Obama Bogged Down by Scandalsby Phyllis Schlafly
Increasing public disapproval of Barack Obama is based not only on his extravagant spending that hangs debt like an albatross around the necks of our children and grandchildren. He is presiding over the most scandal-ridden administration in decades, from Colombia to Las Vegas, to the Mexican border, to Solyndra, and more.
The Secret Service's prostitution party in Colombia is an international embarrassment. It's not sufficient punishment that a few guilty men have been allowed to resign or retire with benefits because many questions are still crying to be answered.
Who arranged the party at the now-notorious Pley Club Cartagena, which apparently supplied enough girls for eleven Secret Service and ten U.S. military men staying in separate rooms at the historic Hotel Caribe, where prostitution is openly tolerated?
Is there any connection between this moral scandal and our recent trade agreement with Colombia? Were there any similar parties to con the United States into going along with this free-trade deal favorable to Colombia?
Another embarrassing scandal is the General Services Administration's $823,000 junket to Las Vegas. Obama Administration bureaucrats apparently think parties are perks that go along with their jobs.
Living high on the hog, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has been charging the Pentagon $32,000 per flight to jet to California every few weeks. And don't forget the half-billion-dollar gift to Solyndra before it took bankruptcy and left U.S. taxpayers on the hook.
"Fast and Furious" turned out to be a bloody scandal after the U.S. Justice Department okayed the sale of guns to Mexican drug cartels, under the ridiculous excuse that this would give us the opportunity to get more information about the drug dealers. Somebody should be held accountable for the fact that one of these U.S. guns was used to murder U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
Operation Fast and Furious allowed over 2,000 weapons to be smuggled to the violent Mexican drug cartels. A new book by investigative journalist Katie Pavlich, called "Fast and Furious: Barack Obama's Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Cover-up," asserts that a third gun was involved whose existence was covered up by the FBI and the Justice Department.
Another scandal is that the Obama Administration is suing several states. We need more aggressive Tenth Amendment advocates to publicize and overturn these travesties.
Obama is suing Arizona to try to knock out its law to protect its citizens against illegal aliens, a law that polls show Americans support by two-to-one. The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments this week.
The Arizona law allows local law enforcement to question the legal status of anyone who is stopped on suspicion of a crime, and then detain anyone who cannot prove legal U.S. residency. Illegal immigration is already a federal crime, and the Arizona law is an attempt to do some enforcement that the feds are failing to do.
The Obama Administration wants the courts to prevent the states from enforcing laws that Obama refuses to enforce. Similar lawsuits have been filed against Alabama, Georgia, and Utah.
In the Supreme Court case against Arizona, nine states have filed amicus briefs supporting Arizona, including Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma and South Carolina. They say they "have a manifest interest in ensuring that their sovereignty is accorded proper respect," and that each state should be able to decide for itself how to protect its citizens from the crime and costs associated with illegal aliens.
Amicus briefs from foreign governments opposing the Alabama and Georgia laws were filed by Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru. We need federal and state laws to prevent our courts from considering foreign laws, treaties, court decisions, or briefs in interpreting U.S. laws.
It looks like voter fraud is one of the ways that Barack Obama plans to be reelected in November. He has had his Justice Department block Texas and South Carolina laws that require showing a photo ID in order to vote, even though polls report that 70 percent of Americans support voter ID.
In defending Texas's law, Governor Rick Perry said it "requires nothing more extensive than the type of photo identification necessary to receive a library card or board an airplane." At least eight states have passed similar laws, and even the liberal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Arizona's 2004 ballot initiative requiring voters to show photo ID in order to vote.
The Constitution makes it a major duty of the President to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Despite the fact the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is the law of the land, passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, Obama is instead ordering his Justice Department not to defend this law in court.