Obama and his team contradict past statements on war powers, Syria

As President Barack Obama weighs military action in Syria, it remains unclear whether he will first seek congressional authorization.

It is clear, however, that Obama once thought such authorization was necessary.

“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 Obama told The Boston Globe in late 2007. He added that the president can only act unilaterally in “instances of self-defense.”

“It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action,” Obama continued.

President Obama did not seek congressional approval for his military strikes against Libya in 2011. That bombing campaign led to longtime dictator Muammar Gadhafi’s ouster.

Vice President Joe Biden, who voted for the Iraq War, agreed with Obama.

“The president has no constitutional authority to take this country to war… unless we’re attacked or unless there is proof that we are about to be attacked,” Biden said in 2007.

Biden, then a Democratic senator from Delaware, suggested presidential war-making was an impeachable offense.

Via: Daily Caller

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BIDEN AND OBAMA AREN’T PART OF THE WHITE HOUSE, WHICH IS NOT PART OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

Not Part of Administration

Courtesy of The Hill, a stunning admission from the White House:

The White House on Friday said Vice President Biden was speaking for himself and President Obama when he said the administration was unaware of additional requests for security in Libya.

“He was speaking directly for himself and for the president,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said at his daily briefing.

The explanation came after Biden made waves during his debate with GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan by indicating the administration was unaware of requests by State Department officials for additional security in Libya.

Oh, so the Obama White House isn’t part of the Obama Administration?  And “The White House” is an organization distinct from B. Hussein Obama and J. Biden?  They’re just a couple of guys the “White House” occasionally meets for drinks after work?  You learn the most amazing things listening to Jay Carney.

The staggering incompetence of the Obama Administration has rocked even some of their media supporters.  The best thing they can do at this point is try to downplay the significance of what Obama, Biden, and their spokespeople are saying.  They report the news as quickly as possible, in the softest whisper they can manage, and hope readers don’t absorb the import of what they’re saying.

Some reporters are doing nice work on the Benghazi debacle, but Big Media, as a whole, is not building a “narrative” that ties it all together, they way they most certainly would for a Republican administration.  If Vice President Sarah Palin had tried to excuse patently false statements made during a debate, concerning a debacle that claimed the lives of four Americans, by claiming that she and President John McCain really weren’t part of the McCain Administration, you’d be seeing 24/7 “America in Crisis” news coverage of it all weekend.

Leaving the Administration’s deceits unconnected by a narrative thread allows ridiculous falsehoods to be taken as serious responses.  Obama’s people keep insisting that they’ve been calmly and rationally “investigating” the Benghazi attack, and releasing the best information they have at each given moment.  That’s nonsense – they haven’t “released” anything since the “spontaneous video protest” fantasy.  All the valid information Americans have about the Benghazi attack has come from investigative reporting and Congressional oversight.  The Administration hasn’t given us the truth; we’ve taken it from them.

Via: Human Events

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Morning Bell: 10 Questions for the Vice Presidential Debate

Tonight’s debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Representative Paul Ryan is supposed to cover both domestic and foreign policy. The Heritage Foundation’s policy experts have submitted 10 questions they would like to see asked in the debate.

Watch with us tonight—we will be streaming the debate live at 9 p.m. ET on our Debate 2012 page, with an experts’ live blog.

DOMESTIC POLICY

1. Obamacare takes $716 billion out of Medicare to fund Obamacare. This includes $156 billion in cuts to Medicare Advantage. Currently, 27 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in Medicare Advantage, which is a private alternative to traditional Medicare. The Medicare Chief Actuary projects that by 2017, Obamacare’s severe cuts will decrease enrollment in Medicare Advantage by 50 percent and result in less generous benefit packages for those who do remain in the program. What changes would you make, if any, to ensure that these seniors are able to keep their current Medicare Advantage plan?

2. Patient choice is working well within Medicare and other government health programs. In addition to the private plans in Medicare Advantage, there are 1,100 plans in the Medicare drug program and hundreds of plans in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. None of these plans use “vouchers”; they receive a direct government contribution toward the cost of the plans. Would you expand patient choice in Medicare? Why or why not?

3. Most people under the age of 40 will pay more in Social Security taxes than they will receive in benefits, and Medicare adds to federal deficits faster than any other government spending program. How would you focus entitlement reform on reducing spending?

