Spintested: 05/20/11

Obama Suggests U.S. Involvement In Libya Limited, Support From Congress Welcome But Authority Not Needed

Friday, May 20, 2011

TheNation's John Nichols explained that Obama's unilateral decision "was a violation of the provision in the founding document that requires the executive to attain authorization from Congress before launching military adventures abroad." Put simply, as DanielLarison concluded in an analysis last week, "the war was illegal from the start."

But even for those who chose to cling to the fiction that the presidential war in Libya was authorized by the WPR, that fiction is now coming to a crashing end. Friday will mark the 60th day of the war without Congress, and there are no plans for authorization to be provided. By all appearances, the WhiteHouse isn't even bothering to pretend to seek one.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/05/19/libya/index.html
About Libya
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Suggests U.S. Involvement In Libya Limited, Support From Congress Welcome But Authority Not Needed

"The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation" -- candidate Barack Obama, December, 2007

"No more ignoring the law when it's inconvenient. That is not who we are. . . . We will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers" -- candidate Barack Obama, August 1, 2007

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Suggests U.S. Involvement In Libya Limited, Support From Congress Welcome But Authority Not Needed

When Obama ordered the US military to wage war in Libya without Congressional approval (even though, to use his words, it did "not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation"), the administration and its defenders claimed he had legal authority to do so for two reasons: (1) the 1973 WarPowersResolution (WPR) authorizes the President to wage war for 60 days without Congress, and (2) the "time-limited, well defined and discrete" nature of the mission meant that it was not really a "war" under the Constitution (Deputy NSA Adviser BenRhodes and the Obama OLC). Those claims were specious from the start, but are unquestionably inapplicable now.

From the start, the WPR provided no such authority. Section 1541(c) explicitly states that the war-making rights conferred by the statute apply only to "a national emergency created by attack upon the UnitedStates, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces." That's why YaleLawProfessor BruceAckerman -- in an article in ForeignPolicy entitled "Obama's Unconstitutional War" -- wrote when the war started that the "The WarPowersResolution doesn't authorize a single day of Libyan bombing" and that "in taking the country into a war with Libya, Obama'sAdministration is breaking new ground in its construction of an imperial presidency."

Ackerman detailed why Obama's sweeping claims of war powers exceeded that even of past controversial precedents, such as Clinton's 1999 bombing of Kosovo, which at least had the excuse that Congress authorized funding for it: "but Obama can't even take advantage of this same desperate expedient, since Congress has appropriated no funds for the Libyan war."

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Libya Policy: President Breaking The Law, Claims Bipartisan Group Of Lawmakers

TheNation's John Nichols explained that Obama's unilateral decision "was a violation of the provision in the founding document that requires the executive to attain authorization from Congress before launching military adventures abroad." Put simply, as DanielLarison concluded in an analysis last week, "the war was illegal from the start."

But even for those who chose to cling to the fiction that the presidential war in Libya was authorized by the WPR, that fiction is now coming to a crashing end. Friday will mark the 60th day of the war without Congress, and there are no plans for authorization to be provided. By all appearances, the WhiteHouse isn't even bothering to pretend to seek one.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/05/19/libya/index.html
About Libya
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Libya Policy: President Breaking The Law, Claims Bipartisan Group Of Lawmakers

When Obama ordered the US military to wage war in Libya without Congressional approval (even though, to use his words, it did "not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation"), the administration and its defenders claimed he had legal authority to do so for two reasons: (1) the 1973 WarPowersResolution (WPR) authorizes the President to wage war for 60 days without Congress, and (2) the "time-limited, well defined and discrete" nature of the mission meant that it was not really a "war" under the Constitution (Deputy NSA Adviser BenRhodes and the Obama OLC). Those claims were specious from the start, but are unquestionably inapplicable now.

