Senate-Crafted Syria Resolution Riddled with Loopholes for Obama (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Senators on Wednesday tried to write a tight resolution authorizing President Obama to strike Syria under very specific circumstances, but analysts and lawmakers said the language still has plenty of holes the White House could use to expand military action well beyond what Congress appears to intend.

“Wiggle room? Plenty of that,” said Louis Fisher, scholar in residence at the Constitution Project and former long-time expert for the Congressional Research Service on separation of powers issues.

Writing the actual language to empower and constrain Mr. Obama is proving to be a difficult task, with the key authors being pulled in various directions.

Some of the drafters’ colleagues want to give the president broad latitude for ongoing strikes that not only target Syrian President Bashar Assad’s chemical weapons, but also aids the rebels seeking to overthrow him. Other lawmakers, though, want the most limited of action — a strike designed only to make sure the Assad regime can’t deploy its chemical weapons again.

The resolution drafted by Sens. Robert Menendez and Bob Corker, the top Democrat and Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, grants Mr. Obama power “to use the armed forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in a limited and tailored manner against legitimate military targets in Syria” — but only in relation to that nation’s weapons of mass destruction.

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Big Labor Boss Admits ObamaCare Causing Businesses to Cut Hours (+video)

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Photo Credit: United Liberty

Photo Credit: United Liberty

Fresh off admitting that ObamaCare “still needs to be tweaked,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka took note of the damage being done to workers as businesses have been forced to cut hours due to ObamaCare during a recent interview with David Shuster of al-Jazeera America:

This employer mandate requires businesses with 50 or more full-time employees to offer health insurance benefits or face a punitive tax. Because ObamaCare defines a full-time employee as someone who works 30 or more hours a week, many employers have been scaling back hours or hiring only part-time workers.

Interestingly, Trumka complained when the Obama Administration delayed the employer mandate. “In the health reform debate, we fought to ensure that employers have a responsibility to provide affordable, comprehensive health benefits to their workers and their families,” he said in July.

“The employer responsibility provision included in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), while not as strong as we asked for, was designed to give large employers an incentive to offer or continue offering affordable, comprehensive health care coverage to some of their employees,” he added. “The Administration’s announcement that it is delaying employer responsibility assessments until 2015 is troubling because it removes that incentive for next year. In light of this decision, we believe it is even more urgent for Congress and the Administration to reaffirm their commitment to employer responsibility.”

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Congressional Vote on Syria Could Prove Short-Term Domestic Boon for Obama

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Photo Credit: PBS Screenshot

Photo Credit: PBS Screenshot

U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision to seek authorization from Congress for a strike on Syria may be part of a more comprehensive short-term strategy meant to alleviate the pressure facing him at home, including tackling the budget ceiling issue on the domestic front, experts say.

Approaching a contentious budget battle this month, any time set aside for debate in Congress will now be eaten up by the pressing issue of launching a military operation in Syria, in response to the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian military, analysts told Reuters.

The vote in Congress on Syria has increased the likelihood that U.S. lawmakers will agree to a short-term government funding measure, as they wouldn’t otherwise be able to pass legislation in time to avoid a federal shutdown by October 1st, the start of the new fiscal year.

But the long-term questions still remain, though they may be answered in the coming days as the outline of a potential military operation in Syria becomes clearer.

“How are they going to pay for this operation? Are they going to use a war supplement or pay for it out of existing funds? Too much is unknown,” Boris Zilberman, deputy director of Congressional relations at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told The Algemeiner. “If they need a war supplement to fund it, then does it make a [budget] deal more likely? Probably. But I think there are more questions than answers right now.”

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Photo Credit: Syrianpresidency Instagram

Photo Credit: Syrianpresidency Instagram

Report: Assad Moves Weapons Underground as U.S. Strike Looms

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has begun to move his arsenal of advanced weapons underground in preparation for a possible strike on the country by the United States, Israel’s Channel 1o reported on Wednesday.

Since learning of U.S. President Obama’s desire to attack Syria, Assad ‘s forces have begun to move the weapons, including possibly chemical warheads, into underground bunkers. The process was accelerated when Damascus realized that the U.S. strike would not be a surprise and in fact would be delayed by a Congressional vote, Channel 10 said.

