“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
For the second time in less than eighteen months, domestic terrorist Bill Ayers admitted he wrote Barack Obama's book "Dreams From My Father."
This time, it was recorded on videotape as he was speaking last Thursday at Montclair State University (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):
UNKNOWN QUESTIONER: Time magazine columnist Joe Klein wrote that President Obama’s book “Dreams From My Father” quote “may be the best written memoir ever produced by an American politician.”
BILL AYERS: I agree with that.
QUESTIONER: What is your opinion of Barack Obama’s style as a writer?
AYERS: I think the first book is very good. The second one was more of a political hack book, but the first book’s quite good.
QUESTIONER: Right, and also, you mentioned about the Pentagon and…
AYERS: Did you know I wrote it?
QUESTIONER: What’s that?
AYERS: I wrote “Dreams From My Father.”
CROWD: We know that.
QUESTIONER: You wrote that?
AYERS: Yeah, and if you could help me prove it, I’ll split the royalties with you.
[Laughter]
Oddly, this was not the first time Ayers made such a claim. Backyard Conservative reported October 4, 2009, after meeting Ayers at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C.:
Then, unprompted he said--I wrote Dreams From My Father. I said, oh, so you admit it. He said--Michelle asked me to. I looked at him. He seemed eager. He's about my height, short. He went on to say--and if you can prove it, we can split the royalties. So I said, stop pulling my leg. Horrible thought. But he came again--I really wrote it, the wording was similar. I said I believe you probably heavily edited it. He said--I wrote it. I said--why would I believe you, you're a liar.
He had no answer to that. Just looked at me. Then he turned and walked off, and said again his bit about my proving it and splitting the proceeds.
Now, less than eighteen months later, he's said this again in front of an audience with a camera taping the whole thing.
Imagine the media onslaught upon discovering that a former unrepentant radical terrorist repeatedly admitted on video he wrote George Bush’s first book. We would never hear the end of it. Of course they play by different rules when it comes to Obama. This will get the usual “nothing to see here, move along” from the MSM.
Indeed. It seems quite unlikely this will get much attention anywhere other than conservative blogs and Fox News.
After all, why would it be at all newsworthy that the President's first book was written by a domestic terrorist? These same folks didn't care about Obama's association with Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, and Jeremiah Wright when he was on the campaign trail.
Why should they care now?
Here is Obama being introduced as the author... At 7:38 Obama says "…I had to come to terms with in writing the book":
Update: Tokyo (CNN) -- Radiation readings that showed extremely high levels of a form of radioactive iodine at the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant were incorrect, the plant's owner said Sunday. The Tokyo Electric Power Company reported earlier that water pooling in the turbine building of the plant's No. 2 reactor was 10 million times more radioactive than normal and contained a sharply elevated level of iodine-134, a short-lived isotope produced in a nuclear reaction. But the utility acknowledged that those figures were incorrect late Sunday, after Japanese regulators questioned the readings."Presently, we are re-sampling, analyzing and re-evaluating, and as soon as it's collated, we will make an announcement," the company said
___________
Japan nuclear workers evacuated after radiation levels soar
Tests at Fukushima No 2 reactor reveal radiation at 10m times normal levels amid warnings crisis could last months
Fukushima Daiichi's reactors 1 to 4 are shown in this image taken 30km (18 miles) offshore from the stricken nuclear plant Photograph: Kyodo/Reuters
Radioactivity levels in one part of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant are 10m times higher than normal, Japanese officials have said, amid warnings that the operation to avert disaster at the facility could last for months..
Tests on the surface of a pool of water that has formed in the No 2 reactor revealed radioactivity of 1,000 millisieverts (mSv) per hour – four times the level deemed safe by the government. The worker carrying out the test reportedly fled before taking a second reading.
Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for Japan's nuclear and industrial safety agency (Nisa), said: "This is quite a high figure." The water was "likely to be coming from the reactor", he said.
