At a campaign stop in Grand Junction, Colorado in May 2008, Barack Obama said that the Bush signing statements changed "what Congress passed by attaching a letter saying 'I don't agree with this part' or 'I don't agree with that part.'" Obama added, "Congress's job is to pass legislation. The president can veto it or he can sign it."
Contrary to what candidate Barack Obama said at a campaign stop, President Obama has used signing statements that alter congressional intent, 20 times since taking office. His latest signing statement came a few days ago with his disagreement with three sections of the National Defense Authorization Act, which Obama said interfered with his constitutional powers to conduct the nation's foreign policy. The three offending sections were: 1) restrictions on data exchange with Russia; 2) new authorities to detain suspected Al Qaeda members; and 3) sanctions against the central bank of Iran.
Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) has contended he was assured by top national security advisers that some date, such as telemetry or hit-to-kill technology would not go to Russia. He accused any lawyer writing the signing statement language of speaking with a "forked tongue." Kirk also fears that any technology we share with Russia will make its way to Iran.
Several prominent organizations weighed in with condemnation of Obama's signing statement. The American Bar Association said that if the president is not going to abide by a part of any given legislation, he must veto it. Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that Obama will " forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law." the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has generally supported President Obama, contended that it is unconstitutional for the military "to become a police force... ."
President Obama had come under fire from senior Democratic legislative leaders in June 2009, when he declared he had the right to ignore legislation on constitutional grounds. Obama had attached signing statements to a $410 billion omnibus spending bill and a $106 billion bill putting conditions on aid to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The four Democrats, David Obey, Barney Frank, Nita Lowey and Gregory Meeks, signed a letter saying that the president can't "pick and choose" which aspects of congressional statutes he was required to enforce. They related his actions to those of George W. Bush.
President Barack Obama's positions during the journey of the National Defense Authorization Act from committee hearings to bill signing were confusing to follow and even perverse in nature. When opposition arose in the Senate Armed Services Committee to the indefinite detention provisions of the bill, chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) said that Obama insisted that the language remain in the bill: however, when the bill went to the Senate floor, Obama said he would veto it unless the indefinite detention provisions were changed to his satisfaction. According to Levin, the bill on the floor had the language that Obama had insisted on when the bill was in committee. Attempts on the Senate floor to either delete the broad indefinite detention language or make it crystal clear that U.S. citizens would not be subject to its provisions were defeated on the Senate floor. Subsequently, Obama withdrew his threat to veto the bill but stated in the signing statement that enforcing the indefinite detention provisions would interfere with his constitutional foreign policy powers.
Embrace of George W. Bush's signing statements join the lengthening list of campaign promises that President Barack Obama has broken.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Afghanistan: No Exit Sign for the Longest War (continued)
If Barack Obama believed that stable institutions can be built in Afghanistan through U.S. and other foreign investment, corruption and lack of accountability are major roadblocks. Transparency International is the organization that keeps a corruption index of nations. It rates Afghanistan as one of the three most corrupt nations in its index.
Reports have been rife about the United States and other NATO nations paying bribes to get supply convoys to their destinations. Some of this money allegedly has been helping the Taliban. A few months ago, the Pentagon admitted it had been paying bribes to get supplies through but was changing its ways.
In December 2009 the State Department internal watchdog criticized the State Department's nearly $2 billion anti-drug efforts in Afghanistan, accusing it of poor oversight and lack of a long-term strategy.
The most disturbing indicator, however, of the failure of funding projects in Afghanistan was the report released in December 2010 by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. He said that there is no way to account for the $55 billion spent to bolster and rebuild Afghanistan.
Perhaps the most credible argument that Barack Obama made in his West Point speech regarding why we need to maintain a military presence in Afghanistan is to prevent Al Qaeda from using its territory to plan and train for acts of major terrorism.U.S. intelligence puts the number of Al Qaeda operatives now in Afghanistan at a two- or three-digit figure, at best. Vice President Joe Biden reportedly argued in White House discussions about Afghanistan troop levels that if terrorism bases in Afghanistan is a major concern, than a contingent of U.S. Special Forces -- maybe no more than 12,000 to 15,000 troops -- would prevent that eventuality.
What Should Obama Do or Have Done?
A bill introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) would restrict Afghan funding to bringing U.S. troops safely home. The genius of this bill is that it avoids the argument that cutting of funding for war-making would jeopardize the troops stationed in Afghanistan. A bold, transformative president would have come to that type of decision when he made his drawn-out assessment of what to do on Afghan policy.
