The Conservative Papers » Barack Obama

Jeremiah Wright can sink Obama

alpineski — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:33:27 +0000

President’s former pastors telling story of betrayal and bribery as well as Obamas Muslims past.

He’s back. And this time, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright threatens to engulf President Obama in a major scandal – one that could doom his re-election. Edward Klein in his recent biography of Mr. Obama, “The Amateur,” interviewed Mr. Wright about the president’s past. On tape and on the record, Mr. Wright claims that in 2008, the Obama campaign offered $150,000 to buy his silence. If this is true – and I stress if – Mr. Obama may have committed a crime, and if so, he should be prosecuted and sent to prison. Wrightgate could bring down the Obama presidency.

America was introduced to Mr. Wright in the spring of 2008. The racist, America-hating pastor quickly became an embarrassment to then-candidate Barack Obama. The more cable TV shows endlessly looped Mr. Wright’s extremist, bigoted tirades, the more of a political liability he became to the Obama campaign. Mr. Obama was in full panic; the long association with his radical pastor threatened to derail the Democratic nominee’s chances to defeat Sen. John McCain. Mr. Klein says that according to Mr. Wright, the Obama campaign sent an emissary. The goal: to bribe Mr. Wright in exchange for his agreement to disappear from public view until after the election.

In particular, Mr. Wright alleges that Dr. Eric Whitaker, a close Obama friend, sent an email proposing $150,000 to muzzle the pastor; Mr. Wright says he refused. (The Obama administration recently awarded a $6 million grant to the University of Chicago Medical Center’s Urban Health Initiative. Who runs the initiative? You guessed it: Dr. Whitaker.) Then, Mr. Wright claims, Mr. Obama personally visited him, urging the pastor to remain silent and do nothing that would cripple the Obama candidacy.

According to Mr. Klein, Mr. Wright directly contradicts Mr. Obama’s narrative of having little contact with Trinity United Church. Instead, Mr. Wright alleges that he was Mr. Obama’s close spiritual and political adviser, someone who for more than 20 years shaped the future president’s worldview. In fact, the pastor claims that he was like “a second father” to Mr. Obama.

Furthermore, Mr. Wright says Mr. Obama possessed an “Islamic background” and despite his conversion to Christianity has never abandoned his Muslim roots. In short, Mr. Wright appears to be confirming what I have argued for years: Mr. Obama is a cultural Muslim whose Christianity is deeply tied to black liberation theology – the belief that America and the West have an evil, imperialist civilization bent on oppressing the Third World.

Mr. Wright’s comments beg a fundamental question: Why now? Why is he speaking out about Mr. Obama at this moment? The racial firebrand admits he feels burned; Mr. Obama threw him under the bus to win the 2008 election. Mr. Wright is bitter and angry. Yet what if he is telling the truth? He has injected himself into the center of a potential political storm.

This is why his allegations must be investigated. House Republicans should demand that Congress subpoena Mr. Wright and force him to testify under oath – especially about his claims that the Obama campaign offered $150,000 to buy him off. Congressional investigators need to subpoena Dr. Whitaker as well and track down his supposed emails in which the offer was made. If true, the Obama team violated campaign laws and maybe worse.

Mr. Wright’s charges are possibly the tip of the iceberg, exposing the vast corruption at the heart of the administration’s Chicago-style politics. Who else has been offered cash in exchange for complicity?

Moreover, Mr. Obama’s Islamic roots are becoming increasingly apparent – despite the best efforts of the liberal media to cover this up. In 2008, any questions raised about his Muslim heritage were denounced as “Islamophobic” and beyond the pale. For example, I was accused by the New York Times of waging a smear campaign. Mr. Wright has shown that they were wrong. The evidence was there for all to see. It was obvious. Mr. Obama’s father and stepfather were Muslim; Mr. Obama attended a madrassa in Indonesia; as a boy, he studied the Koran; he has openly admitted that the “most beautiful sound” is the Muslim call for evening prayer (not, say, the “Star-Spangled Banner”); he frequently refers to Islam as a “revealed religion” while denigrating Christianity; and he claims that America is a “post-Christian” nation.