The discovery prompted another evacuation of workers at the site, halting work to pump and store radioactive water that has built up in the turbine buildings of three of the plant's six reactors.
Evidence of dangerous contamination in the No 2 reactor emerged after three workers were exposed to high levels of radioactivity while repairing the cooling system at the No 3 reactor. Two of the men received suspected beta ray burns after stepping into water with radiation levels 10,000 times higher than normal. Reports said the workers were due to be discharged from hospital on Monday.
Modest progress was made over the weekend to remove contaminated water and step up work to cool the reactors with fresh water, rather than corrosive seawater. But Yukiya Amano, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), warned that Japan's nuclear emergency could go on for weeks, and possibly months. "This is a very serious accident by all standards," he told the New York Times. "And it is not yet over."
With just one pump currently being used to extract radioactive water, two more will be taken to the site. The US military is sending barges loaded with 500,000 gallons of fresh water to nearby Onahama Bay.
Two of the plant's six reactors are considered safe, having achieved "cool shutdown", but the remaining four have yet to be brought under control. Nisa said temperature and pressure inside all six reactors had stabilised.
The unusually high levels of radioactivity in the puddles "almost certainly" indicated that water had seeped from a reactor core, said Yukio Edano, the chief government spokesman. Edano denied the situation was deteriorating, but conceded that the myriad problems facing the power plant workers were no closer to being resolved.
"We are preventing the situation from worsening," he said. "We have restored power and pumped in fresh water, and we are making basic steps towards improvement. But there is still no room for complacency."
The deterioration in the state of the reactors is the latest in a string of complications to have hit the Fukushima operation since the plant was seriously damaged by the earthquake and tsunami along Japan's north-east coast on 11 March.
The nuclear crisis has raised fears about the safety of food in the area, while Tokyo, 150 miles to the south, experienced a brief rise in radioactivity in tap water that prompted a one-day ban on consumption by infants.
Bans have been imposed on the shipment of milk and leafy vegetables from the Fukushima region, and several countries have introduced restrictions on Japanese food imports. Last week, the US became the first country to ban the import of milk and some vegetables from contaminated areas.
Growing concern over food safety spread to the fishing industry over the weekend, when officials said seawater samples taken 20 miles off the coast of the Fukushima plant contained 1,850 times the normal level of radioactivity. Nisa said the tainted seawater posed no risk to health. "Ocean currents will disperse radiation particles and so it will be very diluted by the time it is consumed by fish and seaweed, and even more by the time they are consumed by humans," Nishiyama said. "There is no need to worry about health risks,"
Officials said on Friday they suspected one or more of the reactors had been damaged, leading to water leakages and raising the possibility of large amounts of radiation finding their way into the environment. The plant's owner and operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), has yet to determine the source of the leak.
A Nisa spokesman said the length of time workers spend inside units was being closely monitored. "It is definitely a severe environment, but the amount of time workers are allowed in there is strictly controlled so that their exposure does not exceed the limit," Minoru Ogoda said. Most of the radioactivity found in the No 2 reactor came from iodine-134., which has a half-life of 53 minutes, meaning it dissipates quickly.
The government urged the Tepco to be more transparent after it emerged that the firm knew radiation levels had risen dramatically days before the workers were injured. "Regardless of whether there was an awareness of high radioactivity in the stagnant water, there were problems in the way work was conducted," Nishiyama said.
The men were exposed to radiation of between 173 and 180 mSv, lower than the upper limit of 250 mSv per year introduced by the health ministry soon after the disaster.
The various types of music brought with the people who began migrating to America in the early 1600s are considered to be the roots of bluegrass music---including dance music and ballads from Ireland, Scotland and England, as well as African American gospel music and blues. (In fact, slaves from Africa brought the design idea for the banjo--an instrument now integral to the bluegrass sound.)
