The Speaker Pulled Off A Victory

Just about anyone with an opinion and an audience has weighed in on the outcome of the budget negotiations between Speaker Boehner representing the GOP and Democrats Harry Reid and Barack H. Obama.  Many on the Republican side feel that the Speaker "caved in" and "blinked" first.  Others feel that he did a fine job in his first real face off with the Democrat majority.  Two Sisters From The Right agree with Thomas Lifson, writing for the American Thinker that the GOP came out of this first skirmish with the winning hand.  There are yet bigger battles to come and we should stand fast and support those whom we've chose to represent us.  In the end, Speaker Boehner won more concessions for the GOP than anyone else has before regarding budget cuts.  We don't know what went on behind the closed doors of negotiation.  Nor do we know what bargaining powers the Speaker had.  We do know that the president tried to hold our military hostage - a ploy that failed.  In our opinion, Speaker Boehner did just fine.
Two Sisters



A.F. BRAMCO summed up the politics best with this cartoon.
Via ComicallyIncorrect.com 



The GOP did just fine

by Thomas Lifson

American Thinker   

"There is more good in the budget deal than is revealed in the budget cut number agreed on last night. Measured against the size of budget cutting necessary for the future, the numbers are small, to be sure, but this number was a tactical, not a strategic engagement. The key to the matter is momentum, principle, and precedent, which set up the strategic environment for 2012.
Andrew Stiles at NRO correctly points out the extent of the Harry Reid cave-in.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) didn't want to cut anything at first. But bowing to political reality, eventually ponied up about $4.7 billion in cuts. He ended up with $33.8 billion less spending than he wanted. And he called it an "historic" accomplishment. (Not surprisingly, the left is appalled).

House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio), on the other hand, initially proposed $32 billion in spending cuts. House Republicans, led by an undaunted freshman class, bumped that number up to $61 billion ($100 billion off the president's budget), before settling on $38.5 billion.

That's $6.5 billion more than Boehner asked for to begin with, and $5.5 billion more than the $33 billion that Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Democrats claimed had been agreed to less than two weeks ago. A.J. Strata highlights the much bigger win that has been foreordained by the fine print, not conveyed in the number alone:
The budget number is pretty good, mainly because it kills programs instead of lowering their budgets for 6 months. so those 6 month numbers expand and grow in the coming year (snip) [emphasis added]

Obama even admitted in his speech infrastructure projects were being ‘delayed' (i.e., de-funded in 2011). Once de-funded, they will not be back any time soon. As fox News reports, this is a lot farther than the Democrats said they would be willing to go when this all started. (snip)

However, Boehner must have had an incredible stick in those negotiations, because Reid and Obama agreed to put things to vote in the Senate which everyone deemed impossible just last week. That is the truly amazing part of what Boehner pulled off yesterday:

The agreement reached with Senate Democrats guarantees a Senate debate and vote on legislation that would repeal President Obama's government takeover of health care in its entirety. The House passed such legislation in January as part of the Pledge to America...
The agreement with Senate Democrats guarantees a Senate debate and vote on legislation that would end federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

The last thing Reid or Obama want is a vote in the senate on Obamacare (or Planned Parenthood). But now they are going to have to vote and this is huge. If this happens, and 4 of those 23 red-state Democrats up for reelection in 2012 vote against Obamacare, then the President will have to veto a bipartisan bill that lines up with the overall will of the American voters. What could be better than isolating Obama and Obamacare from the will of the people and Congress heading into 2012?

The conclusion is inescapable that the Democrats realized they would be blamed for a shutdown, at least as much as the Republicans. The ploy of holding the troops' paychecks hostage stands as one of the dumbest political moves of the Obama presidency (and that is saying a lot). Sure there would be pictures of families turned away from the Washington Monument, but these would pale in comparison with the pictures of families near military bases unable to pay the rent or buy groceries, going into paycheck advance lenders and payting 22% interest in order to put food on the table.

One thing the American public will not tolerate is using our brave military heroes as political pawns.  Congratulations to Speaker Boehner, who, with "one half of one third of the government" pulled off a victory."



