Speaking to the graduating class of U.S. Naval Academy, President Barack Obama told the graduates that the best way to protect our nation is to stand up to its principles. I discussed the detainee issue last night on this segment of Countdown.
President Obama stated: “We uphold our fundamental principles and values not just because we choose to, but because we swear to — not because they feel good, but because they help keep us safe, . . . When America strays from our values, it not only undermines the rule of law, it alienates us from our allies, it energizes our adversaries and it endangers our national security and the lives of our troops.”
If only the White House would match its actions to its rhetoric, this country would be able to regain our moral and legal leadership in this troubled world. He needs to guarantee a trial for all detainees and to investigate the U.S. torture program.
For the story, click here.
AY:
“Mespo72Cubed,
By George I got it. You are a Jeffersonian Federalist. Aren’t you now?
So I see you did not defend me in the smacking I got. Oh well I did a hell of a job defending myself or would that be defensing myself. I was kind but categorically firm.”
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I am.* I didn’t see the need to do so. You did and you were. Here’s a little poem for your reward but you will notice it has a particular reference for the subject of our thread.
Show me the Way
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 – 1919)
Show me the way that leads to the true life.
I do not care what tempests may assail me,
I shall be given courage for the strife;
I know my strength will not desert or fail me;
I know that I shall conquer in the fray:
Show me the way.
Show me the way up to a higher plane,
Where body shall be servant to the soul.
I do not care what tides of woe or pain
Across my life their angry waves may roll,
If I but reach the end I seek, some day:
Show me the way.
Show me the way, and let me bravely climb
Above vain grievings for unworthy treasures;
Above all sorrow that finds balm in time;
Above small triumphs or belittling pleasures;
Up to those heights where these things seem child’s-play:
Show me the way.
Show me the way to that calm, perfect peace
Which springs from an inward consciousness of right;
To where all conflicts with the flesh shall cease,
And self shall radiate with the spirit’s light.
Though hard the journey and the strife, I pray,
Show me the way.
*And my earlier posts proved that many months ago. As TJ said “”We are all republicans — we are all federalists.”
cherry 1, May 22, 2009 at 10:19 pm
Poll Shows Surge Under Obama in Voters Calling
Themselves ‘Independent”
Friday, May 22, 2009
FoxNews.com ^ | May 22, 2009
Conservatives are holding their own….
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Evidently they are not Catholic priests. But who would want to be in a party of people that cannot think for themselves. Have to copy and past every word they place on a blog. Child Molesters and religious zealots. Thats why they are holding.
Come on Cherry. You can do better than make another claim that you can’t back up. You still didn’t give any documentation of your claim that the midshipmen didn’t want Obama at the graduation. If your claim is correct why did the overseas deployed military members donate to Obama’s campaign six times greater than they did to McCain?http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/15/why-do-military-donations-favor-obama-over-mccain/ & http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-soltz/deployed-troops-donate-to_b_118987.html. I could go on but I think that you might get the idea that your claim is all wet. By the way, by all accounts, the midshipmen loved Obama and his speech. I bet even John McCain’s son who graduated enjoyed the speech.
Whoa, bad media, stiffing little kids. waytogo Bama baby:
NBC reports that a group of kindergartners from Stafford County, Virginia were turned away at the gate on Thursday morning for being too late for their White House tour.
Parents say they were just 10 minutes late for the scheduled tour. School officials say White House staff said they needed to get ready for the president’s event with the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers, so they couldn’t come in.
The person who headed this White House trip up came out and said, ‘I’m sorry, the White House tour’s off.’ There were a lot of crying kids,” parent Barbara Stine said….
Paty Stine said the White House staff should have made an exception. She feels the kindergarteners were snubbed for the Steelers.
“Here we have President Obama and his administration saying, ‘Here we are for the common, middle class people,’ and here he is not letting 150 5- and 6-year-olds into the White House because he’s throwing a lunch for a bunch of grown millionaires,” Stine said.
