President Obama arrived in Afghanistan on Sunday for an unannounced visit with U.S. troops, officials said.
The President landed at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan at about 8:15 p.m. local time (11:45 a.m. ET).
Air Force One had secretly left Washington from Andrews Air Force Base under cover of darkness at about 10:30 p.m. Saturday night.
This is the fourth trip of Obama’s presidency and the first since May 2012, when he visited the Presidential Palace and made an address to the nation.
Others traveling with the president included National Security Adviser Susan Rice, plus advisers Dan Pfeiffer, Ben Rhodes and John Podesta, whose son is currently serving in Afghanistan. Country music star Brad Paisley also joined the group, and will perform for troops during the visit.
A pool of White House reporters and photographers accompanied the president under the strict condition that they not report on the trip until authorized, due to security considerations.
Obama was scheduled to spend just a few hours on the base and had no plans to travel to Kabul, the capital, to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has had a tumultuous relationship with the White House.
On this Memoria Day weekend, President Obama used this week’s address to thanked the men and women in the military.
It’s Memorial Day weekend – a chance for Americans to get together with family and friends, break out the grill, and kick off the unofficial start of summer. More importantly, it’s a time to remember the heroes whose sacrifices made these moments possible – our men and women in uniform who gave their lives to keep our nation safe and free
Apparently, Democrats are unethical people proposing unethical laws, like trying to fund research that will cut down on gun-dearhs in America. So say the NRA.
The new legislation, which will be introduced by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) in the House, and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in the Senate, would give the CDC $10 million a year “for the purpose of conducting or supporting research on firearms safety or gun violence prevention.”
“In America, gun violence kills twice as many children as cancer, and yet political grandstanding has halted funding for public health research to understand this crisis,” Maloney said in a statement.
A National Rifle Association spokeswoman called the push for new CDC funding “unethical.”
“The abuse of taxpayer funds for anti-gun political propaganda under the guise of ‘research’ is unethical,” spokeswoman Catherine Mortensen said in a statement to ProPublica. “That is why Congress should stand firm against President Obama’s scheme to undermine a fundamental constitutional right.”
Of course Ted Cruz has no proof to back up what he said. It sounded good in his brain when he thought it up, and his base would love to hear something like this. After all it is an election year and anything to get the crazies to the polls is all good with these Republicans.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said Thursday that Democrats are making moves to repeal First Amendment rights to free speech and religious liberty.
Cruz was speaking to pastors at a Family Research Council conference when he warned that Democrats were moving to quash political speech and “muzzle” pastors and their communities, according to video of a portion of Cruz’s speech posted online by Right Wing Watch.
“I’m telling you, I’m not making this up,” he said as the audience offscreen gasped. “Sen. Chuck Schumer [D-N.Y.] has announced the Senate Democrats are scheduling a vote on a constitutional amendment to give Congress the plenary power, the unlimited authority to regulate political speech. Because elected officials have decided they don’t like it when the citizenry has the temerity to criticize what they’ve done.”
Cruz was referring to a proposed constitutional amendment from Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) that would reverse recent Supreme Court rulings invalidating campaign finance limits, including Citizens United and McCutcheon. Schumer said the Senate would vote this year on the constitutional amendment, which seeks to capitalize on the unpopularity of the Citizens United decision in an election year.
Republicans, they pat themselves on the shoulders and proclaims that they are the lovers of life. They do everything possible to protect life, even if it means taking away a woman’s right to choose. But then again, Republicans hate life, and they go through every possible avenue to make sure that people dies – taking away their healthcare, taking away kid’s food and nutrition and now, bringing back previously discarded ways of killing people on death row.
They’re introducing legislation to bring back the firing squad and now, they’ve brought back the electric chair!
Tennessee lawmakers overwhelmingly passed the electric chair legislation in April, with the Senate voting 23-3 and the House 68-13 in favor of the bill.
Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said Tennessee is the first state to enact a law to reintroduce the electric chair without giving prisoners an option.
“There are states that allow inmates to choose, but it is a very different matter for a state to impose a method like electrocution,” he said. “No other state has gone so far.”
This is unusual and might be both cruel and unusual punishment,” he said.
