Consumer Confidence Plunges To Lowest In 2013
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/25/2013 10:01
Following record UMich misses, Gallup's economic confidence collapse, the slump in the conference board's measure of confidence, and Bloomberg's index of consumer comfort signaling major concerns among rich and poor in this country (in spite of record highs in stocks), today's Consumer Confidence data from UMich continues to confirm a problem for all those 'hoping' for moar multiple expansion. Falling for the 3rd month in a row, and missing expectations for the 2nd month in a row, this is the lowest confidence print in 2013. Perhaps even more worrisome for the 'hope and change' crowd is that the 12-month economic outlook has collapsed to its lowest since Nov 2011. It would seem that all that free money flooding our 'markets' has reached peak efficacy in terms of confidence inspiration, and as Citi notes, when this cycle has played out in the past, equity market corrections are often quick to follow...
"We have just concluded the 5th fiscal year since President Obama took office. During those five years, the federal government has spent a total $3.7 trillion on approximately 80 different means-tested poverty and welfare programs. The common feature of means-tested assistance programs is that they are graduated based on a person’s income and, in contrast to programs like Social Security or Medicare, they are a free benefit and not paid into by the recipient," says the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee.
"The enormous sum spent on means-tested assistance is nearly five times greater than the combined amount spent on NASA, education, and all federal transportation projects over that time. ($3.7 trillion is not even the entire amount spent on federal poverty support, as states contribute more than $200 billion each year to this federal nexus—primarily in the form of free low-income health care.)
How To Opt Out of ObamaCare Without Paying the Fine
October 25th, 2013 at 10:26 am. by: George Washington
Less than two-hours ago, I submitted a revised W-4 form to our payroll department. My goal is to avoid being in a position where at the end of next year I am owed a refund from the federal government. As an act of civil disobedience, I am refusing to purchase health insurance. This means that I am subject to a tax/fine of 1% of my income (2% the following year, 2.5% thereafter). But the beautiful thing is that unless I am owed a tax refund, the government will never get any of that money.
The GOP needs to stop calling Obamacare a “train wreck.” That means it’s a mistake or accident. That means it’s a gigantic flop or failure. It’s not. This is a brilliant and purposeful attempt to damage the U.S. economy, kill jobs and bring down capitalism. It’s not a failure; it’s Obama’s grand success. It’s not a train wreck; Obamacare is a suicide attack.
Obama’s hero and mentor was Saul Alinsky, a radical Marxist intent on destroying capitalism. Alinksky’s stated advice was to call the other guy “a terrorist” to hide your own intensions; to scream that the other guy is “ruining America,” while you are the one actually plotting the destruction of America; to claim again and again in every sentence of every speech that you are “saving the middle class,” while you are busy wiping out the middle class.
Barack Obama traveled the country promising that ObamaCare would lower the cost of health insurance and increase availability to healthcare. But it has had the opposite effect: Health insurance costs are skyrocketing. Doctors are dropping out of the healthcare market in droves, and HMOs are firing doctors by the thousands.
But this was no surprise to Obama’s central planners. They knew that health insurance premiums would skyrocket for most Americans. They knew that doctors would drop out of the healthcare market in droves. They knew that most would opt out of Obamacare and pay the fine.
Analyst/trader Karl Denninger says Obama Care is doomed to failure because of pre-existing conditions of many signing up for coverage. Denninger explains, “If you are an insurance company and you only sell insurance to those who have already lit their house on fire, you’re not going to be in business very long. You have to have people who buy insurance who are not likely to have fires.” As far as the Affordable Care Act, Denninger thinks, “Now we have a huge problem because the only people who are going to enroll are the people who are going to crash the system if everyone else doesn’t show up.” Denninger contends if there are not enough young healthy people signing up for Obama Care, “It will implode before the end of the year.” Denninger goes on to say, “What Congress calculated rather coldly is they could shove a gun up young people’s backs and make them fork up the money.” There are two very big problems with this, according to Denninger, “They have no reason to buy today, and the fine is insufficient motivation because it is a small fraction of the premium.” Denninger predicts, “This is not going to bring down healthcare costs. This is going to accelerate costs. This is extremely bad law.” Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Karl Denninger of Market-Ticker.org.
The Growing Rift With Saudi Arabia Threatens To Severely Damage The Petrodollar
By Michael Snyder, on October 23rd, 2013
The number one American export is U.S. dollars. It is paper currency that is backed up by absolutely nothing, but the rest of the world has been using it to trade with one another and so there is tremendous global demand for our dollars. The linchpin of this system is the petrodollar. For decades, if you have wanted to buy oil virtually anywhere in the world you have had to do so with U.S. dollars. But if one of the biggest oil exporters on the planet, such as Saudi Arabia, decided to start accepting other currencies as payment for oil, the petrodollar monopoly would disintegrate very rapidly. For years, everyone assumed that nothing like that would happen any time soon, but now Saudi officials are warning of a "major shift" in relations with the United States. In fact, the Saudis are so upset at the Obama administration that "all options" are reportedly "on the table". If it gets to the point where the Saudis decide to make a major move away from the petrodollar monopoly, it will be absolutely catastrophic for the U.S. economy.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) quietly dropped a bomb in its October Fiscal Monitor Report. Titled “Taxing Times,” the report paints a dire picture for advanced economies with high debts that fail to aggressively “mobilize domestic revenue.” It goes on to build a case for drastic measures and recommends a series of escalating income and consumption tax increases culminating in the direct confiscation of assets.
Yes, you read that right. But don’t take it from me. The report itself says:
When the Chips Are Down, the Government Will Be Tempted to Grab Our Assets
The writing is on the wall for private pensions. Once the dollar becomes too weakened by the printing of vast amounts of them in order to finance Washington’s budget deficit and to support the solvency of “banks too big too fail,” QE will have to end. Desperate for money to fill the gap, Washington will turn to confiscation of private assets should any be left after the coming economic collapse.
American conservatives who are so pleased that “those damned bureaucrats who live on the public tit” are getting their comeuppance fail to see the precedent for their own private pensions.
As long ago as the Clinton regime, Alicia Munnell, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston who was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, the position I had held in the Reagan administration, advocated confiscating 15 percent of private pension funds on the basis of the argument that the pensions had accumulated tax free.
The writing is on the wall for private pensions. Once the dollar becomes too weakened by the printing of vast amounts of them in order to finance Washington’s budget deficit and to support the solvency of “banks too big too fail,” QE will have to end. Desperate for money to fill the gap, Washington will turn to confiscation of private assets should any be left after the coming economic collapse.
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics".
-- Mark Twain
And then there are the lies of Barack Hussein Obama II, the 44th and current President Of The United States.