As the early Jamestown settlers began to spread out into the Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky and the Virginias, they composed new songs about day-to-day life experiences in the new land. Since most of these people lived in rural areas, the songs reflected life on the farm or in the hills and this type of music was called "mountain music" or "country music." The invention of the phonograph and the onset of the radio in the early 1900s brought this old-time music out of the rural Southern mountains to people all over the United States.
Good singing became a more important part of country music. Singing stars like Jimmie Rodgers, family bands like the Carter family from Virginia and duet teams like the Monroe Brothers from Kentucky contributed greatly to the advancement of traditional country music.
We are involved in our third concurrent war in the Middle East. Our spoken justification for doing so is to protect the Libyan people from a cruel and vicious assault on those who have taken up arms against the Libyan Government. What would the US Government do if US citizens took up arms in lets say Waco Texas? Well, we know what they did when the US Government went after US citizens that did not take up arms. Waco happened under A liberal Democratic President Bill Clinton. Clinton went after a religious fringe group. Who are the rebels that took up arms in Libya? Are the Libyans justified in putting down an insurrection? What do you think would happen if the Tea Party armed up and took to the streets?
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As the days pass, and the intervention in Libya grows longer, my alarm also grows. The West digs itself into a position that is contrary to western interests, and can only advance the interests of our worst enemies in the Middle East. If I were to characterize the effect of the intervention - the actual as opposed to the stated effect - it would be, "Making the world safe for Islamism."
On Saturday I had space to flag the basic difficulty of the allied Libya "strategy," namely, that it is no strategy at all, and we don't know what we're doing. We cannot articulate what we want to achieve, beyond preventing the "humanitarian disaster" to which we are now substantially contributing. Western statesmen can't even agree if they want Gadhafi to be gone. Nor, apparently, have their generals been briefed coherently on the purpose of this war. They could not even explain if missile strikes on Gadhafi's compound were intended to hurt him.
This is another liberal, push-button war, from the Bill Clinton era; one intended to produce very few allied casualties. Twelve years ago I described the NATO attack on Serbia as a form of "experimental bombing." See what the techies can come up with, working from satellite photos. Hit anything that looks mean on the other side, and spare the rest of the landscape. Just "tilt that playing field" against Milosevic, or whichever nearly defenceless dictator we have decided to seriously dislike.
Note that liberal wars are never conducted against our more lethal enemies. Every argument for going into Libya counts 10 times for going into Iran, the one place where the opposition is secular and pro-Western. But it is taken for granted that we can't "do" Iran, because the ayatollahs might already have serious weapons up their sleeves. And besides the humanitarian crisis there has been going on for decades; the Iranian demonstrations are no longer "breaking news."
An air force isn't a "touchy-feely" thing. Contemporary weapons systems allow much greater precision than in the past (at a price: cruise missile barrages at more than $1 million a pop). But without matching accuracy in live-time intelligence, we still cannot know what we are hitting. And intelligence out of Libya is almost a contradiction in terms.
Russia and China waived their vetoes on the Security Council, granting us permission to score an own goal, then immediately launched their rhetorical opposition. The Arab League has said it never approved of bombing, just "no fly." And throughout the Arab world, we find that Gadhafi had friends. Also in Tripoli, surprise. And among terrorist cells in Europe.
But it is Gadhafi's enemies that disturb me more. As Niall Ferguson points out, when the allied intervention was announced, it was proclaimed from the minarets of Benghazi. And the cry throughout the city was not "God bless America," but rather, "Allahu Akhbar!" Our media insist on spotlighting a small unrepresentative minority of Westernized, middle-class people with cellphones and Facebook accounts, when the primary, organized opposition to the Arab world's autocrats are Islamist imams.
In Afghanistan, it was fairly argued, by opponents of the Bush invasion, that the CIA and our rich Saudi friends had sponsored the Taliban, to resist the previous Soviet occupation. We helped create the lethal enemy we were facing. As 9/11 showed, our former allies of convenience retained no sentimental feelings of obligation towards the West.
