Obama Claims The UN Can Usurp Congressional War Powers

 The Congress shall have Power....  To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces; To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions... Article One, Section Eight of the US Constitution.

Earlier this week Speaker Boehner sent a letter to the President warning Obama that he will clearly will be in violation of the 1973 War Powers Act as of this weekend as the POTUS did not seek congressional consent for the operation within 60 days of the March 19 U.S. air strikes against Moammar Gadhafi's forces.

"Either you have concluded the War Powers Resolution does not apply to the mission in Libya or you have determined the War Powers Resolution is contrary to the Constitution," Boehner wrote. "The House and the American people whom we represent deserve to know the determination you have made."

Yesterday the President gave his response. He sent a 30+ page report (embedded below) justifying continued military involvement U.S. military involvement is “legitimated” by the UN Security Council – saying that therefore no congressional authorization is needed.

 U.S. forces are playing a constrained and supporting role in a multinational coalition, whose operations are both legitimated by and limited to the terms of a United Nations Security Council Resolution that authorizes the use of force solely to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under attack or threat of attack and to enforce a no-fly zone and an arms embargo.

A major problem with that argument is that the Constitution's provisions regarding the United States use of military force mentions Congress, but it doesn't mention the United Nations as having the right to legitimize the use of American forces.

The President's statement brings to mind George Washington's farewell address where he said:

So likewise, a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification.

The administration also claims that its actions are not governed by the War Powers Act because the U.S. involvement does not constitute “hostilities” – the term used by the act to limit the time the president may commit U.S. forces into combat.

The President is of the view that the current U.S. military operations in Libya are consistent with the War Powers Resolution and do not under that law require further congressional authorization, because U.S. military operations are distinct from the kind of “hostilities” contemplated by the Resolution’s 60 day termination provision.

Maybe its me, whether the action is right or wrong,when one nation drops bombs on another that represents hostilities.  It is also interesting that the President says further congressional authorization, as the operation has never been authorized by Congress.

Whether you agree with the rationale behind placing Americans in danger by participating in the Libya operation or not, the President's explanation sets dangerous precedent that congress needs to address. Who is allowed to "legitimize" the use of American Military, Congress or the United Nations? The Constitution would say Congress.  Additionally what is the definition of hostilities? Are bombing operations considered hostilities?  Embargoes?  Is it "anything goes" as long as there are no troops on the ground?

The answers to these questions are vital to the future direction of the Country, our use of military force, and most importantly are we a sovereign nation or a vassal state of the UN

The President's entire response is below.
United States Activities in Libya 6-15-11

OH NO! Brand New Weiner Pictures-Congressman Said To Be Falling Apart

Folks There's more...Celebrity gossip site  TMZ has released more pictures sent to various women by Congressman Anthony Weiner:

Rep. Anthony Weiner took numerous photos of himself -- clothed and partially nude -- at the House Members Gym and sent them to at least one woman ... raising questions about whether he used Congressional resources in his online exploits.

TMZ obtained the pics Weiner took of himself using his Blackberry and a mirror. Congressional sources have confirmed with TMZ ... the backdrop is indeed the House Members Gym in the basement of the Rayburn House Office Building. 

 The pics were taken on both the gym floor and in the locker room.

TMZ has confirmed the pics were sent online to at least one woman.

The question that's dogged Weiner since his news conference/mea culpa is -- did he use Congressional resources during his cyber affairs?

Thankfully Weiner's junk is covered in all of the pictures, but in many cases he is grabbing himself.

What is it with the Congressional Gym that makes it a place for scandal.  As you may remember, the disgraced Congressman Massa said that he was confronted by a naked White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel during the Obamacare debate, a mental picture that brought just as many nightmares as the Weiner wiener pictures.

The real problem arising from these pictures for the Congressman is the  House Members Gym is a Congressional resource, and in his mea culpa speech he promised that no house resources were used.

For Weiner's sake and for the sake of his family, I hope that these pictures are the last of them, but I fear there is more to come.

According to the NY Times Weiner is falling apart:

One friend said it had become abundantly clear that Mr. Weiner was no longer in a position to make clear-headed decisions about his career and health.

“He was falling apart,” said a longtime friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect the relationship.