What should not be done is funnel any more reconstruction money through governmental channels, as, in Iraq, auditors and inspectors can't account for how many of the billions already spent were spent.If there are indigenous groups or international NGOs that have a good track record on projects, any additional funding for Afghanistan rebuilding should be channeled through them.
President Obama should also pay close attention to the wise words of Robert Dreyfuss to disabuse himself of any illusions he has of a successful conclusion of the war in Afghanistan. Dreyfuss says a central part of U.S. policy in regard to the region must be to facilitate a peace process between Pakistan and India.
Dreyfuss's geography lesson is that entire swaths of southern Afghanistan, in provinces along the Pakistan border south and east of Kabul, are controlled by the Pashtun and their allies.
Dreyfuss has some precautionary warning words about the complicated web of insurgents and Islamist organizations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He says that the U.S. military has identified at least 14 separate insurgent organizations in Afghanistan and maybe as many as 50 separate Islamist formations in Pakistan. Dreyfuss further claims that putting thousands of additional troops into Afghanistan gives the Taliban more targets, sparks Pashtun nationalist resistance and inspires more recruits for the insurgence.
Finally, Robert Dreyfuss sees giving Afghanistan a centrally directed state was a major blunder, because we excluded from governance, local authorities in a largely tribal nation.
Reports have been rife about the United States and other NATO nations paying bribes to get supply convoys to their destinations. Some of this money allegedly has been helping the Taliban. A few months ago, the Pentagon admitted it had been paying bribes to get supplies through but was changing its ways.
In December 2009 the State Department internal watchdog criticized the State Department's nearly $2 billion anti-drug efforts in Afghanistan, accusing it of poor oversight and lack of a long-term strategy.
The most disturbing indicator, however, of the failure of funding projects in Afghanistan was the report released in December 2010 by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. He said that there is no way to account for the $55 billion spent to bolster and rebuild Afghanistan.
Perhaps the most credible argument that Barack Obama made in his West Point speech regarding why we need to maintain a military presence in Afghanistan is to prevent Al Qaeda from using its territory to plan and train for acts of major terrorism.U.S. intelligence puts the number of Al Qaeda operatives now in Afghanistan at a two- or three-digit figure, at best. Vice President Joe Biden reportedly argued in White House discussions about Afghanistan troop levels that if terrorism bases in Afghanistan is a major concern, than a contingent of U.S. Special Forces -- maybe no more than 12,000 to 15,000 troops -- would prevent that eventuality.
What Should Obama Do or Have Done?
A bill introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) would restrict Afghan funding to bringing U.S. troops safely home. The genius of this bill is that it avoids the argument that cutting of funding for war-making would jeopardize the troops stationed in Afghanistan. A bold, transformative president would have come to that type of decision when he made his drawn-out assessment of what to do on Afghan policy.
What should not be done is funnel any more reconstruction money through governmental channels, as, in Iraq, auditors and inspectors can't account for how many of the billions already spent were spent.If there are indigenous groups or international NGOs that have a good track record on projects, any additional funding for Afghanistan rebuilding should be channeled through them.
President Obama should also pay close attention to the wise words of Robert Dreyfuss to disabuse himself of any illusions he has of a successful conclusion of the war in Afghanistan. Dreyfuss says a central part of U.S. policy in regard to the region must be to facilitate a peace process between Pakistan and India.
Dreyfuss's geography lesson is that entire swaths of southern Afghanistan, in provinces along the Pakistan border south and east of Kabul, are controlled by the Pashtun and their allies.
Dreyfuss has some precautionary warning words about the complicated web of insurgents and Islamist organizations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He says that the U.S. military has identified at least 14 separate insurgent organizations in Afghanistan and maybe as many as 50 separate Islamist formations in Pakistan. Dreyfuss further claims that putting thousands of additional troops into Afghanistan gives the Taliban more targets, sparks Pashtun nationalist resistance and inspires more recruits for the insurgence.
Finally, Robert Dreyfuss sees giving Afghanistan a centrally directed state was a major blunder, because we excluded from governance, local authorities in a largely tribal nation.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Afghanistan: No Exit Sign for the Longest War
Afghanistan has been called the graveyard of empires. More recently, the super-power Soviet Union was forced to leave the country in defeat. Despite this history of dashed expectations, during the presidential campaign Barack Obama made Afghanistan his war of choice, although when he talked about the size of the additional military commitment needed, he talked in terms of a brigade or two, maybe 8,000 troops. Thus, when Obama announced at West Point that he would send 30,000 troops to Afghanistan it came as a shock to those who had assumed that the troop increase would be much more modest.
If President Obama believed that the U.S. was building a democracy in Afghanistan, he should have been thoroughly disabused of that notion by the presidential election of September 2009 and the parliamentary election of September 2010. Let's take a short look at these elections.