The history of CIA and other semi-secret Western support for the Muslim Brotherhood and similar Islamist factions - as allies against a common Soviet enemy - goes back to the early years of the Eisenhower administration. It was even understandable in the context of the Cold War. The enemy of my enemy is my friend; and after all, we once supported Stalin, against Hitler.
But now we are doing something more profoundly senseless. In the name of a "humanitarianism" that is not thought through, we are subtly joining forces with so-called "moderate" Islamists against isolated secular tyrants. We have foreign services sending feelers out to Islamist opponents of every Arab regime, in the name of "democracy" and "inclusivity."
From Obama down through the liberal intelligentsia we have blather about how the Muslim Brotherhood is "evolving" - as it embraces the tactical devices of modern Western political parties, from women's groups and youth clubs to electronic media and studied efforts by spokesmen to appear "cool." Yet all this remains in the service of a political ideology that is unambiguously committed to the spread of Shariah, and the destruction of us.
This is a very old story: the ability of the liberal mind to delude itself by confusing appearances with realities; by embracing the comfortably plausible in preference to the uncomfortably true. And finally, expressing genuine surprise when the whole effort blows up in our faces.
Maybe Lawrence Taylor could speak for Obama. He at least is an honest man:
I Hope Colonel Gaddafi Is As Confused As I Am...
by Charlotte Hays
March 22, 2011, 8:35am
Our Libya policy is so confused that I hesitate to do another post on it. Does anybody have a clear idea what it is and on what principles it is based? The one discernable principle isn't a good one: that the U.S. has done so much harm in the world that she should never again act without the taming permission of the "international community." (Presumably, we still get to foot the bills, though.)
The most confused person seems to be gallivanting President Barack Obama, who has said (I think I'm getting this right) that Gaddafi must go but that making him go is not the mission of, well, the current mission, whatever that might be. I think the president believes the madman must "step down."
__________________
Victor Davis Hanson:
The Obama administration's Libyan strategy is a paradox - resulting from the president's belatedly announcing that Moammar Qaddafi must go, using military force against him, and then denying that our objective is to see him leave. ...
The Obama administration, after over two weeks of unrest in Libya, grandly declared that Qaddafi had to go. Why? I think because it seemed then almost certain that the rebels were just about to throw him out. We did not wish to seem calculating, opportunistic, and on the wrong side of history, as we had when we belatedly piggy-backed on the rather easy departures of dictators/not dictators - and former allies - Hosni Mubarak and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.
But any student of the Middle East could have reminded the president that Qaddafi is not Mubarak or Ben Ali, but more akin to Ahmadinejad, Assad, the Taliban, or Saddam Hussein. Tyrants of that stripe don't leave when told to. They equate exile with a noose. Such thugs stay in power until they are killed or driven out by overwhelming military force - usually well beyond what dissidents and insurgents can muster.
After nearly three months, there is also still no typology, even if informal, offered of Middle Eastern unrest. The Obama administration has not explained how our muscularity with Libya fits into our larger policy of embracing "outreach" to Syria, not "meddling" in Iran, and keeping silent about Saudi Arabia's intervention in Bahrain and about the popular unrest in the Gulf and Jordan. Where do we intervene in the region, for what and on behalf of whom, and how and for how long?
_____________________
(Reuters) - U.S. military operations against Libya will be funded through cash flow, but finding the money will be tough given the lack of a defense budget for the 2011 fiscal year, the Defense Department's top budget official said.
Reagan was much different than Obama. Reagan invited the bipartisan leadership to the White House – Lugar as SFRC Chair – and told them planes were on their way to Libya for the sole mission of taking out Gadhafi, because of the intelligence that he had personally ordered the murder on a US soldier at a Berlin bar. Reagan said if anyone objected, he would order the planes turned around. No one, including Byrd, objected. Obama’s stated mission lacks Reagan’s clarity. It has gone from defeating Gadhafi to humanitarian assistance to whatever. There is confusion over the goals of the mission, its command and control. When Obama invited Lugar and others to White House last Friday Obama downplayed the need for war authority because there would be no boots on the ground and American planes over Libya.