Dan from Squirrel Hills Blog says this about President Obama:
Every President, every politician, and every human being tells lies and engages in acts of hypocrisy. But Barack Obama does these things to a far greater degree than anyone else that I have ever known of. His campaign promises were so much better sounding than anyone else’s – no lobbyists in his administration, waiting five days before signing all non-emergency bills so people would have time to read them, putting health care negotiations on C-SPAN, reading every bill line by line to make sure money isn’t being wasted, prosecution of Wall St. criminals, ending raids against medical marijuana in states where it’s legal, high levels of transparency. Obama’s promises of these wonderful things sounded inspiring and sincere. They sounded so much better than the promises of any other President. So when Obama broke these promises, it felt so much worse than when other Presidents broke their promises.
Dan then submits a well sourced list of 365 examples of the President's lying, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, etc. in his blog. You can see the entire list here:
"Now that the government has reopened and this threat to our economy is removed, all of us need to stop focusing on the lobbyists, and the bloggers, and the talking heads on radio and the professional activists who profit from conflict, and focus on what the majority of Americans sent us here to do, and that’s grow this economy, create good jobs, strengthen the middle class, educate our kids, lay the foundation for broad-based prosperity and get our fiscal house in order for the long haul." --President Obama 10/17/13
Watch him say it at 5:40 on the video:
How unfortunate for the President that NONE of his policies "grow this economy, create good jobs, strengthen the middle class, educate our kids, lay the foundation for broad-based prosperity..." Those damn bloggers and their calculators... This President hates the TRUTH so much that he actually has the nerve to ask you to dismiss the TRUTH and those that speak it, and embrace his word and his LIES instead.
A leader who blames my freedom of speech for his failure to govern. Imagine that.
Today we are going to focus solely on one of this president's BIGGEST LIES...The Affordable Care Act. Also know as, Obamacare. Or simply The Big Lie.
Today the President stood before a "hand picked" group Obamacare supporters and offered an update on the failure of Healtcare.gov. It was more of a series of excuses for it's failure to function than it was an update, but then making excuses it what this president does best. You could almost say he turned The Big Lie into an even BIGGER LIE.
You can subject yourself to the President's Healthcare.gov update below. Pay particular attention to the "letters" he reads from "satisfied" Obamacare customers, and ask youself, "Did real people write these letters?"
Some Observations Of A Produce Clerk:
Why did the lady from Delaware have to read "her Obamacare story"...if this was really "her story" wouldn't she just be able tell it to us, instead of reading it to us?
How did she save $150 on her healthcare costs when she just said she could NOT get insurance previously? If she wasn't paying for any health insurance, how did she save $150 a month with Obamacare?
Thousands of people are signing up and saving money? Really Mr. President, the entire country is aware that "thousands of people have signed up" is a bit more than a stretch...probably more than a reach too...it's a LIE. And "saving money"? You're joking right? It's pretty common knowledge to ANYBODY that has made it though to the end on Healthcare.gov that their insurance premiums are not only going to rise, they are probably going to sky rocket.
Did anybody here the President mention "deductibles"? No? I didn't either...
Why does he keep saying it's "affordable"? Does the President even know the definition of affordable? Or is Obamacare affordable just because, well, because the President says it is?
Why does he tell everyone about the "benefits" of the Affordable Care Act for those who already have health insurance, but fail to mention how much our insurance premiums have risen, even though the President promised us they wouldn't? In fact he said our premiums would fall when this law was passed.
Is there somebody holding up an applause sign off to the side?
Why does he say that people who cannot afford healthcare insurance can afford it if they use Healthcare.gov to shop for it? Does that make any sense at all? They can't afford it without the website, but with it they can? That's like saying I can't afford to eat at Red Lobster, but if I go inside I can. Really?
Tax credits? You mean subsidies, right Mr. President? And if you make more than 4 times the poverty level, you get no subsidy...that if you make over $30,0000 a year, you are going to be paying higher insurance premiums to pay for those that can't afford healthcare with or without the Healtcare.gov. Shhhh, I'm not supposed to tell you that. Oh, I'm sorry Barack...guess the cats out of the bag now.
Get healthcare coverage for less than $100 a month? Yeah right. But hey, the President himself said so...so it must be true.
The website has been visited 20 million times, so far, according to the President. Mr. President, was that 20 million individual visits, or was that 1 million individuals trying to get into the website 20 times each? The President said it was 20 million visits, so it must truly be 20 million.
He's bombing the audience with statistics...what does that tell you? He's making it all up.
And EVERYBODY is saving money!
OK, I have to stop now, I'm getting sick...and he's about to start reading the phony love letters from Obamacare recipients.
The point I want to make, is that the President stood up in front of a canned audience today to do what he does best...make excuse for HIS failures....and LIE.
What, you don't believe me?
I know you do, but just to support my assertion that the President [and his administration] is a pathological liar, I will share with you what others are saying about the Affordable Care Act, AND the President.
At the White House: Obamacare success stories that aren't
BY BYRON YORK | OCTOBER 21, 2013 AT 1:59 PM
In the days since the problems with the Obamacare website became too large to ignore, defenders of the administration cited the many people they said have already benefited from the new exchanges, as well as from the law as a whole. Presumably, the White House had many success stories to choose from in deciding who would stand behind the president at Monday's event. But some of the successes they chose don't seem to be successes at all.
By Tami Luhby @Luhby October 21, 2013: 10:28 AM ET
Complaint #1: I can't log in
Many people are still having trouble signing onto healthcare.gov, the federal exchange that's handling enrollment for 36 states. While the site no longer leaves applicants hanging with a hold screen, many are still receiving error messages when they try to log in.
Maura Grady of Florida told CNNMoney last week that the federal site was still giving her trouble. It was not accepting her username and password. When she clicked on the Forgot Password button, she was told she'd receive an email with reset instructions. But she didn't.
Asked whether she'd try again, she responded: "2, maybe 3 years! When I'm in the mood for some aggravation."
Is Obamacare in a Death Spiral?
By Megan McArdle Oct 21, 2013 5:20 PM ET
But there was also a fourth leg, always acknowledged but not always numbered: the subsidies. Without them, the mandate wouldn’t work, either politically or practically, because you can’t order someone to buy insurance that costs 50 percent of their take-home pay. And the wonks, and the journalists covering them, tacitly understood that there was a fifth leg: the exchanges. You can’t order people to get insurance if they don’t know where to buy it, or if the only quote they got from the one company they called cost more than they could afford.
The exchanges were also broadly understood to be needed to get young, healthy people into the system. Somewhat naturally, almost every story you’ve seen about a new enrollee -- including those told by the president this morning -- has focused on someone who couldn’t buy insurance before, or who had very expensive insurance. But it’s not surprising that those people are fighting through the system to get coverage; they would pull themselves to the top of Mount Rushmore using only their teeth if that’s what it took to get a cheap insurance policy. What we need to know is what is happening among the people who didn’t need Obamacare to help them buy insurance, because insurers would be perfectly happy to sell them a policy without it. Those are the folks whose premiums will cover treatment for the rest.
