Expose Obama » Guantanamo Bay

Impeachment Works? Obama Backs Off Fascist Debt Ceiling Threat

Ben — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 16:10:09 +0000

Ben Johnson, The White House Watch

Conservatives who say they believe in “peace through strength” might take a lesson from the Obama administration this week. Its officials walked back discussion of an end-run around Congress on the debt ceiling after Republicans stepped up their talk of impeaching Barack Obama.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner had raised the possibility the president might unilaterally raise the debt ceiling under the pretext of the 14th Amendment. On Tuesday, Rep. Tim Scott of South Carolina told the Tea Party group LowCountry 9.12, “that is an impeachable act…This jeopardizes the credibility of our nation, if one man can usurp the entire system set up by our Founding Fathers.”

The next day, Texas Republican Pete Olson told the left-wing website ThinkProgress.org that Scott is “not a lonely voice” on impeachment.

Even Obama supporters distanced themselves from such a blatant violation of the separation of powers. Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe, who was a judicial adviser to Obama’s 2008 campaign, wrote a New York Times op-ed entitled, We Cannot Pretend the Debt Ceiling is Unconstitutional.” He noted the dramatic implications of the proposed usurpation of powers: “In theory, Congress could pay debts not only by borrowing more money, but also by exercising its powers to impose taxes, to coin money or to sell federal property. If the president could usurp the congressional power to borrow, what would stop him from taking over all these other powers, as well?”

This growing resistance may explain why the Obama administration is distancing itself from this dictatorial action wrapped in the Constitution.

On Friday, Geithner….

Time to Fire Eric Holder

Ben — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 20:09:27 +0000

Susan Stamper Brown, FloydReports.com

During a recent speech at the American Constitution Society (ACS), United States Attorney General Eric Holder lauded our American civilian court system as “our most effective terror-fighting weapon.” Holder’s address, along with his whole attorney general career, reflects a flawed ideology that believes wrapping enemy combatants in the American flag will somehow steer them towards full disclosure.

We are fooling ourselves to believe our enemies aren’t smart enough to use habeas corpus against us — which the Constitution does not extend to non-citizens held outside U.S. boundaries. While the good cop routine might work on some of the more impressionable, the determined fanatics will take advantage of the situation. Sometimes you need a “Jack Bauer” to intervene to make these people sweat.

Holder’s implied moral high ground originates from the assumption that captured enemy combatants will be mistreated – unless they are blanketed by the security of our Constitution. Holder fails to recognize that our military is bound by the same Constitution, as well as the Geneva Convention.

The last time I checked, those who strayed away from their obligations to constitutional rule of law were duly convicted of crimes. Their actions, along with those of Attorney General Holder, do nothing but undermine the efforts of so many charged with keeping the rest of us safe from the criminals they imprison.

A lack of confidence in the military tribunal system seems to pervade the Justice Department under Holder as service members assigned to Guantanamo Bay do their duty honorably and faithfully, every day.

Case in point is the recent indictment of….

Flashback: Obama Wanted a Nuremberg Trial for Osama

Ben — Tue, 03 May 2011 01:58:39 +0000

Ben Johnson, FloydReports.com

When the most finely trained military/intelligence team in America finally killed Osama bin Laden, MSNBC’s Norah O’Donnell sent an embarrassingly misspelled tweet that informed the world, “Obama shot and killed.” However, MSNBC inadvertently allowed some truth to slip through its reporting of the assassination. The left-wing network quoted “a senior official in the Obama administration” admitting the chain of events that culminated with Osama bobbing on the waves of the North Arabian Sea began under President George W. Bush, came about because of interrogation techniques Barack Obama opposed, at a facility (Guantanamo Bay) he continually threatens to close, and would likely have never occurred if Obama had enacted policies he continued to advance even while announcing Osama’s death.

During a briefing about how agents finally found the world’s most wanted man, MSNBC reveals the official said:

After the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, “detainees gave us information on couriers. One courier in particular had our constant attention. Detainees gave us his nom de guerre, his pseudonym, and also identified this man as one of the few couriers trusted by bin Laden.”