4. Under Obamacare, the Health and Human Services (HHS) preventive services mandate requires nearly all employers to cover abortion drugs and contraception regardless of religious or moral objection, effectively exempting only formal houses of worship. Should Americans be able to live out their faith commitments outside the four walls of their church—in the public square and in the way they run their businesses or non-profits?

5. It has been almost four years since the federal government took control of General Motors. Vice President Biden has said the bailout of the firm was a success. Was this a success? Why or why not? And when should the federal government sell the shares it still owns?

The Uncharitable Joe Biden: Better at Giving Away Your Money Than His

Before he became Vice President, Joe Biden was not exactly Santa Claus. So, one thing I think you will not see during the Vice President debates is a discussion on charity—Joe will not want to discuss this at all.

Just when I thought that there was no politician stingier than Barack Obama—who, before he became President, gave as little as .6% of his income to the poor—lo and behold Obama picked as his running mate, a man who gives far less to the poor than he. While Obama’s tax returns prior to his 2008 election reveal a portrait of a man who privately gives very little to the poor—less than any Republican I know—Joe Biden gives even less.

In fact, Biden’s charitable giving is so abysmally poor that he makes even Obama look like Santa Claus. Biden may well have been the stingiest man in the Senate. For two of the most “liberal” senators in Washington, they were embarrassingly conservative when it comes to reaching into their own pockets and helping the poor, whose cause they pretend to champion. If they thought that the public actually knew how little they did privately to help the poor, these two hypocrites would never again spout their populist drivel about Republican “trickle down” economics or criticize the Republicans for not doing enough to help the poor.

A close look at his returns reveals the true depths of their hypocrisy.

From 1998 through his election in 2008, Joe Biden’s income varied between $200,000 and $400,000. Where I come from, that is serious money. Yet, amazingly, his reported annual charitable giving—as shown on his Schedule A—varied between a whopping $120 during the lean years and a little less than $400 when he felt extra charitable. [The rare exception was 2007, when he was running for office and gave a less than generous $995 to the poor.] No, I have not missed a decimal place. He does not give in terms of five figures, nor does he give in terms of four figures. At least before he became Vice President.

Via: Canada Free Press

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Election 2012 State Polls

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Thursday, September 20

Race/Topic   (Click to Sort)	Poll	Results	Spread
Colorado	NBC/WSJ/Marist	Obama 50, Romney 45	Obama +5
Iowa	NBC/WSJ/Marist	Obama 50, Romney 42	Obama +8
Iowa	Rasmussen Reports	Obama 44, Romney 47	Romney +3
Nevada	CNN/Opinion Research	Obama 49, Romney 46	Obama +3
Nevada	Rasmussen Reports	Obama 47, Romney 45	Obama +2
Florida	WeAskAmerica*	Obama 49, Romney 46	Obama +3
Wisconsin	NBC/WSJ/Marist	Obama 50, Romney 45	Obama +5
Wisconsin	PPP (D)	Obama 52, Romney 45	Obama +7
Wisconsin	Rasmussen Reports	Obama 49, Romney 46	Obama +3
Michigan	Detroit News	Obama 52, Romney 38	Obama +14
Pennsylvania	WeAskAmerica*	Obama 48, Romney 42	Obama +6
Connecticut	UConn/Hartford Courant	Obama 53, Romney 32	Obama +21
Massachusetts	UMass/Boston Herald	Obama 59, Romney 36	Obama +23

Wednesday, September 19

Race/Topic   (Click to Sort)	Poll	Results	Spread
Ohio	FOX News	Obama 49, Romney 42	Obama +7
Florida	FOX News	Obama 49, Romney 44	Obama +5
Virginia	FOX News	Obama 50, Romney 43	Obama +7
Colorado	CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac	Obama 48, Romney 47	Obama +1
Virginia	CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac	Obama 50, Romney 46	Obama +4
Wisconsin	CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac	Obama 51, Romney 45	Obama +6
New Hampshire	Rasmussen Reports	Obama 45, Romney 48	Romney +3
Michigan	CNN/Opinion Research	Obama 52, Romney 44	Obama +8
Virginia	WeAskAmerica*	Obama 49, Romney 46	Obama +3
Wisconsin	Marquette University	Obama 54, Romney 40	Obama +14
Maine	PPP (D)	Obama 55, Romney 39	Obama +16
Maine	MPRC (D)*	Obama 54, Romney 37	Obama +17
California	Field	Obama 58, Romney 34	Obama +24
Massachusetts	WBUR/MassINC	Obama 59, Romney 31	Obama +28

Via:  Real Clear Politics

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Biden says 'I' more than any convention speaker

BIDEN SPEAKS “I,” “I’ve,” “I’m,” “I’ll,” “my,” “mine” and “me.”