_____________________
President Barack Obama's recent performance regarding Libya is simply the latest in a long string of dubious "achievements."
This time, he dithered for weeks while a dictatorial thug slaughtered his own people, then finally announced a confused and confusing position.
According to Obama, our goal is the removal of Moammar Gadhafi, yet our recent military intervention is simply aimed at protecting civilians.
Steven Lerner, formerly of SEIU.
A former official of one of the country's most-powerful unions, SEIU, is detailing a secret plan to "destabilize" the country.
Specifically, the plan seeks to destroy JP Morgan, nuke the stock market, and weaken Wall Street's grip on power, thus creating the conditions necessary for a redistribution of wealth and a change in government.
The former SEIU official, Steven Lerner, spoke in a closed session at a Pace University forum last weekend.
The Blaze procured what appears to be a tape of Lerner's remarks. Many Americans will undoubtely sympathize with and support them. Still, the "destabilization" plan is startling in its specificity, especially coming so close on the heels of the financial crisis.
OBAMA"S GUY, STEVEN LERNER
"How do we bring down the stock market
How do we bring down their bonuses
How do we interfere with there ability to be rich...
So a bunch of us around the country think who would be a really good company to hate we decided that would be JP Morgan Chase and so we are going to roll out over the next couple of months what would hopefully be an exciting campaign about JP Morgan Chase that is really about challenge the power of Wall Street."
And so what we are looking at is the first week in May can we get enough people together starting now to really have an week of action in New York I don't want to give any details because I don't know if there are any police agents in the room.
The goal would be that we will roll out of New York the first week of May. We will connect three ideas
Lerner said that unions and community organizations are, for all intents and purposes, dead. The only way to achieve their goals, therefore--the redistribution of wealth and the return of "$17 trillion" stolen from the middle class by Wall Street--is to "destabilize the country."
Lerner's plan is to organize a mass, coordinated "strike" on mortgage, student loan, and local government debt payments--thus bringing the banks to the edge of insolvency and forcing them to renegotiate the terms of the loans. This destabilization and turmoil, Lerner hopes, will also crash the stock market, isolating the banking class and allowing for a transfer of power.
Lerner's plan starts by attacking JP Morgan Chase in early May, with demonstrations on Wall Street, protests at the annual shareholder meeting, and then calls for a coordinated mortgage strike.
Lerner also says explicitly that, although the attack will benefit labor unions, it cannot be seen as being organized by them. It must therefore be run by community organizations.
Lerner was ousted from SEIU last November, reportedly for spending millions of the union's dollars trying to pursue a plan like the one he details here. It is not clear what, if any, power and influence he currently wields. His main message--that Wall Street won the financial crisis, that inequality in this country is hitting record levels, and that there appears to be no other way to stop the trend--will almost certainly resonate.
A transcript of Lerner's full reported remarks is below, courtesy of The Blaze. We have heard the tape, but we have not independently verified that the voice is Lerner's. You can listen to the tape here.
Here are the key remarks:
Unions are almost dead. We cannot survive doing what we do but the simple fact of the matter is community organizations are almost dead also. And if you think about what we need to do it may give us some direction which is essentially what the folks that are in charge - the big banks and everything - what they want is stability.
There are actually extraordinary things we could do right now to start to destabilize the folks that are in power and start to rebuild a movement.
For example, 10% of homeowners are underwater right their home they are paying more for it then its worth 10% of those people are in strategic default, meaning they are refusing to pay but they are staying in their home that's totally spontaneous they figured out it takes a year to kick me out of my home because foreclosure is backed up
If you could double that number you would you could put banks at the edge of insolvency again.