Election fraud was rampant in the 2009 presidential election: President Hamid Karzai was credited with over 100 percent of the votes in some polling places and in one he received 2,500 votes to his opponents' six. A tribal elder went to a polling place at 10 a.m., found there were no voters there but the ballot boxes were stuffed full. In one polling place, Karzai ballots were bundled together in even increments, such as 200 and 500. Observers witnessed tribal chiefs voting for the entire tribe.
After the election was over, an European observer said that of the total votes cast, about 1.5 million were fraudulently cast -- 1.1 million of them were for Karzaai. More than 700 instances of fraud were alleged. Hamid Karzai won the election with about 54 percent of the vote, but after over one million ballots were thrown out, he was forced into a runoff, which was not held because his major opponent withdrew.
Yet even after this orgy of fraud, President Obama congratulated Karzai for winning an election run in accordance with Afghanistan law!
The run-up to the parliamentary election on September 18, 2010 was a great boon to printing shops in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, as parliamentary candidates ran off large numbers of election ballots that could be filled in before election day.
Of 5.6 million votes cast in the election, 1.3 million were thrown out. The spokesman of the Afghanistan election commission said the level of fraud in the parliamentary election was normal for an Afghanistan election!
In his West Point speech, President Obama spoke lyrically about the major increase in the size and capability of the Afghan security forces. If he really believes in that optimistic assessment, he is at odds with both history and facts on the ground in Afghanistan. The history of U.S. training of foreign security forces is dismal. One mission Ronald Reagan gave to the Marines he sent to Lebanon was to train the Lebanese security forces to keep order after the Marines had left. Yet after the tragic bombing of a Marine' barracks, Reagan had to turn tail and run, leaving behind a chaotic situation in Lebanon.
For years, the United States trained scores of Latin American military personnel at the School of the Americas -- since renamed -- yet many of these U.S.-trained soldiers were instrumental players in atrocities committed against the citizens of their countries.
In South Vietnam, over a decade of training South Vietnamese guerrillas was wiped away almost overnight after the U.S. withdrew its troops.
After more than eight years of training Iraqi security forces, their level of capability remains so shaky that in July 2011 the Pentagon began leaking the word that as many as 10,000 to 15,000 U.S. troops might stay in Iraq beyond the December 31, 2011 deadline. A high but unnamed U.S. official in Iraq confided to the press that security in Iraq was below what it had been one year before.
Disturbing facts on the ground in Afghanistan belie any optimism about the U.S. ability to leave behind a stable, capable security force. Among these countervailing factors are: a desertion rate as high as 25 percent; the sale of U.S.-issued military equipment -- especially by the officers -- widespread illiteracy; the very young age of many of the trainees; the patchwork of hostile tribes being trained; and the finding of many syringes at training sites by U.S. soldiers, indicating widespread drug use. The major reason, however, that U.S. training will be unsuccessful is that only about seven to eight percent of the trainees are from the Pashtun tribe, the dominant tribe in Afghanistan.
The next blog will began with an examination of the corruption and lack of financial accountability found in Afghanistan.
If President Obama believed that the U.S. was building a democracy in Afghanistan, he should have been thoroughly disabused of that notion by the presidential election of September 2009 and the parliamentary election of September 2010. Let's take a short look at these elections.
Election fraud was rampant in the 2009 presidential election: President Hamid Karzai was credited with over 100 percent of the votes in some polling places and in one he received 2,500 votes to his opponents' six. A tribal elder went to a polling place at 10 a.m., found there were no voters there but the ballot boxes were stuffed full. In one polling place, Karzai ballots were bundled together in even increments, such as 200 and 500. Observers witnessed tribal chiefs voting for the entire tribe.
After the election was over, an European observer said that of the total votes cast, about 1.5 million were fraudulently cast -- 1.1 million of them were for Karzaai. More than 700 instances of fraud were alleged. Hamid Karzai won the election with about 54 percent of the vote, but after over one million ballots were thrown out, he was forced into a runoff, which was not held because his major opponent withdrew.
Yet even after this orgy of fraud, President Obama congratulated Karzai for winning an election run in accordance with Afghanistan law!
The run-up to the parliamentary election on September 18, 2010 was a great boon to printing shops in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, as parliamentary candidates ran off large numbers of election ballots that could be filled in before election day.
Of 5.6 million votes cast in the election, 1.3 million were thrown out. The spokesman of the Afghanistan election commission said the level of fraud in the parliamentary election was normal for an Afghanistan election!
