Is the President Doing His Job?

[TheFranklinParty]

Editors Note from Political Common Sense for America Newletter...

...as most of you know, I have refused to jump on the band-wagon of bashing Pres. Obama. I’ve been waiting for facts to answer the question; “Is he doing his job?”

The President of the United States is first and foremost the Commander and Chief of our military. His primary duty is to enforce the laws and protect the citizens of this country. Based on the terrorist act at Fort Hood, and now the attempted attack on the flight into Detroit, there is no question that Pres. Obama is failing at his prime directive – Protect Your People! So, logic has it that the President isn’t doing his job!

Let’s look at the facts: There were more than enough warning signs of instability and Al-Qaeda connections prior to the shooting at Fort Hood. The terrorist who failed in his attempt to bring down the jet bound for Detroit had ties to Yemen and was identified as dangerous by his own father. The data was there, so how did our system fail to protect us?

The buck has to stop with the President. Even Generals run inspections regularly. Instead of being on TV every day, or meddling with Capitol Hill, why hasn’t the President been improving our inter-agency communication and running drills to prevent just such tragedies? Instead of talking about Global Warming in Copenhagen, he should have been insisting on tighter airport security.

President Obama, it’s time you stopped acting like a Senator and started acting like a President!

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

Legitimate Question!

1. A father in Nigeria warns the Embassy about his son's new radical interests, he's going somewhere to do something and he's got a VISA {with many options on it} - Somebody dropped the significant piece of information and it wasn't passed up the chain of IMPORTANT SH!T: Not CIA/TSA/HomeLand Security/FBI...at least as far as we know now!
2. Britain Refused his VISA for further education in a victicious school: - Did anyone in Britain Intelligence pass this name and easily access VISA along to any security agency in AMERICA...NOW THAT IS A REAL INTERESTING QUESTION
3. So his name is on the 'WATCH LIST' {along with a couple hundred-thousand as well} what does it take to move this name to another high priority 'NO FLY LIST' - Seems as though there is some INTERNAL problem that needs to be dealt with ASAP...but we might need to have every agency staffed by the important 'go to people' at the top...have we ever filled the position that is waiting confirmation...hmmm
4. Yemen, Yemen, Yemen...seems to be the current site for training Al Qaeda operatives - Do we have anyone watching the movement of PEOPLE in and out of this country...single men with cash carrying capabilities flying in/out moving around the world, HELLS BELLS I don't know but it would behoove the USA to have some type of intelligence hot wired into their airport flight listings to get some names/data/something!

So to answer your question...I believe {as I did with G.W.B.} that our president is doing his job with the information that is passed along to him...if there is a snafu with the information/data then how is he supposed to do anything different then what he has to react upon???

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

Terror Inquiry Looks at Suspect’s Time in Britain

Andrew Testa for The New York Times
The apartment where Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab lived, in London's Bloomsbury district.


By JOHN F. BURNS


Published: December 29, 2009
This article was reported by John F. Burns, Landon Thomas Jr. and Ravi Somaiya and written by Mr. Burns.
LONDON — Hit hard by the London transit system bombings in 2005, Britain keeps a close eye on Islamic extremists, and MI5, the covert domestic security agency, has said it specifically monitors Muslim campus groups. Yet one student president of the Islamic Society at the prestigious University College London, a British security official said Tuesday, had “never shown up on the radar screen” as a threat.
That was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, who is accused of trying to blow up a plane descending into Detroit on Christmas Day in the name of Al Qaeda. The attack did not end in death but has set off many alarms, about holes in airline security, an active new Qaeda front in Yemen and the apparent reality — a focus now for investigators here and in the United States — that Britain remains a nation of deep Islamic ferment, where a young man like Mr. Abdulmutallab can become radicalized, perhaps without notice.
“It took a lot to get to know him; I’d describe him as humble,” said Qasim Rafiq, 24, who succeeded Mr. Abdulmutallab as the Islamic Society’s president in 2007. “If he walked into a room, you wouldn’t know he was there.”
Mr. Abdulmutallab’s engagement with radical Islam clearly hit a crisis for his family by Nov. 19, when his father, among Nigeria’s richest and most prominent men, visited the American Embassy there to express concern about the radicalization of his son, who had disappeared, perhaps to Yemen.
But a snapshot of Mr. Abdulmutallab’s formative years in London, from 2005 to 2009, reveals a central difficultly in preventing future terrorist attacks: Friends, relatives, a teacher and fellow Muslim students say they cannot point to a trigger moment in recent years in which an amiable and privileged young man, devout if also disaffected, aspired to mass murder. Their best guess — one shared by investigators — is that the road to radicalization ran less through Yemen, where he studied Arabic as a teenager and apparently later prepared for a suicide mission, than through the Islamic hothouse of London.
“It’s pointless trying to pin the blame for this on those in far-off lands,” a Muslim from California who studied Arabic in Yemen with Mr. Abdulmutallab said in a telephone interview in which he insisted on anonymity because he did not want to draw attention to his family, which migrated from Pakistan to Orange County when he was a boy.
“What we have to do is to try and understand what is going on in our own backyards,” he said. “We have to ask ourselves why a young man like Umar Farouk would do this, what the factors were in London that drove him to violence.”
Investigators are now, in fact, turning a sharper and retrospective eye to the passage in Mr. Abdulmutallab’s life that began immediately after his summer in Sana, Yemen, in 2005, when he enrolled as a $25,000-a-year student at University College London. In recent days, officials in Washington and London have said they are focusing on the possibility that his London years, including his possible contacts with radical Muslim groups then, were decisive in turning him toward Islamic extremism.