Copyright 2011 - American Thinker

Obama's Shutdown

 As Americans anxiously await to hear if the House and the Senate can come to an accord on the budget, or face  the shutting down of the government, Barack Obama and his family preapre to leave town for a previously planned family getaway.  Someone should have warned Mr. Obama that being POTUS requires more intense work than that of community organizer or a Senator who is better known for voting "Present."  One wonders, "Does Obama care if the government shuts down?" 


Utah's Republican, Sen. Mike Lee  is quoted as saying that President Obama's inability to get a budget passed last year may have been "deliberate."  Has the liberal media questioned why, if the Democrats controlled both Houses of Congress, they were unable to come to an agreement and to approve a budget in 2010? According to Senator Lee,  "It was either irresponsible on one hand or deliberate and malicious on the other with intention to bring about a sequence of events that would culminate inevitably in a government shutdown." Speaking on the Senate floor today, Senator Lee was quite serious.


Lee was not the only person to suspect that the government shutdown could have been preplanned.  Speaking on FOX News, radio talk show host, Chris Plante, questioned how former DNC Chairman Howard Dean could possibly have been able to predict weeks ago that the Republicans would get the blame  for a shutdown.  The answer according to Plante is simple --Dean  knew that  a showdown was coming, and he also knew that the media would be on the side of the Democrats because they are working together.  How else could Dean have stated that he knew who would win?  Plante called the media, "the Bucket Brigade, whose job it is to carry the water for the Democrats."  An apt description and a devious  ploy which does not come as a big surprise. 


The media is ready and very willing, to blame the GOP for the impasse. We believe that in doing so they are underestimating the American public's intelligence and sophistication.  There are some who are willing to be spoon fed by the  news media, but there are entirely too many others who will no longer accept the media bias as gospel.  Both the Democrats and the media persist in repeating the same tired mantra:  "The Tea Party controls the Republicans."  "The Tea Party is whispering in the ear of Republicans."  The Tea Party does not need to whisper in any one's ear.  The Tea Party has a voice of its own and speaks out in the most effective way possible -- at the polls.


The truth of the matter is that in spite of Obama's fear tactics and threats to veto any attempt to keep the American military funded, the government doesn't really "shut down" during a shutdown.  The rules for who works and who doesn't date back to the early 1980s and haven't been significantly modified since.  The Obama administration hasn't issued new guidance.


The air traffic control system, food inspection, Medicare, veterans' health care and many other essential government programs would run as usual. The Social Security Administration would not only send out benefits but would continue to take applications. The Postal Service, which is self-funded, would keep delivering the mail. Federal courts would remain open.


Once again during these negotiations, what has become most apparent to Americans is Barack Hussein's Obama inability to lead.  He threatens to veto any effort on the part of Republicans to continue paying the U.S. Military during a new government shutdown, and the media report it without question.  In case Mr. Obama has forgotten, our country is engaged in three wars in three different countries, the last of which is HIS war in Libya.  The arrogance of the man to threaten to withhold payment to the very people he has sent to put their lives in harm's way!  The insensitivity of the man to play political games with the lives of military families!


There may be a silver lining in this dark cloud that hangs over our country.  If Obama's government withholds payment for all who would be affected by the government coming to a standstill, two important things could take place.  The American people could very well realize how smoothly the government functions without all the bureaucracy and waste of money, and like it.  The Democrats' ploy to turn the voters against Republicans and the members of the Tea Party could backfire and blow up in their face. 


Everyone knows that the Democrats and the White House rejected the Republican's stopgap plan to keep the government going for another week while extending the military's pay for the rest of the fiscal year.  Using the excuse that the two riders contained in the measure were unacceptable, they turned their backs on the GOP offers.  The riders include not funding abortions in the D.C. area and keeping the terrorists detained at Gitmo without coming on American soil.  These are not new demands.  These are provisions that were in place until they were changed by the Obama administration.  If they can be called anything, the word is reversals -- and welcome reversals they would be.