Other states allow for use of the electric chair, but at the inmate’s discretion.
“No state says what Tennessee says. This is forcing the inmate to use electrocution,” according to Dieter, who believes “the inmate would have an automatic Eighth Amendment challenge.”
The amendment protects against cruel and unusual punishment.
“The electric chair is clearly a brutal alternative,” Deiter said.
As if this story really needed to be checked into.
Someone sent on email to PolitiFact pointing their attention to another story going around the Internet claiming that President Obama was running for a third term. PolitiFact apparently had the manpower, and checked into the story.
The article with a Washington dateline began, “President Barack Obama shocked the country this morning with news that he is running for a third term.”
It went on to quote Obama at a press conference saying,”‘I can’t abandon the American people now when they need me more than ever. We’ve come this far as a nation, now is not the time to do something different. This is the change you wanted and this is the change you’re getting.”
The article then quoted Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., telling CNN that he opposes Obama’s decision. “This defies everything the Constitution stands for,” Paul is quoted as saying. “We can not let this man have a third term.”
The problem facing Obama, according to the article, is the 22nd Amendment, which prevents presidents from running for more than two terms. It was ratified in 1951.
However, the article suggests that Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., has “recently introduced” a measure to abolish the 22nd Amendment — which is “exactly the kind of news that makes an Obama 2016 Presidential run possible.”
The article closes with a comment from Paul Horner, purportedly an administration spokesman.
“Obama is guaranteed to win in 2016 and then we’ll all be able to enjoy this great man for another four years,” the article quotes “Horner” as saying. “Things could not get any better for the American people. I’m so stoked!”
So is Obama really going to get around the Constitution to run for a third term?
Nope.
In fact, people passing along this story by email appear not to have noticed that it comes from a satire site called the National Report.
The site’s tongue-in-cheek disclaimer says, in part, that “the views expressed by writers on this site are theirs alone and are not reflective of the fine journalistic and editorial integrity of National Report.” The urban-legend investigation site Snopes.com has archived an even clearer disclaimer that has since been removed. The former disclaimer said, “National Report is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within National Report are fiction, and presumably fake news. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental.”
Allen West, the former Republican congressman from Florida, has decided to pick a fight with Tammy Duckworth by questioning her loyalty to the United States.
Speaking yesterday with Janet Mefferd, West criticized Elijah Cummings, Adam Smith, Adam Schiff, Linda Sanchez and Tammy Duckworth, the Democratic lawmakers picked to fill the party’s five slots on the 12-member GOP-led “special committee.”
West especially raised doubts about Duckworth, a veteran who lost both of her legs and the use of her right arm in the Iraq War, raising suspicions about her loyalty to the country.
“Tammy Duckworth, you know I just don’t know where her loyalties lie, for her to have been a veteran and a wounded warrior for the United States Army, she should know that this is not the right thing and hopefully she will remember the oath of office that she took as an Army officer and not the allegiance I guess she believes she has to the liberal progressives of the Democrat [sic] party,” West said.
But Elijah Cummings would not have none of West’s disrespect for Tammy DuckWorth. In an interview today with MSNBC, West called out the “audacity” of West and his statement criticizing a military member who lost both legs and the use of one arm for this country.
Retreating once again to the safe confines of Fox News where reporters are few and opinions are many, governor Quitter-from-Alaska continued her comedy routine by calling the President “lazy.”
Palin began setting up her punch-line by saying that President Obama knew about the Veterans Affairs crisis some 6 years ago, but did nothing about it. For those of you who forgot your calculators at home today, 6 years ago will be right about the time the president was being sworn into office.
Here is how the lazy Palin, who quit half way through her first term as governor of Alaska, educated the Fox audience on how to spot a lazy person… as reported by Fox.
Palin also touched on the VA scandal, saying that President Barack Obama was told six years ago about issues within the VA. However, he has just been “engaging in rhetoric about problems of those under his charge.”
Hannity asked Palin why she thinks that Obama does not hold people accountable, citing Kathleen Sebelius and Eric Shinseki.
“When you hold someone accountable, it takes energy and resource, and Barack Obama is lazy. In fact, he warned us that he was lazy, and he attributed that to having been brought up in Hawaii. It’s his words, not mine. And, another thing is that Barack Obama still doesn’t see what the main problem is. This main problem is government. It’s not the solution like Ronald Reagan said, it’s the problem.
Once again Pope Francis is making conservatives and Republicans angry, with his calls for redistributing wealth, helping the poor, and helping the sick and needy. You know, the things Republicans hate to do.
And now this: Pope Francis wants us to take care of the World and environment, to be good stewards of the place we call home. What is wrong with this dude?
Republicans would be catch a fit when they hear about this!
Pope Francis made the religious case for tackling climate change on Wednesday, calling on his fellow Christians to become “Custodians of Creation” and issuing a dire warning about the potentially catastrophic effects of global climate change.
Speaking to a massive crowd in Rome, the first Argentinian pope delivered a short address in which he argued that respect for the “beauty of nature and the grandeur of the cosmos” is a Christian value, noting that failure to care for the planet risks apocalyptic consequences.
“Safeguard Creation,” he said. “Because if we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us! Never forget this!”
The pope centered his environmentalist theology around the biblical creation story in the book of Genesis, where God is said to have created the world, declared it “good,” and charged humanity with its care. Francis also made reference to his namesake, Saint Francis of Assisi, who was a famous lover of animals, and appeared to tie the ongoing environmental crisis to economic concerns — namely, instances where a wealthy minority exploits the planet at the expense of the poor.
Get ready for some more Pope Bashing, from your loving Republican Party.
Sad, that conservatives have to draft a manifesto explaining what the Americans want to their Republican leaders on Congress.
Hoping to push their agenda ahead of the presidential election, a group of prominent conservatives has devised a 121-page policy manifesto aimed at giving the Republican Party a message that will attract some of the middle-class voters the party lost in recent White House races.
The document, to be unveiled Thursday, features eight essays with proposals on issues including health care, taxes and education. The authors hope the book will help Republicans address the economic anxieties of Americans and nudge the party from its most polarizing positions and constant confrontations with President Obama.
“We have to do more than ‘Stand athwart history, yelling stop,’ ” said Pete Wehner, a conservative scholar, referring to William F. Buckley Jr.’s vision for National Review, the conservative magazine he founded.
“Sometimes you have to do that and then try to bend history in a different direction,” said Mr. Wehner, one of the contributors to the manifesto.
Just goes to show you how out of touch and disconnected these people are, to the struggles of the average American.
Somehow, although his statement is reprehensible, I expected him to say something worse about the police than a comparison to Nazis. After all, he is a Republican and today’s Republicans pride themselves on saying and doing the most outlandish things.
Gary Kiehne, a hotel owner, complained in a Thursday interview with the Republic about police evacuation checkpoints set up during the devastating Wallow Fire in 2011.
Referring to Nazi SS agents and paramilitary officers, Kiehne said the police were willing to “shoot you and me,” according to the Republic.
Kiehne has apologized for his statement about mass shooters, but his campaign denied the Nazi comparisons he made.
Campaign spokesman Chris Baker said that Kiehne “expressing disappointment about the way the police had acted during the Wallow Fire.”
According to Baker, Kiehne “always wondered how German soldiers in (World War II) could turn on their own people with martial law, but after seeing martial law implemented during the Wallow Fire, he understood how it could happen.”
The Arizona Fraternal Order of Police has called on the candidate to drop out of the race, but Baker refused to comment on the group’s statement.
Wealthy people, thank heavens, are safe. After saying that “there’s nothing off the table” concerning the budget, it turns out that there is something off the table, and that’s any revenue from wealthier residents or businesses. So essentially what we have is the Republican ideology that says that unions are destructive, raising revenue is not viable, and the middle class must bear the brunt of the costs of quality public schools and public services. And if they can’t pay for it, then oh well.
I’ll say it again: Christie will not win another general election in his lifetime. Donors know it, which is why they’re looking more favorably at Jeb Bush (shudder), and the far right has already abandoned him. Meanwhile, those of us who still proudly live in New Jersey will need to endure Christie for an entire second term.
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