<for the rest of this story>
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/world/europe/30nigerian.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
***************************************
I'm not laying the entire blame at England's feet...but it would appear that there are some serious ISSUES with the groups and counter intelligence that is going on around England on these Islamic youth groups and there is a stench of deep seated terrorist mental training going on right under the Queen's NOSE!

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Editors Note from Political Common Sense for America Newletter...

The buck has to stop with the President.

Yeah....whatta great-option....QUESTIONING any (present) Admin!!!

*

 

[TheFranklinParty]

Legitimate Question!

1. A father in Nigeria warns the Embassy about his son's new radical interests, he's going somewhere to do something and he's got a VISA {with many options on it} - Somebody dropped the significant piece of information and it wasn't passed up the chain of IMPORTANT SH!T: Not CIA/TSA/HomeLand Security/FBI...at least as far as we know now!
2. Britain Refused his VISA for further education in a victicious school: - Did anyone in Britain Intelligence pass this name and easily access VISA along to any security agency in AMERICA...NOW THAT IS A REAL INTERESTING QUESTION
3. So his name is on the 'WATCH LIST' {along with a couple hundred-thousand as well} what does it take to move this name to another high priority 'NO FLY LIST' - Seems as though there is some INTERNAL problem that needs to be dealt with ASAP...but we might need to have every agency staffed by the important 'go to people' at the top...have we ever filled the position that is waiting confirmation...hmmm
4. Yemen, Yemen, Yemen...seems to be the current site for training Al Qaeda operatives - Do we have anyone watching the movement of PEOPLE in and out of this country...single men with cash carrying capabilities flying in/out moving around the world, HELLS BELLS I don't know but it would behoove the USA to have some type of intelligence hot wired into their airport flight listings to get some names/data/something!

So to answer your question...I believe {as I did with G.W.B.} that our president is doing his job with the information that is passed along to him...if there is a snafu with the information/data then how is he supposed to do anything different then what he has to react upon???

I guess my point is that the President of the United States is the Commander and Chief. His job is to protect this country's citizens. I would like to see him do more previewing of procedures and less reviewing of failures. He should let legislators make law and he should runt he country.

I also felt that Bush and Clinton failed us by not keeping a better eye on potential risks, especially after the first World Trade Center bombing. I play no favorites when people don't do their job effectively.

 

[TheFranklinParty]

Yeah....whatta great-option....QUESTIONING any (present) Admin!!!​

​

I think Bush and Clinton both failed by not being prepared for potential attacks. All of them were way to focused on things other than their job!

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

I guess my point is that the President of the United States is the Commander and Chief. His job is to protect this country's citizens. I would like to see him do more previewing of procedures and less reviewing of failures. He should let legislators make law and he should runt he country.

I also felt that Bush and Clinton failed us by not keeping a better eye on potential risks, especially after the first World Trade Center bombing. I play no favorites when people don't do their job effectively.

Until the 'FACTS' are known (the chain of events and the trail that went NO WHERE) via what ever technique that this entails: congressional review/oversight committees/FBI investigation...
I DON'T CARE who takes this matter to task but the basis for 'NOT HAVING' all department heads seated and approved has been problematic and needs to be rectified ASAP {IMHO}
But to just blankly stating that Janet Napolitano needs to be gone is just to simplistic knee jerk reaction for a internal lack of communication that we {AMERICA} seems to be suffering from and it just isn't this current administration that is feeling the affects of the problem. PULLING MY HAIR OUT IN FRUSTRATION...what is it going to take to make these agencies work together and stay in touch with each other

 

[TheFranklinParty]

Until the 'FACTS' are known (the chain of events and the trail that went NO WHERE) via what ever technique that this entails: congressional review/oversight committees/FBI investigation...
I DON'T CARE who takes this matter to task but the basis for 'NOT HAVING' all department heads seated and approved has been problematic and needs to be rectified ASAP {IMHO}
But to just blankly stating that Janet Napolitano needs to be gone is just to simplistic knee jerk reaction for a internal lack of communication that we {AMERICA} seems to be suffering from and it just isn't this current administration that is feeling the affects of the problem. PULLING MY HAIR OUT IN FRUSTRATION...what is it going to take to make these agencies work together and stay in touch with each other

I've worked in this HLS world on and off for years and the answer is easy. We need to stop giving key jobs in security agencies to somebody's brother-in-law. The number of people in key positions with absolutely no experience is shocking. Tie that with the power game and you have the makings for repeated disasters. That's why I believe the buck needs to stop with the President and he must focus on changing the way the whole intelligence and border management works. It needs to stop being political and be about safety.

