Obama: Killing Innocent People In Drone Strikes Saves Lives

Barack Obama explains why killing people, even innocent people, is just part of his job as a war president. And also, he's kind of tired of having all those big war powers and wants to give them back, whether the Congress wants him to or not. He sounded like a man who was tired of the reality and responsibility of leading an empire.

In a major counterterrorism policy address today at the National Defense University, President Obama explained what he viewed as his responsibilities as a war-time commander, and how he hoped to end what he described as the "perpetual war" against a noun ("terror").

In the course of explaining what he said were decisions that would haunt him the rest of his life, in other words ordering drone strikes that ended up killing innocent civilians, Obama explained that in his view the alternative, which he characterized as doing nothing, would have resulted in "far more civilian casualties."

Obama also said that drone, or robot airstrikes, were the least risky and most precise option of the ones he has available when he makes the decision to assassinate suspected terrorists.

The President tried to defend the civilian casualties caused by drone strikes, by saying in comparison to the huge numbers of civilians killed in the Vietnam and Iraq wars, drones weren't so bad.

Lastly, in addressing his decision to assassinate American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, Obama accused Awlaki of being an important figure in al-Qaeda, who was "actively plotting to kill U.S. citizens" and also that Awlaki was inconvenient to capture.

Obama said that Awlaki was a known host for Muslim extremists, and helped a would-be terrorist "tape a martyrdom video", and approved of his "suicide mission."

Whether or not these things, or the state alleging that someone has done these things, justifies assassination of an American citizen is answered by Obama in his suggestion that according to the AUMF (Authorization for the Use of Military Force), a US president has "unbound powers".

While insisting that the United States was legally entitled to conduct the wars it had engaged in, in the manner it engaged in them, Obama seemed to say he was tired of possessing war powers, and responsibilities, as he noted:

"I look forward to engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF’s mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further...this war, like all wars, must end."

Before his speech ended, Obama was interrupted and lectured to by a woman who explained to him why his fear that history may judge the USA harshly for the Terror Wars, was well founded. Obama let the woman, reportedly Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin, finish most of what she had to say before she was escorted away, and afterward he said "her voice is worth paying attention to."

Republicans Bleeding Out: Obama's Approval Numbers Go Up!

What will the looney Republicans do next to Obama—bleed on him? The triple-front attack on "scandals" is falling very flat for the GOP. When you continually look like the loser in a Monty Python skit, you have got REAL transcendent problems.

It's beginning to look like Barack Obama is blessed with Clinton-Reagan Brand teflon.

The Republicans launched into a furious attack last week on three fronts: Benghazi, IRS, and the AP-JD issue, and after a week of telling Americans they were dumbasses for having voted for Obama instead of Romney in November, the American people have begun to reply to Republicans.

In a new CNN/ORC poll, released yesterday, two big statements emerge:

• The American people still like Barack Obama, in fact his approval numbers have increased to 53%!

• The American people believe Barack Obama, for example 61% saying Obama is telling most or all of the truth about his involvement with the IRS program, this despite the fact Republican propaganda has convinced most Americans something mysterious or nefarious is going on.

While the poll showed that most people do not think the GOP has overreacted in their investigations, a large percentage DO believe the Republicans have already gone too far.

And that is bad news for Republicans.

Unless the GOP investigations quickly uncover something truly substantive, which seriously calls into question Americans' trust and good feelings about Barack Obama, any long-term investigation of Obama's White House is going to be dismissed by more and more Americans as a partisan fishing expedition.

The Republicans have another problem, however.

After making such a melodramatic show of how terrible the three scandals must be, and with some Republicans already talking about impeaching the President, if they are seen to back off their push to get Obama, the GOP will end up looking more fatuous and foolish than ever.

Increasingly, the Republicans resemble the hapless Black Knight in Monty Python and The Holy Grail:

GOP: "I'm invincible!"

American people: "You're a looney."

Right.

White House Launches “Legal-Schmegal” Smearing Of IRS

Let's just say the center-spinner, Dan Pfeiffer, had a bad day at the office yesterday. While trying to say the White House understood people's angst about being snooped on by the IRS, he reinforced the impression a lot of people have that Barack Obama, constitutional law professor, doesn't care anything about what's legal. Meanwhile, the White House plan to toss IRS employees under Barack's Big Bus became evident.

It's been clear from the beginning that this White House, which takes days to locate prefab backbones (at Walmart?) on important debates, were looking for the right bus to toss the IRS under. And now they've found it.

