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Originally Posted by tomder55

The first job of a President is to keep the country safe, and McCain has decades of experience in this area.

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Hello tom:

I don't know. I read the Constitution, and I didn't read any of that stuff. It's actually NOT there. I think you right wingers are making it up. In fact, you are.

In the presidents oath of office, he swears to protect and defend the CONSTITUTION - not the people...

I wonder why our founders said THAT, instead of what you think they said?? Maybe because they're pretty smart guys. And, I thought you guy's were CONSTRUCTIONISTS - people who take the Constitution literally.

Ok, I'm waiting...

excon

Ex you complain about my "word games" ? As you know the founders left the language of Sec.2 intentionally vague... however , Sec 1 of the constitution describes how the President becomes President .Sec. 2 describes the President powers. 1st among them isSection 2. The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.

Now I wonder why the founders enumerated the 1st power of the President is CIC if not to keep the country safe??

excon,
Want to know why the neocons say those thing? You must watch the BBC series "Power of Nightmares". You can bittorrent it, watch it on Google Video (best to watch them in order) or read about the series on Wiki. It's gripping stuff. It shows you how some of the people here have been conditioned to believe the things they do.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

Ex you complain about my "word games" ? As you know the founders left the language of Sec.2 intentionally vague ...however , Sec 1 of the constitution describes how the President becomes President .Sec. 2 describes the President powers. 1st among them isSection 2. The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.

Now I wonder why the founders enumerated the 1st power of the the President is CIC if not to keep the country safe????

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Not to mention the preamble defining the constitution as "in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

It would seem defending the constitution IS providing for the common defense and securing the blessings of liberty of the people as commander in chief wouldn't it?

No one conditioned me . I have studied the constitution and what the founders said and wrote about it for years. I can say that such originalists as Jefferson and Hamilton had no problem utilizing an expansive role of the executive when they thought it warranted. Washington personally led the troops to quell the Wiskey Rebellion .Jefferson dispatched the navy to battle the jihadists in Barbary without Congressional approval to secure our commercial maritime interests . He also doubled the size of the nation without ratification of the Senate when he negotiated the Lousiana purchase.
Since the beginning Hamilton among others argued that there were implied powers of the Presidency that are not enumenrated . When issues of security are considered . So please ;save the psyco-babble for someone else.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

Ex you complain about my "word games" .... Now I wonder why the founders enumerated the 1st power of the the President is CIC if not to keep the country safe????

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Hello again, tom:

As a strict constructionist, if the courts had ruled that "keeping the country safe" was what the founders meant when they made him CIC, you'd call that an ACTIVIST court. You'd say they MADE up stuff that the Constitution DOESN'T say. You'd say they're conferring powers and duties upon the president that ISN'T reflected in the WORDS used by the founders.

You'd be right.

excon

I am not a "strict constructionist,, I'm an originalist . I stand by what I wrote . The fact is that the courts on many occasions have confirmed that indeed the President's authority regarding security is implied . They have also on occasion blown it. What I don't find in the constitution is any role for SCOTUS in national security .

Hello again wingers:

How about this? How about keeping the country safe AND preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution? I don't think they're mutually exclusive.

You, along with the dufus in chief, think (and I've heard it before), that the Constitution is a suicide pact... You poor misguided fellows. If our Constitution isn't good enough for you, maybe you should find a country more to your liking...

Do you like getting some of your own medicine?

excon

Well for one thing, Obama is just being realistic. If they are not going to learn English, personally I feel they should have to, to become citizens. But on the upside of it, If they made it part of a school curriculum, what's the harm, it's not giving in. I live around the corner from a deli where the employees speak hardly any english, they speak polish, and have been there for years.
Plus, if you are bi-lingual today, you get a higher paying job and the job field is more open. So there is a plus side to what he is saying. And yes I am an avid Obama supporter. But that is nothing to how I feel about teaching spanish in our schools. It's not going to hurt them. My niece is a Spanish teacher. She loves it. And the kids she tells me love learning the language, I wish I had continued with it. It would make me much more employable.

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Originally Posted by NeedKarma

excon,
Want to know why the neocons say those thing? You must watch the BBC series "Power of Nightmares". You can bittorrent it, watch it on Google Video (best to watch them in order) or read about the series on Wiki. It's gripping stuff. It shows you how some of the people here have been conditioned to believe the things they do.

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LOL, ain't that the pot calling the kettle black? We poor dupes have been conditioned to believe in phantom groups like al-Qaeda because the enlightened left believes it has found a conspiracy. Apparently Clinton must have been on board the neo-con express since it was his administration that invented al-Qaeda.