Students have a trillion dollar debt
We have an entire economy that is built on debt and banks so the question would be what would happen if we organized homeowners in mass to do a mortgage strike if we get half a million people to agree it would literally cause a new finical crisis for the banks not for us we would be doing quite well we wouldn't be paying anything...
We have to think much more creatively. The key thing... What does the other side fear the most - they fear disruption. They fear uncertainty. Every article about Europe says in they rioted in Greece the markets went down
The folks that control this country care about one thing how the stock market goes what the bond market does how the bonuses goes. We have a very simple strategy:
How do we bring down the stock market
How do we bring down their bonuses
How do we interfere with there ability to be rich...
So a bunch of us around the country think who would be a really good company to hate we decided that would be JP Morgan Chase and so we are going to roll out over the next couple of months what would hopefully be an exciting campaign about JP Morgan Chase that is really about challenge the power of Wall Street.
And so what we are looking at is the first week in May can we get enough people together starting now to really have an week of action in New York I don't want to give any details because I don't know if there are any police agents in the room.
The goal would be that we will roll out of New York the first week of May. We will connect three ideas
that we are not broke there is plenty of money
they have the money - we need to get it back
and that they are using Bloomberg and other people in government as the vehicle to try and destroy us
And so we need to take on those folks at the same time.
And that we will start here we are going to look at a week of civil disobedience - direct action all over the city. Then roll into the JP Morgan shareholder meeting which they moved out of New York because I guess they were afraid because of Columbus.
There is going to be a ten state mobilization to try and shut down that meeting and then looking at bank shareholder meetings around the country and try and create some moments like Madison except where we are on offense instead of defense.
Where we have brave and heroic battles challenging the power of the giant corporations. We hope to inspire a much bigger movement about redistributing wealth and power in the country and that labor can’t do itself that community groups can’t do themselves but maybe we can work something new and different that can be brave enough and daring and nimble enough to do that kind of thing.
FULL TRANSCRIPT FROM THE BLAZE
SPEAKER: Steven Lerner. Speaker at the Left Forum 2011 "Towards a Politics of Solidarity" Pace University March 19, 2011
Speaker Bio:
Stephen Lerner is the architect of the SEIU's groundbreaking Justice for Janitors campaign.
He led the union's banking and finance campaign and has partnered with unions and groups in Europe, South American and elsewhere in campaigns to hold financial institutions accountable.
As director of the union's private equity project, he launched a long campaign to expose the over-leveraged feeding frenzy of private equity firms during the boom years that led to the ensuing economic disaster.
US foreign policy is the same as it has been and will only force us into bankruptcy sooner rather than later. The Republicans and conservative bloggers are uncertain which way to go. I am not. We have far bigger problems and this adventure into Libya will make them worse.
___________________________
Libya and the Zone of Twilight
by Chad Pergram | March 21, 2011 FOX
One issue and two words comprised the debate at Philadelphia's Constitutional Convention on August 17, 1787.
The Founders struggled with whether they should grant war authority to the legislature or the executive. And the Founders also wrestled with what verb they should use when entering into war: "make" or "declare."
Charles Pinckney of South Carolina worried about vesting war power with the legislature. Pinckney argued that legislative proceedings were "too slow" to respond to something as critical as war.
Meantime, Virginia's George Mason expressed concern about depositing war powers in the lap of the executive. Mason didn't think the executive branch could be "trusted" with such a broad prerogative.
Pierce Butler of South Carolina indicated the president would never "make war" unless the nation backed him.
Butler's use of the word "make" apparently caught the attention of Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts and Virginia's James Madison. They moved to strike "make" and inserted "declare" instead. But Connecticut's Roger Sherman resisted Elbridge and Madison. Sherman fretted that the word "declare" narrowed "the power too much."
Finally, Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut stated that "there is a material difference between the cases of making war and making peace. It should be more easy to get out of war than into it."