Mr. Obama’s powerful sympathies for the Islamic world explain much of his foreign policy – apologizing for American behavior in the Middle East, appeasing Iran, engaging in long-term nation-building in Afghanistan, abandoning Iraq, supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, empowering radical Islamists in Libya, backing the disastrous Arab Spring and the relentless undermining of Israel. In short, Mr. Obama is the true protege of Mr. Wright: an anti-colonial, anti-Western radical leftist who seeks to use U.S. power in the service of the Arab street. In many ways, he is our first Muslim president.

Therefore, it would be a great irony of history if the pastor who baptized Mr. Obama’s children, presided over his marriage to Michelle, guided his conversion to black liberation theology and spent more than two decades as his spiritual and religious mentor turns out to be the man who triggers the president’s downfall. Maybe Mr. Obama cannot outrun his past, after all.

By: Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a columnist at The Washington Times and president of the Edmund Burke Institute.Popular Posts:

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Wright Says Obama Tried to Bribe Him

alpineski — Mon, 21 May 2012 18:36:28 +0000

When sermons of Obama’s Chicago pastor, Jeremiah Wright, surfaced during the Iowa primaries, it threatened to derail Obama’s campaign. ABC aired one where Wright screamed, “G-ddamn America!” Edward Klein interviewed Wright, who told him Obama’s team tried to buy his silence.

‘Man, the media ate me alive,” Wright told me when we met in his office at Chicago’s Kwame Nkrumah Academy. “After the media went ballistic on me, I received an e-mail offering me money not to preach at all until the November presidential election.”

“Who sent the e-mail?” I asked Wright.

“It was from one of Barack’s closest friends.”

“He offered you money?”

“Not directly,” Wright said. “He sent the offer to one of the members of the church, who sent it to me.”

“How much money did he offer you?”

“One hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” Wright said.

“Did Obama himself ever make an effort to see you?”

“Yes,” Wright said. “Barack said he wanted to meet me in secret, in a secure place. And I said, ‘You’re used to coming to my home, you’ve been here countless times, so what’s wrong with coming to my home?’ So we met in the living room of the parsonage of Trinity United Church of Christ, at South Pleasant Avenue right off 95th Street, just Barack and me. I don’t know if he had a wire on him. His security was outside somewhere.

“And one of the first things Barack said was, ‘I really wish you wouldn’t do any more public speaking until after the November election.’ He knew I had some speaking engagements lined up, and he said, ‘I wish you wouldn’t speak. It’s gonna hurt the campaign if you do that.’

“And what did you say?” I asked. “I said, ‘I don’t see it that way. And anyway, how am I supposed to support my family?’ And he said, ‘Well, I wish you wouldn’t speak in public. The press is gonna eat you alive.’

“Barack said, ‘I’m sorry you don’t see it the way I do. Do you know what your problem is?’ And I said, ‘No, what’s my problem?’ And he said, ‘You have to tell the truth.’ I said, ‘That’s a good problem to have. That’s a good problem for all preachers to have. That’s why I could never be a politician.’

“And he said, ‘It’s going to get worse if you go out there and speak. It’s really going to get worse.’
“And he was so right.”

(NY Post)

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Top 10 Reasons Obama Won’t Be Reelected

alpineski — Mon, 21 May 2012 16:19:42 +0000

If you have any doubts that Obama will be sent packing from the White House in November, then cast your eyes at this list of reasons Barack Obama will be a one-term president.

1. Jobs, jobs, jobs

While the official unemployment rate has inched down to close to 8 percent, that number would be much higher if all the discouraged job hunters who stopped looking for work were included. Obama’s record as a job creator is dismal, because the basic tenets of his economic ideology are woefully misguided. Government doesn’t create jobs, it just gets in the way of companies that can.

2. Health care showdown

With the Supreme Court readying its decision on the president’s signature initiative, the Affordable Care Act will be front and center right as the campaign is heating up. No matter how the court rules, the nation will be reminded of the highly unpopular health care overhaul that was enacted with legislative bribes, using arcane congressional rules, and without a shred of bipartisanship.

3. Immigration showdown

The high court will also be issuing its decision on Arizona’s immigration law, SB 1070, which allows local police to check a person’s immigration status. With polls showing a strong majority of Americans favoring the legislation, Obama’s suit against the state is highly unpopular.

4. Dismal economy

The economy is not doing well, given the nation is in the midst of the weakest recovery on record and even that is petering out. With so-called Taxmageddon looming after the election when a host of tax hikes are automatically scheduled to take effect, an Obama victory would ensure a continued weak economy because he will gladly allow them to be enacted.