In his West Point speech, President Obama spoke lyrically about the major increase in the size and capability of the Afghan security forces. If he really believes in that optimistic assessment, he is at odds with both history and facts on the ground in Afghanistan. The history of U.S. training of foreign security forces is dismal. One mission Ronald Reagan gave to the Marines he sent to Lebanon was to train the Lebanese security forces to keep order after the Marines had left. Yet after the tragic bombing of a Marine' barracks, Reagan had to turn tail and run, leaving behind a chaotic situation in Lebanon.
For years, the United States trained scores of Latin American military personnel at the School of the Americas -- since renamed -- yet many of these U.S.-trained soldiers were instrumental players in atrocities committed against the citizens of their countries.
In South Vietnam, over a decade of training South Vietnamese guerrillas was wiped away almost overnight after the U.S. withdrew its troops.
After more than eight years of training Iraqi security forces, their level of capability remains so shaky that in July 2011 the Pentagon began leaking the word that as many as 10,000 to 15,000 U.S. troops might stay in Iraq beyond the December 31, 2011 deadline. A high but unnamed U.S. official in Iraq confided to the press that security in Iraq was below what it had been one year before.
Disturbing facts on the ground in Afghanistan belie any optimism about the U.S. ability to leave behind a stable, capable security force. Among these countervailing factors are: a desertion rate as high as 25 percent; the sale of U.S.-issued military equipment -- especially by the officers -- widespread illiteracy; the very young age of many of the trainees; the patchwork of hostile tribes being trained; and the finding of many syringes at training sites by U.S. soldiers, indicating widespread drug use. The major reason, however, that U.S. training will be unsuccessful is that only about seven to eight percent of the trainees are from the Pashtun tribe, the dominant tribe in Afghanistan.
The next blog will began with an examination of the corruption and lack of financial accountability found in Afghanistan.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
President Obama Is Lying on a Messy SOFA
SOFA stands for status of forces agreement, which is a common vehicle used when the U.S. government establishes a military base in a foreign country. It is just such an agreement made between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government that President Obama has followed almost to the letter in withdrawing troops from Iraq. There are those who believe that George W, Bush engaged in an executive branch power grab in signing the agreement and that Barack Obama, by logical extension, has reinforced this power grab.
The core of the argument is whether the agreement signed by President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki rises to the level of a treaty. Websters' New Universal Unabridged Dictionary says that treaties may be of various kinds, as for regulating trade and forming alliances, offensive and defensive. It also lists "agreement" as a synonym. The Encyclopedia Americana refers to treaty as a generic term applied to written instruments whereby two of more states regulate specific or general relations among themselves. It also states that treaties may cover a wide spectrum of activities. Therefore, the agreement between the Iraqi and the U.S. heads of state appears to have the attributes of a treaty and thus must be ratified by the U.S. Senate.
The agreement between Bush and al-Maliki could also be looked at as a de facto legislative act, in which a foreign leader becomes co-legislator with Bush for forcing the U.S. Congress to fund about 50,000 troops annually for the indefinite future.
Bruce Ackerman, a professor of law and political science at Yale University, says that U.S. legislative approval could come in two ways: a 2/3s vote in the Senate under Article II treaty language, or a simple majority in both houses under Article I.
Ackerman has also alluded to State Department guidelines set down in 1955, which emphasize the need for congressional action when an agreement "involves commitments or risks affecting the nation" and when it requires "the enactment of subsequent legislation by the Congress."
State Department guidelines also require its legal adviser to provide a memorandum justifying its use of an executive agreement, including an "analysis of the constitutional powers relied upon."
On November 17, 2008, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) wrote a letter to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in which she requested the opportunity to debate and vote on H.R. 6846, the "Iraq Security Agreement Act of 2008." Lee stated in the letter that it is "vitally important the the outgoing Bush administration do nothing to impede the ability of the new administration to extricate our nation from the disastrous decision to invade and occupy Iraq... ." H.R. 6846 provided that no provision in the agreement could have any legal effect unless put in the form of a treaty requiring the advice and consent of the Senate.
Lee's legislation also addressed the question of American military operations being subject to "the approval of the Iraqi government," something only done in the past under treaties ratified by the Senate. It is notable here that both President Obama and the U.S. military commanders in Iraq ceded to the Iraqi government the power to keep U.S. troops in Iraq after the apparent December 31, 2011 deadline.
Besides a treaty ratification process, Article II, Section 8 of the Constitution gives the Congress the power "To make rules for the Governance and Regulation of the Land and naval (sic) Forces." Presumably, Congress could have governed and regulated U.S. troops out of Iraq.