In the end, the stalemate, and the refusal to reach a compromise boils down to defending Obama's health care bill.  Democrats will go to great lengths to protect Barack Obama's legacy - socialized medicine for Americans - at all costs. That includes shutting down the government while placing the blame on Republicans and the Tea Party. Their reluctance to come to an agreement with the GOP is strictly political. In spite of our country facing an astronomical deficit, they are willing, for purely political reasons, to risk bringing the government to a standstill, letting women and children go without money for groceries and bills, furlough federal employees, and close national parks.


These are the same Democrats, Reid, Pelosi, Hoyer, et al. who rammed Obamacare down our collective throats and who hid an outrageous amount of expenditures in it. If Senate Democrats are really serious about cutting down on wasteful expenses and getting the economy back on track, they would realize that the path to fiscal health begins with the repeal of Obamacare.



twosisters_ftr@yahoo.com  

Iraq: The Forgotten War?



Soldiers from the 17th Fires Brigade and 2nd Brigade
Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division arrive by to assist
the Iraqi ArmyFaddaqhryah and Bahar in Basra Province.

Photo: Spc. Maurice A. Galloway/U.S. Army

 Stories about Iraq and the war being fought there once dominated the news. The liberal media doggedly reported, and kept Iraq on the front burner as long as American casualties were high. In fact counting the number of casualties seemed to be a priority. Today, Iraq is seldom mentioned. If there are reporters embedded with the troops we don’t know who they are, we don’t hear reports. The only news from Iraq deemed worthy of mention is when an insurgent bomb is detonated killing Iraqis and damaging structures. It is the media’s way of reminding us that not everyone in Iraq is happy that the U.S. went there in the first place to rid them of the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, and to prevent American hating Islamist terrorists from regrouping and training there.

Since President Barack Obama declared last August that combat operations had ended, it seems difficult for most Americans to understand that soldiers can still be killed in Iraq. Writing for Stars and Stripes, Megan McCloskey asks the question: “Is Iraq the new forgotten war?” Would it surprise most Americans to learn that since Obama made his speech, 26 American military personnel have died in Iraq.? The fatalities demonstrate that the “advise and assist” roles now performed by the 46,000 troops still stationed in the country are not without danger. To date, there have been 14 service members killed in 2011, bringing the war’s death toll to more than 4,440. Eight of the 14 died as a result of hostile fire.  

Noel Brinkerhoff reports in All Thing Gov “A poll released in January showed nearly two thirds of respondents were only somewhat interested, not too interested or not interested at all in news about Iraq. Anecdotal evidence suggests many Americans believe the war to be over and are surprised to learn that soldiers are still dying in Iraq. “It would have been unthinkable even two years ago to say that we would reach a point at which most Americans and, indeed, some people in Washington, would increasingly be forgetting about Iraq,” Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) said in February. “But that point has largely come.” Indeed it has.

Brandon Hocking, killed in Iraq March 20, 2011

Barack Obama promised his supporters that he would bring the troops home, yet he has backed a surge in Afghanistan and the troops are still serving and dying in Iraq. The Obama backing media will not report the news as they happen so as not to disturb the president’s newly announced reelection campaign. Yet families are still coping with the loss of their dear ones. In an interview with Megan McCloskey, Britney Hocking shares that upon learning of her brother’s death in combat most people feel that he must have died in Afghanistan. Sgt. Brandon Hocking was killed in Iraq last month by an improvised explosive device.

His death is one of the latest since the president announced the end of combat operations last summer. Sgt. Hocking’s death, McCloskey writes, “serves as a grim reminder of what is fast becoming a forgotten war. The United States has spent eight years of war in Iraq, with 4,443 service members killed there. About 46,000 troops remain on the ground in “advise and assist” roles, and 23 service members — 11 this year — have been killed since the mission change.” As the reader can see, the number of deaths since this year began alone, keep increasing as our sources become more current.