5. Big government run amok

From Obama’s fictional “Julia,” who can’t get through life without a raft of government programs, to his failed stimulus package, this president is all about crafting a big government solution to every problem. The American people are onto the community organizer spreading the wealth around. They would rather have economic freedom than a government handout.

6. Base depressed

The “hope and change” enthusiasm from 2008 is long gone as voter registration is lagging among the young and minorities. Without a fired-up base, Obama will be hard-pressed to match the turnout he enjoyed four years ago. Millions of voters expected this president to deliver more than high unemployment, a weak economy, and lackluster job creation.

7. GOP on fire

Despite a hard-fought primary, conservatives are beginning to coalesce behind Romney, knowing that the real issue is the defeat of Obama’s big government agenda. Because turnout is always the key in an election, the fact that conservatives will be fired up to remove Obama from office will make the difference.

8. Misguided energy policy

Obama canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, has kept vast amounts of U.S. energy resources off-limits for development, and, through the Environmental Protection Agency, is regulating the coal industry into oblivion. His energy policy is misguided by a devotion to the global warming alarmism cult. No wonder gas prices have soared since he took office.

9. Foreign policy misadventures

Obama is making a mess with his haphazard foreign policy, angering allies like Israel, resetting relations with Russia in the wrong direction, while doing nothing about Iran’s and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. Obama has apologized for the country’s actions and handed over decision-making to international bodies. Where America was once respected around the world, it is increasingly being seen as a paper tiger.

10. Scandal-plagued administration

From the Fast and Furious gun-running debacle to the General Services Administration’s lavish Las Vegas conferences, from Secret Services officials’ romp with Colombian prostitutes to the politically driven decision to dump taxpayer’s money on green energy companies like the now-bankrupt Solyndra, this administration is increasingly taking on the look of a scandal-plagued enterprise.

(Human Events)Popular Posts:

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Can You Hear Us Now? 43 Organizations Sue over HHS Mandate

kalel — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:18:45 +0000

Twelve separate lawsuits were filed today in district courts around the country on behalf of 43 separate religious organizations against the Obamacare anti-conscience mandate.

The complaints demand relief from the mandate that will force almost all employers to provide and pay for coverage of abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization regardless of the employers’ moral or religious objections.

The lawsuits span from the dioceses of Washington, D.C., and Joilet, Illinois, to Catholic Charities of Jackson, Mississippi, and the Michigan Catholic Conference. The range of the 43 institutions that have joined the dozen suits highlights the variety of Good Samaritan groups harmed by the mandate. These ministries serve inner-city children, the elderly, deaf, developmentally disabled, HIV/AIDS patients, and homeless—among many others. Catholic outreach, like many other religious groups in America, seeks to serve those most in need.

As Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, explained this morning:

For the first time in this country’s history, the government’s new definition of religious institutions suggests that some of the very institutions that put our faith into practice—schools, hospitals, and social service organizations—are not “religious enough.”

The mandate’s religious exemption protects only those employers whose primary mission is preaching or teaching doctrine and serve only individuals who share the same faith. Many religious employers—such as the health centers, schools, and service organizations that filed suits today—are left completely unprotected simply because they step outside the walls of a church to serve individuals in their communities who may not share their beliefs.

As Cardinal Wuerl continued:

The First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom, however, was not meant to protect merely the right to worship, but also the right to contribute the fruits of our faith to the common good. And until now, our government had chosen to honor that guarantee.… But [the Administration’s] conception of what constitutes the practice of religion is so narrow that even Mother Teresa would not have qualified. We know that such a law cannot stand.

Insinuating that faith should remain behind closed doors, not influencing or motivating the care for others, this mandate assaults the right to the free exercise of religion and will force organizations into an untenable choice: either violate their deeply held beliefs or forfeit the provision of health insurance all together and risk steep fines.

At a time of dire economic conditions in this country, the Obama Administration has determined to strip the very organizations that are helping the jobless, homeless, and others in need of their constitutional right to serve according to their beliefs.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, echoed the urgency of the plaintiffs’ actions, explaining, “We have tried negotiation with the Administration and legislation with the Congress—and we’ll keep at it—but there’s still no fix. Time is running out, and our valuable ministries and fundamental rights hang in the balance, so we have to resort to the courts now.”

