RICK MANNING (FITS NEWS) REPORTS:
The administration of Barack Obama and its cohorts launched a double-barreled assault on the First Amendment this week.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) dumped 330 pages of
regulatory Super Glue on the operation of the Internet – making clear
its intention to turn the greatest source of democratized communication
since Gutenberg’ printing press into a public utility.
REACHED THIS EVENING FOR COMMENT, FADED CELEBRITY IN CHIEF BARRY O ADMITTED THAT MANNING'S REPORT WAS ACCURATE.
"BUT I'M JUST TRYING TO MAKE A BETTER INTERNET," BARRY O INSISTED. "ONE WHERE AMERICANS CAN HAVE UNLIMITED ACCESS TO CAT PHOTOS AND TO ME SHIRTLESS -- YOU KNOW IMPORTANT THINGS THAT BEAUTIFY OUR LIVES. IN MY LAST TWO YEARS OF THIS PRESIDENCY I INTEND TO BE WHAT I ALWAYS REALLY WANTED TO BE: FIRST LADY. MY INTERNET EFFORTS ARE BEAUTIFICATION EFFORTS AND, AS SUCH IN KEEPING WITH THE IMPORTANT WORK BEGUN BY LADY BIRD JOHNSON WHO ALSO THOUGHT SMEARING CRAP WITH A REALLY BIG STICK WOULD MAKE AMERICANS FORGET ABOUT THE WAR THEY WERE IN."
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
On Thursday, US House Rep Alan Grayson used his line of questioning to highlight various problems with the AUMF request.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: Section 2C of the President's draft
Authorization of the Use of Military Force reads as follows The
authority granted in sub-section A does not authorize the use of US
armed forces in enduring offensive ground US operations. Ambassador
Jeffrey, what does enduring me?
James Jeffrey: Uh. My answer would be a somewhat sarcastic one.
Whatever the executive at the time defines enduring as. And I have a
real problem with that.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: Dr. Brennan?
Rick Brennan Jr.: I have real problems with that also. Not only
because it's -- I don't know what it means and I could just see the
lawyers fighting over the meaning of this. Uh, but-but more
importantly, if you're looking at-at, uh, committing forces for
something that you say is either vital or an important issue to the
United States and you get in the middle of a battle and all the sudden
are you on offense or are you on defense? What happens if neighbors
cause problems? Uh, wars never end the way that they were envisioned.
And so that's, I think, a-a-a-a terrible mistake to put in the AUMF.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: Dr. Rand?
Dafna Rand: Enduring, in my mind, specifies an open-endedness. It
specifies lack of clarity on the particular objective at hand.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: Dr. Rand, is two weeks enduring?
Dafna Rand: I would leave that to the lawyer to determine exactly.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: So your answer is you don't know, right? How 'bout two months?
Dafna Rand: I don't know. It would depend -- Again, I think it
would depend on the particular objective. "Enduring," in my mind, does
not have a particular objective in mind.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: So you don't really know what it means? Is that a fair statement?
Dafna Rand: Uhm, "enduring," in my mind, means "open ended."
US House Rep Alan Grayson: Alright. Section five of the draft for
the Authorization of the Use of Military Force reads as follows: In
this joint-resolution, the term "associacted persons or forces" means
individuals and organizations fighting for, on behalf of or alongside
ISIL or any closely related successor in the hostilities against the
United States or its coalition partners. Ambassador Jeffrey. what does
"alongside ISIL" mean?
James Jeffrey: Uh, I didn't draft this thing but uh
US House Rep Alan Grayson: Nor did I.
James Jeffrey: Nor did you. But I would have put that in there if I
had been drafting it. And the reason is, I think they went back to
2001 -- of course, this is the authorization we're still using -- along
with the 2002 one -- for this campaign. And these things morph. For
example, we've had a debate over whether ISIS is really an element of al
Qaeda. It certainly was when I knew it as al Qaeda in Iraq from 2010
to 2012. And these semantic arguments confuse us and confuse our people
on the ground in trying to deal with these folks. You'll now it when
you see it if it's an ISIS or it's an ally of ISIS?
