Obama Cuts Our Military

The defense budget is being reshaped in the midst of a presidential contest in which Obama seeks to portray himself as a forward-looking commander in chief focusing on new security threats. Republicans want to cast him as weak on defense.

—FoxNews

Today the Obama administration says it wants to cut the U.S. Defense budget by $259 billion over the next five years.  However, this is suppose to look like a simple cost savings restructuring.  The administration is claiming that our military will still be stronger than it was on 9/11.  But will it?

The biggest cut that is being reported is the number of soldiers our military is going to be reduced by.  Defense Secretary Leon Panetta listed among the cuts:

The Army would shrink by 80,000 soldiers, from 570,000 today to 490,000 by 2017. That is slightly larger than the Army on 9/11. The Marine Corps would drop from today’s 202,000 to 182,000 — also above the level on 9/11.

The administration claims our military will still be, “…slightly larger than the Army on 9/11″.  This is true if you fudge the numbers a little.  In our pre-9/11 military, the army consisted of 32 Brigades.  Our army under these cuts would have 33 Brigades.  The Obama administration is hoping you don’t dig any deeper.  In our pre-9/11 military, each brigade had 3 heavy combat battalions.  Brigades in our current military have 2 heavy battalions and 1 light battalion.  Brigades under the current plan aren’t as strong as those organized pre-9/11.  So while we have more brigades, those brigades aren’t as strong as they use to be.  Some might call this slight of hand a lie.

That’s not the only deception in the plan.  Panetta also says, “Purchase of F-35 stealth fighter jets, to be fielded by the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, would be slowed.”  That may not grab you on first glance.  However, back in 2009, President Obama canceled production of the F-22 fighter.  According to the New York Times:

The Pentagon would rather buy unmanned aircraft to gather intelligence in Afghanistan and accelerate the testing for the F-35, a new plane designed to attack ground targets. Pentagon officials say the F-22 is hard to maintain and costs $44,000 to operate for an hour, compared with $30,000 for older planes.

…and at the time,  an F-22 site run by Lockheed Martin,

 the Pentagon will end the F-22 fighter jet and White House helicopter programs run by Lockheed, but would increase production of the company’s Joint Strike Fighter.

Now, our military will be without the F-22, and will slow the production of F-35.  Slowing production will also drive up the cost of the F-35.  If President Obama is re-elected, should we expect him to kill the F-35 due to its increased cost in a year?

The Obama administration is going to continue to use the death of Osama bin Laden as evidence they are strong supporters of our military and they take foreign threats seriously.  While the president does deserve credit for allowing that mission to proceed, the proof is in today’s announcement of what our president really thinks of national defense.  He’s willing to make our military weaker than it was before Sept 11, 2001.

Has President Obama Violated the Constitution?

While you were following the Iowa caucus and preparing for the New Hampshire primary, you may have missed a big news story.  President Obama has made four recess appointments.  One appointment is to the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and three are to the Labor Relations Board.  There are plenty of stories that argue whether these individuals are or are not qualified.  Their qualifications aren’t the story.   The President made these “recess appointments” while the Senate was actually in session, making their appointment unconstitutional.

U.S. A Today has an op-ed piece defending the President’s action.   U. S. A. Today believes that the Republicans are just being obstructionists.  They argues that the Senate was “technically” in secession, but they weren’t really in session.  So while the President may have technically violated the Constitution, it doesn’t really matter.

I think this argument stretches credibility.  Presidents are allowed to make recess appointments. Many have done it, some have done it a lot.  However a President can’t make a recess appointment if the Senate is in session.  The Senate is charged with confirming Presidential appointments under the Constitution as a check and balance on the Executive branch.

The editors at U. S. A. Today are arguing that the Senate was only “a little” in session, so it’s ok for the President to make a recess appointment.  This is like being “a little” pregnant.  Either the Senate is or isn’t in session.  In this case, the Senate was in a “pro forma” session.  That means a member comes to the Senate floor, gavels in a session, waits a minute or two (or longer), then gavels the session closed.  Its a parliamentary trick that both Republicans and Democrats have used before for a number of different reasons.  However, according to the rules of the Senate, this is a “session” and affects the Senate just as any other session might.  The President has violated the U. S. Constitution.  U. S. A. Today defends this action:

But from a common-sense standpoint, you’d think there is already enough hypocrisy in Washington without pretending that an empty Senate chamber where no business is conducted is really “in session.”

