Reading the lines (what Obama says) and between them (what Raimondo didn’t say)

My take on the news

Lonnie Barham
Posted 10/2/14

OBAMA REDEFINES “BOOTS ON THE GROUND”: News that President Obama is now sending more troops to Iraq, to include a headquarters element from the 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One, he has had …

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Reading the lines (what Obama says) and between them (what Raimondo didn’t say)

My take on the news

Posted

OBAMA REDEFINES “BOOTS ON THE GROUND”: News that President Obama is now sending more troops to Iraq, to include a headquarters element from the 1st Infantry Division, the Big Red One, he has had to once again redefine the term “boots on the ground.” To him, the 1,600 U.S. troops operating in Iraq don’t constitute boots on the ground.

Many of us previously served with the Big Red One in Iraq. To us and to the division’s soldiers now headed to Iraq, if you are in a country where people want to kill you and you are once again subject to roadside bombs, mortars and snipers, your boots are definitely “on the ground.”

Military experts, to include the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, think U.S. ground combat operations may ultimately be the only way to defeat ISIS. When we are using million dollar missiles to knock out $50,000 ISIS humvees, quick destruction of ISIS doesn’t seem to be in the forecast. Only ground troops can destroy this terrorist organization. While we all hope Obama can convince Middle Eastern countries to send in those ground troops, our escalation of U.S. boots on the ground seems to indicate he is failing in that regard.

JOURNAL FOSTERS SYMPATHY VOTE FOR CIANCI? The Providence Journal, a normally objective - well, fairly objective - newspaper seems to have launched a vendetta against Providence mayoral candidate Buddy Cianci. It has published editorial after editorial lambasting Cianci for everything from his prison record to lying about his main opponent, and it has used its PolitiFact column to do the same thing.

Much, or perhaps all, of what the Journal says may be true. However, when a very important state voice like the Providence Journal goes to the well again and again to draw the same water over and over with which to drench Cianci, sooner or later the voters will become tired of it and start to sympathize with Cianci. Look out, Journal! You may be allowing your editorial emotions to defeat your purpose.

RAIMONDO’S APPEAL TO DONORS LAUGHABLE: In an appeal to potential donors to her election campaign, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Raimondo said, “My Republican opponent has a big financial advantage...”

Is she nuts? She has already spent $5.4 million on her campaign. Her opponent, Republican Allan Fung, has spent so little that he qualifies for state matching funds. Yet, in Raimondo’s mind, Fung has “a big financial advantage”?

Raimondo’s financial backers have far deeper pockets than Fung’s, and Raimondo is not limited to the amount she can collect and spend. Fung is limited because of his decision to accept matching funds – a decision driven by his lack of major contributors. The bottom line: Raimondo’s claim that Fung has a financial advantage is simply sophomoric or, more likely, a purposeful attempt to deceive potential donors.

STORIES ON AWARD OF OLD MEDALS DECEPTIVE:  Every couple of weeks during the past five to ten years, newspapers have reported stories about World War II veterans “finally receiving the military awards they earned during WWII.” Politicians who belatedly award the medals and reporters who tell the stories make it appear that the military failed to give the awards when they were earned 70 years ago. That is not the case.

In a very few instances, awards were unfairly withheld. In the vast majority of cases, however, the veterans simply lost or misplaced the medals over the ensuing seven decades of their lives. The children and grandchildren of these WWII veterans seek replacement of their loved ones’ medals and politicians assist them in acquiring them from the military. That doesn’t mean the military didn’t issue the medals originally when they were earned - yet politicians and news reporters make it sound that way.

Only seven years into Army retirement, I have no idea what happened to  at least half the medals I was awarded over a long career. It’s just not something most veterans monitor closely when they return to civilian life. For WWII veterans, seventy years after their service makes it even worse.

Newspaper reporters need to inquire more closely about whether the newly issued medals are replacement awards or whether they were never issued in the first place. In probably 95 percent of the cases, the answer is that they are replacements.

Our military does a good job recognizing the actions of our brave service members. The press and politicians should not make it appear otherwise.

OBAMA EQUATES FERGUSON POLICE TO ISIS: In a speech before the United Nations last week, President Obama spoke about terrorist events in the Middle East and civil war in Ukraine. In a move most found irrational and unbelievable, Obama seemed to equate problems in the U.S. to the terrorist and insurrection activities taking place in those two hot spots.

His statement: “In a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, I know the world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri - where a young man was killed and a community was divided.”

Did Obama really draw a moral comparison between the Ferguson police and terrorists? It certainly appears that he did. At least that’s what many Americans took from his remarks.

Obama was wrong on so many levels. Even if the Ferguson police officer was totally wrong, which only an objective investigation will determine, the shooting of the man clearly was not a planned killing carried out with malice aforethought. Was it tragic? Yes. Was it an act of terrorism? Certainly not.

The matter is the subject of an ongoing investigation. Surely, the chief law enforcement officer in the land - the President - should not be issuing slanted comments while the investigation is underway. It’s improper, unethical and probably illegal for Obama to make such comments. Yet he dragged the Ferguson incident into the international limelight and indirectly called an American police officer a terrorist.

In the same speech, Obama praised as an example of “a moderate Muslim” Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah, the sheikh who in 2004 endorsed a fatwa telling Muslims to kill U.S. troops and who has made similar terrorism-supporting remarks since. So in Obama’s mind, a terrorist is a moderate while a Ferguson police officer is a terrorist? Something’s wrong with this picture!

QUID PRO QUO FOR CIANCI’S COMPOUNDED COLAS: It was several years in the making, but Providence mayoral candidate Buddy Cianci has finally received “repayment” for the extra-generous, compounded COLAs that he gave to police and firefighters when he was last mayor. The COLAs were so generous that there are now police and fire retirees receiving far more in retirement pay than they earned in salary while employed - close to $200,000 per year in some cases.

Even though the COLAs almost put the city into bankruptcy, the police and firefighters unions don’t care. Their gratitude to Cianci was evident last week when they gave him his “payback” by endorsing his candidacy to become mayor once again. Do the police officers and firefighters really think Cianci will again lavish them with such a taxpayer-killing gift?

RAIMONDO SENDS BAD SIGNALS TO TAXPAYERS: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Raimondo’s refusal to release her answers to special interest groups’ questionnaires, including answers to questions asked by unions, is a signal to voters that she answered the questions to the satisfaction of the special interest groups. Had she answered otherwise, both she and the groups would have publicized it broadly.

Worse is the signal she sent to taxpayers last week when she refused to appear before 150 municipal representatives at a League of Cities and Towns dinner in Warwick. She signaled that she is afraid to take a public position on keeping state spending under control, the only way she can help cities and towns keep property tax rates low through state tax revenue sharing. And she doesn’t want to commit to policies that might help municipalities keep their own employee costs under control. That, of course, would not be in consonance with her recent push for support from public employee unions.

Taxpayers need to read between the lines of what all candidates say. In the case of Raimondo, they must be extra vigilant.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:  Between Republican candidate for Providence mayor, Daniel Harrop, and the Moderate Party candidate for governor, Robert Healey, it’s unclear who is going to provide the most quotable comments during this election. This week’s winner, however, goes to Harrop. Responding to Buddy Cianci’s claim that “there is a plot to get me,” Harrop retorted, “Yes! True! We call it ‘an election’”

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