Well, for starters, a lot of people would like to know how the federal government showered $634 million on a host of IT contractors to build HealthCare.gov, a website that has had the worst debut of any product since New Coke. The site is supposed to provide a menu of insurance plans for Americans in the 36 states without their own site. Instead, it has become a black box — the few applications insurance companies have managed to receive from it are glitch-filled and error-riddled, the insurers say.
President Obama and Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius have both said that the problems were caused by the site’s popularity — the system was overloaded by too many users eager to sign up. But in the two weeks following its October 1 launch, the number of visitors to HealthCare.gov dropped by 88 percent, based on the findings of the Millward Brown Digital research firm. The site has been taken down at least twice for “fixes.”
The shutdown drama has distracted from the fact that Obamacare’s debut is worse than many realize — and it threatens the fundamental viability of the law itself. The administration claims the Obamacare online exchanges crashed because the Web site got more than 8 million hits in the first week. Please. You know how many people visit Amazon.com every week? More than 70 million. The difference is: 1.) Amazon seldom crashes, and 2.) on Amazon, people actually buy something.
It appears virtually no one is buying Obamacare. While administration officials brag about how many visitors the site is getting, they refuse to divulge how many people actually signed up. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was asked that directly by Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show.” “Fully enrolled?” Sebelius stuttered. “I can’t tell you. Because I don’t know.” That is a frightening admission of incompetence. If the Obama administration can’t even track how many people signed up, how on earth is it going to verify whether those people are eligible for subsidies? How will it protect against fraud?
Constant “glitches” keep people from logging into the exchanges. Humiliating live video of reporters normally favorable to Obamacare simply giving up in frustration because they cannot sign up. Consumers who are lucky enough to get through the system are stunned to learn that their premiums have skyrocketed by thousands of dollars. One Pennsylvania mother says that she can either pay her increased premiums or pay for her kids to eat, but she can’t do both.
Extremely personal information has already leaked from the system in Minnesota. Software security experts from McAfee predict millions of identity theft victims. And one of the healthcare exchanges was forced to acknowledge that information collected from patients will be shared with law enforcement.
Tom Bevan at RealClearPolitics wondered why Kathleen Sebelius still has a job. Jon Stewart invited her onto The Daily Show and mocked that he could “download every movie ever made” before she could log onto her own website. Her home state senator called for her to resign for "gross incompetence," as exactly “zero” residents of Kansas were able to successfully enroll in the program.
The rollout has been such a nightmare that it is abundantly clear now that members of Congress really did not, as then-Speaker Pelosi admitted, even read the Obamacare bill before they passed it. In fact, the program's launch has been such an unimaginable disaster that it raises an alarming new question that would have been unthinkable amid the exaggerated claims of health utopia from three years ago: Did President Obama even read this legislation before he signed it into law?
Raising the Debt Ceiling Does Not Increase Our Debt!
It may be true that raising the debt limit does not authorize "new" spending commitments, but the suggestion that raising the debt limit does not increase the debt is both absurd and a LIE.
The United States Treasury claims raising the debt ceiling simply allows the government to finance existing legal obligations that Congresses and presidents of both parties have made in the past.
If only that were true, I guess it depends on how you define "finance".
If raising the debt ceiling doesn't raise the national debt, why has the national debt risen following each increase in the debt ceiling.
Let's begin with a brief history of raising the debt ceiling. I will limit our debt ceiling history lesson to the years since Barack Obama was elected President in 2008.
The fiscal year for the United States Government begins every year on October 1 and ends the following year on September 30. Therefore, for this debt ceiling history lesson, we will begin with the fiscal year 2009 that began on October 1, 2008. Barack Obama was elected President of the United States on November 4, 2008.
The 2007-2008 fiscal crisis and subsequent economic slowdown led to sharply higher deficits in recent years, which led to a series of debt limit increases. The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (H.R. 3221), signed into law (P.L. 110-289) on July 30, 2008, included a debt limit increase. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (H.R. 1424), signed into law on October 3 (P.L. 110-343), raised the debt limit again. The debt limit rose a third time in less than a year to $12,104 billion with the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 on February 13, 2009 (ARRA; H.R. 1), which was signed into law on February 17, 2009 (P.L. 111-5). Following that measure, the debt limit was subsequently increased by $290 billion to $12,394 billion (P.L. 111-123) in a stand-alone debt limit bill on December 28, 2009, and by $1.9 trillion to $14,294 billion on February 12, 2010 (P.L. 111-139), as part of a package that also contained the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010.
The 2011 debt limit episode, during the 112th Congress, was resolved on August 2, 2011, when President Obama signed into law the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA; S. 365). The federal debt had reached its statutory limit on May 16, 2011, prompting Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to declare a debt issuance suspension period, allowing certain extraordinary measures to extend Treasury’s borrowing capacity. The BCA included provisions aimed at deficit reduction and would allow the debt limit to rise between $2,100 billion and $2,400 billion in three stages, with the latter two subject to congressional disapproval. All three increases, totaling $2,100 billion, have occurred. A January 12, 2012, presidential certification triggered a third, $1.2 trillion increase that took place on January 28, 2012. A disapproval measure, which would have been subject to veto, could have blocked that increase if enacted within 15 days of the certification. On January 18, 2012, the House passed such a measure (H.J.Res. 98) on a 239-176 vote. The Senate declined to take up a companion measure (S.J.Res. 34) and on January 26, 2012, voted down a motion to proceed (44-52) on the House-passed measure (H.J.Res. 98), thus clearing the way for the increase, resulting in a debt limit of $16,394 billion.
According to the timeline above, the debt ceiling has been raised FOUR times since Barack Obama became President of the United States. The debt ceiling is today up for a FIFTH increase during the Obama presidency.
Contrary to popular belief, the current debt ceiling was originally reached on December 31, 2012. It was only through extraordinary measures by both the US Treasury Department and the US Congress that the "current" debt ceiling has been reached once again....and I do mean EXTRAORDINARY...in fact, the government has been operating WITHOUT a debt ceiling since January 31, 2013:
The 2011 debt limit episode, during the 112th Congress, was resolved on August 2, 2011, when President Obama signed into law the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA; S. 365). The federal debt had reached its statutory limit on May 16, 2011, prompting Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to declare a debt issuance suspension period, allowing certain extraordinary measures to extend Treasury’s borrowing capacity. The BCA included provisions aimed at deficit reduction and would allow the debt limit to rise between $2,100 billion and $2,400 billion in three stages, with the latter two subject to congressional disapproval. All three increases, totaling $2,100 billion, have occurred. A January 12, 2012, presidential certification triggered a third, $1.2 trillion increase that took place on January 28, 2012. A disapproval measure, which would have been subject to veto, could have blocked that increase if enacted within 15 days of the certification.8 On January 18, 2012, the House passed such a measure (H.J.Res. 98) on a 239-176 vote. The Senate declined to take up a companion measure (S.J.Res. 34) and on January 26, 2012, voted down a motion to proceed (44-52) on the House-passed measure (H.J.Res. 98), thus clearing the way for the increase, resulting in a debt limit of $16,394 billion.