When Dan Pfeiffer, described by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos as “the strategist at the center of White House damage control”, was asked by the host of “This Week”, whether the IRS program targeting Tea Party groups was legal, Pfeiffer replied:

“I can’t speak to the law here. The law’s irrelevant. The activity was outrageous and inexcusable. And it was stopped and we need it to be fixed, so we can ensure it never happens again.”

Stephanopoulos could not believe what he had just heard from the White House chief strategist on spinning the IRS situation. He immediately shot back at Pfeiffer:

“You don’t really mean the law is irrelevant, do you?”

Pfeiffer then expanded on his remarkable statement:

“What I mean is whether it’s legal or illegal is not important to the fact that the conduct doesn’t matter. [sic] The Department of Justice has said that they are looking into the legality of this. The President’s not going to wait for that. We have to make sure it doesn’t happen again regardless of how that turns out.”

Pfeiffer might as well have said: Legal-schmegal, we’re going to smear these lowly IRS employees, because everybody hates them anyway.

"Legal-schmegal" is another way of saying the law’s irrelevant.

In other words, the Obama administration has determined that even if the IRS was conducting itself legally, that is in accord with the IRS code—written by Congress, not the IRS—the President doesn’t care. He doesn’t even care to wait to find out if this is the case from any criminal investigation conducted by his Justice Department.

It is reported that the morale at the IRS was already pretty low, before this story, improperly called a “scandal”, broke. Realizing that now, employees who were trying to do their jobs, will be feasted on by Democrats and Republicans, who will toss IRS careers like bones to snarling idiots who felt good the day Joe Stack attacked, must be very encouraging.

What we’ll now end up with is every stupid, ineligible nut group in the world applying for and getting 501(c)(4) tax exemptions.

So much for social welfare.

There Are No Scandals—Unless You Mean The GOP Lying Once Again

Republican scheme-team plots next move to spread scandal-points against Obama. So far, it's just not going as planned. Scandals are supposed to work people up, and instead people are going back to work. Damn!

And after all, everyone's used to the GOP lying, forging evidence, and basically acting like a bunch of wild animals as they have sought anything, no matter how low and flat-out racist, to take down Barack Obama.

Let's look at these so-called scandals, and what we've learned as the GOP has wasted tons of time and money investigating, instead of working to get more Americans the help they need in still-hard times for millions of people.

1. Benghazi—Just on this case alone, the way in which the Republicans have sought to politically game the deaths of four Americans, who were doing their jobs for the USA in a dangerous part of the world, should thoroughly discredit anything else the GOP has to whine about. Before we even knew the diplomatic personnel were dead on the night of September 11th, 2012, Mitt Romney had written an attack statement, showing how little he cared about the human lives involved. No, Romney only cared about spinning the events for his political advantage. And when Romney sought to spin Republican Benghazi talking points in the infamous second debate, Obama and Candy Crowley righteously smacked the fool down low onto the floor where he belonged. The look of shock and amazement on Romney's face, realizing that a mere black man—who you know is the President of the United States—had put him in his place was priceless. The GOP has never recovered from that butt-kicking they deservedly took on Benghazi, and instead of wisely moving on, they are wasting more time and money next week to call in Ambassador Pickering for a secret interrogation which you will not get to hear. Yet, the GOP say they are trying to help the American people learn the truth. Well, if you want that, read the Pickering report. That's a good place to start getting some truth on Benghazi. You sure won't be getting any from Republicans.

2. IRS and the Tea Party—As more media outlets are reporting, the notion that the IRS did something nefarious to the Tea Party is only held by people who are ignorant about the IRS's job, or who are immune from the facts. There was a context to the focus given to the Tea Party and other conservative groups in 2010, and that context was the open and widespread use of racist intimidation by the Tea Party, and the implied threat of violent force against political opponents, and particularly against President Obama. Add to that the attack on the IRS field office in Austin, Texas in February, 2010, and the fact the IRS started screening Tea Party tax-exemption applications more closely doesn't sound all the strange, does it? After all, the Tea Party demonstrated it was just fine calling on the IRS to go after opponents, like the NAACP, that it didn't like. Of course the NAACP wasn't packing armed heat at its rallies, nor did it regularly discuss the heaven that would be secession or the violent overthrow of the US government—as was the case for many if not most of the crazy people in the Tea Party. In a time of war—which the USA is still engaged in—potential threats of domestic terrorism need to be screened. So they were.

