{"id":9116,"date":"2016-01-12T11:30:22","date_gmt":"2016-01-12T16:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=9116"},"modified":"2024-09-11T20:50:21","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T00:50:21","slug":"usa-today-emptyseats-for-obama-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/12\/usa-today-emptyseats-for-obama-victims\/","title":{"rendered":"USA TODAY: Leave More Empty Seats for Obama Victims"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>USA TODAY<\/strong>, January 12, 2016<\/h3>\n<h2><a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/opinion\/2016\/01\/12\/other-chairs-empty-obama-speech-deaths-domestic-foreign-column\/78631644\/\">First Lady&#8217;s box should be empty at State of the Union speech<\/a><\/h2>\n<p>by James Bovard<\/p>\n<p><em>Saving seats for the dead would require a lot more room for victims of Obama&#8217;s policies.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The White House announced that there will be a seat left vacant in the gallery during Obama\u2019s State of the Union Address &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/the-fix\/wp\/2016\/01\/08\/obamas-state-of-the-union-will-feature-an-empty-chair-a-political-sym\">for the victims of gun violence who no longer have a voice<\/a>.&#8221; This old stunt is part of Obama\u2019s campaign for new federal restrictions on firearms ownership, but if he really wanted to provide a voice for those who&#8217;ve lost theirs, at least in part, due to his own administration&#8217;s policies, he&#8217;d have to empty all the seats in the gallery reserved for the first lady and\u00a0her guests.<\/p>\n<p>While trumpeting the private death toll from guns, Obama on Tuesday night will likely ignore the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/graphics\/national\/police-shootings\/\">986\u00a0people\u00a0killed by police<\/a> in the United States last year according to <em>The Washington Post<\/em>&#8216;s database. Many police departments are aggressive \u2014 if not reckless \u2014 in part because the Justice Department always provides cover for them at the Supreme Court. Obama\u2019s &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/04\/22\/us\/at-supreme-court-holders-justice-dept-routinely-backs-officers-use-of-force.html\">Justice Department has supported police officers <\/a>every time an excessive-force case has made its way&#8221; to a Supreme Court hearing, <em>The New York Times<\/em> noted last year. Attorney General Loretta Lynch recently said that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2015\/oct\/02\/loretta-lynch-reports-killed-by-police\">federally-funded police agencies should not even be required to report the number of civilians they kill<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>To add a Euro flair to the evening, Obama could drape tri-color flags on a few empty seats to commemorate the 42 medical staff, patients, and others\u00a0slain\u00a0last <span id=\"OBJ_PREFIX_DWT226_com_zimbra_date\" class=\"Object\"><span id=\"OBJ_PREFIX_DWT227_com_zimbra_date\" class=\"Object\">Oct. 3<\/span><\/span> when an American \u00a0 AC-130 gunship \u00a0 blasted a French M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res\u200e hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan\u00a0 The U.S. military revised its story several times but admitted in November that the carnage was the result of &#8220;avoidable &#8230; human error.&#8221; Regrettably, that bureaucratic phrase lacks the power to resurrect victims.<\/p>\n<p>No plans have been announced to designate a seat for <a href=\"http:\/\/usatoday30.usatoday.com\/news\/nation\/story\/2012\/09\/20\/fast-and-furious-guns-not-recovered\/57815494\/1\">Brian Terry,<\/a> the U.S. Border Patrol agent killed in 2010. Guns found at the scene of Terry&#8217;s killing were\u00a0linked to the Fast and Furious gunwalking operation masterminded by the Alcohol, Tobacco,\u00a0Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agency.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/articles.latimes.com\/2011\/sep\/19\/world\/la-fg-mexico-fast-furious-20110920\">At least 150 Mexicans<\/a> were also killed by guns illegally sent south of the border with ATF approval. The House of Representatives voted to hold then-attorney general <a href=\"http:\/\/content.usatoday.com\/communities\/theoval\/post\/2012\/06\/house-sets-vote-to-hold-holder-in-contempt-of-congress\/1#.VpPtkfkrLIU\">Eric Holder in contempt for refusing <\/a>to disclose Fast and Furious details, but Obama is not expected to dwell on this topic in his State of the Union address.<\/p>\n<p>On a more festive note, why not save some seats for a wedding party? Twelve Yemenis who were<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/national-security\/yemeni-victims-of-us-military-drone-strike-get-more-than-1million-in-compensation\/2014\/08\/18\/670926f0-26e4-11e4-8593-da634b334390_story.html\"> celebrating nuptials on Dec. 12, 2013,<\/a>\u00a0won\u2019t be able to attend Obama\u2019s speech because they were blown to bits by a U.S. drone strike. The Yemeni government \u2014 which is heavily bankrolled by the U.S. government \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/national-security\/yemeni-victims-of-us-military-drone-strike-get-more-than-1million-in-com\">paid more than a million dollars <\/a>compensation to the survivors of innocent civilians killed and wounded in the attack.