On December 26, 2012, the U.S. Treasury stated that the debt would reach its limit on December 31 and that the Treasury Secretary would declare a debt issuance suspension period to authorize extraordinary measures (noted above, described below) that could be used to meet federal payments for approximately two months. As predicted, federal debt did reach its limit on December 31 when large biannual interest payments, in the form of Treasury securities, were made to certain trust funds. From December 31, 2012, until H.R. 325 was signed on February 4, 2013, total federal debt subject to limit was held just $25 million under its $16,394 billion limit.
The U.S. Treasury stressed that these extraordinary measures would be exhausted more quickly than in recent debt limit episodes for various technical reasons. A January 14, 2013, letter from Treasury Secretary Geithner also estimated that extraordinary measures would be exhausted sometime between mid-February or early March 2013.13 CBO had previously estimated that federal debt would reach its limit near the end of December 2012, and that the extraordinary measures could be used to fund government activities until mid-February or early March 2013. One policy research group had projected that the deadline for action would fall in mid-February,15 while other estimates put that date at the beginning of March 2013. Changes in economic conditions or financial markets, as well as in federal taxation and expenditure trends,
affect Treasury’s debt management requirements.
During the 112th Congress, Speaker John Boehner had stated that a future debt limit increase should be linked to spending cuts of at least the same magnitude, a position that reflects the structure of the Budget Control Act. On April 10, 2013, the Oversight Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee held hearings on the debt limit and how the U.S. government might operate when the debt limit binds.
House Republicans decided on January 18, 2013, to propose a three-month suspension of the debt limit tied to a provision that would delay Members’ salaries in the event that their chamber of Congress had not agreed to a budget resolution.19 H.R. 325, according to its sponsor, would allow Treasury to pay bills coming due before May 18, 2013, and would hold salaries of Members of Congress in escrow if a house of Congress had not agreed to a budget resolution by April 15, 2013. Such a provision could raise constitutional issues under the Twenty-Seventh Amendment. A new debt limit would then be set on May 19.20
On January 23, 2013, the House passed H.R. 325, which suspends the debt limit until May 19, 2013, on a 285-144 vote. The Senate passed the measure on January 31 on a 64-34 vote; it was then signed into law (P.L. 113-3) on February 4.
Once H.R. 325 was signed into law on February 4, the U.S. Treasury replenished funds that had been used to meet federal payments, thus resetting its ability to use extraordinary measures. As of February 1, 2013, the U.S. Treasury had used about $31 billion in extraordinary measures.21 Statutory language that grants the Treasury Secretary the authority to declare a “debt issuance suspension period” (DISP), which permits certain extraordinary measures, also requires that “the Secretary of the Treasury shall immediately issue” amounts to replenish those funds once a debt issuance suspension period (DISP) is over.22 A DISP extends through “any period for which the Secretary of the Treasury determines for purposes of this subsection that the issuance of obligations of the United States may not be made without exceeding the public debt limit.”
Once the debt limit suspension lapsed after May 18, 2013, the U.S. Treasury reset the debt limit at $16,699 billion, or $305 billion above the previous statutory limit. On May 20, 2013, the first business day after the expiration of the suspension, debt subject to limit was just $25 million below the limit.
Some Members, as noted above, stated that H.R. 325 (P.L. 113-3) was intended to prevent the U.S. Treasury from accumulating cash balances. The U.S. Treasury’s operating cash balances at the start of May 20, 2013 ($34 billion), were well below balances ($60 billion) at the close of February 4, 2013, when H.R. 325 was enacted.
Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew notified Congress on May 20, 2013, that he had declared a new debt issuance suspension period (DISP), triggering authorities that allow the Treasury Secretary to use extraordinary measures to meet federal obligations.27 That DISP will last until August 2, 2013, just before the expected date of a summer recess of Congress.28 Secretary Lew urged Congress to raise the debt limit in a “timely fashion.”
That was certainly a series of extraordinary events, care of the Congress and the Treasury Department, that has gotten us to today's "threat" of a debt default. It is bit disingenuous of President Obama and the Senate Democrats to blame the Republicans for this looming "debt default". If the Republicans "wanted" a debt default, they could have forced one months ago.
Okay, we have now established that the debt ceiling has been raised FOUR times since President Obama was elected in November 2008. The President and the Treasury Department are today seeking a FIFTH increase in the debt ceiling.
So the debt ceiling has been raised FOUR times during the Obama presidency, with a fifth on the way. If raising the debt ceiling doesn't raise the debt, as President Obama claims, then why have we had to keep raising the debt ceiling? BECAUSE THE DEBT KEEPS RISING!!!
According to TreasuryDirect, the 2009 fiscal year began with the a US Treasury debt of $10,024,724,896,912.49...that's $10.024 BILLION. Today's debt stands at $16,747,409,787,772.33...that's $16.747 BILLION. During President Obama's 4.8 years in office, the US Treasury's debt has risen $6.723 BILLION!
FOUR debt ceiling increases, and a $6.723 BILLION increase in US Treasury debt since October 1, 2009...and the President stands before the American public...BEFORE THE ENTIRE WORLD...and he makes the claim that raising the debt ceiling does not raise the debt? Seriously?
Did this man pass third grade math, or is he a bonafide moron? If the President honestly believes that the American public is dumb enough to believe this bald faced lie, he is in for a world of hurt. Can he not hear the entire WORLD laughing at him?
Obama Lies About the Implications of Raising the Debt Ceiling
As we noted in the opening: The United States Treasury claims raising the debt ceiling simply allows the government to finance existing legal obligations that Congresses and presidents of both parties have made in the past. If we have to borrow money to pay back money we have previously borrowed, are we "financing the debt", or are we really just adding to it?
(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Treasury needed to pay off a record of approximately $7,546,726,000,000 in maturing Treasury securities in fiscal 2013, which ended last Monday, according to Treasury's official accounting.
During the same period, the Treasury turned around and issued another $8,323,949,000,000 in new Treasury securities.
The spread between the old debt held by the public that matured and was paid off during the fiscal year and the new debt that was sold to cover government spending over and above tax revenues, increased the net federal government debt held by the public by $777.223 billion during the fiscal year.
In the previous fiscal year, 2012, the Treasury had needed to redeem only $6,804,956,000,000 in Treasury securities, but then it needed to turn around and issue $7,924,651,000,000 in new securities—increasing the net debt held by the public by $1.119695 trillion.
And yet, the President insists that raising the debt ceiling DOES NOT raise the debt! Perhaps the President is confusing the debt with spending. Does he think the money that is borrowed is never spent? Does he think that just because "he says" that raising the debt ceiling doesn't raise the debt...it doesn't raise the debt?
I'm just a produce clerk, and from what I have observed, the President is either REALLY BAD at math, or a complete moron...or simply, he is just a LIAR. Gasp!