3. The AP and the JD—This should be the most troublesome alleged scandal, since the seeming attack on the First Amendment, and the ability of the press to do its job, should bother all Americans. One reason that isn't the case, is that the press are largely nothing more than corporate lackeys who suck up to power and actually have failed, miserably, to do their jobs for years now. The American people know that the First Amendment is a nice idea, but if some highly-paid reporters got their notes snatched by the feds in 2013!!—maybe the reporters should thank the government for showing AP and all the media outlets that security of data needs to be a greater concern. The fact is the Feds were doing their jobs, in a time of war, and using legal means to obtain information they wanted. The journalists were just plain stupid not to do a better job of protecting themselves, their operations, and their sources. And if that sounds like I'm saying there should be a natural adversarial relationship between government and the press—yes, that's what I'm saying. Now, do a better job of that, press doofuses.

And that is why, as the Republicans realize they have once more horribly overplayed an actually worthless hand, the feeling we should all have is gratitude that the insane idiots of the GOP will probably not recognize  this at all, and will instead pursue their investigations, and will forge evidence, and will lie, and eventually they will vote to impeach President Barack Obama.

And the day those incredibly stupid white men do that, will be the beginning of the extinction of the Republican Party.

Do it, you dumbass crackers. Make our day.

Tea Party Called On IRS To Revoke Tax-Exempt Status Of NAACP

Understanding the IRS Tea Party targeting policy as something other than a terrible plot against freedom requires looking at the political context of 2010. Both parties attempted to use the IRS to intimidate their opponents. The Tea Party was more vulnerable on account of its explicit racist extremism.

The Tea Party, which is currently expressing outrage at having been targeted in some fashion for review by the IRS during 2010, in July of that year called upon the IRS to conduct an investigation of the NAACP, for “engaging in habitual partisan political behavior.”

The Tea Party encouraged its member groups and “similar organizations” to flood the IRS with complaints about the NAACP, demanding an investigation into whether the civil rights group had become too political to retain its tax-exempt status.

Why did the Tea Party feel this was an appropriate move?

Because the NAACP had issued a resolution at their 2010 national convention in Kansas City, MO calling on the Tea Party to renounce racism and other bigotry in their ranks. The resolution by the NAACP noted the heavy prevalence of racist posters and messaging and racist epithets (usually aimed at President Obama) at Tea Party events and on Tea Party websites.

The resolution also noted the demographic makeup of the Tea Party was decidedly white, well-off financially, with only 1% of the Tea Party being black people, and only 1% viewing persistent discrimination against "people of color" as being a real issue.

The reaction to this resolution was quick, as conservative pundits and the Tea Party groups began denouncing the NAACP as "racist".

The Saint Louis Tea Party Coalition passed its own resolution, complaining about the NAACP engaging in "the gutter tactic of attempting to silence opponents by inflammatory name-calling". The resolution concluded with a call on all Tea Party groups to attempt to silence the NAACP by getting the IRS to revoke the NAACP's tax-exempt status:

"Be it further resolved that these organizations call on the Internal Revenue Service to evenly apply their standards and consider the tax-exempt status of the NAACP considering the degree to which they are engaging in habitual partisan political behavior."

A few days after this, one Tea Party leader, Mark Williams, told CNN:

"I am disinclined to take lectures on racial sensitivity from a group [the NAACP] that insists on calling black people, 'Colored'...The Tea Party [movement] is about the constitution of this country...[and] ensuring equality for each and every individual human being."

To emphasize just how empty and misguided the NAACP charges against the Tea Party were, Williams then went on to write a racist screed so offensive, that the National Tea Party organization asked Williams' group, the Tea Party Express, to throw him out. When the Tea Party Express refused to do so, the national organization expelled the Tea Party Express and Williams.

As Eugene Robinson noted a few days later:

"When the nation's leading civil rights organization passed a resolution condemning displays of racism by Tea Party activists, leaders of the movement reacted with umbrage so thick you could cut it with a knife—then demonstrated that the NAACP's allegation was entirely justified."

Ironically, just a few weeks later, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, filed a formal complaint with the IRS, charging a Tea Party group, Americans For Prosperity Foundation, with running ads that were explicitly partisan, i.e. anti-Obama—a violation of the law. The complaint asked the IRS to review the tax-exempt status of the group.

In response to the complaint, which was eventually dismissed, Tim Phillips, president of Americans For  Prosperity Foundation was quoted as saying "the Democrats were going to the I.R.S. because they 'are scared of the impact A.F.P. is making.'"