Congress created the consumer protection bureau in 2010. The agency opened its doors in July. Obviously, it should have a leader. Sometimes, the government simply has to get going and do its job, no matter how badly obstructionists prefer gridlock.

While I agree that there is enough hypocrisy in Washington already, I don’t think this qualifies as such.  The amount of business that is or isn’t being done doesn’t determine whether the Senate is in session or not.  And while the editors of U. S. A. Today may agree with the President because they feel like the government is doing its job, they are wrong.  The President swore to protect and defend the Constitution.  That’s his job.  Breaking it whenever it suits him and the editors of U.S.A. Today isn’t.

America the Beautiful Day 23: Fun in the Media.

While I often criticize the media on this site, sometimes it provides us with a great deal of entertainment.  Like every other organization, the media is made up of people.  People make mistakes.  Sometimes these mistakes provide for a great opportunity for us  to laugh at their expense.

I have a news feed on my iPhone that provides stories from across a wealth of news sources.  It gathers feeds from AP, CNN, Fox News, UK Telegraph, and others.  It’s non-partisan.  However, this evening one of the stories was previewed as this:

This Week, In Politics..

There are a number of significant events happening in politics this week.  Here is a quick round up of them, along with my predictions for each:

The Republican Debate on Wednesday.  The fourth GOP debate will be held on tonight at the Ronald Reagan Library.  This will be the first debate since Rick Perry announced his candidacy.  Tim Pawlenty has bowed out of the race, so there should still be the same number of candidates on stage.  The expectation seems to be that this will be the Rick Perry show.  It may be, however I expect the media to try to make this a Romney vs. Perry event.  I will be watching to see what happens and to report back with my thoughts.  MSNBC will be televising the debate beginning at 8PM.

The President Addresses the Nation.  It feels like this is the hundredth or so speech by President Obama.  However, this is his second, non-state-of-the-union-speech-to-a-joint-session-of-Congress, so maybe it will be different.  The White House is claiming that the President is going to announce his economic plan.  I expect the plan to be very thin on specifics, and very heavy on rhetoric.  The speech will be on Thursday, which is opening day for the NFL 2011-2012 season.  Worse still, the President will be facing pre-game coverage of the Green Pay Packers (2011 Super Bowl Champs) vs. the New Orleans Saints (2010 Super Bowl Champs).  The “timing” of the speech hasn’t been set, but the White House says the speech will end before kick-off at 8:30.  For my next prediction, I expect every single major story on the President’s speech to mention the Packer – Saints game.  This will hurt the president by making his joint-session-of-congress speech seem no more important than a  football game.

September 11th, 10th Anniversary.   This isn’t a political event, but there will be a number of politically themed stories surrounding the tenth anniversary.  I encourage you to take some time and remember where you were and what happened that day.  I will be participating in Project 2996 again and will be posting here on September 11th to remember the victims.

The Debt Limit Name Game

I really, really, really, really, really didn’t want to write about the debt limit debate today.  I have written about it a few times in the last week.  Additionally, there are some really fun global warming stories in the news today.  I haven’t written a good post arguing against man-made global warming in some time, and feel I have been neglecting my more liberal readers.  However, some of the quotes today are just too priceless to pass up on.  So, without further ado, here is the debt limit debate in the politicians own words.

The debate today revolves around a debt limit package put forth by Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner.  Personally, I don’t like this bill because I don’t feel it cuts enough spending. The Speaker, when discussing whether the bill will pass the Senate or not, said:

“We’ve said yes on a budget. We’ve said yes on a plan last week.  Now we’re saying yes again this week on a plan.  When is somebody on the other side of the aisle going to take yes for an answer?”

But of course, he didn’t count on the attitude of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.  Reid’s team was much more specific with what would happen with Boehner’s bill:

“Boehner’s bill dies tonight.”

Democrats have been passionate about defeating the Speakers bill today.  None of the quotes of today equal the passion expressed by former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.  While she couldn’t remember how many votes were needed to pass a bill in the House, she was certain of the righteousness of her cause.  She stated:

“What we’re trying to do is save the world from the Republican budget. We’re trying to save life on this planet as we know it today.”

Al Gore will probably be asked to pass his peace prize on to Mrs. Pelosi.  The outlandish rhetoric of today was definitely owned by the Democrats.  But the best quote of the day came from the White House.  Press Secretary Carney stated:

“I understand one of the things that’s come out of the House conference is this desire to stand firm and then stick the President with default, I think is one quote that came out of there, which is really incredibly juvenile, right?”

Yes, Mr. Carney, the Republicans are the one with the juvenile quotes…