"It’s unlikely many Democrats will challenge the president’s unconstitutional actions, but Republicans should define themselves as the party defending the Constitution. For starters, that would mean telling the president he must implement the Obama health law as it was enacted or delay the entire law for a year.
Obama has been picking and choosing what parts of the law he will implement, including delaying the employer mandate and the caps on out of pocket expenses for policy holders, two key provisions the law stated “shall” be implemented Jan. 1, 2014.
According to the Congressional Research Service, half the deadlines in the law have been missed so far. The result is a mangled version of what Congress enacted in 2010.
The Supreme Court has ruled, “There is no provision in the Constitution that authorizes the president to enact, amend, or to repeal statutes” (Clinton v. City of New York, 1998). The president is obliged to enforce the law as written. For the Speaker to make the continuing resolution contingent on a one-year delay in ObamaCare is righting a constitutional wrong." --- BETSY MCCAUGHEY, author of “Beating Obamacare.”
Article II, Section 1 of The US Constitution begins:
The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:
This first clause in Article II, Section 1 of The US Constitution empowers the President of The United States to execute the instructions of Congress, which has the exclusive power to make laws; "To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof." [Article I, Section 8]
Article II, Section 1 of The Us Constitution closes:
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
[The Vice President also has an oath of office, but it is not mandated by the Constitution and is prescribed by statute. Currently, the Vice Presidential oath is the same as that for Members of Congress.]
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God
The newly elected President takes an "oath of office", and in doing so promises the American citizens that he will preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. The Vice-President and Congress do the same.
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America.
What Is the Supreme Law of the Land Defined as in the Constitution?
The supreme law of the land defined as in the Constitution is the actual laws within the Constitution of the United States itself. The supreme law of the land means that no other law within the country of the United States of America trumps or surpasses the power of the laws within the Constitution.
Democrats Constitutionally Ignorant In ObamaCare Feud
By BETSY MCCAUGHEYSeptember 26, 2013
Displaying their ignorance of the U.S. Constitution, Democratic bigwigs are excoriating Republican members of the House of Representatives for attaching a condition — no ObamaCare — to a stopgap bill to fund the government.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called it “extortion.” Sen. Steny Hoyer labeled it “hostage-taking.” Rep. Nancy Pelosi termed it “legislative arson.”
In truth, what the House Republicans are doing is not blackmail. It’s checks and balances in action. Congress has always had the power to attach almost any condition — including repealing or changing a law — to appropriations. The framers wrote the Constitution that way for good reason.
The nation’s first plan of government, the Articles of Confederation, had no president. When the framers gathered in 1787 to write a second, more effective plan, they reluctantly created the presidency.
Reluctantly, because the founders worried that a president would accumulate power and spend flagrantly as they had seen the despotic kings of Europe do.
Founders’ Checks
To prevent that, the founders created checks and balances. In the words of James Madison, the Constitution’s chief architect, each branch of government is “effectually checked and restrained by the others.”
Congress was given power over the purse — the power to appropriate money and to borrow it or raise it through taxes, because locating the power in Congress would force the president to constantly negotiate with Congress.
Fast forward 226 years to last Friday. President Obama called Speaker of the House John Boehner to say “he will not negotiate” with Congress on raising the U.S. government’s borrowing authority. The president, who claims to be a constitutional scholar, needs a refresher course.
The same day, Obama whipped up a crowd at a Ford plant, complaining that by attaching conditions to the appropriations bill, House Republicans are “trying to mess with me.”
Yes, they are, Mr. President, though Madison expressed it with more elegance and precision.
“An elective despotism is not the government we fought for,” Madison wrote in Federalist 58. A president with the power to borrow and spend at will would be just that.
Sadly, large numbers of Americans are at risk of being bamboozled by the Democrats’ inflammatory accusations and warnings of a government shutdown.
One reason is that shockingly, only a third of Americans can identify the three branches of government (according to a Pew Foundation poll). That’s how gravely our civics education has failed.
Secondly, the President’s party is fanning fears of a shutdown, something no one wants.
But let’s be clear, the military would continue to operate, doctors and nurses would still come to work at federal hospitals, air traffic controllers and other emergency personnel would be on the job, and everyone would eventually get paid.
If you’re planning a trip to Yellowstone National Park, you might be inconvenienced.
Compare that to what’s at stake: preserving the Constitution. The health reform the president is insisting on implementing is a distorted, mangled, half-baked version of what Congress enacted in 2010. It is no longer the Affordable Care Act.
Illegal Acts
The president is illegally picking and choosing what parts to keep. Gone is the employer mandate, the cap on out-of-pocket expenses, income verification for subsidy recipients, and over half the deadlines in the law.
These changes are not just illegal. They also shift billions of dollars in costs on to taxpayers, cheat seriously ill patients, leave employees in the lurch, all in a devious attempt to patch up an unworkable law.
Madison anticipated this threat to freedom. In Federalist 62, he warned that it will be pointless for Americans to elect a Congress, if it in turn enacts laws “too voluminous to be read,” or if these laws then ” undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow.” That’s ObamaCare.
On last week’s Saturday radio address, Obama again confronted House Republicans, demanding that they fund the government, no questions asked. Obama claimed that “the most basic constitutional duty Congress has is passing a budget.”
Wrong again, Mr. President.
Congress’s most basic duty is to protect and defend the Constitution, and withholding the money is the chief way to do it.
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Speaker Boehner’s Task Is To Defend The Constitution
President Obama’s brazen refusal to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” is inciting Washington insiders to use the “I” word: Impeachment.
Sen. Tom Coburn, who has served 19 years in the Senate and calls himself a friend of the president, told a town hall meeting last week that the president’s actions are getting “perilously close” to impeachable offenses.
That’s premature. But it is time for members of Congress to take their oath to defend the Constitution seriously and call out the president for his repeated violations.
Americans love their Constitution and are proud of the rule of law. Congress has a job approval rating of 15%, according to last week’s Gallup poll. Standing up for the Constitution might improve it.
On Sept. 9, Congress will return from its undeserved five-week vacation to face the reality that it has failed to pass a budget for the coming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. To keep the government running, Congress must vote a continuing resolution, which is a stopgap measure allowing the president to draw down money from the Treasury to pay federal employees and other bills.
Congress should seize the opportunity to give Obama – who calls himself a constitutional expert – a lesson in checks and balances.
The framers devised checks and balances as a routine way to stop presidents from trying to grab more power than the Constitution allowed, without subjecting the nation to the ordeal of impeachment.
The key check is Congress’ power over the purse. House Speaker John Boehner has already said there will be a continuing resolution, not a government shutdown, but he should attach a condition: Mr. President, obey the Constitution.
It’s unlikely many Democrats will challenge the president’s unconstitutional actions, but Republicans should define themselves as the party defending the Constitution. For starters, that would mean telling the president he must implement the Obama health law as it was enacted or delay the entire law for a year.