What this shows is that the IRS was under intense pressure in 2010 from competing political groups to examine the tax exempt statuses of other groups. Democrats and Republicans were seeking to use the IRS to attempt to intimidate their political opponents.

On the other hand, the extreme rhetoric and conduct on the part of many Tea Party activists and leaders gave Democrats more leverage to argue that right-wing groups might be dangerous, or at least explicitly and primarily political in nature, and were improperly applying for and obtaining tax exemptions from the IRS.

This may also help to explain the focus by the IRS on screening Tea Party and similar organizations during 2010.

Will The GOP Blow Their Chance To Get Obama?

Politico's Jim Vandehei explains to Mike Allen that John Boehner wants to avoid discussions of Watergate and impeachment right now, because that might make Republicans look like "fools" and "clowns". Yeah, well, there is that, huh? But is Boehner really dumb enough to think he can prevent that from happening—again?

So asks Politico, in a peculiar analysis, which paints Speaker of the House Boehner (R-OH), the J-word man, as the hand attempting to restrain intemperate voices of Republicans galloping to investigate anything they can about Barack Obama and his administration.

Mike Allen claims, in the "Behind the Scenes" talk he has with Jim Vandehei, that Boehner wants Republicans to "put a sock in it", meaning:

"[Boehner] wants them to stay under the radar, let Obama take his licks, not letting the issue become them, by making this overtly political, so these hearings that we are going to have in the weeks, months, perhaps years, which at the beginning they say they are going to focus on the substance, let us to the politics."

Vandehei responded, telling us what he believes Boehner is thinking:

"Speaker Boehner's thinking, listen, we've got three legitimate controversies here, all of which are built on fact, I need you guys to let the committees do their work, and don't go out there saying stupid things, about Watergate, about impeachment, things that make YOU look like a fool, make you look like a clown, make us look like a circus, and at the end of the day make the President look stronger, and make him look like a victim."

Allen then went on to say that Darrell Issa (R-CA), one of the main GOP House drivers in rooting around for impeachable offenses, doesn't want to "mess this up"—again—as Allen claims Issa did (he "looked dumb") last fall when he interviewed Secretary of State Clinton on Benghazi.

Allen says Secretary Clinton "hit the Benghazi questions out of the park."

This betrays the problem: most Republicans don't believe that is the case. Instead, they believe that everything Clinton said was an attempt to cover up some (never demonstrated) nefarious scheme of the Obama administration to do evil. The word "Benghazi" now equates in the minds of the manic conservatives with Kenyan-Socialist-Terrorist-BLACK-Usurper-Who-Killed-Our-Ambassader-With-Hillary-Bitch's-Help-Dude.

If Boehner sounds too skeptical, too reasonable, in advising caution to his GOP colleagues, he will look like a traitor to their crazy cause—which most definitely IS the impeachment of President Barack Obama.

Allen and Vandehei do make a good point when they explain that Boehner has something to fear from the standard operating postures of the Republicans in his House caucus. In the past, after all, Republicans managed to have an impeachment process, of a president (Clinton) who knowingly and intentionally lied to the American people (about sex of course), blow up in their faces.

Now, armed with the weapons of apparent actual government abuse—something perhaps impeachment-worthy (i.e, not just being a dumb lout, which Bill Clinton was)—the problem the GOP has is two-fold:

1. Even if they can demonstrate some systemic Big Brother operation going on in the halls of Obama's Executive Branch—since when has that really bothered anybody? People take government overreach for granted these days. They were told after all to just shut up and go shopping by President Patriot Bill (Bush), and Obama has unfortunately adopted that style of casual crushing of nebulous rights. If you're going to claim the Congress needs to go after Obama, the problem for the GOP is that the Democrats will have little reason not to also go after the still-despised regime of George W. Bush, something they should have done a long time ago.

2. The Democrats can easily deflect GOP investigations, by pointing out what a horrible job Republicans have done looking after the business of the people. Instead of working with President Obama to come up with an effective jobs package, for example, the GOP is investigating why Obama wasn't in Benghazi that night personally saving Chris Stevens.

The notion that Allen and Vandehei have that the process might come to be viewed as "overtly political" is silly. It already is viewed as overtly political, because nothing that happens in Washington D.C. isn't overtly political.

If Boehner were a strong leader, instead of the brand that he is, he would in fact do what Allen and Vandehei suggest, and he would command his Republicans to shut up and let the investigations and any facts they uncover convince the American people about something and its implications.