 

[ASPCA4EVER]

I've worked in this HLS world on and off for years and the answer is easy. We need to stop giving key jobs in security agencies to somebody's brother-in-law. The number of people in key positions with absolutely no experience is shocking. Tie that with the power game and you have the makings for repeated disasters. That's why I believe the buck needs to stop with the President and he must focus on changing the way the whole intelligence and border management works. It needs to stop being political and be about safety.

Seems to be a systemic problem with any: local municipality/state/federal job opening; get Uncle Joe or his neerdowell kid a job since they can't hold down anything that entail 'MAUNUAL LABOR' on their own devices!

But I can't just lean back and say..."it's got to be the Presidents problem since he's in charge"...how do you do all that is expected of you with all of the 'HOT PRIORITIES' that he's got on his plate, when the people that you place in the TOP AUTHORITATIVE POSITION need to be able to do their job
While it's great to have that 'OVERLORD/KING' mentality, that just isn't how our government works, as with the snafu about G.W.B. multiple leaks and the issues that got him into such a 'WORST PRESIDENT OF ALL TIME', this shall be worked out and the people responsible will be reprimanded...but we have to allow the people in charge to do their jobs and get to the bottom of this mess and then let their heads roll

 

[Sihouette]

"I guess my point is that the President of the United States is the Commander and Chief. His job is to protect this country's citizens"~TFP

Well you'll be happy to know he intends to protect them with affordable access to adequate healthcare then. Right?


Why do I always get the feeling when comments like this are made from the right, that "this country's citizens" is really just code for "rich corporate monopoly interests"? I mean technically this poster is telling the truth. After all, american tycoons are still citizens..

You know it's just this nagging thought that won't go away.

 

[TheFranklinParty]

Seems to be a systemic problem with any: local municipality/state/federal job opening; get Uncle Joe or his neerdowell kid a job since they can't hold down anything that entail 'MAUNUAL LABOR' on their own devices!

But I can't just lean back and say..."it's got to be the Presidents problem since he's in charge"...how do you do all that is expected of you with all of the 'HOT PRIORITIES' that he's got on his plate, when the people that you place in the TOP AUTHORITATIVE POSITION need to be able to do their job
While it's great to have that 'OVERLORD/KING' mentality, that just isn't how our government works, as with the snafu about G.W.B. multiple leaks and the issues that got him into such a 'WORST PRESIDENT OF ALL TIME', this shall be worked out and the people responsible will be reprimanded...but we have to allow the people in charge to do their jobs and get to the bottom of this mess and then let their heads roll

Ok, if I follow your logic that there are just too many hot topics on the President's plate, then we need to prioritize. As I read his job description, as commander and chief, his first priority is the safety of all American citizens. This is my point that he needs to assign qualified people to these posts and he needs to stop manipulating legislation.

 

[TheFranklinParty]

Well you'll be happy to know he intends to protect them with affordable access to adequate healthcare then. Right?


Why do I always get the feeling when comments like this are made from the right, that "this country's citizens" is really just code for "rich corporate monopoly interests"? I mean technically this poster is telling the truth. After all, american tycoons are still citizens..

You know it's just this nagging thought that won't go away.

I really wish more people would read the U.S. Constitution and pay attention in Civics class. The Legislative body makes law. The Executive Branch is in place to veto it if it is not in the majorities best interest. Checks and balances. The Executive Branch is in place to physically insure that our laws are followed and to prevent foreign attack.

By the way, I think both far right and far left have gone completely nuts, so please don't insult me in the future by throwing me in with a group I have no affiliation with.

 

[dogtowner]

I really wish more people would read the U.S. Constitution and pay attention in Civics class. The Legislative body makes law. The Executive Branch is in place to veto it if it is not in the majorities best interest. Checks and balances. The Executive Branch is in place to physically insure that our laws are followed and to prevent foreign attack.

By the way, I think both far right and far left have gone completely nuts, so please don't insult me in the future by throwing me in with a group I have no affiliation with.

I'm not sure that paying attention in civics class will prove beneficial.

And imagine the confusion at trying to make heads or tails of DC after you have read the document ! No branch of government is operating as defined ad have not for quite some time.

 

[AtheismIsReality]

I really wish people would quit pretending informal chains of communication can't exist in our government.

Congress makes the laws. There's no sense in ignoring the executive when writing legislation just to have it vetoed when presented. That just wastes time. Then we have to hear about how government is so inefficient...

 

[TheFranklinParty]

I really wish people would quit pretending informal chains of communication can't exist in our government.

Congress makes the laws. There's no sense in ignoring the executive when writing legislation just to have it vetoed when presented. That just wastes time. Then we have to hear about how government is so inefficient...

I have no issue with communication between the executive and legislative arms of our government. What I have a problem with is the amount of time being spent by our executive arm on publicity and influence. If our borders were secure and we had competent people in the right places, it might not be as big an issue.