Posted on 02/12/2009 5:49:29 AM PST by Sergeant Tim
Evidently the former editor of the Harvard Law Review seems to think that one of his powers as president is personally to pick and choose which constitutional rights apply to terror defendants and which do not. That's the very thing they were criticizing President Bush for.
White House Counsel Greg Craig, often seen whispering in the president's ear during question periods, admitted later to Ms. Burlingame that the chief executive was getting the facts of the law wrong during the discussion with the families. Craig asked her if CIPA covers a case in which terrorists defend themselves, noting that "this is something we hadn't contemplated." If nothing else, this admission of ignorance is more evidence that the decision to rush ahead with closing Guantanamo and shutting down the military tribunals was ill-conceived, poorly planned, and may ultimately be injurious to our national security.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
The List
First president not to attend The Inaugural Medal of Honor Ball
Many exectutive orders the first week in office. Including
* -allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States.
* - Scrapping the Mexico City Policy that protected taxpayers from involvement in overseas abortions for eight years. Obama will send hundreds of millions of dollars to groups that aggressively promote abortions on a worldwide scale.
Obama issued Executive Order "Use of Project Labor Agreements for Federal Construction Projects", revoking Bush Executive Orders 13202 and 13208. The new order encourages federal executives to require government contractors and subcontractors to use union-organized labor.
Obama issues Executive Order "Amendments to Executive Order 13199 Establishment of the President's Advisory Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.". Neighborhood partnerships" have equal footing with faith-based ones. The local Planned Parenthood or ACORN center will be treated like a house of God, in the eyes of the federal government.
First official phone call to Abbas
Insults China
First interview, with foreign news outlet- for Muslims
Talks about his muslim family
Picks fight with Limbaugh
Won't take question from press
Allows to FDA approve first human embryonic stem cell safety trial (3 days after Pres. Bush left)
Excludes any compromise with GOP on Stimulus bill Massive pork in stimulus bill
5% of stimulus bill to actually go to infrastructure
Offers to negotiate directly with Iran
Puts 5 millionairs on his cabinet
Makes a tax cheat the Sec. of the Treasury
Bombs Pakistan
Argues with the Pope on abortion
Signed the SCHIP bill, that gives health care to illegals
Won't allow a video of his retaking of the oath of office
Ordered the closure of Gitmo
Halts all pending Bush regulations
Second week:
Appoints extremist Samantha Powers to head foreign policy team
Secret nuke talks with Iran/Syria
Appoints tax cheat for commerce secretary
Illegal alien aunt, granted a "stay" of deportation Daschle the tax cheat/lobbiest proposed as secretary for health care
Nancy Killefer for candidacy to be the first chief performance officer for federal government fails to pay household help taxes ...withdrawn
Obama brings the U.S. Census Bureau under White House jurisdiction under protest from Republican lawmakers
12 lobbyists (or more) appointed to high gov't positions within the first 14 days of his administration (up to 17 by another source)
Administration demands defense cuts of 10% during wartime
Obama envoy George Mitchell tells Palistinians " they believe can extract from Israel concessions reaching "much further" than during talks held under the previous administration
The European Union warns the US yesterday against plunging the world into depression by adopting Obama's “Buy American” policy, intensifying fears of a trade war Obama immediately backs down from policy
After stating her priority would be "mum-in-chief", Michelle Obama goes on listening tour and then makes political speeches with her husband not yet one month in office...
George Mitchell resigns from a Saudi Lobbying firm, two weeks into his appointment as "Special Middle East Envoy"
Obama administration says it will cancel 77 drilling leases near Utah parks
Ogden, President Obama's pick for deputy attorney general, used to represent Playboy
Steven Chu, Obama's secretary of energy (not a climatologist) states: California's farms and vineyards could vanish by the end of the century, and its major cities could be in jeopardy, if Americans do not act to slow the advance of global warming
Obama names “most fined” Washington State bureaucrat Ron Simms to the #2 position in HUD
Hilda Solis, Obama's pick for labor secretary's husband is found to be a tax cheat just before the confirmation vote
Directed military prosecutors to revoked charges pending against mastermind of USS Cole bombing: Al Nashiri
Adding insult to injury: speaks to families of USS Cole dead, after decision to free Al Nashiri- not before
Third week in office
Obama changes the setup of the National Security Councel by executive order
Shauna Daly, professional “dirt digger” hired as “White House councel research director”
White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel got free housing from House rep (D) Rosa DeLauro for 5 years . DeLauro is married to Stan Greenberg; a pollster (Quinlin Rosner Research) with lucrative contracts from both that representatives.
A Syrian paper reported that the Obama U.S. Dept. of Commerce agreed to sell plane parts to Syria
A lawyer for the Obama administration surprised a panel of federal appeals judges by making an argument to preserve state secrets in a trial regarding terrorism subjects. This argument was made, after repeatedly attacking the Bush administration for doing the same thing.
President Obama said Monday that "only government" can shake the country out of recession, as he tried to settle doubts about his administration's costly economic recovery package during a prime-time press conference.
Obama reverses Bush policy on 'warming' Federal agencies settle long-standing case in favor of environmentalists. The U.S. will now refuse to help finance development overseas if the environmental establishment claims that it would contribute to 'global warming
Deborah Burlingame, a 9/11 family member who lost her brother Chip during the 9/11 attacks, spoke to media at the National Press Club about her meeting with President Obama.
He said he was not at all worried about the security of the American people in bringing the detainees here. Not in the least worried about that. His reasoning was this: ‘ Al Qaeda doesn’t have conscience they’re not interested in going back and springing these guys. They’re forgotten once they are put away in our federal facilities. He said, furthermore there are so many soft targets in the United States, like a shopping mall, why would Al Qaeda go after a hard target like a federal lock up or military prison, when they could choose a soft target.’
Burlingame later added that Obama was “non-committal” about visiting Guantanamo Bay when she asked him
Interior Secretary Salazar Kills Bush Offshore drilling plan Saying “we need bring sanity back into our energy policy….
Obama gave two high level positions to former Citibank executives (Jacob J. Lew, and Michael Froman) who helped run Citibank into the ground and raises questions of conflict of interest .
Republicans are shut out of the Stimulus conference negotiations.
Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind):“(the stimulus package…)is being crafted without a single House Republican in the room.”
Obama in 2007:End the Practice of Writing Legislation Behind Closed Doors: (from Obama’s website: http://change.gov/agenda/ethics_agenda/)
Defense lobbyist William Lynn approved as deputy defense secretary. Obama waives ethics regulations by putting the ex-defense lobbyist in charge of day-to-day operations at the Pentagon. Obama violates promise to keep lobbyists out of the federal government. On his first day in office, Obama issued an executive order forcing individuals to wait two years before they could be hired for the agencies they had lobbied, violating his own executive order less than three weeks in office.
Obama appoints Gil Kerlikowske to be the nation’s new drug czar. Kerlikowske has established himself as a devoted lobbyist for every restrictive gun law proposal.
Obama controls the press core at the White House: Chicago Sun Times Writer Carol Marin writes: “The press corps, most of us, don't even bother raising our hands any more to ask questions because Obama always has before him a list of correspondents who've been advised they will be called upon that day.”
Obama demonstrates dangerous ignorance of the Classified Information Procedures Act or CIPA by the president. This was witnessed by Debra Burlingame, sister sister of Charles Burlingame III, the pilot of American Airlines Flight 77 that was flown into the Pentagon on 9/11, at White House meeting of families of terrorism victims
Absolutely. I foresee next years title going to the winner of the annual “Ugliest Dog Contest” since you MUST feel pity for an animal as ugly as the one who won this year.
The touchy feelie nonsense has diminished all we once held up for praise and an example. Now it is not what you accomplish it’s what you TRIED to accomplish. Those who are successful through application of their acquired skills are now seen to be “lucky” and to have, as Clinton once said, been the “winner of life’s lottery”
I can only believe it is all part of the plan to diminish individual incentive, making it something that will not be rewarded and so pointless in it’s pursuit. Then we all become part of the same “herd” and live daily to walk docilely to the trough of the government as they hand us what they think we ought to have.
Sadly, I agree with what you wrote so well.
The Plan is to diminish personal achievement as a worthy goal.
Just as many Americans take our standards of living as ‘normal’ - for example, the everyday technology that we use, - they cannot imagine how drastically our world can become when Lincoln’s words no longer apply:
a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
PS: Can you imagine any questioner at a GWB townhall meeting asking him for a house or a job? I can’t, and I watched as much coverage of his public appearances as American TV allowed from the time of his first campaign.
Now we have reached a point where people look to the president to fix personal woes. I blame the Katrina [New Orleans] media coverage, when every delay or sad result was blamed personally on Bush, as the event which made this kind of thinking acceptable.
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