Ok cherry, so whats your point. Tired of giving Exxon more of your money? Why was gas about 2.00 per gallon when the barrel was about 34 dollars? How come the price of gasoline is not below 1.35 at 34 dollars a barrel? What did Exxon do with the 5 billion dollars that FEMA gave them to rebuild the refinery in LA after Katrine? Why do people complain that the government is subsidizing the auto industry when very few people complained about the financial market and why does the government need to subsidize oil companies anyway? In the last 5 years Exxon alone has over 150 billion in Profits. Do you think that if they pollute the Florida coast line as good as they did the Gulf of Mexico side they will make gas cheaper?
I have a bridge to sell you in Arizona, I hear tell it used to be in London. I’ll sell you my entire interest tonight. I will make you a sweet deal ok?
Poll Shows Surge Under Obama in Voters Calling
Themselves ‘Independent”
Friday, May 22, 2009
FoxNews.com ^ | May 22, 2009
Conservatives are holding their own, while the ranks of independents have skyrocketed since November’s presidential election, the latest Pew Research Center poll shows.
The poll of 3,013 adults from March 31 to April 21 found that Democrats have begun losing ground.
Independent and unaffiliated voters are approaching record highs. The implications for the president, Congress and the political parties in the next election could be profound.
Offshore Oil Suffers From Obama Restrictions on New Drilling
Reuters
May 22, 2009
Congress lifted its 27-year moratorium on drilling off Florida and the East and West Coast last year, but billions of barrels of that oil remains untouched and off-limits because the Obama administration has postponed development there.
This week the oil industry went to Congress & complained that Obama proposed hiking their taxes by $70 billion over 5 years, including a $122 million on leases the administration considers non-producing.
“If you add taxes, it is just going to make it much more expensive. That means U.S. jobs are exported and we won’t get the revenues from royalties,” a spokesperson for the oil industry warned.
Oil executives fear the lesson of $5-a-gallon gasoline is lost, and that American consumers will pay the price, vulnerable to shortages in the short term and a continued dependence on foreign oil for decades to come.
Gasoline prices have already risen steadily the last 4 months to a 2009 high of $2.75 per gallon average. Analysts are quick to point out production gains of the last year under the Bush administration have been eliminated. As a result the country is purchasing more oil as a percentage of supply than had been the case just months ago.
cherry,
Do you need you other teeth just to suck? suck the oil and salt off? How do you get that salty taste out of your mouth, do you spit or swallow?
Isn’t the swallow the bird which is the new national symbol of the New Republican Party?
cherry 1, May 22, 2009 at 10:00 pm
LOL! Hell hath no fury like liberals scorned by their own annoited ONE….
LOL!
Just sitting with the popcorn enjoying the show.
************************************
You still have you original teeth? Oh my you are lucky.
cherry 1, May 22, 2009 at 10:03 pm
rafflaw, our soldiers love(d) President Bush and they don’t respect the liar Obama PERIOD.
**************************************
I bet they did. Bush gave every soldier of fortune of Blackwater lifetime job security. You know what is ironic about that cherry? Betsy DeVos (Richard DeVos Owner and CEO of AmWay’s) her brother is the leader of Blackwater. I wonder what the monied connection is in that? Could you pull a coup off like that? Unfortunately, the payments come from the CIA and not the DOD so we don’t know how much they are actually earning. Hummmm, I got a problem with that.
I bet you sell Amway don’t you? Come on admit it.
Mespo72Cubed,
By George I got it. You are a Jeffersonian Federalist. Aren’t you now?
So I see you did not defend me in the smacking I got. Oh well I did a hell of a job defending myself or would that be defensing myself. I was kind but categorically firm.
rafflaw, our soldiers love(d) President Bush and they don’t respect the liar Obama PERIOD.
LOL! Hell hath no fury like liberals scorned by their own annoited ONE….
LOL!
Just sitting with the popcorn enjoying the show.
Funny how many times Obama can get on TV and say one thing and do another and STILL you liberals love the ONE….
LOL!
Cherry,
Please produce the facts to support your claim above, “It’s widespread common knowledge here that the Naval Academy graduates didn’t want any part of Obama being at their graduation.” Put your money where your mouth is and show us proof of that outrageous BS.