Recently, the unrest in the Middle East has really put in focus the impact that the Internet Age has had on the world, and particularly in the war zone. Soldiers can Skype, and speak to their families via the Internet as well as emailing and chatting -- they can keep in close touch with families and friends without waiting for “mail call.” It has to be disturbing to them to know that they are all but forgotten to much of the American public. The same can be said for having to serve with the ridiculous rules of engagement in place which dictate how and when a soldier can fight and defend himself and his fellow soldiers.

Two Sisters From the Right received the following note from a reader who also happens to be a soldier in Iraq: “The liberal media isn't telling the public what it needs to know. Things are not getting better here no matter what BHO says. Every other day we are getting hit by IDF (indirect fire, i.e. mortars and rockets) or our patrols are being hit with IEDs or even worse EFP (explosive formed projectile, IEDs made with copper that cut through armored vehicles like a hot knife through butter). What does it take to allow soldiers to fight back? The other day we lost 2 soldiers and 12 more were wounded when a 107mm rocket landed in their living area. What did we do ? NOTHING ! They are hitting us were we "live", why can't we hit them in their houses. Oh, we might offend some sheik, or Iraqi police chief, or Iraqi officer.”

Consider, if you will, what the inability to return fire to defend themselves does to the combat veteran’s morale, especially those who were accustomed to fighting back and fighting for their lives. Now they have to sit idly by,  defenseless in the country where they lost so many of their comrades as they fought to bring people in a far- away land a decent chance at freedom. Is their sacrifice appreciated at all? Is it appreciated by the Iraqis? Does the American civilian population fully understand what they have lost, and what they have given up in order to keep the fighting away from our own soil?

After years of having the liberal media covering the war on their terms, poisoned with their bias, we don’t expect them to suddenly bring us  honesty in their reporting.  We do however want Americans to remember that American soldiers are still fighting a war in Iraq, albeit a war restricted by the idiocy of rules of engagement which impede a soldier’s inherent right to self defense. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are political hot coals for the Obama administration. Without the Iraq War, and the rising death count, Barack Hussein Obama would not have been elected President of the United States. In 2007 Obama announced his candidacy for the presidency from the steps of the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield. It was there that Lincoln delivered his “House Divided Speech” and Obama wanted to appeal to a nation divided by the continuing war in Iraq. His “hope and change” message was accompanied by his promise to end the war in Iraq and to bring the troops home.

On April 4, 2011, the 44th president of the United States once again announced his candidacy for reelection. Two years after he took office, Americans are still divided. Obama now has a war of his own in Libya, the economy is still in shambles, the war in Afghanistan has escalated, we are currently facing an imminent government shutdown, and the troops Obama promised to bring home are still in Iraq. On Monday Secretary of Defense Gates arrived in Iraq and was expected to remind the Iraqi leaders that the US withdrawal date is fast approaching. As that date nears the violence in Iraq is escalating. The Iraqis have had more than sufficient time to prepare themselves for self- government. Whatever the plans are to replace the US military in Iraq, they should be put in action immediately.

If our soldiers in Iraq cannot defend themselves from attack, they need to come home. Regardless of what the Obama loving news media attempts to tell us, let us remember that our deployed military remains in harm’s way. We will continue to support them and hold them up in our prayers. They are our heroes, our warriors, and the sacrifices that they and their family have endured will never be forgotten.

twosisters_ftr@yahoo.com

Obama: From Peace To War

Two Sisters From The Right have opposed any American involvement in another Middle East conflict.  While Harry Reid and other Democrats have come out in support of the president, we stand in SUPPORT OF OUR TROOPS.  There are entirely too many unanswered questions for us to be supportive of spending millions of dollars on another Military action, especially in defense of people who went out in the streets and cheered when our country was attacked by terrorists.  We don't know who these rebels are.  We don't know who leads them or if it is truly a desire for democracy that motivates them. We know nothing about who supplies them with arms.  There are too many unanswered questions. 