US House Rep Alan Grayson: How about the Free Syrian Army? Are they fighting alongside of ISIL in Syria?
James Jeffrey: Uh, no, they're not fighting along ISIL. In fact,
often they're fighting against ISIL and ISIL against them, in
particular.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: What about Assad is he fighting for or
against? It's kind of hard to tell without a scorecard, isn't it?
James Jeffrey: It sure is.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: Yeah. What about you, Dr. Brennan? Can you tell me what alongside ISIL means?
Rick Brennan Jr.: No, I really couldn't. I think that, uh, what --
It might be that -- The 9-11 Commission uses the phrase radical
Is-Islamist organizations and I think maybe if we went to wording like
that -- It includes all those 52 groups that adhere to that-that type of
ideology that threaten the United States. But we're putting ourselves
in boxes and as you said, Senat - uh, Congressman, trying-trying to
understand what that means, what the limits are, uh, who we're dealing
with is very confusing.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: Dr. Rand?
Dafna Rand: Well, first of all, I believe that confusion is probably
a function of the fact that this is an unclassified document. So it's
not going to specify exactly which groups are associates. That would be
for classified setting but second, as I said, in the testimony, the
nature of the alliances within ISIL are changing and are fluid. And
those who are targeting -- military experts -- know exactly who is a
derivative, an associate or an ally of ISIS at any given moment.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: Why are you so confident of that? It
seems to me it's a question of terminology not a matter of ascertainable
fact
Dafna Rand: Uhm, based on my public service. I've seen some of the lawyers and some of the methodologies and --
US House Rep Alan Grayson: Alright, here's the $64 billion dollar
question for you Ambassador Jeffrey -- and then, if we have time, for
you others -- if you can't tell us -- you three experts -- can't tell us
what these words mean, what does that tell us? Ambassador Jeffrey?
James Jeffrey: Uhm, that it's very difficult to be using a tool
basically designed to declare war -- or something like war -- on a
nation-state -- which has a fixed definition -- against a group that
morphs, that changes its name, that has allies and other things. Do we
not fight it? We have to fight it. Uh, are we having a hard time
defining it? Uh, you bet.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: Dr. Brennan?
Rick Brennan Jr.: I-I agree with the ambassador. I think -- I
think the issue that we need to be looking at is trying to broaden the
terminology and understand that it is -- it is a tenant or organization
or groups that adheres to this ideology and make it broad enough that
if one pops up in a different country that is doing the same thing, that
is a sister of this uh,uh, organization, the president has the
authority to act.
US House Rep Alan Grayson: Dr. Brennan, I think you just described a
blank check which I'm not willing to give to the president or anyone
else. But thank you for your time.
Let's move over to US House Rep Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. This was her opening statement:
We all are deeply saddened by Kayla's -- by Kayla's appalling murder
by ISIL terrorists. She made it her mission to care about humanity in a
region that seems to no longer value human life and our prayers go out
to her family. The brutality of ISIL truly knows no bounds and this
cancer continues to grow and metastasize throughout the region. The
President has finally given us a draft AUMF that may actually our
engagement in the region so I look forward to a robust debate here in
our Committee on it. But I firmly believe that no matter what happens
with the AUMF, solving the problem of ISIL cannot happen without
simultaneously addressing the problems of Assad and Iran. The
administration's de facto partnership with Assad ensures that Syria will
continue to be a terrorist breeding ground for groups like ISIL and we
will never be victorious that way. A big part of the administration's
ISIL strategy is to train and equip a program that seeks to enhance the
capability of moderate Syrian opposition leaders yet, Mr. Chairman,
that program hasn't really started yet. The administration has said
these fighters will be trained for defensive -- not offensive -- action.
And we're not engaging the Assad regime directly -- only ISIL. I worry
that this policy is not going to be a victorious one.