Obama Administration officials have appeared deaf to the widespread outcry against the liberty-trampling contraception mandate. Despite legal action, national protests, and even a congressional lesson in religious liberty, the Obama Administration has remained indifferent to Americans’ legitimate outrage over the government’s coercive trampling of a First Amendment freedom.

But today, that din for religious liberty just got a lot louder and much harder to ignore.

Learn more about today’s lawsuits at www.preservereligiousfreedom.org.Popular Posts:

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New Video Reveals Jewish ‘Mixed Feelings’ on Obama

kalel — Mon, 21 May 2012 08:13:36 +0000

While recent polls have shown that American Jews still favor President Barack Obama for re-election, despite his rocky relationship with Israel and with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, a new video released this week suggests that the opposite may be true, or at the very least that some of the American Jewish population is still undecided.

Barack Obama

“Pastrami Politics” is a fun video which at the same time reveals some strong and confused attitudes that Jewish Americans have towards President Obama and his policy on Israel.

The video was filmed by Rabbi David Nesenoff, who personally walked up to people seated at several kosher delis in New York, asking them about the food and then proceeding to inquire about Obama and Israel.

Rabbi Nesenoff is the same person whose interview with Helen Thomas revealed the long-time journalist’s hateful views on Israeli Jews, who she said should “go back to Poland.”

Some of the people shown in the video admit having voted for Obama in 2008 but at the same time say they are now reconsidering their vote in the November elections. Some of the issues raised include Obama’s Cairo speech in which he reached out to Muslims, his stance on attacking Iran, and his calling on Israel to return to the indefensible pre-1967 borders.

Rabbi Nesenoff told Arutz Sheva, “I was actually surprised by their answers, especially that so many of them had similar feelings. Even those who were still fans of Obama were not very trusting of him and did not like his foreign policy.”

He added that the video, which was posted to YouTube last week, “is getting a lot of attention because of its raw honesty.”

“It’s very difficult for a Democrat to vote Republican but many will do it for the sake of Israel. It certainly provokes much discussion,” noted Rabbi Nesenoff.

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Obama’s Secret Deal with Iran Endangers The Entire World

peter paton — Sat, 19 May 2012 15:51:06 +0000

By Peter Paton

Barack Obama’s secret back channel deal with Ayatollah Khamenei and the Mulah Regime endangers the whole world, because his nuclear agreement with the irrational Mullah Regime is another Neville Chamberlain ” Peace in our Time ” moment in history, which sells out the State of Israel and the entire world. and which places Khamenei and Ahmadinejad in a Win Win situation and the West in Lose Lose situation.

The key components of this clandestine deal include

1. Because the US and Iran agree that a real and comprehensive accord for halting Tehran’s nuclear program is unobtainable, they are accepting an interim agreement with each party at liberty to interpret its substance and future implementation in its own manner.
debkafile: This wording allows Obama to assure the American voter and Western public that Tehran has capitulated on its nuclear ambitions while, at the same time, Khamenei portrays America to Iranians and Muslims as having yielded on recognizing Iran’s right to develop an independent nuclear program, enrich uranium and continue its drive for a bomb.

2. Iran will suspend uranium enrichment up to the near-weapons grade of 20 percent but not dismantle or stop work at the Fordo underground nuclear plant as Israel demands.
3. Iran will export its stock of 110 kilograms of 20-percent enriched uranium which can be used for producing a weapon. This material will be reprocessed and returned as fuel plates from which it is much more difficult though not impossible to make a bomb.

4. No ceiling will be placed on the production of low-enriched uranium of 3.5-5 percent purity. debkafile: Washington tacitly grants this concession by leaving it off the record.
5. Iran will sign the Non-Proliferation Accord’s additional protocol and so permit the expansion of IAEA on-site inspections.
6. The secret Iranian nuclear sites of which Washington has no explicit knowledge will also be omitted from the record and therefore outside the sphere of international inspection.
debkafile: The guiding principle governing America’s approach to the eight-point interim accord therefore is, “Don’t know; don’t want to see.”
7. The US and European Union will dilute sanctions against Iran stage by stage. debkafile: Here too, dual tactics will be used: The formal embargo on Iran’s central bank and its exclusion from the SWIFT international money transfer system will not be formally annulled. However a blind eye will be applied to any small banks in the West executing Iran’s international business, just as the sanction-busting measures used by China, Russia, India and Turkey to their trade with Iran, were tolerated.
8. The US and Europe will revoke the oil embargo due to go into effect on July 1, 2012.