In 2007, the U.S. learned the man’s name.

Two years later, they tracked this courier down to a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, valued at $1 million – a cavernous, windowless structure that is eight times larger than other structures in the area, surrounded by a 15-feet-high security walls – which he shared with another courier, Osama bin Laden, and the terror mastermind’s youngest wife.

Al-Jazeera reported, “US spies have been monitoring many of those couriers for years, the CIA said on Sunday.”

The Washington Post quotes “senior U.S. officials who detailed the operation under the condition of anonymity,” one of whom told them intelligence agents had “been working this target for years, years, years. They finally found the guy who led to the guy who led to the guy who led to the guy, and this is it.”

Insiders told Fox News the courier’s pseudonym was disclosed by….

Obama Discovers New “Rights” for Terrorists

Ben — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 23:23:07 +0000

Susan Stamper Brown, FloydReports.com

Americans may be less safe today because the Obama administration made the decision to circumvent the Constitutional treaty ratification process by mandating that his administration would begin compliance with Article 75 of Additional Protocol I (API) to the 1949 Geneva Conventions “out of a sense of moral obligation.”

API, an unsanctioned addition to the Geneva Convention that was unequivocally rejected by previous administrations, outlines fundamental rights or guarantees for captives taken in an international armed conflict. This addition sounds nice in Dreamland, where it’s okay to interchange the words “international” and “national” without consequence. But, where the rest of us live, the word “international” is quintessential. The Supreme Court determined (Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld) that America is involved in a non-international armed conflict with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, making Article 75 moot.

We were led to believe we were having an intelligent Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) detainee discussion when the administration threw in some non sequitur about Article 75. Introducing Article 75 into the conversation was misleading to those who take words at face-value, confusing to those who dare to delve below the surface and alarming to those who understand our safety is in the hands of some who dangerously dance outside the confines of common sense.

In a March 7, 2011, White House fact sheet titled “New Actions on Guantanamo and Detainee Policy,” the administration suggests, “Our adherence to these principles is also an important safeguard against the mistreatment of captured U.S. military personnel.” Let me get this right. America is involved in a non-international armed conflict with an indefinable enemy that use woman and children as “human shields,” blow themselves up on a regular basis, behead their enemy using dull swords – and we should believe our military will be safer? Secretary of State Clinton said it’s “not about who our enemies are, but about who we are.” We are a lot of things, but Americans aren’t stupid….

I Wanted to Impeach Bush. Now I Want to Impeach Obama

Ben — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 19:59:31 +0000

Below is an article written by a left-wing activist who called for the impeachment of President George W. Bush. Unlike so many of his comrades, he believes that since Barack Obama is carrying out many of the same policies set in place by his predecessor, Obama deserves to be impeached, as well. While conservatives may disagree with some — though perhaps not all — of the author’s criticisms, he is joining a growing number of leftists and Democrats angered, nervous, or ready to jump-ship on the Obama presidency. A recent poll posted on DailyKos found 13 percent of liberals support impeaching Obama. Whatever their motivation, we applaud their consistency in calling out a president of their own party. If enough conservatives speak out, perhaps a few Congressmen will show the same courage. Click here to sign the petition to impeach Obama. — The Ed.

David Swanson, American Chronicle

Richard Nixon’s White House Counsel John Dean, while Bush was president, predicted that Bush’s successor would be one of two things, either the best or the worst president in history. He, or she, would either undo the damage and prosecute the crimes, or protect the criminals and continue the abuses. Obama has protected the criminals, continued many of the abuses, more firmly established the power to commit those abuses, and expanded abusive powers beyond what Bush ever attempted. I’m not trying to quantify and determine whether Obama has grabbed “more” new abusive powers than Bush did. I’m simply pointing out that, as with previous presidents, Obama has retained the powers bequeathed him and added some…