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in order to prosecute bin Laden in absentia for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, US prosecutors had to prove he was the head of a criminal organisation responsible for the bombings. They find a former associate of bin Laden, Jamal al-Fadl, and pay him to testify that bin Laden was the head of a massive terrorist organisation called "al-Qaeda".

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Maybe you unconditioned types should hop on over to the al-Qaeda Wiki and learn that "Al-Qaeda evolved from the Maktab al-Khadamat (Services Office), a Muslim organization founded in 1980 to raise and channel funds and recruit foreign mujahadeen for the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. It was founded by Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, a Palestinian Islamic scholar and member of the Muslim Brotherhood," and "the organization that would eventually be called al-Qaeda, [was] formed by Osama bin Laden with an initial meeting held on August 11, 1988." Without the help of the CIA I might add...

In my small neighborhood there is English ,Spanish ,Creole ,and Yiddish routinely spoken. Here is the list of languages spoken in NYC
Languages Spoken, New York City

This is not a bilingual nation but a multilingual one . There has to be some glue to hold the society togther and an unofficial or official English is one of them .

No ;Obama was not speaking the truth . He set up a strawman by saying that we wanted legislation for "English Only" and then he used mockery and ridicule to knock down his false premise.
It is important for immigrants to learn the English language to give them their best chance to succeed here. It is nice but not necessary that I learn their language .

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

We poor dupes have been conditioned to believe in phantom groups like al-Qaeda because the enlightened left believes it has found a conspiracy.

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It isn't a conspiracy borne from "the left" (whatever that is) it was an exposé by the BBC and they explain the reasoning behind it (did you even watch the 3 hours?).

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

Maybe you unconditioned types should hop on over to the al-Qaeda Wiki and learn that "Al-Qaeda evolved from the Maktab al-Khadamat (Services Office), a Muslim organization founded in 1980 to raise and channel funds and recruit foreign mujahadeen for the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. It was founded by Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, a Palestinian Islamic scholar and member of the Muslim Brotherhood," and "the organization that would eventually be called al-Qaeda, [was] formed by Osama bin Laden with an initial meeting held on August 11, 1988." Without the help of the CIA I might add...

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That is all in the series as well. No one disputes the Afghanistan connection, the problem is claiming that they are a well-organized groups in 60 countries.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

This is not a bilingual nation but a multilingual one . There has to be some glue to hold the society togther and an unofficial or offical English is one of them.

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That has always been the case, and it will continue to be the case.

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Originally Posted by NeedKarma

It isn't a conspiracy borne from "the left" (whatever that is) it was an exposé by the BBC and they explain the reasoning behind it (did you even watch the 3 hours?).

That is all in the series as well. No one disputes the Afghanistan connection, the problem is claiming that they are a well-organized groups in 60 countries.

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Oh, you mean the BBC that admitted they are "guilty of promoting Left-wing views and an anti-Christian sentiment?" What's funny is that almost 8 years after 9/11, people like you and Curtis downplay the threat of al-Qaeda and bin Laden. What, 3000 dead Americans, two 110 story towers, massive Pentagon damage, years of al-Qaeda terrorist attacks in Iraq not enough to convince them of the threat from al-Qaeda?

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the problem is claiming that they are a well-organized groups in 60 countries.

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But of course no one has made such a claim .

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Originally Posted by tomder55

But of course no one has made such a claim .

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Wasn't this a question about Obama wanting Americans to learn Spanish, all of a sudden it became a discussion bashing Obama and his wife..

There must be a different category for your hatred of him.

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Originally Posted by reesetess

Wasn't this a question about Obama wanting Americans to learn Spanish, all of a sudden it became a discussion bashing Obama and his wife..

There must be a different category for your hatred of him.

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It's also been turned into a constitutional question and thanks to NK, an al-Qaeda conspiracy theory which is what tom was referring to. The quote you cited from tom had nothing to do with bashing Obama and his wife.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

But of course no one has made such a claim .

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Your republicans leaders have.

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Originally Posted by reesetess

Wasn't this a question about Obama wanting Americans to learn Spanish, all of a sudden it became a discussion bashing Obama and his wife..

There must be a different category for your hatred of him.

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Bingo! They are reflective of their elected president that detoured the focus in Afghanistan to Iraq as OBL escaped to a cave sipping lemonade and preparing to stock the shelves at Blockbuster.

Need Karma:
Kudos to *******