even this negative.

Lets talk about Sarah Palin for just a moment. People now realize that Sarah Palin has been correct on issue after issue. She was right about ObamaCare, she was right about how radical the Obama Administration would be, she was also right when she predicted the rise of food prices very early on. Even the Wall Street Journal trashed Palin for the food prediction, but time after time she has been shown correct. The result is that more and more people doubt the elite media and truly understand just how vicious a partisan attack machine it has become.

Washington Times:

Media bias has gone from bad to ridiculous.

During Mitt Romney’s overseas visit earlier this week, 86 percent of the coverage on ABC, CBS and NBC “emphasized Romney’s perceived gaffes,” according to a content analysis of 21 major news stories by the Media Research Center, which also compared Mr. Romney’s trip to a similar excursion made by President Obama in 2008.

The results: The broadcast networks committed 53 minutes of almost entirely negative coverage to Mr. Romney, and 92 minutes of “gushing” to Mr. Obama.

“The near unanimous negativity of their coverage is as outrageous as it is transparent,” observes the center’s founder Brent Bozell. “It’s impossible to look at the fawning coverage of Obama’s trip in 2008 compared to the sliming Romney has taken in 2012 and not see a clear agenda on the part of the liberal media.”

mmm