The Education Department pushes corporatization, privatization, and testing. The trade agreements are all corporate…President Obama is taking the budget from the Bush years, adding to the military, and cutting or freezing everything else. The budgetary crisis in state governments and in people’s homes continues to worsen. The Wall Street and corporate bailouts that Obama helped Bush impose on us have only escalated since Obama moved to the White House…Obama has not added as much to the military budget as Bush did, but he has added to Bush’s largest military budget, enlarging it further each year — and with activist groups and news reports tending to falsely report that he’s cutting it…For a time, Obama had more troops and mercenaries in the field than Bush had ever had.He stood in front of the U.S. Constitution in the National Archives and tossed habeas corpus into the trash bin…This is Bush-Cheney-level secrecy with the pretense that it isn’t. And it’s worse. Obama has set records for rejecting Freedom of Information Act requests and for prosecutions of whistle blowers…

So why not impeach Obama? I clamored for the impeachment of Bush. I say Obama is as bad or worse. Why am I such a corrupt hypocrite that I haven’t built a movement to impeach Obama? Well, I’ll tell you, as I’ve told people more times than I can count. Obama should be impeached and convicted and removed from office. Obama should be prosecuted for his crimes. So should his subordinates. (Emphasis added.) So should his predecessor, his subordinates, and all corporate co-conspirators. The reason I can’t get 20 people into the streets to demand Obama’s impeachment (and if I did, they’d want him impeached for being born in Africa to aliens from Planet Socialism) is that nobody in Congress is even pretending to give a damn. We were able to produce a sizeable movement for impeachment when Bush was in office, because a lot of Democrats in Congress, especially in 2005 and 2006, pretended they were on our side. I say “pretended” as a way to indicate not that they didn’t agree with us, but that they were not committed to trying very hard.

Obama May Use Executive Powers to Bring Gitmo Detainees to U.S.

Ben — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 00:03:53 +0000

Ben Johnson, FloydReports.com

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands…may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny” — James Madison, The Federalist Papers, #47.

The New York Times has a pair of chilling stories indicating Barack Obama is considering ignoring provisions of a new law that forbid him from transferring Guantanamo Bay terrorist detainees to the United States or to countries that may not be equipped to prevent their escape. “Several” anonymous White House officials revealed the president may issue a signing statement ignoring these provisions of the law, treating them as though they did not exist. Times reporter Charlie Savage indicated this would represent “a more aggressive use of unilateral executive powers than what he exerted in his first two years in office.”

The West Wing debate appears to be another example of the president’s determination to rule by executive fiat in 2011.

Congress used the power of the purse to prevent civilian trials for terrorists in U.S. courts. The language, attached to the defense authorization bill, forbids the Defense Department from spending any money to transfer detainees or to enhance U.S. sites to house Gitmo transferees. Another provision requires foreign countries to meet high standards of security before releasing detainees within their borders.

Since the bill authorizes funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the president will not veto it. However, the Times indicates he may ignore these provisions, bypass Congress, and bring accused terrorists to U.S. soil before trying them in civilian courts.

Should Terrorists Be Set Free? Eric Holder Will Decide

Ben — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 21:55:18 +0000

Jim Emerson, CoachIsRight.com

On Dec 7, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) released an unclassified a summary of a Congressional directed intelligence report assessing the recidivism of detainees formerly held at Guantanamo Bay (GITMO). The reports indicate that approximately 25% of released prisoners had returned to committing terrorist and insurgent activities against the United States and allies.

According to the DNI, as of 1 October 2010, of the 598 terrorists released from GITMO and sent to other countries; 81 were confirmed and 69 are suspected of returning to terrorist and insurgent Organizations. The summary estimates 13 were dead, 54 in custody and 81 where still on the loose. The Intelligence Community assesses that that the numbers will increase if more detainees are transferred out of U.S. custody.

Spin

The report attempts to defend the President’s executive order “calling for a comprehensive interagency review of the status of all individuals currently detained at Guantanamo Bay. Every decision to transfer a detainee to a foreign country under this review was made after a full assessment of intelligence and threat information.” Translation; Eric Holder‘s Justice Department will get to decide who goes home.

