Ron Paul: Obama’s Foreign Policy Rhetoric Does Not Match U.S. Actions

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: TownHall President Obama’s recent foreign policy speech, delivered at this year’s West Point graduation ceremony, was a disappointment to anyone who hoped the president might be changing course. The failure of each U.S. intervention thus far in the 21st century might have inspired at least a bit of reflection.

However, the president made it clear that interventionism and American exceptionalism would continue to guide his administration in its final two years. The president said, “I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being,” adding the dubious claim that “because of American diplomacy and foreign assistance, as well as the sacrifices of our military — more people live under elected governments today than at any time in human history.”

It’s funny he would mention elections. Last week the Syrians held their first multi-candidate presidential election in 50 years. Almost three-quarters of Syrian voters participated, giving President Assad 88 percent of the vote. After three years fighting a foreign-backed insurgency, voting conditions were not optimal. However, despite State Department claims to the contrary, it can no longer be stated that Assad enjoys no popularity in his country. Even former CIA chief Michael Hayden not long ago envisioned Assad winning a fair election in Syria.

But the U.S. government completely rejected the vote in Syria, with Secretary of State John Kerry calling it “a great big zero,” because, as he put it, “you can’t have an election where millions of your people don’t even have an ability to vote.”

Read more from this story HERE.

President Obama vs. George Washington on Prisoner Exchange

/8 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: TownHallBy Chuck Norris.

I have four colossal disagreements with how President Barack Obama cut the deal for the prisoner swap of five senior Taliban leaders for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl; the former, the White House itself admits, could “absolutely” rejoin terrorist cells.

Sure, I have far more than four issues with how it all went down — for example, the absolute avoidance and disregard of constitutional submission and congressional consent. But this administration seems to have little regard for proper protocol with anything, so I’m going to focus here on a few different angles of argument.

No one is overlooking or minimizing the understandable elation of Bergdahl’s family over his homecoming. But was there really no other military or negotiating option than to return five of the most hardened criminals and enemies of the U.S. to the battlefield, where at least six other soldiers gave their lives trying to rescue Bergdahl?

Our whole country — including those across the political spectrum, from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. — is asking: Why, in the midst of war, would Obama release five of the greatest anti-American terrorists in exchange for Bergdahl, who, according to several of his own military colleagues and superiors, abandoned his post and platoon and likely even became sympathetic with the Taliban mission?

Read more from this story HERE.

________________________________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: Carolyn Kaster, APUSA TODAY poll: Obama mishandled Bergdahl exchange

By Gregory Korte.

Public opposition to the exchange of five Taliban prisoners for captive Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has less to do with Bergdahl himself and more with how President Obama handled the transfer, according to a new USA TODAY/Pew Research Center poll.

The poll shows 43% of Americans say it was wrong for Obama to make the deal, compared with 34% who say it was the right thing to do.

Thirty percent of those surveyed have a strong opinion of Bergdahl, whose decision to leave his post in 2009 and subsequent capture by the Taliban is under investigation by the Army. Of those, half say they were sympathetic, and half say they are angry with Bergdahl.

The 128 veterans included in the poll are much more harsh in their assessment of the 28-year-old sergeant. Only 6% of veterans who responded say they sympathized with him, while 33% say they were angry. By 68%-16%, veterans say Obama made the wrong decision.

Read more from this story HERE.

________________________________________________________________________________

This Journalist Died After Exposing Bowe Bergdahl’s Anti-Americanism

By Kris Zane.

At the time Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings was killed under suspicious circumstances, he had recently written a huge exposé on Bowe Bergdahl, revealing that he had deserted his unit and actively sought out the Taliban. Hastings had also revealed Bergdahl’s anti-American sentiments, publishing the emails to his father that so shocked America: “I am ashamed to be an American…The horror that is America is disgusting.”

This revelation actually came in July of 2012, when Hastings published a ten-thousand word article on Bergdahl, in which he had traveled to Afghanistan to speak to his former platoon mates, the soldiers violating their gag order to speak to Hastings anonymously. Hastings had also visited Bergdahl’s parents in Idaho, where he presumably obtained the emails. When we saw Obama pawing Bowe Bergdahl’s mother and hugging his father last week in the White House Rose Garden, this wasn’t how he was treating them in 2012. The Obama administration in 2012 had “encouraged” his parents to keep their mouths shut. The father, Robert Bergdahl, had gone on a very public crusade, criticizing the Obama administration for killing Afghanistan civilians, and had even said that one of the Taliban captors of his son had had his child murdered by a CIA drone—mirroring events in the popular Showtime series “Homeland”. This was stated at a very public GOP fundraising event in 2010 hosted by former RNC head Michael Steele. Robert Bergdahl had also just posted a video on YouTube, where he appealed directly to this son’s captors, stating: “…We must also thank those who have cared for our son for almost two years…We have wept that God may show his beneficence, his mercy and that his peace may come upon the people of Pakistan. As-salamu alaykum [peace be upon you].”

After this, the Obama administration actively sought to keep the lid on Robert Bergdahl and Michael Hastings’ reporting of Bowe Bergdahl, as secret FBI documents now reveal.

Read more from this story HERE.

Let College Students Carry on Campus

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: TownHall Pepper spray, police and cardboard signs failed to prevent the June 5 Seattle Pacific University shooting. Let’s stop mass violence on college campuses by defending college students’ right to carry firearms on campus.

Tragically, this is the third column this year that I must write defending college students’ natural right to self-defense on campus. In the Seattle Pacific University shooting, four more American youths took unnecessary bullets in a gun free zone.

One student was killed and three were severely wounded when a young man with apparent mental health issues, 26-year-old Aaron R. Ybarra, began firing his shotgun on the Seattle campus in broad daylight. Prior to unleashing such unwarranted violence against innocent strangers, Ybarra exhibited symptoms of mental instability.

Ybarra once made a black pilgrimage to the Denver, CO site of the April 20, 1999 Columbine High School shooting where two student gunmen fatally shot 13 and wounded 21, according to Seattle’s KIRO 7 News and The Associated Press. Prior to the shooting, Ybarra had also been arrested for non-violent offenses including driving while intoxicated and without insurance. A law enforcement officer told International Business Times that Ybarra was: “…hell-bent on killing a lot of people.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Is Driving the Country to Ruin

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: INFIf you think of the United States of America as a store, its recent decisions and scandals resemble a sale, perhaps a fire sale. Or maybe even a “Going Out of Business” sale.

The list of dramatic markdowns is breathtaking. They include trading away five murderous terrorists for a likely Army deserter, an open invitation to tens of thousands of illegal immigrants to cross the Mexican border, and a decision to recognize the terrorist group Hamas as part of the Palestinian government.

On the home front, environmental regulations will cost thousands of coal miners their jobs and drive up the cost of electricity for millions. The ObamaCare mess is hardly resolved, and the Veterans Affairs scandal keeps getting worse. The acting agency head reported the deaths of 18 more vets who were kept off the official waiting list in Phoenix.

Ticking quietly in the background is the mother of all threats — an Iranian nuclear bomb. That ticking grew louder last week as the ayatollah mocked our nation by standing in front of a banner that proclaimed, “America cannot do a damn thing.”

Technically, he’s wrong. It’s not that we cannot stop the mad mullahs’ march. It’s that President Obama has taken the military option off the table, and without it, Iran has nothing to fear. Our impotence was a choice.
Add to the combustible mix the expansionist moods in Russia and China, and the series of events recalls an observation by the late economist Herb Stein. Speaking in another context, he said that, “If something can’t go on forever, it won’t.” That sums up the current sense of the nation as a whole.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Game is Rigged, Regardless of Who’s in Charge

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: TownHallThere’s too much money in politics, right? Lawrence Lessig has a new plan to solve an old problem. He wants to end money’s outsize influence on the political process, which subverts democracy and drowns out the masses to do the bidding of the well-to-do few. Most people are taking issue with his method of attack, which is (and I am not making this up) injecting more money from rich old white guys to drown out the money from the other old rich white guys.

But rather than take issue with his solution, let’s talk about what he gets right. A Princeton study has confirmed our suspicions that “rich people and organizations representing business interests have a powerful grip on U.S. government policy.”