The underground facilities are similar to those built by Iran near the city of Qom in order to protect its nuclear facilities against attacks…

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Calif. County Votes for Secession from State

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Photo Credit: Chris Stewart

Photo Credit: Chris Stewart

Supervisors in a far Northern California county where residents are fed up with what they see as a lack of representation at the state capitol and overregulation have voted in favor of separating from the state.

The Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 on Tuesday for a declaration of secession, the Record Searchlight of Redding reported (https://bit.ly/1cFTqUG ). The vote appears mostly symbolic since secession would require approval from the state Legislature and the U.S. Congress, but supporters say it would restore local control over decision making. They want other rural counties in Northern California and Southern Oregon to join them in the creation of a new state called the State of Jefferson.

“Many proposed laws are unconstitutional and deny us our God-given rights,” Gabe Garrison of Happy Camp said at the meeting. “We need our own state so we can make laws that fit our way of life.”

Garrison was among more than 100 people who attended the meeting, and most were in support of the declaration, according to the Record Searchlight.

The declaration does not launch any type of formal process toward secession, but only reflects the county’s support, said Tom Odom, the county’s administrative officer.

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Where’s the Anti-War Left?

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Photo Credit: JTF Guantanamo

Photo Credit: JTF Guantanamo

Barack Obama ran for president as the last of the red-hot pacifists, so it might have sounded preposterous to predict that after a few security briefings at the White House, President Obama would follow in the same policy footsteps of horrid warmonger George Bush, with his anti-terrorist wars and strategies.

So where is the anti-war movement now?

“What anti-war movement?” former Congressman Dennis Kucinich asked when called for comment last week. Medea Benjamin of the radical group Code Pink agreed: “The antiwar movement is a shadow of its former self under the Bush years.” Cindy Sheehan quipped, “The ‘anti-war left’ was used by the Democratic Party. I like to call it the ‘anti-Republican War’ movement.”

The “Wonkblog” of The Washington Post ran an article (online only, not in the newspaper) headlined, “How Obama demobilized the antiwar movement.” As much as our “objective” media lamely tried to portray the peaceniks mobilizing in the streets against Team Bush as nonpartisan and non-ideological, the truth is the movement collapsed as soon as the Democrats tasted power.

Sociologists Michael Heaney and Fabio Rojas surveyed the leftist protesters for a 2011 paper and found that after Obama won, “attendance at anti-war rallies declined precipitously and financial resources available to the movement dissipated … the antiwar movement demobilized as Democrats, who had been motivated to participate by anti-Republican sentiments, withdrew from antiwar protests when the Democratic Party achieved electoral success, if not policy success.”

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County Clerk Refuses to Follow Judge’s Order to Issue Marriage License to Lesbian Couple (+video)

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

New Mexico state law takes no definitive stance on gay marriage, and while multiple counties have started issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, one county clerk is refusing to do so even in the face of a judge’s order.

Sharon Shover, who serves in Los Alamos county, this week refused to follow a judge’s order to give a marriage license to two women. Shover, a Republican, is publicly standing up to the order, saying she believes the decision to change the definition of marriage should be made by the state’s Supreme Court or by the legislature, The Albuquerque Journal reported.

Shover’s move comes after First Judicial District Judge Sheri Raphaelson ordered her to issue the permit to the couple, Janet Newton and Maria Thibodeau. If the clerk refused, the justice said she would need to show up in court to argue why such an allowance was denied. Standing firm, Shover is slated to appear Wednesday to make her case.

Albuquerque’s KOB-TV has more:

“Piecemeal litigation in courts across New Mexico is not good governance. County clerks need a comprehensive and clear answer from the state of New Mexico addressing this issue,” Shover said in a statement. “We all need to be issuing the same marriage license and following the same laws.”

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U.S. Mulls the Future of Military Aid to Egypt

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

The U.S. government faces billions of dollars in potential costs if it decides to cancel foreign military aid to Egypt, a senior Pentagon official told Reuters on Wednesday.