In her questioning, she would touch on Syria again, "The Obama
administration states that the training of Syrian moderate fighters is a
large part of our strategy but as of yet we have not seen much evidence
of this success. Former Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford said in our
Middle East Subcommittee that the administration doesn't bother to
coordinate or discuss strategy with Syria's moderate fighters at all."
I don't support war on Syria and we're not doing the "Syrian snapshot."
She did ask about Iraq and noted, "And Mr. Ambassador you testified that
Iran's policies almost drove Iraq apart between 2012 and 2014."
The responses included, James Jeffrey, "The poster boy for the cause
is Qasem Soleimani who has done a great deal to drive Iraq into the
disunity that ISIS was able to exploit in 2014 by allowing and, in some
cases, encouraging [Nouri al-] Maliki of the Shia governing coalition
to oppress the Sunnis and disagree with the Kurds such that the country
was not holding together well. And then ISIS came on the scene and we
saw what happened."
Why are we noting the Syrian aspect?
It goes to a larger issue.
As a feminist, I am aware women are under-represented in all walks of
life in the US and that they are rarely the go-to for an interview on
foreign policy or war. There were three witnesses appearing before the
Committee. That one was a woman is still significant all this time
later. There are still hearing where no woman is a witness. Even at
this late date.
This full Committee hearing should have provided us with an opportunity
to highlight a number of women since a number of women serve on the
Committee.
Well . . .
. . . are assigned to the Committee.
Can't say they serve if they can't drag their tired asses to a full Committee hearing.
We've noted Ros-Lehtinen and Frankel. We'll be noting Grace Meng in a moment.
And that's all we'll note.
Three other female members of the Committee didn't show.
Now maybe one was sick.
Maybe even two were.
But I know for a fact that one of the three wasn't sick at all. She
gave a newspaper interview on Thursday, she gave an interview to KPFK
and she appeared on TV with Al Sharpton.
She had plenty of time to self-promote.
She just couldn't show up for a hearing.
A hearing on the Iraq War.
The one she pretended was so important to her last June.
Remember that?
And her ridiculous statements then?
Pretending to grasp history but speaking as if she thought the Ottoman Empire ended with the end of the Gulf War?
And she ended up by insisting she would never authorize US troops into Iraq.
Has she forgotten that?
We can repost her words in case she has forgotten:
I cannot imagine sending our troops back to Iraq. We should not answer
previous blunders with additional missteps. Our nation has sacrificed
too much already in Iraq, and it is time for Iraq’s leaders to step up
and diffuse the sectarian differences that are tearing the country
apart.
So where was she Thursday when her Committee was exploring the AUMF?
Well, see, it's one thing to say she won't go along with US troops sent
into Iraq when Barack's just said -- as he had in June -- that he won't
send troops in.
It's different when he's asking for the power to do so.
Then our 'brave' Congress member can't show.
And members of her district -- who overwhelmingly oppose US troops being
sent into Iraq -- should be asking why Karen Bass couldn't get her
ass to the hearing on Congress granting military authorization for war
on Iraq.
As for one of the others, she couldn't come to the hearing -- for whatever reason -- but the day before, she did Tweet.
Her thoughts go out.
Not enough of course to show up for the hearing on the Islamic State.
But she can concentrate long enough to type a brief Tweet.
How proud she must be of herself.
And that's good because I don't imagine many other people would be proud of her if they knew she'd skipped out on the hearing.
The third?
Iraq War veteran Tulsi Gabbard took a pass on the hearing. I'm told
she's conflicted on what to support -- opposition to the AUMF or backing
the AUMF -- so she skipped the hearing to buy more time.
If the three women aren't up to serving on the Committee, they need to
be removed from the Committee -- removed and replaced by any woman or
man willing to step up and attend the full Committee hearings on matters
of war.
They dishonor the Committee, they fail their constituents.
This is unacceptable.
They're also letting down girls and women with this nonsense.
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THIS JUST IN! POPULARITY, LIKE HIS HAIR COLOR, FADES!"
Kenneth Roth 