In summary, President Obama relied on a Bush template in removing troops from Iraq. If the Iraqi government had granted U.S. troops immunity from Iraqi law, there would have been from 3,000 to 15,000 troops still in Iraq after December 31, 2011, according to Pentagon high and low troop retention estimates.
The core of the argument is whether the agreement signed by President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki rises to the level of a treaty. Websters' New Universal Unabridged Dictionary says that treaties may be of various kinds, as for regulating trade and forming alliances, offensive and defensive. It also lists "agreement" as a synonym. The Encyclopedia Americana refers to treaty as a generic term applied to written instruments whereby two of more states regulate specific or general relations among themselves. It also states that treaties may cover a wide spectrum of activities. Therefore, the agreement between the Iraqi and the U.S. heads of state appears to have the attributes of a treaty and thus must be ratified by the U.S. Senate.
The agreement between Bush and al-Maliki could also be looked at as a de facto legislative act, in which a foreign leader becomes co-legislator with Bush for forcing the U.S. Congress to fund about 50,000 troops annually for the indefinite future.
Bruce Ackerman, a professor of law and political science at Yale University, says that U.S. legislative approval could come in two ways: a 2/3s vote in the Senate under Article II treaty language, or a simple majority in both houses under Article I.
Ackerman has also alluded to State Department guidelines set down in 1955, which emphasize the need for congressional action when an agreement "involves commitments or risks affecting the nation" and when it requires "the enactment of subsequent legislation by the Congress."
State Department guidelines also require its legal adviser to provide a memorandum justifying its use of an executive agreement, including an "analysis of the constitutional powers relied upon."
On November 17, 2008, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) wrote a letter to then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in which she requested the opportunity to debate and vote on H.R. 6846, the "Iraq Security Agreement Act of 2008." Lee stated in the letter that it is "vitally important the the outgoing Bush administration do nothing to impede the ability of the new administration to extricate our nation from the disastrous decision to invade and occupy Iraq... ." H.R. 6846 provided that no provision in the agreement could have any legal effect unless put in the form of a treaty requiring the advice and consent of the Senate.
Lee's legislation also addressed the question of American military operations being subject to "the approval of the Iraqi government," something only done in the past under treaties ratified by the Senate. It is notable here that both President Obama and the U.S. military commanders in Iraq ceded to the Iraqi government the power to keep U.S. troops in Iraq after the apparent December 31, 2011 deadline.
Besides a treaty ratification process, Article II, Section 8 of the Constitution gives the Congress the power "To make rules for the Governance and Regulation of the Land and naval (sic) Forces." Presumably, Congress could have governed and regulated U.S. troops out of Iraq.
In summary, President Obama relied on a Bush template in removing troops from Iraq. If the Iraqi government had granted U.S. troops immunity from Iraqi law, there would have been from 3,000 to 15,000 troops still in Iraq after December 31, 2011, according to Pentagon high and low troop retention estimates.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
JSOC: Obama's Covert Operations Right Hand
Washington Post reporters Dana Priest and William Arkin have made keeping track of U.S. covert intelligence a journalistic specialty. In the September 2, 2011 issue of the Post, the two corroborated on a dissection of the Joint Special Forces Command (JSOC), which has grown to 25,000 troops, a number that fluctuates according to mission.
JSOC has the president's authority to select individuals for its kill list and than to kill, not capture. The CIA has a similar but shorter list. JSOC has its own intelligence division; its own drones and reconnaissance planes; and even its own dedicated satellites. JSOC officers, when working with civilian government agencies in U.S. embassies, dispense with uniforms and wear no names nor rank identifiers.
The only significant difference in JSOC management between George W. Bush and Barack Obama is that Bush rarely briefed JSOC activities to Congress and Obama has insisted on briefing select congressional leaders.
Priest and Arkin write that even before Abu Ghraib photos began circulating in 2004, a confidential report warned that JSOC interrogators were assaulting prisoners and hiding them in secret facilities. They detained mothers, wives and daughters. An investigation over a four-month period in 2004 found that interrogators gave some prisoners only bread and water, in one case for 17 days. Others were locked in cells so cramped they could not stand up nor lie down, while their captors played loud music. Still others were stripped, drenched with cold water and then interrogated in an air-conditioned room or outside.
JSOC interrogators were, and still are allowed to keep their detainees separate from other prisoners and hold them for up to 90 days.
In 2009, JSOC executed 464 operations and killed 400 to 500 enemy forces in Afghanistan.
The JSOC roles now include tracing the flow of money from international banks to finance terrorist networks and psychological operations.
According to the two reporters, Obama uses JSOC more than did Bush, repeating a pattern found in my blogs, in which Obama follows Bush policies but pursues them more energetically.