Why must we put our Armed Forces in harm's way just because the Arab League asked it of us?  We don't always have to be the ones who lead and leap to save the world.  We seriously doubt that the Arab League would unite in any sort of effort to defend Americans or American interests.  Although we feel for those who are victims of genocide, it is time that others took charge, especially while at home, we are still receiving flag draped coffins from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Journalist Rick Moran has written that unless boots are put on the ground, Qaddafi might still get his way.  It is our belief that if they do put boots on the ground, they had better be Arab boots.  It is a frightening thought that Obama should really decide to take the lead in a war.  The US Military is not Acorn!

We have chosen to feature this article from Spiegel Online International, because it presents an objective view of the facts, adding in some historical comparisons, and an accurate, if somewhat flattering, evaluation of the reluctant commander in chief.
Two Sisters

A Libyan plane crashes after being shot down in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi on March 19: Barack Obama has committed the US to military action against Moammar Gadhafi.

Obama Finally Has His Own War

By Marc Pitzke in New York


Barack Obama has taken a firm stance against Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi in one of the toughest speeches of his presidency. For Obama, threatening air strikes against Libya is a decisive turning point. Now the formerly peace-minded US president finally has a war of his own making.
____________________________________________

US President Barack Obama has struck a new tone. It's one that would have been unthinkable back when he was still a presidential candidate -- the candidate of peace, who rejected his predecessor's wars and wanted to have as little to do with them as possible. But now he is president and commander-in-chief. And now he has the first war of his own making.

US President Barack Obama has struck a new tone. It's one that would have been unthinkable back when he was still a presidential candidate -- the candidate of peace, who rejected his predecessor's wars and wanted to have as little to do with them as possible. But now he is president and commander-in-chief. And now he has the first war of his own making.

On Friday afternoon, Obama entered the East Room of the White House, to make one of the shortest but toughest speeches of his presidency. It was not an open declaration of war -- the word was not mentioned once. But the speech was the culmination of a week in which the pacifist turned into a warrior. At the end of that week, Obama himself committed American troops to a new, distant front for the first time. He did so reluctantly, but it was clear to him that the decision was inevitable.
 
It was one of the most decisive moments in Obama's still young presidency.
 
From Peace To War
 
Following the UN resolution on Thursday night that paved the way for military strikes against Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, Obama had been silent for 20 hours. While the French and British were making preparations for military action, and the Germans pondered the wisdom of their abstention, the White House preferred to wait.

That was partly because no one in Washington really knows what to make of Gadhafi's recent maneuvering. But mainly it is because Obama finds himself trapped in a dilemma: He must explain to his people why he gone from being a staunch opponent of US military action to its advocate. It would be the third current American military operation in a Muslim country, after Afghanistan and Iraq.

Some American commentators have already begun referring to the Korean War. That war, which traumatized generations of Americans, began in a similar fashion in 1950, with a UN resolution and an offer of help from the West.

From peace to war in seven days: It is enough to give people "whiplash," complained Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson on the TV channel MSNBC.

'We Will Not Respond to Words'

The discrepancy could also be seen during Obama's appearance in the East Room. He was addressing two different audiences. On the one hand, he threatened Gadhafi in tougher terms than ever before. On the other, Obama, with an eye to the domestic TV audience, played down the consequences from an American perspective. Supporting the UN was fine, he said, but ruled out unilateral military action or the use of US ground forces.

In terms of the message to Gadhafi, Obama could hardly have expressed himself any more clearly. "These terms are not negotiable," he said, referring to the conditions laid down by UN Resolution 1973, namely a ceasefire, an end to attacks on civilians and halting the advance on Benghazi. Obama has never seemed so determined before.

At the same time, he had his foot firmly on the brake when it came to military action. He announced that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would first meet with America's European allies and Arab partners on Saturday in Paris to discuss how the resolution should be enforced -- meaning that the bombing would not start immediately.

Washington also appeared unimpressed by Gadhafi's announcement of a ceasefire on Friday. "We are going to be not responsive or impressed by words," Clinton said. "We would have to see actions on the ground."

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who discussed the situation with Obama in a telephone conversation, made similar comments. "We will judge (Gadhafi) by his actions, not his words," he told the BBC.