From the start, the WPR provided no such authority. Section 1541(c) explicitly states that the war-making rights conferred by the statute apply only to "a national emergency created by attack upon the UnitedStates, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces." That's why YaleLawProfessor BruceAckerman -- in an article in ForeignPolicy entitled "Obama's Unconstitutional War" -- wrote when the war started that the "The WarPowersResolution doesn't authorize a single day of Libyan bombing" and that "in taking the country into a war with Libya, Obama'sAdministration is breaking new ground in its construction of an imperial presidency."

Ackerman detailed why Obama's sweeping claims of war powers exceeded that even of past controversial precedents, such as Clinton's 1999 bombing of Kosovo, which at least had the excuse that Congress authorized funding for it: "but Obama can't even take advantage of this same desperate expedient, since Congress has appropriated no funds for the Libyan war."

KEEP READING
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Obama Libya Policy: President Breaking The Law, Claims Bipartisan Group Of Lawmakers

"The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation" -- candidate Barack Obama, December, 2007

"No more ignoring the law when it's inconvenient. That is not who we are. . . . We will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers" -- candidate Barack Obama, August 1, 2007

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Jon Huntsman Moves To Shed Obama Brand By Aligning With House GOP On Medicare, Debt Ceiling

Huntsman spoke as if he'd just been through a Frank Luntz tutorial on political-speak ('How to make listeners believe you're saying what they want to hear, but in actuality, you're saying nothing with loads of wiggle room').

The only difference between Huntsman and Obama is that Obama's got political-speak down, polished to a high gloss.

This campaign is going to be the worst ever of expensive empty rhetoric.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Obama Justice Department Is Forcing Legal Medical Marijuana Patients Into the Illicit Market

If Republicans are such scvm (and I believe they are) and "so dangerous", why isn't Obama investigating and prosecuting them?

Why isn't Obama investigating and prosecuting the greatest heist on the People in all history?

Why are Obama-Democrats continuing the war crimes of BushCheney, blocking investigations and prosecutions into their crimes?

We have Obama-Democrats to thank for the resurrection of Republicans. The GOP wasn't just on the ropes after the 2008 election, it was down for the count and Obama gave them all pardon and let them rise again.

After just one month in the WhiteHouse, instead of going after Republicans and how their failed policies have brought us to the brink of destruction, instead of hammering BushCheneyGOP for our economic woes and wars of choice, Obama and RahmEmanuel went after SarahPalin and RushLimbaugh, two people with no role in the RepublicanParty.

Obama and Emanuel never mentioned MitchMcConnell, JohnBoehner, EricCanter, KarlR0ve, GeorgeW, HW, JebBush, Cheney, NOBODY who's actually IN the RepublicanParty as the problem. Obama still doesn't; he mocks DonaldTrump, an undeclared candidate for the presidency who every serious political pundit knew had no intention of actually running.

How does a Democratic president, on the heels of the most criminally corrupt administration in the nation's history, not replace Bush-era US attorneys? Presidents may fire US attorneys, and they do so routinely at the beginning of a new administration. It is unusual to fire US attorneys in mid-term (as Bush did) except in cases of gross misconduct (which wasn’t the case during the BushAdministration). Instead of returning the democracy to the American people, Obama's AttorneyGeneral has US attorneys going after legalized medicinal marijuana in the states and Bush-style obscenity prosecutions:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_691667.html

Obama's continuing just about all of the BushCheney policies, even going BushCo one better: How do any of Obama's 'most ardent supporters' explain Obama's doctrine that presidents have the right to k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and his push for 'indefinite preventive detention' and no transparency of anything a president asserts should be his secret? Pure Kafka.

As a Democrat, I don't know how any Democrat can get behind this. How do Obama's 'most ardent supporters' explain all that to themselves?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Obama Justice Department Is Forcing Legal Medical Marijuana Patients Into the Illicit Market

Patriot Act Extension Agreement Reached By Congressional Leaders

In Harper's Index, 1/2/2011 -

Number of delayed-notice search warrants granted by federal judges last year under the Patriot Act:

1, 150

Number that were related to drug offenses and terrorism, respectively:

844, 6

Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Jon Huntsman Criticizes Heavy U.S. Presence In Afghanistan: It's Not 'How We Ought To Be Responding'

Huntsman Questions Afghanistan Policy:

"I would tell you that we have to evaluate very carefully our presence in Afghanistan," he said. "And my inclination would be to say that it is a heavy and very expensive presence we have on the ground. That at a point in time where we need to be looking at our asymmetrical threats, what we have in Afghanistan today is not consistent with how we ought to be responding."