Richard Genaille, deputy director of the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency, said he hoped the Obama administration reached a decision soon on whether to continue $1.23 billion in U.S. military assistance to Egypt, given the large number of weapons shipments in the pipeline.

“We’re kind of antsy about that,” Genaille said after a speech at the ComDef industry conference in Washington. “There’s a whole bunch of contracts out there. The bills keep coming in and we’ve got to be able to pay them somehow otherwise we go in default.”

Washington is reviewing the U.S. military aid to Egypt and an additional $241 million in economic aid after the country’s military ousted the Muslim Brotherhood-backed government on July 3 and then cracked down on protesters last month.

Washington has already halted deliveries of four F-16 fighters built by Lockheed Martin Corp, and must decide soon on several other large weapons shipments, according to U.S. government officials. Some smaller items covered by the foreign military assistance have been allowed to proceed.

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Liz Cheney Sees Herself in Winston Churchill

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Liz Cheney compared herself to “Winston Churchill standing up to [Adolf] Hitler” on Tuesday night when declaring her opposition to American airstrikes in Syria — the latest in a series of Liz-Cheney-thinking-rather-highly-of-Liz-Cheney moments. She was speaking to about 150 Tea Party members when she rejected President Obama’s call to strike Syria, calling his national security policy “amateurish.” It seems Obama is Hitler in this scenario. We might note that more often, Obama has been compared to another British politician, Neville Chamberlain, who appeased Hitler.

However, you might not want to trust these reports, as they come from a newspaper that Cheney thinks deserves to die. She railed against the Jackson Hole News & Guide during her talk: “We have media outlets in the valley that are not fair and balanced.” Per a reporter at the Guide who was in the audience:

She blamed the newspaper’s editor. “His name is Angus,” Cheney said. Editor Angus Thuermer Jr. wrote an article last week about Cheney posting a $220 bond for the “high misdemeanor” of swearing a false oath to obtain a Wyoming resident fishing license.

In addition to her foreign policy instincts, Cheney puts a lot of faith in her news instincts. She suggested that voters would be better off to turn to her own campaign as a trusted source in news, and not the local paper. Cheney urged members of the crowd to tell 10 friends about her campaign rather than read the newspaper. “Newspapers are dying, and that’s not a bad thing,” she said. “We’re not depending on the Jackson Hole News & Guide to get the news out. We’re depending on ourselves. We’re going to go over their heads.”

It seems Cheney was aware that a Guide reporter was in the audience, but she wasn’t bothered.

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Georgia School District Mulls Placing Rifles in School Offices

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A school system in north Georgia is considering a proposal that would allow district police to store rifles in school offices in case they’re needed to defend students in a school shooting.

Gainesville City Schools Superintendent Merrianne Dyer said school resource officers would have access to rifles placed at Gainesville High School, Gainesville Middle School and Wood’s Mill Academy.

“These things happen quickly, they happen unexpectedly and in places and locations where we can’t anticipate. Any lapse of time to get a weapon would be detrimental in an emergency,” Dyer told MyFoxAtlanta.com.

Dyer said the weapons would be locked inside safes in the offices of school resource officers. She said all school resource officers are armed, but recent training showed that handguns they carry would not be effective in long hallways or corridors.

Gainesville Lt. Jay Parrish told MyFoxAtlanta.com that officers should not be required to leave a school during an emergency to retrieve certain types of weapons.

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Missouri Liquor Store Clerk (Iraq War Veteran) Shuts Down Armed Gunman

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Photo Credit: NEWS-LEADER

Photo Credit: NEWS-LEADER

A would-be thief picked the wrong liquor store to rob.

Clerk Jon Lewis Alexander, a 54-year-old military veteran, was working on Sunday at Beer 30 in Marionville, Mo., when the wannabe tough guy swaggered through the door, puffing a cigarette.

Alexander told the man smoking wasn’t allowed inside. “He just took another puff and looked me dead in the eyes, like he was Billy Badass,” Alexander told the Daily News.

The man’s mistakes began piling up from that second on. “You need to give me all your f–king money,” the crook demanded.

A surveillance video shows the thief start to raise his pistol, but Alexander is quicker. He covers the man’s gun with one hand and swings his own pistol to the thug’s face with the other.

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