Events on Saturday proved the leaders' skepticism to be well founded. Gadhafi's ground troops attacked the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, and a fighter jet was shot down over the city.

Selling War to the American People

During his speech, Obama summarized how the situation had escalated, partially for the benefit of those in his domestic audience who had previously paid little attention to the situation in Libya. He described how Gadhafi had responded to pro-democracy protests with an "iron fist": "Instead of respecting the rights of his own people, Gadhafi chose the path of brutal suppression." Obama also described the long series of international responses to Gadhafi -- the sanctions, the arms embargo and the repeated warnings.

Then came the most important part of the speech: why the US should get involved. "Now, here is why this matters to us," said Obama, sounding a bit like a math teacher explaining a problem to his students. "The calls of the Libyan people for help would go unanswered. The democratic values that we stand for would be overrun. Moreover, the words of the international community would be rendered hollow." In other words, America is prepared to go to war over such concerns.

Obama may well have used similar words when, earlier in the White House, he had briefed the most important representatives and senators in detail about the possible UN deployment for the first time. The audience included both supporters of a US involvement, such as John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and John McCain, as well as opponents such as Dick Lugar.

Congress does not need to approve the US action, because it is not an official declaration of war. But it can still hold a symbolic vote. By then at the latest, the divisions in Washington will probably start showing.

The first cracks were already appearing on Friday. "None of this makes any sense," the columnist Andrew Sullivan wrote in his blog for The Atlantic. Gaddafi is not a threat to the US, he argued, adding "not even the most righteous neocons" have pushed for military action on such slim grounds. Sullivan also condemned "the imperial presidency that Obama has now taken to a greater height than even Bush."

'Our Cause Is Just'

It is now clear that Obama's attitude changed on Tuesday evening at a crisis meeting at the White House which apparently became extremely heated. Both sides presented their arguments for and against an intervention in the conflict. Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was taking part via telephone, advocated military action. They were opposed by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and his deputy, Denis McDonough.

In contrast to his stance on the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, Obama ended up joining the side of the interventionists, arguing that Libya was central to the whole wave of change in the Middle East. "This is the greatest opportunity to realign our interests and our values," a senior administration official said at the meeting, according to the magazine Foreign Policy. The official apparently said that the sentence came from Obama himself. The president included the same sentiment in his speech on Friday.

In his address, Obama stipulated one condition, however: no invasion. "Our goal is focused, our cause is just, and our coalition is strong," he said -- sounding exactly like George W. Bush. By an irony of history, his speech came just before the eighth anniversary of the bombing of Iraq on the night of March 19-20, 2003, which began the Iraq war.

"In the case of Libya, they just threw out their playbook," Steve Clemons from the New America Foundation told Foreign Policy. "The fact that Obama pivoted on a dime shows that the White House is flying without a strategy."

It also shows that the old divide between the State Department and the Pentagon has reappeared. Hillary Clinton has won this round, at the expense of Gates, who did not want to impose an additional front on his already overburdened forces -- especially as all the strategic scenarios in Libya are unappealing.

Nevertheless, the troops are ready. The US has brought six warships and a submarine into position in the Mediterranean. "We have been deploying in the region for a few weeks," says one government source. "We are ready to fight." The "full range" is enabled, he says: combat jets and bombers, reconnaissance aircraft and marines.

'He's Going on Vacation'

But there was a sense of disbelief in some quarters in Washington about the fact that Obama set off on a long-planned five-day trip to Brazil, Chile and El Salvador on Friday evening, just hours after his Libya speech and despite the ongoing crisis. Gates was also planning to leave for a three-day trip to Russia on Saturday.

Obama is "going on vacation," mocked host Steve Doocy on the conservative Fox News network. "He's going to Rio. You've got to be kidding. He's taking his family."

The deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, had earlier defended the trip. "It's imperative that the United States not disengage from these regions," he told reporters on Wednesday.

But there's no getting away from the fact that Rio is a long way from Tripoli. Obama is indeed a reluctant commander-in-chief.