In the end, the Founders agreed to "declare." And in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, they granted Congress the power "to declare war." Right in between authorizing the legislative branch the ability "to end and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas" and to write "Letters of Marque and Reprisal."
On March 2, Defense Secretary Robert Gates appeared at the witness table before a meeting of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) queried Gates about the chances of the U.S. patrolling a no-fly zone over Libya while simultaneously committed to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Gates minced no words about what a Libyan mission might require.
"A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defenses. That's the way you do a no-fly zone. And then you can fly planes around the country and not worry about our guys being shot down," Gates replied. "It also requires more airplanes than you would find on a single aircraft carrier."
Frelinghuysen noted he wasn't "endorsing" that the U.S. implement a Libyan no-fly zone. But the New Jersey Republican worried that some factions in Africa could interpret what it takes to build a no-fly zone as "a war, aggressive action on our part."
Gates responded that up to that point, the United Nations had not authorized the use of force in Libya.
A few weeks later, the U.N. changed its tune when it came to a no-fly zone in Libya. And on Friday, President Obama summoned key Congressional leaders to the White House or had them dial in to brief them about U.S. involvement in Libya.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) was one of the few lawmakers who attended the session in person. Afterwards, Rogers fully backed the action, describing it as a "support role." But Rogers added this caveat:
"If this is going to go long or if there is going to be a mission change, I think (the president) has to come back to Congress for an affirmative vote," Rogers said.
By Saturday, the U.S. had already lobbed more than 100 Tomahawk cruise missiles at targets near Tripoli and Misrata to help establish the no-fly zone. These Tomahawk missiles cost $600,000 apiece. Later, B-2 bombers and Harrier jets executed additional strikes on Libyan soil.
On Saturday afternoon, House Democrats convened a conference call with many expressing concern that the president didn't have the power to authorize such strikes without consulting Congress.
And by Sunday afternoon, it wasn't just Congressional Democrats who were skeptical about how the president involved the U.S.
"Before any further military commitments are made, the admnistration must do a better job of communicating to the American people and to Congress about our mission in Libya and how it will be achieved," said House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).
"I am concerned that the use of military force in the absence of clear political objectives for our country risks entrenching the United States in a humanitarian mission whose scope and duration are not known at this point and cannot be controlled by us," said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) in a statement. "A United Nations' Security Council resolution is not and should not be confused for a political and military strategy."
Lawmakers typically lodge two types of reservations when the U.S. intervenes in conflicts like Libya.
For starters, liberals are usually concerned about whether the president, Democrat or Republican, is usurping the Constitution by deploying U.S. forces or other military assets overseas. Furthermore, Republicans express disquiet about whether the president is using the military the "right" way.
After last fall's purge at the polls, there are few moderate Democrats left in the House. Nearly all Democrats who remain are liberal. Thus, it's natural that those ranging from Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) to Jerry Nadler (D-NY) would express reservation about not only whether the U.S. should deploy the military but if the president followed the Constitution and the 1973 War Powers Resolution. The resolution requires the president to tell Congress within two days of commencing military action and prohibits the use of force for two months without a Congressional declaration of war.
But the electoral makeup of this Congress is a little different than in years past. Last November, voters dispatched dozens of conservative lawmakers to Washington with the backing of the tea party. Many of these newly-minted members ran on a platform of sticking strictly to the Constitution. Moreover, few of these lawmakers have yet to weigh in on any foreign policy issue at all. Nearly all of the debate in Washington this year has focused on spending and repealing the health care law.
So this begs an interesting question. After Friday's White House consultation, most Republicans were mum about the Libya operation.
But Sunday's comments from Boehner and McKeon suggested there was more than a little concern among Republicans. And no one quite knows where these new, conservative members will come down on this issue.
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) isn't a neophyte lawmaker. But he is one of the most conservative voices in the House and is closely aligned with the tea party movement. King says he favors the U.S. mission "if this is to be a limited engagement" and that he didn't "quibble with Obama not going to Congress." But King added he would have concerns if the operation expanded.