Perhaps not shockingly, the wealthy hold different policy positions than the poor. But whereas rich people regularly find their policy preferences enacted into law, poor people do not. “Indeed, the opinions of lower-income groups, and the interest groups that represent them, appear to have little or no independent impact on policy.” Your vote matters. Unless you’re poor, in which case, not so much.

Enter campaign finance reform. The theory goes like this. First, rich people fund political campaigns. Generally the better funded campaign ends up winning. So money buys elections and rich people get what they want. We’re good on the first part. But the theory falls apart when it says that money always wins. It sounds right, but doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s Master Plan

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: TownHall One might think that when a President is reeling from a scandal (VA) that has all sides of the political spectrum screaming for heads to roll and for criminal charges against government employees, that his Administration would take a break and wait for the air to clear. But no, not when you are a true believer, and that is what Barack Obama has finally shown himself to all to be.

In one very short period, the President has tossed the Israeli government over the side, pushed for radical environmental rules that will by the EPA’s own estimates lower the earth’s temperature a fraction of a degree by the end of this century, gone in front of the graduating class of West Point and told them his goal is to make them superfluous, told the military he is capitulating on a war he himself stated was just and escalated in 2009, and now has released five top terrorists for what clearly is a soldier who deserted.

The mind-numbing series of events happened so quickly that no one really strung them together. It was only after the harsh response to the swap of five top Taliban terrorists for Bowe Bergdahl that people started to get clarity…

Read more from this story HERE.

Somewhere in Hell, Bin Laden is Smiling

/8 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: WND‘Obama and His Aides Have Lost Their Minds’

By Bob Unruh.

Former Republican Rep. Allen West two days ago called for President Obama’s impeachment over his decision to swap five known terror leaders for a soldier whose behavior is under investigation, arguing Obama apparently violated U.S. law forbidding material aid to terror groups.

Nevertheless, Obama defended his decision Thursday, saying he offered no apologies for releasing five Guantanamo detainees – who had been determined to be too dangerous to be freed – in exchange for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who has been accused of desertion.

West, in a promotion for his political action committee, took aim at Obama’s unapologetic stance.

“Obama and his aides have lost their minds,” he said in an email for the Allen West Guardian Fund.

West’s outrage reverberated throughout his comments.

Read more from this story HERE.

________________________________________________________________________________

Somewhere in Hell, Bin Laden is Smiling

By Patrick J. Buchanan.

Bowe Bergdahl was “an American prisoner of war captured on the battlefield” who “served the United States with distinction and honor,” asserted Susan Rice, the president’s national security adviser…

But if a man jumps overboard, to desert, and half a dozen sailors perish in stormy seas trying to rescue him, the Navy does not welcome the AWOL seaman back aboard with bands playing, all hands on deck and the captain hosting a celebration.

The man is put in the brig to face charges on return to port.

That is the military ethos Gen. Dempsey rightly praises.

But if Barack Obama, Susan Rice and the White House thought that swapping five senior Taliban commanders for Bergdahl would be cheered, it only testifies to how far removed they are from the band-of-brothers culture of the American military.

Consider the damage this debacle has been done.

Read more from this story HERE.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: APObama makes ‘absolutely no apologies’ for Bergdahl terror trade and claims Taliban would have KILLED POW if he had told Congress

By David Martosko.

President Barack Obama doubled down Thursday on his handling of the Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl prisoner swap, saying he makes ‘no apologies’ for releasing five Taliban terrorists in exchange for the safe return of an accused U.S. Army deserter.

‘I make absolutely no apologies for making sure we get back a young man to his parents,’ he said in Brussels during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, ‘and that the American people understand that this is somebody’s child and that we don’t condition whether or not we make the effort to try to get them back.’

‘We had a prisoner of war whose health had deteriorated, and we were deeply concerned about [him],’ Obama told reporters about Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. ‘And we saw an opportunity and we seized it. And I make no apologies for that.’

Hours later the Associated Press published claims that the administration told U.S. senators that they were kept in the dark about the hostage swap because the Taliban threatened to kill Bergdahl if information about the negotiations was leaked.

Keeping the negotiations secret because of a death threat, however, may not hold water and is already being described among congressional aides as a flimsy excuse.