JSOC has the president's authority to select individuals for its kill list and than to kill, not capture. The CIA has a similar but shorter list. JSOC has its own intelligence division; its own drones and reconnaissance planes; and even its own dedicated satellites. JSOC officers, when working with civilian government agencies in U.S. embassies, dispense with uniforms and wear no names nor rank identifiers.
The only significant difference in JSOC management between George W. Bush and Barack Obama is that Bush rarely briefed JSOC activities to Congress and Obama has insisted on briefing select congressional leaders.
Priest and Arkin write that even before Abu Ghraib photos began circulating in 2004, a confidential report warned that JSOC interrogators were assaulting prisoners and hiding them in secret facilities. They detained mothers, wives and daughters. An investigation over a four-month period in 2004 found that interrogators gave some prisoners only bread and water, in one case for 17 days. Others were locked in cells so cramped they could not stand up nor lie down, while their captors played loud music. Still others were stripped, drenched with cold water and then interrogated in an air-conditioned room or outside.
JSOC interrogators were, and still are allowed to keep their detainees separate from other prisoners and hold them for up to 90 days.
In 2009, JSOC executed 464 operations and killed 400 to 500 enemy forces in Afghanistan.
The JSOC roles now include tracing the flow of money from international banks to finance terrorist networks and psychological operations.
According to the two reporters, Obama uses JSOC more than did Bush, repeating a pattern found in my blogs, in which Obama follows Bush policies but pursues them more energetically.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Abortion: Obama Needs to Get Back on the Tiger
In the Illinois state senate in 2003, Barack Obama voted against the Induced Infant Liability Act -- which anti-choice people have apparently relabeled The Born Alive Infants Protection Act. Although Obama is portrayed by anti-choice, government coercion people as approving killing of babies after they are born, he defends his vote on two grounds: 1) the bill had technical language which might have "interfered with a woman's right to choose;" and 2) Illinois law already required medical care in such situations.
Obama's next legislative action on abortion was his vote against the Partial Birth Abortion Ban. In defense of that vote, Senator Obama said that a state can properly restrict late-term abortions but they must have a provision to protect the health of the mother. Senator Obama also voted against a bill to make it a crime for anyone other than a mother to accompany a minor across state lines to obtain an abortion.
When Senator Obama became President Obama, one of his first actions was to strike down by executive order the policy that said any organization that receives family-planning funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development cannot offer abortions nor abortion counseling. Obama said his administration would "initiate a fresh conversation on family planning... ." There is no public evidence of such a conversation taking place.
In 2009, President Obama spoke at Notre Dame University and promised those with anti-abortion convictions would be honored by his administration -- he advocated adoption of a "sensible conscience clause."
The Obama administration had another brush with the Catholic position on abortion when the Justice Department defended a grant to the Conference of Catholic Bishops' program of helping victims of sexual trafficking. The ACLU of Massachusetts filed a lawsuit against the grant because Catholic programs don't refer for abortions. Subsequently, in October 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ended the funding. Critics of the action accused HHS of linking global health grants and "reproductive health" services.
Historically, abortion had been legal in the United States until 1821, when Connecticut became the first state to make abortion after "quickening" -- at about four months -- a crime. By the middle of the twentieth century -- with limited exceptions -- abortion had become illegal in most states.
One of the great ironies of history is that it was primarily Republicans who established the very federal family-planning services that are now such a thorn in the side to the Republican establishment.
President Barack Obama has been very silent about abortion since the speech at Notre Dame. He had an excellent opportunity to weigh in on the issue when a Mississippi amendment that would have defined a fertilized egg as a person came up for a referendum vote. Approval of the referendum would probably have outlawed in-vitro fertilization; criminalized birth control; caused doctors to decline to provide pregnant women with chemotherapy due to fear of legal prosecution; and probably have led to murder charges against doctors who perform constitutionally-protected abortions. Even expectant mothers who use drugs or drink alcohol to excess could be charged with murder.
Much as President Obama would have remained silent on the Ohio referendum to support the stripping of collective bargaining rights from public employees, until he was pushed, with only a few days remaining before the vote, by talk show host Bill Press to support a "no" vote and thus help save collective bargaining rights, he totally ignored the Mississippi referendum. When a state wants to take its residents back to medieval times with a horrendous piece of legislation, the issue becomes too important for the president to remain silent. As it turned out, the referendum, generally expected to pass, was defeated by a vote of 59 to 41 percent.
What Should Obama Have Done or Do on Abortion
Several years ago I read a very exciting article on abortion, which I thought I saved but now can't now find. The article was built around the increasing number of young females -- many of them pro-choice -- entering medical school. They were lobbying their schools to teach abortion procedures; also, these activist students were pushing hard for a greater availability of abortion services through a geographical disbursement of abortion clinics.