"Republicans don't want to handcuff the commander-in-chief but we have to be willing to handcuff the president," King said.
Which is precisely the crux of the Constitutional debate as to which branch of government has the power to "declare" war. And whether U.S. action in Libya constitutes "war."To hearken back to the debate at the Constitutional Convention, it's pretty clear in this case which branch of government "declared" it was going to intervene in Libya and which branch didn't have a say in the process.
That could stir up many of the constitutionalists on Capitol Hill because it runs afoul of Article I, Section 8.
There isn't too much out there on how the Congressional newcomers feel about this. On his website in November, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) stated that "when we must fight, we declare war as the Constitution mandates."
But perhaps an even more intriguing example of where freshmen could drive this debate rests with Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI). Amash has already made a name for himself on Capitol Hill by voting "present" on several issues this year. That's where a lawmaker votes, but doesn't weigh in with a "yea" or "nay."
Late last week, Amash took the rare step of casting back-to-back "present" votes on wildly diverse issues. One vote asked lawmakers whether they should yank federal dollars from NPR. The other resolution would have required the U.S. to withdraw from Afghanistan.
At the start of the year, Amash stated he would vote "present" if he supports a bill, but believes the legislation "uses improper means" to accomplish its goal and violates the Constitution.
"I took an oath to uphold the Constitution. I take that oath seriously and I consider the constitutional implications of every action I take as a representative in Congress," Amash said on his Facebook page.
On the NPR measure, Amash believed Congress was "picking one viewpoint over another." He suggested that violated the Constitution's equal protection clause. When it came to Afghanistan, Amash argued that the resolution was unconstitutional because it created a "legislative veto."
By Sunday night, Amash again invoked the Constitution over the president's decision to join the international effort against Libya.
"It's not enough for the president simply to explain military actions in Libya to the American people, after the fact, as though we are serfs," Amash wrote on Facebook. "When there is no imminent threat to our country, he cannot launch strikes without authorization from the American people, through our elected representatives in Congress. No United Nations resolution or Congressional act permits the president to circumvent the Constitution."
It will be interesting to see how many freshmen question this intervention on Constitutional grounds.In short, the debate over which branch of government can "declare" war dates back to that August day in 1787. And it's even murkier now than it was then.
Many of you have heard of Rod Serling and "The Twilight Zone." Fewer have heard of Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson and the "zone of twilight." In a 1952 decision about presidential powers, Jackson wrote that "there is a zone of twilight" where the executive and legislative branches may have "concurrent authority, or in which its distribution is uncertain."
Jackson noted that presidential power plummets to "its lowest ebb when he takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress."
It's hard to assess what the "expressed or implied will of Congress" is on Libya. There are definitely concerns. And Congress certainly didn't "declare war" as prescribed by the Constitution.
Which is why the U.S. now resides in Jackson's "zone of twilight" when it comes to military action in Libya.
The American Left is so full of shit, so full of hypocrisy, stands for nothing except their own aggrandizement of power. There is silence from them on this assault of Libya and the US Constitution. Remarkably, the so called conservative bloggers have not much to say, perhaps looking to see which way the wind blows.
Since when does the UN determine when the US goes to war without Congressional assent?
This video from Obama.com is stunning when you listen to Obama's own words. You have to see it a couple of times to appreciate the depths of deception of this shallow fraud.
So How is Obama and the family doing this weekend why Obam takes us to war? Have they been setting up little American flags, shedding tears for fallen troops while parroting the thank you for your service meme? We know Obama never rests and his thoughts and prayers are always with us:
Here we have the first war weekend for the Obama's Celebrated in Rio. They even brought along granny for the festive road trip.
Oddly, this was not the first time Ayers made such a claim. Backyard Conservative reported October 4, 2009, after meeting Ayers at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C.:
