Politics, Government & Public Policy: August 2010 Archives
This paragraph about President Obama's Afghanistan policy is pretty disturbing if you take it at face value:
One adviser at the time said Mr. Obama calculated that an open-ended commitment would undermine the rest of his agenda. “Our Afghan policy was focused as much as anything on domestic politics,” the adviser said. “He would not risk losing the moderate to centrist Democrats in the middle of health insurance reform and he viewed that legislation as the make-or-break legislation for his administration.”White House officials reject the linkage, but said Mr. Obama believed that the wars should be judged against other priorities.
The anonymous Obama adviser is saying that the President made a decision to commit troops in Afghanistan in order to further an unrelated domestic political goal. That is a damning accusation. It's good that the White House denies the accusation, and I hope it isn't true. I'd like to find out more, if any journalists are willing to investigate.
(HT: Best of the Web Today.)
Hey, why not another Harry Reid post?
(HT: Legal Insurrection.)
In 1993 Harry Reid wrote a bill to abolish birthright citizenship. Now in 2010 he claims that anyone opposed to birthright citizenship is either insensible or unprincipled.
For all the brouhaha over Republicans wanting to review the interpretation of the 14th Amendment, the citizenship/birthright clause, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, once supported revising the current interpretation of the birthright citizenship clause in 1993.Mr. Reid introduced a bill to the Senate Judiciary Committee as the Immigration Stabilization Act of 1993. The bill, which died in committee after it was referred to the Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugee Affairs, includes tough immigration provisions that would make many wonder where Mr. Reid truly stands on the immigration and border debate.
Title X of the Reid introduced bill shows the Nevada Democrat took Senator Lindsey Graham's, South Carolina Republican, idea on the interpretation of the 14th Amendment and documented it into legislation:
"TITLE X—CITIZENSHIP 4 SEC. 1001. BASIS OF CITIZENSHIP CLARIFIED. In the exercise of its powers under section of the Fourteenth Article of Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the Congress has determined and hereby declares that any person born after the date of enactment of this title to a mother who is neither a citizen of the United States nor admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident, and which person is a national or citizen of another country of which either of his or her natural parents is a national or citizen, or is entitled upon application to become a national or citizen of such country, shall be considered as born subject to the jurisdiction of that foreign country and not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States within the meaning of section 1 of such Article and shall therefore not be a citizen of the United States or of any State solely by reason of physical presence within the United States at the moment of birth."
I hope Dingy Harry takes a stab at explaining this flip-flop. My guess at the truth: Reid has no principles and simply advocates whatever he thinks will keep him personally in power.
(HT: Moe Lane, Gateway Pundit, Ed Morrisey, Brian O'Connor, Weasel Zippers.)
It's stunning that Democrats simply can't resist pulling the race card at every opportunity. I know I'm not the only one who laughs at it these days.
While campaigning in Nevada Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told an audience of mostly Hispanic voters: "I don't know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, okay. Do I need to say more?"
If Reid really wants an answer to his rhetorical question he should ask Brian Sandoval, the Hispanic Republican running for governor of Nevada who is cruising to victory over the head of Reid's son, Rory.
Democrats should be scared by Missouri's overwhelming rejection of ObamaCare.
Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a federal mandate to purchase health insurance, rebuking President Barack Obama's administration and giving Republicans their first political victory in a national campaign to overturn the controversial health care law passed by Congress in March."The citizens of the Show-Me State don't want Washington involved in their health care decisions," said Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, one of the sponsors of the legislation that put Proposition C on the August ballot. She credited a grass-roots campaign involving Tea Party and patriot groups with building support for the anti-Washington proposition.
With most of the vote counted, Proposition C was winning by a ratio of nearly 3 to 1.
We're the first to opt out of ObamaCare, but certainly won't be the last.
Missouri was the first of four states to seek to opt out of the insurance purchase mandate portion of the health care law that had been pushed by Obama. And while many legal scholars question whether the vote will be binding, the overwhelming approval gives the national GOP momentum as Arizona, Florida and Oklahoma hold similar votes during midterm elections in November.
The federal government will almost certainly win if it sues Missouri to block Proposition C... and then the situation will escalate. The courts are not the final arbiters of Constitutionality -- the People are.