Debkafile: While the Obama administration has given its “agreement-in-principle on the interim deal,” the Iranian leader has not yet endorsed it. Hence the Amano mission to Tehran Sunday.
If he comes away with a nod from Tehran, Obama will have achieved two key objectives: the world power talks with Iran can proceed through sessions spaced several weeks apart until the November date of the US presidential election, and Israel will be constrained from striking Iran before that date.

If the P5 +1 and the G8 sign up to this secret deal by Obama, they will be co-signatories to an Act of Betrayal to their own Member States, Israel and the whole world, because this secret deal has been crafted soley by Obama and his Inner Circle of Advisers to present Nobel Peace Prize Winner President Obama as the Great Negotiator who solved the Iranian Crisis, and which would he hopes propel him to re- election in November for four more years of office.

Unfortunately for America, Israel and the Free West the secret deal would constitute an existential threat to their populations, as Khamenei and The Mullahs will have been given a green light to manufacture nuclear weapons in their secret underground installations in the Great Salt Desert, along with the Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles which would make them capable of reaching every major city in Israel, Europe and America.

Peter Paton is an International PR and Strategic Adviser

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Gay Marriage and the Golden Rule

kalel — Fri, 18 May 2012 01:57:18 +0000

In his May 9 announcement that he supports same-sex marriage, President Obama linked his stance to the Christian faith. In particular, he cast his view as being consistent with the Bible by quoting Jesus’ words from Matthew 7:12, known as the “Golden Rule.” Obama said:

[The First Lady and I] are both practicing Christians and…when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated…and that’s what motivates me as President.

Since the President’s announcement, the largest Christian churches in America—including the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention—have reiterated that they don’t share the President’s interpretation of Scripture on this issue.

Others have pointed out that the President’s appeal to the Golden Rule is problematic as a guide for complex ethical decisions, including whether or not to support same-sex marriage.

Baylor University professor Francis Beckwith notes that if the Golden Rule simply means giving your neighbor what you happen to want, it would lead to all sorts of immoral conclusions. For instance, a masochist could claim that the Golden Rule means it’s acceptable to inflict pain on others.

To avoid this kind of warped reasoning, Beckwith argues that one would have to situate the Golden Rule within the larger canon of Scripture and the Church’s “moral theology including its understanding of marriage and the common good.”

Moreover, Beckwith wonders to what extent President Obama is willing to apply his interpretation of the Golden Rule more generously:

Will he extend it to the unborn or even the survivors of abortion?

Or church-affiliated and private businesses that cannot in good conscience provide contraception and abortifacient coverage under his [contraception] mandate?

Or private citizens, businesses, and charitable organizations whose moral theology forbids them from blessing or supporting same-sex unions?

Or what about those Americans whose representatives in Congress listened to their voices in passing the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996? Did those citizens not in essence say that one of the ways they want to be treated is to have traditional marriage defended at the national level? Yet Obama has instructed the Justice Department not to defend this law in court, a point he made in the very same interview in which he appealed to the Golden Rule.

In short, church bodies and individuals alike have pointed out that the Golden Rule, stripped of any relationship to an objective moral standard, isn’t helpful on the question of same-sex marriage—or many other ethical matters. To employ the Golden Rule to help guide ethical reflection on this issue, one would have to first answer the basic question “What is marriage?”

Obama bypassed this substantive question, putting forth instead a simplistic and inadequate model of ethical decision-making from a biblical viewpoint.Popular Posts:

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Gallup State Numbers Predict Huge Obama Loss

alpineski — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:24:01 +0000

Gallup released their annual state-by-state presidential approval numbers, and the results should have 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue very worried. If President Obama carries only those states where he had a net positive approval rating in 2011 (e.g. Michigan where he is up 48 percent to 44 percent), Obama would lose the 2012 election to the Republican nominee 323 electoral votes to 215.

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Obama’s Budget Would Double the Interest Rate on Student Loans–After the Election

kalel — Tue, 15 May 2012 04:19:43 +0000

President Barack Obama delivers the commence address at Barnard College, Monday, May 14, 2012, in New York. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

(CNSNews.com) – President Obama’s fiscal 2013 budget proposal would double the interest rate on federally backed student loans from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent–eight months after the November presidential election.