<\/p>\n<p>Four seats could be left vacant for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/politics\/2015\/10\/21\/benghazi-committee-timeline-clinton-gowdy\/74261098\/\">Americans killed<\/a> in the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya \u2014 U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. But any such recognition would rankle the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, who has worked tirelessly to sweep those corpses under the rug. It would also be appropriate to include a hat tip to the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ohchr.org\/EN\/HRBodies\/HRC\/RegularSessions\/Session28\/Documents\/A_HRC_28_51_ENG.doc\">hundreds<\/a>,\u00a0likely\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.libyabodycount.org\/\">thousands, of Libyans<\/a> who have been killed in the civil war unleashed after the Obama administration <a href=\"http:\/\/content.usatoday.com\/communities\/theoval\/post\/2011\/10\/obama-team-tracks-news-of-gadhafi\/1#.VpPze_krLIU\">bombed Libya<\/a> to topple its ruler, Moammar Gadhafi.<\/p>\n<p>Obama loves to salute promising young Americans but 16-year-old Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki won\u2019t get a chance to attend. That<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/07\/18\/opinion\/the-drone-that-killed-my-grandson.html?_r=0\"> Denver-born<\/a> boy was killed in a\u00a0U.S. drone strike on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/03\/10\/world\/middleeast\/anwar-al-awlaki-a-us-citizen-in-americas-cross-hairs.html\">Oct. 14, 2011<\/a>, while he was in Yemen looking for his father (who was killed in a CIA drone strike two weeks earlier).\u00a0If that kid\u2019s name had been Bob, he might still be around to cheer Obama\u2019s anti-gun crusade.<\/p>\n<p>An indeterminate number of chairs could be left vacant for the Syrian and Iraqi women, children\u00a0and men who have been beheaded, maimed\u00a0or otherwise slaughtered as a result of the massive arms shipments the Obama administration provided to Syrian &#8220;moderate&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/worldnews\/middleeast\/syria\/11882195\/US-trained-Division-30-rebels-betrayed-US-and-hand-weapons-over-to-al-Qaedas-affiliate-in-Syria.html\">rebel groups who defected to al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra<\/a>\u00a0or other terrorist groups, including the Islamic State. As Rep. Tom McClintock,\u00a0R-Calif.,\u00a0lamented in late 2014, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bostonglobe.com\/news\/world\/2014\/09\/23\/attacking-islamic-state-key-focus-for-stolen-american-made-equipment\/EnGm9C5ZwebnQ60oowP5iM\/story.html\">ISIS is armed to the teeth \u2014 with American equipment<\/a>.&#8221; But Obama meant well, so we should just move along.<\/p>\n<p>If the first lady sat alone among the other 28 seats the White House receives in the first lady&#8217;s box, it wouldn&#8217;t\u00a0make room to represent the casualties of Obama administration policies at home and abroad, but it sure would send a different message to viewers at home.<\/p>\n<p><em>James Bovard,\u00a0author of\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Public-Policy-Hooligan-Rollicking-Washington-ebook\/dp\/B00AKZH97W\">Public Policy Hooligan<\/a>,<em>\u00a0is\u00a0a member of USA TODAY\u2019s\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/reporters\/boc.html\">Board of Contributors<\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2599\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/14_0_1878632198-libyan-blowup.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2599\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2599\" class=\"wp-image-2599 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/14_0_1878632198-libyan-blowup.jpg\" alt=\"14_0_1878632198-libyan-blowup\" width=\"600\" height=\"499\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2599\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Libya bombing<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>USA TODAY, January 12, 2016 First Lady&#8217;s box should be empty at State of the Union speech by James Bovard Saving seats for the dead would require a lot more room for victims of Obama&#8217;s policies. The White House announced that there will be a seat left vacant in the gallery during Obama\u2019s State of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[62,464,22,91,17,280,182,339,361,36,11,757,401,27,38,262,26],"class_list":["post-9116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-assassination","tag-atrocities","tag-attention-deficit-democracy","tag-drones","tag-elective-dictatorship","tag-gun-control","tag-guns","tag-hillary-clinton","tag-homeland-security","tag-iraq","tag-justice-department","tag-killings","tag-libya","tag-lying","tag-obama","tag-syria","tag-terrorism"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>USA TODAY: Leave More Empty Seats for Obama Victims - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/12\/usa-today-emptyseats-for-obama-victims\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"USA TODAY: Leave More Empty Seats for Obama Victims - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"USA TODAY, January 12, 2016 First Lady&#8217;s box should be empty at State of the Union speech by James Bovard Saving seats for the dead would require a lot more room for victims of Obama&#8217;s policies. 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The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism &amp; Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. 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