Mr. Weiner, who prides himself on his dapper appearance and physical fitness, was losing weight, seemed run down and drawn and increasingly found it difficult to make it through telephone calls without losing his composure.

He began meeting with the therapist not only to discuss his online behavior, but also to cope with the fallout from the scandal. On Friday, with calls for his resignation multiplying, he agreed that traditional therapy was not enough. He told family and friends that he would enter an out-of-town clinic and made travel plans for Saturday afternoon. He will be evaluated before it is determined exactly what kind of treatment he will receive.

I was not a big fan of Weiner before this scandal (nor am I one now), but I do hope this clinic provides him with the help he needs.

Chief Medicare Actuary Projects That Obamacare Will Hurt Seniors

Ten days ago when the Medicare Trustees sent their annual report over to Congress painting a grim picture for the future of Medicare, it was well covered by the press.  Strangely though there was one "little part" the Geithner and  press omitted, an addendum written by chief medicare reporting that the trustees presented too rosy a picture in their projection.  Make that way too rosy!

When the report was originally released on May 13th, Politico reported:

The new Medicare trustees report says the trust fund is now likely to run out of money in 2024, five years earlier than predicted last year....

At a press briefing, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the change in the projection was due to “technical changes in the economic assumptions underlying the projections.”

CMS also said the passage of the health care reform law added eight years of life to the Medicare trust fund. Without the law, the agency said, the trust fund would go into the red in 2016.

But if you look at the actual report, beginning on page 265, Richard Foster, the Chief Medicare actuary has a much different opinion than the politicians who created the report Turbo-tax Tim presented to the public almost two weeks ago. He basically said the projections made by the politicians were bogus.

Further, while the Affordable Care Act makes important changes to the Medicare program and substantially improves its financial outlook, there is a strong likelihood that certain of these changes will not be viable in the long range. Specifically, the annual price updates for most categories of non-physician health services will be adjusted downward each year by the growth in economy-wide productivity. The best available evidence indicates that most health care providers cannot improve their productivity to this degree—or even approach such a level—as a result of the labor-intensive nature of these services.

Without major changes in health care delivery systems, the prices paid by Medicare for health services are very likely to fall increasingly short of the costs of providing these services. By the end of the long-range projection period, Medicare prices for hospital, skilled nursing facility, home health, hospice, ambulatory surgical center, diagnostic laboratory, and many other services would be less than half of their level under the prior law. Medicare prices would be considerably below the current relative level of Medicaid prices, which have already led to access problems for Medicaid enrollees, and far below the levels paid by private health insurance. Well before that point, Congress would have to intervene to prevent the withdrawal of providers from the Medicare market and the severe problems with beneficiary access to care that would result. Overriding the productivity adjustments, as Congress has done repeatedly in the case of physician payment rates, would lead to far higher costs for Medicare in the long range than those projected under current law. 

For these reasons, the financial projections shown in this report for Medicare do not represent a reasonable expectation for actual program operations in either the short range (as a result of the unsustainable reductions in physician payment rates) or the long range (because of the strong likelihood that the statutory reductions in price updates for most categories of Medicare provider services will not be viable).

Foster went on to point out an alternate report completed by his office which pointed out:

One of the most important factors in projecting Medicare expenditures are the annual payment updates to Medicare providers. The estimates shown in the 2011 Trustees Report are complicated substantially by mandated reductions in these payment updates for most Medicare services. In particular, Medicare payment rates for physician services as determined by the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) system are scheduled to be reduced by roughly 30 percent in 2012. For most of the other categories of Medicare providers, the recently enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), as amended, calls for a reduction in payment rate updates equal to the increase in economy-wide multifactor productivity. As described in more detail below, in our view the scheduled physician payment reduction is implausible and there is a strong likelihood that the productivity adjustments will not be sustainable in the long range. It is reasonable to expect that Congress would find it necessary to legislatively override or otherwise modify the reductions in the future to ensure that Medicare beneficiaries continue to have access to health care services.

 In other words, that $500 billion dollars of Medicare Savings double counted in the "Obamacare" bill just "ain't gonna happen," just like most of what we have been told by the progressives about the president's staple health care bill.

Eventually to pay for this trillion dollar overrun, Seniors will end up with reduced care. So it seems as if it is the Democrats who will be "pushing seniors off the cliff."