The White House fiscal year 2013 plan calls for maintaining the current 3.4 percent interest rate for federally guaranteed student loans, but only through July 1, 2013, at which point it would automatically increase to 6.8 percent. Neither the president’s plan nor the Democrats’ legislation would extend the low rate beyond another year.

The president’s budget calls for “Suspending an Increase in Student Loan Interest Rates.” (See page 97).

“Under current law, interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans are slated to rise this summer [July 1] from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent,” reads the Obama budget. “At a time when the economy is still recovering and market interest rates remain low, it makes no sense to double rates on student loans. The Budget suspends the scheduled increase for the coming year, so that rates will remain at 3.4 percent.”

The Senate bill favored by Democrats states, “in the matter preceding clause (i), by striking ‘and before July 1, 2012,’ and inserting `and before July 1, 2013.’”

The Republican alternative legislation would also extend the low rate for only another year.

Subsidized Stafford Loans are only available to students who demonstrate financial need. Starting in July, these loans will only be available to undergraduate students. The federal government does not require the borrower to pay the interest that accrues while the borrower is in school.

During the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 academic years, Stafford Loans to undergraduate students were offered with a fixed rate of 6.8 percent. The College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007 set lower interest rates for students in the 2008-2009 through 2011-2012 academic years. The interest rate for loans during those years gradually declined to 3.4 percent. An interest rate reduction would benefit about 7.4 million students, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

Prior to those changes, interest rates had been as high as 8.02 percent in the 2007-2008 academic year and as low as 2.36 percent in the 2011-2012 academic year, according to the CRS report.

“The minimum monthly payment according to a standard repayment plan is $50, which may result in a loan being repaid in less than 10 years,” the May 4 CRS report said. “However, most borrowers obtain more than one loan resulting in the combined repayment amount being more than $50 and sufficient to result in a full 10-year amortization. For purposes of comparison, these figures are all based on a full 10-year amortization.”

Obama has focused heavily on keeping student loan interest rates down to 3.4 percent in some of his recent speeches on college campuses. The youth vote helped boost his victory in 2008, where he beat John McCain by 34 percent among voters under 30, according to the Associated Press. However, last month a Harvard poll found that this year Obama is leading his Republican opponent Mitt Romney by 12 points (41%-29%) among voters aged 18 to 24.Popular Posts:

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DOD and HASC Disagree over National Defense Authorization Act

kalel — Mon, 14 May 2012 18:08:29 +0000

Last week, Representative Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R–CA), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), took issue with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s criticism of the fiscal year (FY) 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that recently passed the committee by a vote of 56–5. The combination of the President’s FY 2013 budget request and the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA) would reduce the military’s personnel levels and force structure to the point that it could no longer protect U.S. vital interests and keep U.S. security commitments around the world. The HASC’s bill seeks to undo this damage.

One of Secretary Panetta’s criticisms is that HASC’s FY2013 NDAA exceeds caps prescribed by the BCA. Chairman McKeon responds that “in proposing a defense budget that exceeds the BCA caps, the President himself acknowledges the BCA caps are too low to meet the core needs of the new defense strategy, much less address any of the vulnerabilities inherent in that strategy” and that the NDAA is designed to prevent these vulnerabilities.

Secretary Panetta “asserted that every dollar added to the defense authorization will come at the expense of another critical national security program.” The chairman’s response proves the Secretary wrong: “In crafting the budget, House Republicans were careful to identify other non-defense budget sources to accommodate the needed increase in national security accounts while complying with the overall BCA budget targets.”

McKeon said the bill does not contain earmarks or “pet projects” in “larger accounts that would force you [Secretary Panetta] to make the tradeoffs to which you referred. Wherever we [the HASC members] have restored programs, platforms, or activities, we have also restored the manpower and operation and maintenance funding needed to sustain them.”

In addition, the HASC version of the bill authorizes $100 million for an environmental study regarding placing ballistic missile defense interceptors on the East Coast. These interceptors would be capable of defending U.S. territory more effectively against ballistic missile attacks, including short-range missiles carrying electromagnetic pulse (EMP) warheads that could be launched from ships. This is a step in the right direction, as the Obama Administration has not only underfunded the missile defense program but also demonstrated a will to cave in to Russian demands. Recently, President Obama told Russian President Dmitri Medvedev that he would be more “flexible” after the election regarding the missile defense program—while the Russians are objecting to even modest U.S. plans for fielding missile defenses.Popular Posts:

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