But Boehner isn't going to do that. He will, as I said, continue to placate the hard-right, hysterical, base of his party, which has been frantic to impeach Barack Obama since he took office. Now that they might have some flimsy basis for doing so, Boehner would be crazy to seriously try to tamp down their war chants for impeachment.

It will be a long hot summer in 2013, and the question is, will Barack Obama make it to the fall unimpeached? The Republicans say they are playing the long con on the American people, hoping to win the Senate in 2014, and then control the impeachment process on both sides of Congress. But will the Republican loudmouths allow Boehner to wait that long? Doubtful.

Boehner Uses “J” Word—But Not For Bush-era IRS Abuses

Speaker John Boehner, speaking today, uses the "J" word—JAIL!—to describe what punishment he feels is appropriate for any IRS agents who targeted Tea-Party organizations. However, Boehner and his fellow Republicans were mostly silent on Bush-era IRS harassment of liberal groups, including churches.

While Republicans are putting on a show of great upset over revelations that the IRS targeted Tea Party groups for special attention and investigation of their tax exempt applications, these same Republicans were mostly quiet as contented little rats when George W. Bush’s IRS went after liberal organizations for criticizing his disastrous Iraq war.

For example, today GOP Speaker of the House, John Boehner, called for IRS agents to go to jail—do they get a trial first, or straight to Gitmo?—for targeting conservative groups. What did Boehner have to say back when the Bush regime’s used the IRS to target liberal groups? Nothing, of course.

Let’s look at one famous example of how Bush’s IRS went after uppity liberals who dared to criticize Bush’s policies.

On Halloween Sunday, 2004, days before the election that would disgustingly affirm the ghastly Bush to another term as American war-crimes perpetrator, the Reverend Doctor George F. Regas, stood up before the congregation at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, and preached the words of Jesus Christ.

Regas also repeatedly implored his congregation to vote ALL their Christian values in the upcoming election. Regas argued that Jesus would reject seeking vengeance for the “tragic losses of Sept. 11th [2001].” And he said something that no doubt infuriated that Satanic Bush and his demons:

“How Jesus mourns the death of those 3,000 people killed on September 11th. But Jesus also mourns the death, devastation, and loss in Afghanistan and Iraq and Sudan and Israel/Palestine and in so many other parts of the world. They too are part of God’s precious human family.”

AND

“Jesus confronts both Senator Kerry and President Bush: “I will tell you what I think of your war—The sin at the heart of this war against Iraq is your belief that an American life is of more value than an Iraqi life. That an American child is more precious than an Iraqi baby.”

That was enough for Bush’s IRS.

Despite the fact that Regas began his sermon announcing that his sermon was about Christian values, and not politics, and despite the fact that Regas, in an act of questionable generosity, referred to George W. Bush as a “devout Christian”, the IRS accused All Saints Church of having violated its tax exempt status by preaching about politics in a partisan fashion.

Essentially, the IRS equated asking Christians to vote all their values with an endorsement to vote AGAINST George W Bush. Yet, right-wing churches were regularly making similar appeals, with even more explicit recommendations about whom to vote for—i.e. FOR Bush—with no challenge being issued by the IRS.

Indeed, the Bush regime in the summer of 2004 declared its intention to flood what it identified as Republican churches with campaign literature, and to use voter registration drives in the churches to solidify Bush’s support. Bush strategist Steve Schmidt (now an msnbc analyst) said at the time that “people of faith have as much right to participate in the political process as any other community.” Of course Schmidt meant people of pro-Bush faith.

Eventually the IRS agreed to drop its purely politically motivated war against All Saints Episcopal Church, in return for the Church admitting that it was guilty of playing anti-Bush politics. The Church refused, and demanded the IRS meet in court to resolve the case. The IRS backed down, ending its two-year investigation in 2007, without revoking the church’s tax-exempt status, but the IRS continued to insist the church had violated the law with the 2004 sermon.

All Saints demanded an apology from the IRS. It never came.

The church asked for an investigation of IRS over the matter. It never happened.

A few US House of Representatives members, including Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), had in fact asked for a GAO investigation of the IRS over the All Saints Episcopal matter back on December 8, 2005. The request went nowhere.

Evidence gathered by the church’s lawyers revealed that the investigation of All Saints Episcopal may have begun in Bush’s Justice Department, not in the IRS. The suggestion was that at some point Bush’s team were considering a show trial of the liberal church to make an example of them to cool anti-war rhetoric being voiced by the Christian left or any anti-war religious group.

Did John Boehner call for anybody at IRS to be tossed into jail about that?

You know the answer.