Obama has been picking and choosing what parts of the law he will implement, including delaying the employer mandate and the caps on out of pocket expenses for policy holders, two key provisions the law stated “shall” be implemented Jan. 1, 2014.
These are not victim less crimes. They shift billions of dollars in costs from winners (employers and insurers) to losers (taxpayers and seriously ill patients).
According to the Congressional Research Service, half the deadlines in the law have been missed so far. The result is a mangled version of what Congress enacted in 2010.
The Supreme Court has ruled, “There is no provision in the Constitution that authorizes the president to enact, amend, or to repeal statutes” (Clinton v. City of New York, 1998). The president is obliged to enforce the law as written. For the Speaker to make the continuing resolution contingent on a one-year delay in ObamaCare is righting a constitutional wrong.
Boehner could go further. Obama has unconstitutionally declined to enforce some immigration laws and some criminal drug laws, in effect changing the law without Congress’ consent.
The continuing resolution could also make funding of the Justice Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service conditional on the president’s faithfully executing the law.
In Federalist 58, James Madison, the chief architect of the Constitution, explained that Congress’ power to withhold funding is the “most effectual tool” to prevent a president from abusing power.
In 1970, Congress used that tool to defund and stymie President Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia. In 1985, Congress used its power of the purse to cut off President Reagan’s unauthorized dealings with the Nicaraguan Contras.
This time, the stakes are higher. If Obama is allowed to ignore or delay laws, future presidents – whether Republican or Democrat – will assume the same power to dictate what the law is.
There will be no point in electing a Congress to make laws if a president picks and chooses what to enforce. In this country, the rule of law is supposed to be king, not the president.
* McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York, founder of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and the author of “Beating Obamacare.” www.BetsyMcCaughey.com
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The Congressional war over Obamacare may, or may not, be a constitutional crisis. It most definitely draws into question the "the supreme law of the land" that our Constitution represents. The President of the United States has wantonly broken a law passed by Congress that he himself signed into law by choosing which parts of the Affordable Care Act he would like enforced and/or which parts he would like delayed or ignored. There is NO provision in The Affordable Care "law" that allows for these actions by the President.
Clearly, based on the "supreme law of the land", THE US CONSTITUTION, the President has NO power to change, modify, or abridge ANY Federal law without the consent of the US Congress.
If President Obama thinks he can delay portions of Obamacare, he should think again. He has no Constitutional authority to do so. If the Congress wants to delay portions or ALL of Obamacare, short of more public hissy fits, there is little the President can do to stop them...they have The Law Of The Land on their side.
What the US House of Representatives should be doing is demanding that Obamacare be implemented FULLY, as the Affordable Care Act law demands, along with their continuing resolution to fund the US Government.
The President has obviously waived portions of the law because he knows that if they are included, his namesake will be an epic failure, and economic catastrophe. Either the Affordable Care Act law should be followed to the letter, delayed completely, or stricken from the federal register.
If the President refuses to uphold the letter of the law, IMPEACH HIM.
On Saturday, the Obama Administration showed some lawmakers videos of what it "believes" is the aftermath of the Syrian government's chemical attack on its own citizens. The pictures of suffering and death are not pretty. Unfortunately, for the President, and for those that support his "belief" that the Syrian Government attacked its own citizens with chemical gas, these videos and pictures do nothing to prove who attacked whom.
If the pictures and videos are real, do we know where and when they were taken? The certainly don't tell us who attacked these people if they were indeed attacked. We don't even know who these people are just from these videos and pictures. Are they Syrians? Are they Iraqi Kurds captured on film many years ago after Saddam Hussein gassed them? We don't know from these videos what these people were exposed to that caused the "reported' sickness and death. For all we know these people were in the vicinity of an industrial chemical accident. The videos and pictures certainly don't tell us why they were attacked, or if they really were.
If you ask me [thank you for asking], President Obama has not proved a damn thing with his little video montage. It's pretty simple really, The President "believes" he has the complete story regarding the alleged Syrian gas attack that occurred on August 21, 2013. He can believe whatever he wants, but without a thorough investigation and answers to the 5 Ws, he really doesn't know a damn thing about what he claims to know. And that goes triple-double for US Secretary of State, John Kerry.
The 5 Ws? According to Wikipedia, The 5 Ws are questions whose answers are considered basic in information-gathering. They are often mentioned in journalism, research, and police investigations. They constitute a formula for getting the complete story on a subject. According to the principle of the Five Ws, a report can only be considered complete if it answers these questions starting with an interrogative word:
Who is it about?
What happened?
When did it take place?
Where did it take place?
Why did it happen?
The questions I asked above are simple questions a skeptic would ask if faced with the Obama Administrations videos, and their claims of "this is proof Syrian President Assad gassed his own people". If I may digress for just a moment...didn't the Obama Administration use YouTube videos to try to explain away the murders of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya just one year ago? Would it surprise anybody to learn that events in Benghazi one year ago are tied to recent events? Is it any wonder then, that so few people, at home and abroad, believe this administration's video claims of "undeniable proof" that the Syrian Government launched a gas attack on civilians in a civil war?
Are we supposed to believe the President of The United States [ANY President] just because he says he "believes" his evidence is proof? The Obama Administration's video "evidence" is little more than hearsay really, it proves nothing simply because it can't answer any of my simple questions.
The President, has to date, not given any evidence to anyone that proves the Syrian Government is behind this alleged August 21, 2013 chemical gas attack. None! Why? Because he has none. And he has none because as each day passes, it becomes more clear to the international community and American citizens that IF there was a chemical gas attack in Syria, it was perpetrated by a rebel group(s) operating inside Syria that came from outside of Syria.
Perhaps the Obama Administration has forgotten ignored the March 2013 chemical gas attack in Syria which led the UN to accuse the Syrian Rebels of chemical weapons use.
Syrian rebels have made use of the deadly nerve agent sarin in their war-torn country's conflict, UN human rights investigator Carla del Ponte has said.
"According to the testimonies we have gathered, the rebels have used chemical weapons, making use of sarin gas," del Ponte, a former war crimes prosecutor, said in an interview with Swiss radio late on Sunday.
"We still have to deepen our investigation, verify and confirm (the findings) through new witness testimony, but according to what we have established so far, it is at the moment opponents of the regime who are using sarin gas," she added.
Where was our brave and moral President back in May when this report came out? Chemical weapons were allegedly used by combatants in a civil war, and the President did....NOTHING!? Really? Who's side is he on?
The Syrian rebels posed casually, standing over their prisoners with firearms pointed down at the shirtless and terrified men.
The prisoners, seven in all, were captured Syrian soldiers. Five were trussed, their backs marked with red welts. They kept their faces pressed to the dirt as the rebels’ commander recited a bitter revolutionary verse.
“For fifty years, they are companions to corruption,” he said. “We swear to the Lord of the Throne, that this is our oath: We will take revenge.”
The moment the poem ended, the commander, known as “the Uncle,” fired a bullet into the back of the first prisoner’s head. His gunmen followed suit, promptly killing all the men at their feet.