If Obama Treated Koran Burning like the Ground Zero Mosque

Ben — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 14:20:40 +0000

Ben Johnson, Floyd Reports

Although he would not say a word about Iran’s human rights violations after Mahmoud Ahmadinejiad tortured protesters of the stolen presidential election last summer, Barack Obama brought the full weight of the presidential bully pulpit down against 50 people planning to burn the Koran this Saturday. Obama told George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America this morning the would-be Koran-burners’ “stunt” is “completely contrary to our values of Americans…this country has been built on the notions of religious freedom and religious tolerance.”

That is an interesting about-face on the right of religious people to exercise the First Amendment. Less than a month ago, he declared his support for the Ground Zero Mosque, telling Muslims at an Iftar dinner:

Let me be clear: As a citizen and as president I believe that Muslims have the right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances.

He later said he was only reiterating their constitutional rights and “will not comment on the wisdom” of planting a victory mosque atop the graves of 3,000 jihad victims. But he felt no constraint commenting on the “wisdom” of a tiny Christian church burning the Muslims’ “holy” book. Although he showed enthusiasm for the First Amendment rights of Muslims, he tried to sic the local police on Pastor Jones, stating that he found the Dove World Outreach Center’s rights “frustrating”….

Govt Prosecutor Says Obama’s Views of Gitmo Are UnAmerican

Ben — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 15:29:32 +0000

Ben Johnson, Floyd Reports

How dangerous and unAmerican are Barack Obama’s views? The prosecutor trying a Guantanamo Bay detainee does not want to seat any juror who agrees with them. The Wall Street Journal reported Justice Department attorney Jeff Groharing removed a potential juror from the case of Omar Khadr, who was arrested on an Afghan battlefield after he killed a U.S. soldier, after the juror testified:

"America seemed to lose its status as a beacon of freedom, liberty and justice” through its interrogation methods, secret prisons and extraordinary renditions, said the lieutenant colonel, who couldn’t be named under courtroom rules. “I don’t believe my position is any different from the president’s.”

…Jeff Groharing, a Justice Department attorney who started as the Khadr prosecutor in 2005 when he was a Marine major, used his single peremptory challenge to remove him from the commission.

“He said repeatedly he agrees with the president,” Groharing said."

The lieutenant colonel is correct; his view is, if anything, less inflammatory than Barack Obama’s. Obama condemned the facility, which provided Korans to every inmate, as a violation of American values. All his speeches – from his first stemwinder as an underexperienced presidential candidate to his UN address as president – associated the prison with "torture."

That doesn’t square with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who admitted, "The truth is, it’s probably one of the finest prisons in the world today." But the slander of our troops lives on, sometimes by those who become our troops.

Obama ordered the world class prison closed in January 2009 without a clear idea of what will happen to the remaining detainees (the ones he hasn’t already released), although he considered moving them to Illinois. Today, Warner Todd Huston at Gateway Pundit quotes The Washington Post that 19 months later the punter-in-chief still has "no written policy on how detainees convicted in military commissions should be housed."

If Obama’s ideas have poisoned the minds of enough Americans, perhaps none will be imprisoned.

The story makes clear our military is fighting terrorists – on the battlefield and, thanks to liberal Democrats, in the courts — and now they’re also fighting Barack Obama.

Terrorists to use Obama’s talking points

NewsEditor — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:10:00 +0000

Washington Times

Both Osama and Obama both criticized Guantanamo and now KSM will use it in his defense arguments

The five terrorists facing federal trial in New York have some powerful arguments at their disposal. All they need to do is recycle Democratic talking points criticizing President George W. Bush’s foreign policy.

Defense attorney Scott Fenstermaker, who is representing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s nephew Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the accused terrorists would make the case about "their assessment of American foreign policy," adding, "Their assessment is negative." The current administration shares the same assessment; President Obama’s foreign policy has been a conscious and smug rejection of the policies of his predecessor.

Mr. Obama made great theater of ordering the closure of the U.S. terrorist detainee facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in his first days in office. The so- called "American Gulag" had become a centerpiece of the Democratic critique of the Bush administration’s conduct of the war on terrorism. In this respect, the Democrats echoed what Osama bin Laden had been saying for years. In his November 2002 "Letter to America," the al Qaeda leader stated that "what happens in Guantanamo is a historical embarrassment to America and its values, and it screams into your faces – you hypocrites. …"