Read more from this story HERE.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: REUTERSMoves to clear Guantánamo gathering pace: Administration officials say more prisoners will be freed

By AFP.

Moves to free detainees from the US military prison in Guantánamo Bay are gathering pace as the administration works to close the notorious jail, a top US official has said.

“There are a significant number of transfers in the pipeline at various stages and I think you’re going to be seeing substantial progress this year,” the senior administration official said.

The official refused to be drawn on any specific figures amid a furore over the release of five Taliban prisoners in exchange for a captured US soldier in Afghanistan.

Of the 149 prisoners still remaining in the jail in southern Cuba since the weekend releases, 78 have been approved to be freed without charge. The group, which includes 58 Yemenis and four Afghans, are awaiting transfer out of the jail.

Read more from this story HERE.

Mr. President, Why Do You Feel it’s Necessary to Fundamentally Transform the Nation?

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: REUTERS / Jason Reed “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” — Barack Obama, October 30, 2008

Much has been written today about Bill O’Reilly’s Sunday interview of The President. At one point during the interview, Bill reads a question from concerned American who asks “Mr. President, why do you feel it’s necessary to fundamentally transform the nation that has afforded you so much opportunity and success?” Obama backs away from his promise to do that very thing.

Over at RedState, Dan Spencer has an excellent post dissecting the President’s answer.

So why would Obama, after five years, finally back away from his radical fundamentally changing America remark?

Read more from this story HERE.

The Failed Presidency of Barack Obama

/3 Comments/in , , /by

Photo Credit: The Federalist The events of the past week illustrate the degree to which Barack Obama has become a failed president.

When Obama burst onto the national scene, he almost immediately became an inspirational figure. His promise spoke to our hearts as Americans and our desire for dramatic change in the wake of the fractious Bush years. His personal story and his optimism about the future sounded an affirming and uplifting note at a time when Americans were losing their hope for what tomorrow could bring. For a moment, it seemed like the promise of a uniter, not a divider, could provide leadership which – whatever Obama’s personal ideology – could lead to a healthier politics and a less fractured society.

Obama’s tenure in office has turned all these hopes into despair – despair in the corruption of our institutions, in the capability of our government, in our ability to manage large systems and more. Consider just the events of the past few days: the slow-rolling scandal of how we care for our Veterans, full of mismanagement, denials, and a growing awareness that this problem was shoved under the rug for years; the White House’s decision to embark on a top-down monopartisan environmental policy which will squeeze the working class and make energy more expensive; and of course, Obama’s decision to trade five high ranking terrorists for an apparent American deserter in Afghanistan, a decision which directly ignores the law of the land and will almost certainly lead to future deaths.

In these arenas, we see the Obama administration at its worst: willing to engage in irresponsible and occasionally illegal acts, bowling their way through mismanagement and cronyism and the rule of law to achieve their aims, no matter the cost. It is the same approach they used in his single domestic policy achievement – Obamacare – and they have not stopped using it since.

Read more from this story HERE.

10 Reasons You Should Oppose Common Core (+video)

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: YouTubeBelow are ten more reasons from Freedom Works on why Common Core education standards are an absolute disaster for our country’s children, parents, and teachers.

1. Common Core is a federal takeover of education

The ultimate goal of Common Core is to have every school district follow the same national standards. This is a failed educational approach that will undermine educational quality and choice. States and local communities better know how to design standards based on their students and parents’ needs than Washington bureaucrats.

2. Common Core is Bad for Parents

Parents will not have a say in their child’s education under Common Core. They will not be able to suggest changes to their local school’s standards or enroll their child in another public school with better standards. Common Core would limit parental choice and shut their voices out of their child’s education.

3. Common Core is Bad for Teachers

Teachers would have little control over their classrooms under Common Core. They will be forced to comply with standards decided upon by federal bureaucrat. This leaves little to no room for teachers to innovate to meet the unique needs of their students.

4. Common Core is Bad for Taxpayers

Common Core has a hefty price tag that will be paid by taxpayers in states. Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction estimates that Common Core will cost the state$300 million. California Department of Education estimates it will cost $759 million to implement the nationalized standards. Common Core will cost taxpayers a lot of money while not improving education quality.

Read more from this story HERE.