This scene, documented in a video smuggled out of Syria a few days ago by a former rebel who grew disgusted by the killings, offers a dark insight into how many rebels have adopted some of the same brutal and ruthless tactics as the regime they are trying to overthrow.
As the United States debates whether to support the Obama administration’s proposal that Syrian forces should be attacked for using chemical weapons against civilians, this video, shot in the spring of 2012, joins a growing body of evidence of an increasingly criminal environment populated by gangs of highwaymen, kidnappers and killers.
The video also offers a reminder of the foreign policy puzzle the United States faces in finding rebel allies as some members of Congress, including Senator John McCain, press for more robust military support for the opposition.
In the more than two years this civil war has carried on, a large part of the Syrian opposition has formed a loose command structure that has found support from several Arab nations, and, to a more limited degree, the West. Other elements of the opposition have assumed an extremist cast, and openly allied with Al Qaeda.
Across much of Syria, where rebels with Western support live and fight, areas outside of government influence have evolved into a complex guerrilla and criminal landscape.
That has raised the prospect that American military action could inadvertently strengthen Islamic extremists and criminals.
Seriously. Who's side is Obama on? In a report released September 1, 2013 by Global Research, we may just get an answer to this simple, but necessary to ask, question.
There is a growing volume of new evidence from numerous sources in the Middle East — mostly affiliated with the Syrian opposition and its sponsors and supporters — which makes a very strong case, based on solid circumstantial evidence, that the August 21, 2013, chemical strike in the Damascus suburbs was indeed a pre-meditated provocation by the Syrian opposition.
The extent of US foreknowledge of this provocation needs further investigation because available data puts the “horror” of the Barack Obama White House in a different and disturbing light.
On August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major and irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and representatives of Qatari, Turkish, and US Intelligence [“Mukhabarat Amriki”] took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors. Very senior opposition commanders who had arrived from Istanbul briefed the regional commanders of an imminent escalation in the fighting due to “a war-changing development” which would, in turn, lead to a US-led bombing of Syria.
The opposition forces had to quickly prepare their forces for exploiting the US-led bombing in order to march on Damascus and topple the Bashar al-Assad Government, the senior commanders explained. The Qatari and Turkish intelligence officials assured the Syrian regional commanders that they would be provided with plenty of weapons for the coming offensive.
Indeed, unprecedented weapons distribution started in all opposition camps in Hatay Province on August 21-23, 2013. In the Reyhanli area alone, opposition forces received well in excess of 400 tons of weapons, mainly anti-aircraft weaponry from shoulder-fired missiles to ammunition for light-guns and machineguns. The weapons were distributed from store-houses controlled by Qatari and Turkish Intelligence under the tight supervision of US Intelligence.
These weapons were loaded on more than 20 trailer-trucks which crossed into northern Syria and distributed the weapons to several depots. Follow-up weapon shipments, also several hundred tons, took place over the weekend of August 24-25, 2013, and included mainly sophisticated anti-tank guided missiles and rockets. Opposition officials in Hatay said that these weapon shipments were “the biggest” they had received “since the beginning of the turmoil more than two years ago”. The deliveries from Hatay went to all the rebel forces operating in the Idlib-to-Aleppo area, including the al-Qaida affiliated jihadists (who constitute the largest rebel forces in the area).
Several senior officials from both the Syrian opposition and sponsoring Arab states stressed that these weapon deliveries were specifically in anticipation for exploiting the impact of imminent bombing of Syria by the US and the Western allies. The latest strategy formulation and coordination meetings took place on August 26, 2013. The political coordination meeting took place in Istanbul and was attended by US Amb. Robert Ford.
More important were the military and operational coordination meetings at the Antakya garrison. Senior Turkish, Qatari, and US Intelligence officials attended in addition to the Syrian senior (opposition) commanders. The Syrians were informed that bombing would start in a few days.
“The opposition was told in clear terms that action to deter further use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime could come as early as in the next few days,” a Syrian participant in the meeting said. Another Syrian participant said that he was convinced US bombing was scheduled to begin on Thursday, August 29, 2013. Several participants — both Syrian and Arab — stressed that the assurances of forthcoming bombing were most explicit even as formally Obama is still undecided.
The descriptions of these meetings raise the question of the extent of foreknowledge of US Intelligence, and therefore, the Obama White House. All the sources consulted — both Syrian and Arab — stressed that officials of the “Mukhabarat Amriki” actively participated in the meetings and briefings in Turkey. Therefore, at the very least, they should have known that the opposition leaders were anticipating “a war-changing development”: that is, a dramatic event which would provoke a US-led military intervention.
That's a damn good question...particularly when there appears to be mounting "evidence" that the Obama Administration's claims against the Syrian Government are false...if not outright lies.
Things aren't exactly warming up between the Obama administration and Vladimir Putin, even as President Obama arrived in St. Petersburg for the G-20 summit.
Putin called Obama Secretary of State John Kerry a liar over Kerry's testimony this week before Congress.
The question may be al-Qaeda's influence on the Syrian rebels, an issue Kerry has downplayed.
Speaking to his human rights council Wednesday, Putin said, "This was very unpleasant and surprising for me. We talk to them (the Americans), and we assume they are decent people, but he is lying and he knows that he is lying. This is sad."
It would be difficult NOT to believe that intelligence is being manipulated to justify war against Syria. The Obama Administration has produced absolutely NO EVIDENCE that directly links the Syrian Government to a chemical gas attack.
With the United States threatening to attack Syria, U.S. and allied intelligence services are still trying to work out who ordered the poison gas attack on rebel-held neighborhoods near Damascus.
No direct link to President Bashar al-Assad or his inner circle has been publicly demonstrated, and some U.S. sources say intelligence experts are not sure whether the Syrian leader knew of the attack before it was launched or was only informed about it afterward.
The Obama administration has selectively used intelligence to justify military strikes on Syria, formermilitary officers with access to the original intelligence reports say, in a manner that goes far beyond what critics charged the Bush administration of doing in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war.
According to these officers, who served in top positions in the United States, Britain, France, Israel, and Jordan, a Syrian military communication intercepted by Israel’s famed Unit 8200 electronic intelligence outfit has been doctored so that it leads a reader to just the opposite conclusion reached by the original report.
_________
The doctored report was picked up on Israel’s Channel 2 TV on Aug. 24, then by Focus magazine in Germany, the Times of Israel, and eventually by The Cable in Washington, DC.
According to the doctored report, the chemical attack was carried out by the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division of the Syrian Army, an elite unit commanded by Maher al-Assad, the president’s brother.
However, the original communication intercepted by Unit 8200 between a major in command of the rocket troops assigned to the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division, and the general staff,shows just the opposite.
The general staff officer asked the major if he was responsible for the chemical weapons attack. From the tone of the conversation, it was clear that “the Syrian general staff were out of their minds with panic that an unauthorized strike had been launched by the 155th Brigade in express defiance of their instructions,” the former officers say.