Many pro-choice lawmakers complete their statement of support for a woman's right to choose by saying that abortion "should be rare." Besides the standard argument that unwanted children are more likely to be neglected or even abused, there is the fact of the large resource-use footprint of the average American. When syndicated columnist Cal Thomas wrote an article reprinted in the Albuquerque Journal, I wrote a letter to the Journal editor, slamming Thomas's contention that Roe v. Wade prevented 50 million Americans from being born and these additional births would have enriched the nation. The core argument in my letter was that increasing the U.S. population by about one-sixth would have greatly increased our oil consumption and placed additional stress on clean water resources -- especially in the American West. Overall, with that increased population, the U.S. would have consumed and would be consuming more of the world's finite resources. A smaller U.S. population is actually good for the rest of the world.
In his book, Beyond Choice, Alexander Sanger, grandson of the family-planning advocate Margaret Sanger, makes the provocative core argument that reproductive health and safety is enhanced by spacing pregnancies. Too little space between pregnancies and teenagers having babies increases the health risk to both mother and infant. Out of all those who would like to weigh in on whether or not an abortion should be performed, the expectant mother is the best one to make that judgment.
President Barack Obama should have adopted the position of the pro-choice female medical students described above, and worked to make abortions much more available in the nation
An Afterword: Rick Pearlstein, a historian who has written on the history of the labor union movement, believes that President Obama is afraid of being burned by association with movements that suddenly spring up. Thus, he largely absented himself from the movement to restore collective bargaining rights to public employees in Wisconsin and Ohio -- including the burgeoning movement to recall Wisconsin's anti-union Governor Scott Walker -- and Obama was silent on the Mississippi referendum to call a fertilized egg a person. Pearlstein says a transformative president must be prepared to ride the tiger and Obama has an anti-tiger phobia.
Obama's next legislative action on abortion was his vote against the Partial Birth Abortion Ban. In defense of that vote, Senator Obama said that a state can properly restrict late-term abortions but they must have a provision to protect the health of the mother. Senator Obama also voted against a bill to make it a crime for anyone other than a mother to accompany a minor across state lines to obtain an abortion.
When Senator Obama became President Obama, one of his first actions was to strike down by executive order the policy that said any organization that receives family-planning funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development cannot offer abortions nor abortion counseling. Obama said his administration would "initiate a fresh conversation on family planning... ." There is no public evidence of such a conversation taking place.
In 2009, President Obama spoke at Notre Dame University and promised those with anti-abortion convictions would be honored by his administration -- he advocated adoption of a "sensible conscience clause."
The Obama administration had another brush with the Catholic position on abortion when the Justice Department defended a grant to the Conference of Catholic Bishops' program of helping victims of sexual trafficking. The ACLU of Massachusetts filed a lawsuit against the grant because Catholic programs don't refer for abortions. Subsequently, in October 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ended the funding. Critics of the action accused HHS of linking global health grants and "reproductive health" services.
Historically, abortion had been legal in the United States until 1821, when Connecticut became the first state to make abortion after "quickening" -- at about four months -- a crime. By the middle of the twentieth century -- with limited exceptions -- abortion had become illegal in most states.
One of the great ironies of history is that it was primarily Republicans who established the very federal family-planning services that are now such a thorn in the side to the Republican establishment.
President Barack Obama has been very silent about abortion since the speech at Notre Dame. He had an excellent opportunity to weigh in on the issue when a Mississippi amendment that would have defined a fertilized egg as a person came up for a referendum vote. Approval of the referendum would probably have outlawed in-vitro fertilization; criminalized birth control; caused doctors to decline to provide pregnant women with chemotherapy due to fear of legal prosecution; and probably have led to murder charges against doctors who perform constitutionally-protected abortions. Even expectant mothers who use drugs or drink alcohol to excess could be charged with murder.
Much as President Obama would have remained silent on the Ohio referendum to support the stripping of collective bargaining rights from public employees, until he was pushed, with only a few days remaining before the vote, by talk show host Bill Press to support a "no" vote and thus help save collective bargaining rights, he totally ignored the Mississippi referendum. When a state wants to take its residents back to medieval times with a horrendous piece of legislation, the issue becomes too important for the president to remain silent. As it turned out, the referendum, generally expected to pass, was defeated by a vote of 59 to 41 percent.