Sorry JT but you had this coming or the ghost of the great jurist would haunt me forever:
“Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purpose is beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
– Hon. Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1856-1941)
Personally, I prefer this quotation:
“The peculiar circumstances of the moment may render a measure more or less wise, but cannot render it more or less constitutional.”
– Chief Justice John Marshall (John Marshall, A Friend of the Constitution, Alexandria Gazette, July 5, 1819, reprinted in John Marshall’s Defense of McCulloch v. Maryland 190-91 (Gerald Gunther ed., 1969).
could someone be kind enough to present a scenario where these few untriable terrorists would be dealt with. i keep hearing a great deal of chatter regarding the rule of law and how BO is going against his word on this matter. turley has been telling anyone who would listen that this president is breaking the rule of law and how he wishes for such a state of affairs to end.
tonight on countdown, keith asked the professor what his solution would be – he offered NONE. he only returned to his usual talking points of how this country is grounded in the rule of law and how the president is not above the law. all well said, learned man and i absolutely share such lovely sentiments. yet in this case we are faced with hard choices – what would your solution be vis-a-vis hard terrorists where the state lacks hard facts.
anyone wishing to dismiss such a view as mere conjecture need only examine any recent legal judgements to understand that this happens all the time. that is, the legal system is often faced with scenarios where hardened criminals are allowed to walk free given a dearth of evidence yet who would propose that this be the ultimate solution to this conundrum
here we have men – perhaps financier, trainers, teachers, clerics, commanders, bomb engineers, whom we know of their work – that is key there, we know of their work yet we lack any hard evidence against them. also remove any possibility of flipping anyone against the other – so none will turn state evidence. so what should the state do here.
go before a grand jury with nothing but a prayer – if even the judge allows it to proceed that far. legally these people would be released at their own recourse since the state cannot prove its case yet we know what they do – they are john gotti except 100 times worse. new york could monitor john gotti even as they built a case against him and even them needed his deputy to turn state evidence. yet here, the fbi-cia cannot monitor these men upon their release in wait for them for such a time as when they are ready to re-arrest them.
so i return again to my original question – what would you do. simply release them purely for the sake of making your soul feel better, afterall justice prevailed. really.
perhaps am a evil liberal – yet i am willing to hold these people indefinately until such a time as we can construct a proper course of action. worst scenario – i even sanction their permanent detention without charges.
Guys,
There’s good evidence for what I wrote. Keep looking up the information. I don’t think the NY Review of Books is called “troll information central”. Mark Danner published the torture info from the Red Cross in that publication. I gave you the link to Democracy Now, please have the honor and courage to listen to it before you say what I said is untrue. I cannot back down on these facts. It doesn’t matter to me who is doing the action that is wrong. When it was Bush it was wrong. Now that it is Obama, it’s still wrong.
hey Cherry, Dick Cheney is a lying prick. He has CONSTANTLY claimed that attacking Iraq was in direct connection with 9-11 and he also CONSTANTLY claimed that he has never made that connection. See here:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJiNtpIpD6k&hl=en&fs=1]
And now here this prick is again making an Iraq/9-11 connection by CONTINUALLY saying “9-11”, “9-11” in his speech. This following video shows the REAL motives for Dick Cheney:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onI_jJzc1OA&hl=en&fs=1]
JT:
“Obama: We Must Uphold Our Principles To Be Safe and Strong”
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Oh that’s what he said alright, but he really meant, “We Must Uphold Our PrincipALS To Be Safe and Strong.” (i.e. Bush, Cheney, Bybee et als who ran the Country) Who would have thought the Republic would be done in by homonyms.
I have a question for the esteemed readers of this blog: Couldn’t President Obama just declare war on al Qaeda? It seems like this would solve some of the difficult issues here – certainly it would be no problem to get congress to approve such a measure and then anyone associated with al Qaeda could effectively be held indefinitely (or until al Qaeda surrendered or was destroyed) as prisoners of war in a perfectly legal manner (excepting of course their past treatment). This seems so simple that it is probably naive somehow, but I can’t see anything wrong with it. What do you guys think?