According to the transcript of the original Unit 8200 report, the major “hotly denied firing any of his missiles” and invited the general staff to come and verify that all his weapons were present.
The report contains a note at the end that the major was interrogated by Syrian intelligence for three days, then returned to command of his unit. “All of his weapons were accounted for,” the report stated.
___________
An Egyptian intelligence report describes a meeting in Turkey between military intelligence officials from Turkey and Qatar and Syrian rebels. One of the participants states, “there will be a game changing event on August 21st” that will “bring the U.S. into a bombing campaign”against the Syrian regime.
The chemical weapons strike on Moudhamiya, an area under rebel control, took place on August 21.“Egyptian military intelligence insists it was a combined Turkish/Qatar/rebel false flag operation,” said a source familiar with the report.
Why would 12 very high-level former intelligence officials write the following memorandum to President Obama?:
We regret to inform you that some of our former co-workers are telling us, categorically, that contrary to the claims of your administration, the most reliable intelligence shows that Bashar al-Assad was NOT responsible for the chemical incident that killed and injured Syrian civilians on August 21, and that British intelligence officials also know this. In writing this brief report, we choose to assume that you have not been fully informed because your advisers decided to afford you the opportunity for what is commonly known as “plausible denial.”
________
There is a growing body of evidence from numerous sources in the Middle East — mostly affiliated with the Syrian opposition and its supporters — providing a strong circumstantial case that the August 21 chemical incident was a pre-planned provocation by the Syrian opposition and its Saudi and Turkish supporters. The aim is reported to have been to create the kind of incident that would bring the United States into the war.
According to some reports, canisters containing chemical agent were brought into a suburb of Damascus, where they were then opened. Some people in the immediate vicinity died; others were injured.
We are unaware of any reliable evidence that a Syrian military rocket capable of carrying a chemical agent was fired into the area. In fact, we are aware of no reliable physical evidence to support the claim that this was a result of a strike by a Syrian military unit with expertise in chemical weapons.
In addition, we have learned that on August 13-14, 2013, Western-sponsored opposition forces in Turkey started advance preparations for a major, irregular military surge. Initial meetings between senior opposition military commanders and Qatari, Turkish and U.S. intelligence officials took place at the converted Turkish military garrison in Antakya, Hatay Province, now used as the command center and headquarters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and their foreign sponsors.
Senior opposition commanders who came from Istanbul pre-briefed the regional commanders on animminent escalation in the fighting due to “a war-changing development,” which, in turn, would lead to a U.S.-led bombing of Syria.
At operations coordinating meetings at Antakya, attended by senior Turkish, Qatari and U.S. intelligence officials as well as senior commanders of the Syrian opposition, the Syrians were told that the bombing would start in a few days. Opposition leaders were ordered to prepare their forces quickly to exploit the U.S. bombing, march into Damascus, and remove the Bashar al-Assad government
The Qatari and Turkish intelligence officials assured the Syrian regional commanders that they would be provided with plenty of weapons for the coming offensive. And they were. A weapons distribution operation unprecedented in scope began in all opposition camps on August 21-23. The weapons were distributed from storehouses controlled by Qatari and Turkish intelligence under the tight supervision of U.S. intelligence officers.
The following Point-By-Point Rebuttal of U.S. Case for War In Syria is quite damning of the Obama Administrations claims to possess "undeniable evidence" that the Syrian Government was behind the chemical gas attack.
Is it any wonder that the World Politic AND the majority of American Citizens are so vehemently opposed to the Obama Administrations desire to "drop some targeted munitions on Syria". Who are they kidding? Are we supposed to believe that Syria, Russia, and Iran are just going to sit idly by while we launch cruise missiles at their friends in Syria? Really? Isn't that a bit naive?
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey has told Obama that a strike on Syria will end in involvement with Iran and Russia.
“The president has been told point blank that this could be the start of a military intervention that could take months or even a year until there is any resolution,” a source who has been following the debate said.
The sources said the biggest opponent of a military campaign against Syria has been the chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey. They said Dempsey, who sought to maintain a low profile, has warned that the U.S. military was not ready for any sustained conflict against Syria that could involve two of its leading allies, Iran and Russia.
“Dempsey has been unusually blunt in his remarks with both Obama and Vice President Joe Biden,” the source said. “His assessment is that any U.S.
war against Assad will automatically involve his foreign allies, and that means Teheran and to a smaller extent, Moscow.” Source: World Tribune
Do the President and the Secretary of State even understand the stakes of "doing the right thing", regardless of the US Citizens opinion?
In April, Dempsey said that the US military could force down Syria’s warplanes and disrupt its air defenses, but not without significant peril to US pilots, all for a negligible impact on dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Dempsey’s nomination for a new term as chairman was even briefly delayed in the Senate last month after pro-war senators demanded fuller advice about Syria.
In response, Dempsey listed nearly every military option mooted, from limited strikes to full-blown US intervention, and found them fraught with risk and expense. He emphasized the difficulty of staying out of the Syrian civil war once Washington launches any military action.
“Once we take action, we should be prepared for what comes next,” Dempsey wrote to the committee on 19 July. “Deeper involvement is hard to avoid.”
Even the “limited stand-off strikes” of the sort the Obama administration is now considering would require “hundreds of aircraft, ships submarines and other enablers.” The impact on Assad would be felt “over time” in the form of a “significant degradation of regime capabilities,” but there is a risk that “the regime could withstand limited strikes by dispersing its assets.” Source: The Guardian
It's just an observation of a produce clerk, but from the information I have come across above, it looks like the Obama Administration doesn't have ANY proof of "who" was behind the August 21, 2013 chemical gas attack in Syria. They can't prove that the people in the videos are victims of a Syrian gas attack on August 21st.. To date he hasn't even proved "what" chemical gas, if any, was used in the alleged attack. The "where" and "when" of the incident appear to be known. Can the President tell us "why" the Syrian Government would gas the Syrian Rebels when by all reports they have been kicking the rebels asses.
In East Ghouta the suburbs east of the capital where the chemical attack took place, jihadi rebels are not dominant, according to people who live and work there. "Why" would the Syrian Government attack a Damascus suburb where there are no bad guy rebels Mr. President? That's the "why" that interests this observer. It would certainly make a nice "false flag" target for the Al-Qaeda aligned rebels to "frame" the Syrian Government.
Clearly the Obama Administration has too many questions left unanswered to convince ANYBODY of the need to drop bombs on Syria. Just because the US Government says they should, doesn't make it right. [How refreshing!] [Never mind the fact that Syria has NOT attacked the United States, or it's allies.] And too many loose ends are pointing to the administrations possible involvement is the alleged attack itself. We DO NOT know the complete story, but the President seems quite eager to got to war for a "Peace President". It would be VERY VERY foolish for the President to move forward with an ill advised attack on Syria considering what we have observed here.