What Should Obama Have Done or Do on Abortion
Several years ago I read a very exciting article on abortion, which I thought I saved but now can't now find. The article was built around the increasing number of young females -- many of them pro-choice -- entering medical school. They were lobbying their schools to teach abortion procedures; also, these activist students were pushing hard for a greater availability of abortion services through a geographical disbursement of abortion clinics.
Many pro-choice lawmakers complete their statement of support for a woman's right to choose by saying that abortion "should be rare." Besides the standard argument that unwanted children are more likely to be neglected or even abused, there is the fact of the large resource-use footprint of the average American. When syndicated columnist Cal Thomas wrote an article reprinted in the Albuquerque Journal, I wrote a letter to the Journal editor, slamming Thomas's contention that Roe v. Wade prevented 50 million Americans from being born and these additional births would have enriched the nation. The core argument in my letter was that increasing the U.S. population by about one-sixth would have greatly increased our oil consumption and placed additional stress on clean water resources -- especially in the American West. Overall, with that increased population, the U.S. would have consumed and would be consuming more of the world's finite resources. A smaller U.S. population is actually good for the rest of the world.
In his book, Beyond Choice, Alexander Sanger, grandson of the family-planning advocate Margaret Sanger, makes the provocative core argument that reproductive health and safety is enhanced by spacing pregnancies. Too little space between pregnancies and teenagers having babies increases the health risk to both mother and infant. Out of all those who would like to weigh in on whether or not an abortion should be performed, the expectant mother is the best one to make that judgment.
President Barack Obama should have adopted the position of the pro-choice female medical students described above, and worked to make abortions much more available in the nation
An Afterword: Rick Pearlstein, a historian who has written on the history of the labor union movement, believes that President Obama is afraid of being burned by association with movements that suddenly spring up. Thus, he largely absented himself from the movement to restore collective bargaining rights to public employees in Wisconsin and Ohio -- including the burgeoning movement to recall Wisconsin's anti-union Governor Scott Walker -- and Obama was silent on the Mississippi referendum to call a fertilized egg a person. Pearlstein says a transformative president must be prepared to ride the tiger and Obama has an anti-tiger phobia.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Concerns Rise on Payroll Tax Cut
When I picked up the Albuquerque Journal yesterday and started reading it, I was pleasantly surprised to find within it a reprinted article written by Jia Lynn Yang of the Washington Post. The article focused on how cutting the payroll tax may undermine Social Security, a strong concern that I have expressed in more than one previous blog.
Yang says that experts, some lawmakers and both public trustees of the Social Security trust fund are worried "that Social Security will lose its status as a protected benefit owed to every working American and instead become politically vulnerable, just like any other government program."
Yang quotes Charles Blohous, one of the two public trustees for Social Security, as saying: "It just seems to me the program both financially and politically will be on a lot rockier footing."
The other public trustee, Robert Reischauer, who is also the president of the Urban Institute, believes extending the payroll tax cut during high unemployment is justified but if continued for a substantial period of time, could "undermine one of the foundational arguments that makes the Social Security program inviolate."
Nancy Altman, co-director of Social Security Works, an advocacy group, describes the payroll tax cut as breaking the "fire wall that has always existed between the trust fund and the operating fund." Altman says that the payroll tax wasn't supposed to be a stimulus mechanism. "Now the payroll tax is this variable thing that goes up and down according to other economic conditions."
Nonetheless, despite these warnings of longer-term negative consequences, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said he will appoint a conference committee to search for ways to extend the two-month cut for all of 2012.
President Barack Obama may have set a precedent for future presidents to reach for a payroll tax cut as a way to climb out of a recession.
Yang says that experts, some lawmakers and both public trustees of the Social Security trust fund are worried "that Social Security will lose its status as a protected benefit owed to every working American and instead become politically vulnerable, just like any other government program."
Yang quotes Charles Blohous, one of the two public trustees for Social Security, as saying: "It just seems to me the program both financially and politically will be on a lot rockier footing."
The other public trustee, Robert Reischauer, who is also the president of the Urban Institute, believes extending the payroll tax cut during high unemployment is justified but if continued for a substantial period of time, could "undermine one of the foundational arguments that makes the Social Security program inviolate."
Nancy Altman, co-director of Social Security Works, an advocacy group, describes the payroll tax cut as breaking the "fire wall that has always existed between the trust fund and the operating fund." Altman says that the payroll tax wasn't supposed to be a stimulus mechanism. "Now the payroll tax is this variable thing that goes up and down according to other economic conditions."
Nonetheless, despite these warnings of longer-term negative consequences, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said he will appoint a conference committee to search for ways to extend the two-month cut for all of 2012.
President Barack Obama may have set a precedent for future presidents to reach for a payroll tax cut as a way to climb out of a recession.
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