Over the past two weeks, politicians at both the Democratic and Republican conventions spoke of health care policy, taxation and every other hot-button issue under the sun.

They also, it turns out, talked about themselves. A lot

Using the transcripts produced by Federal News Service, POLITICO examined the speeches of the conventions’ most prominent speakers and counted the number of instances the following words were employed: “I,” “I’ve,” “I’m,” “I’ll,” “my,” “mine” and “me.”

The results? Joe Biden took first place by a wide margin. With his primetime — and personal — speech, the vice president racked up 135 mentions of himself. He was followed by first lady Michelle Obama, with 112. Mitt Romney took top honors among Republicans with 91 mentions of himself, as compared to 103 for his opponent, President Barack Obama.

Other notable speakers — and top self-mentioners — included Chris Christie (73), Ann Romney (67), Clint Eastwood (63), Paul Ryan (62), Mike Huckabee (56) and Marco Rubio (47), Julian Castro (43), Elizabeth Warren (37), Charlie Crist (33) and Lilly Ledbetter (32).

Despite Bill Clinton’s stem-winding speech in Charlotte, he clocked in with a relatively modest 30 mentions of self.

Via: POLITICO

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James Hoffa, Teamsters President, Says Romney 'Wants To Annihilate Organized Labor'

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The way Teamsters President James P. Hoffa sees it, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney would be happy if an already weakened American labor movement ceased to exist altogether.

"He wants to annihilate organized labor as we know it," Hoffa told HuffPost outside the Democratic National Convention this week. "It's on his website. I'm not making this up. He's for a national right-to-work law. The Republican Party has veered dangerously to the right. It's rather incredible, in 2012, if you think about it."

Indeed, Romney's official stance on labor isn't kind to unions. His campaign website suggests that unions have outlasted their significance, "driv[ing] up costs and introduc[ing] rigidities that harm competitiveness and frustrate innovation." He supports states pursuing right-to-work laws, which weaken the clout of unions, and his party last week approved a platform pushing for national right-to-work legislation. He'd also like to prohibit automatic union dues-deduction from employee paychecks.

Hoffa isn’t the only labor leader who visited Charlotte this week and sees a hostility toward unions in Romney's positions. Mary Kay Henry, head of the 2 million-member Service Employees International Union, told HuffPost earlier this week that Romney "wants to take us out."

The Romney campaign didn't respond to Hoffa or Henry's comments.

Rank-and-file union members said they often feel taken for granted by Democrats in office. Among many labor activists, the enthusiasm for the Obama-Biden ticket appears to stem in large part from a loathing and distrust of the alternative. But Hoffa, like other labor figures who headed to Charlotte, insisted the current White House has been good to unions over the past four years.

Via: HuffPost Politics

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Jobless Claims on the Rise Again.

After digesting the unemployment numbers for the last few days, there is every indication that very few jobs are being created, as this administration continues to flounder.  They can boast all they want about the jobs that have been created in the past year, but the underlying consequences do not reflect the true picture of the job market.  When it is said that their are 766,000 less women working than three years ago, I have to pause and ask what's next? Veterans unemployment rates are also climbing at an alarming rate. This weeks new claims reached a four week high of 386,000 which are 6,000 more than the previous week.

Its hard to get excited when only 69,000 jobs were created in May. The revised job numbers for March and April show that 49,000 fewer jobs were created than originally  reported.  It just keeps getting worse and with no end in sight for an already floundering economy the only good news is it will spell doom for the re-election efforts of Obama. On June 14, 2012 House Speaker John Boehner released the following video showing the jobs bills that have been passed by the House but  still sit languishing in the Senate. Harry Reid has virtually put a halt to all legislation that would put people to work and jump start the economy.