===============================================

We're in for another campaign of BS, equivocating lawyer-talk.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Cornel West Spars With Ed Schultz About Obama (VIDEO)

And Ledbetter was the equal pay act.

========================================

So you think that the Lily Ledbetter Act made it the law for men and women to be paid equally?

WRONG.
About MSNBC
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Cornel West Spars With Ed Schultz About Obama (VIDEO)

Just because someone criticizes the president, even a black person, doesn't make them right.

===========================================================

I don't even know what this means.
About MSNBC
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Patriot Act Extension Agreement Reached By Congressional Leaders

When you click on Fiona's message, the arrow, under recent comments (at the top of the list of recent comments), it gives an Error 404 "The page you requested could not be found".

Hope that helps.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Richard Trumka Threatens To Abandon Democrats In 2012 Unless They Fight Harder For Labor

Richard Trumka Threatens To Abandon Democrats In 2012 Unless They Fight Harder For Labor

============================================

It's about time -- About 40 years past time.

The next shoes are about to drop in our economy, with corporations making record profits and set to lay off more workers in order to give CEOs more bonuses.

And the latest: Americans who had managed to retain their credit lines since the economic meltdown are now having the banks shut them down. Millions more homes are now poised to drop off into foreclosure.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Patriot Act Extension Agreement Reached By Congressional Leaders

It's got some bugs ('recent comments' column on the right side gives error message), but I support your efforts.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Patriot Act Extension Agreement Reached By Congressional Leaders

If Republicans are such scvm (and I believe they are) and "so dangerous", why isn't Obama investigating and prosecuting them?

Why isn't Obama investigating and prosecuting the greatest heist on the People in all history?

Why are Obama-Democrats continuing the war crimes of BushCheney, blocking investigations and prosecutions into their crimes?

We have Obama-Democrats to thank for the resurrection of Republicans. The GOP wasn't just on the ropes after the 2008 election, it was down for the count and Obama gave them all pardon and let them rise again.

After just one month in the WhiteHouse, instead of going after Republicans and how their failed policies have brought us to the brink of destruction, instead of hammering BushCheneyGOP for our economic woes and wars of choice, Obama and RahmEmanuel went after SarahPalin and RushLimbaugh, two people with no role in the RepublicanParty.

Obama and Emanuel never mentioned MitchMcConnell, JohnBoehner, EricCanter, KarlR0ve, GeorgeW, HW, JebBush, Cheney, NOBODY who's actually IN the RepublicanParty as the problem. Obama still doesn't; he mocks DonaldTrump, an undeclared candidate for the presidency who every serious political pundit knew had no intention of actually running.

How does a Democratic president, on the heels of the most criminally corrupt administration in the nation's history, not replace Bush-era US attorneys? Presidents may fire US attorneys, and they do so routinely at the beginning of a new administration. It is unusual to fire US attorneys in mid-term (as Bush did) except in cases of gross misconduct (which wasn’t the case during the BushAdministration). Instead of returning the democracy to the American people, Obama's AttorneyGeneral has US attorneys going after legalized medicinal marijuana in the states and Bush-style obscenity prosecutions:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_691667.html

Obama's continuing just about all of the BushCheney policies, even going BushCo one better: How do any of Obama's 'most ardent supporters' explain Obama's doctrine that presidents have the right to k!ll American citizens with no due process, no oversight, and his push for 'indefinite preventive detention' and no transparency of anything a president asserts should be his secret? Pure Kafka.

As a Democrat, I don't know how any Democrat can get behind this. How do Obama's 'most ardent supporters' explain all that to themselves?
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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