Showing posts with label World. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

KYLE BASS ON THE COMING GLOBAL COLLAPSE: "Potemkin villages on a Jurassic scale"

Investor Kyle Bass made his first billion shorting the housing market just before the 2008 collapse. And his warnings about the current sovereign debt crisis appear just as prescient. The mathematics -- and his logic -- are unassailable.

In a nutshell: we are very close to the endgame of Keynesian can-kicking. Which means: the real crisis has yet to begin`.

...Converting all balances to USD, central bankers around the world have expanded their balance sheets beyond$13 trillion, from only $3 trillion ten years ago. Global central banks’ assets now comprise at least a quarter of all global GDP – up from only 10% in 2002...


...As investors, what do we think about the quadrupling of central bank balance sheets to over $13 trillionin the last ten years? It certainly doesn't make me feel any better to say it fast or forget that we moved ever so quickly from million to billion to trillion dollar problems. It has become increasingly clear over the last four years that the common denominator in policy response to financial crises is, and will continue to be, more central bank easing (printing money) to finance fiscal deficits. Let us recap the actions of three of the four most prominent, powerful and influential central banks in the world over the course of the last several weeks...


...Central bankers are feverishly attempting to create their own new world: a utopia in which debts are never restructured, and there are no consequences for fiscal profligacy, i.e. no atonement for prior sins.They have created Potemkin villages on a Jurassic scale. The sum total of the volatility they are attempting to suppress will be less than the eventual volatility encountered when their schemes stop working. Most refer to comments like this as heresy against the orthodoxy of economic thought. We have a hard time understanding how the current situation ends any way other than a massive loss of wealth and purchasing power through default, inflation or both...

...As each 100 basis points in cost of capital costs the US federal government over $150 billion, the US simply cannot afford for another Paul Volcker to raise rates and contain inflation once it begins...


...It took the United States 193 years (1789-1981) to aggregate $1 trillion of government debt. It then took 20 years (1981-2001) to add an additional $4.8 trillion and, in the last 10 years (2001-2011), a whopping $9.8 trillion has been added to the federal debt. Since 1981, the US increased its sovereign debt by 1,560% while its population increased by only 35%...


...Our belief is that markets will eventually take these matters out of the hands of the central bankers. These events will happen with such rapidity that policy makers won’t be able to react fast enough.

The fallacy of the belief that countries that print their own currency are immune to sovereign crisis will be disproven in the coming months and years. Those that treat this belief as axiomatic will most likely bethe biggest losers. A handful of investors and asset managers have recently discussed an emerging school of thought, which postulates that countries, as the sole manufacturer of their currency, can never become insolvent, and in this sense, governments are not dependent on credit markets to remain fiscally operational. It is precisely this line of thinking which will ultimately lead the sheep to slaughter...


...How many Japanese have questioned how (if ever) a quadrillion yen of debt will ever be repaid when it represents over 20X central government revenues? (Answer: it can't be)

Very few participants are aware of the enormity and severity of the problems the developed world faces. Those that are aware are frantically trying to come up with the next “solution” to the debt problems. In our opinion (which hasn't changed since 2008), the only long-term solution is to continue to expand program after program until the only path left is a full restructuring (read: default) of most sovereign debts of the developed nations of the world (a la late 1930s and early 1940s when 48% of the world’s countries restructured their debts)...

Sadly, looking back through economic history, all too often war is the manifestation of simple economic entropy played to its logical conclusion. We believe that war is an inevitable consequence of the current global economic situation...

Read the whole damn thing. Bass could be wrong, but I wouldn't bank on it.



HAMAS AND THE NAZIS: The Real History

The terror group Hamas has been making headlines for its thousands of missile attacks on Israeli cities over the last several months. Its parent group, according to NBC News, is the Muslim Brotherhood, the very same extremists currently governing Egypt. What the media fail to tell the American public is that the roots of Hamas and the Brotherhood lie with Adolf Hitler, the Nazi Party, and the Third Reich.

The Brotherhood, too, has been in the news, most recently for its takeover of the Egyptian government, its invitation to the White House, and its shadowy ties to the State Department through longtime Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin. But what exactly is The Muslim Brotherhood?

Throughout his presidency, Barack Obama has refused to use the word "terror", let alone "Islamic terrorism", when it comes to describing the unceasing series of attacks launched at the behest of a fanatical ideology.

In October 2005 President George W. Bush used the term “Islamic fascist” for the first time to describe the Muslim barbarians at war with the West. He denounced them as movements that have a “violent and political vision”, and call for “the establishment... of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom.”

The Muslim groups which today seek to bring about a global totalitarian empire are not only fascists, but can trace their origins to Nazism and its genocidal ambitions.

The ideology of the Islamists whose ranks today include not only al-Qaeda but also Hamas and Hezbollah -- originated with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. And the Muslim Brotherhood finds not just its roots, but much of its symbolism, terminology, and common cause deep within the origins of Nazism.

Hassan al-Banna (1906 - 1949) was born into the family of a poor watchmaker in southern Egypt. As a child, he was attracted to the extremist aspects of Islam, which were hostile to Western secularism and to its system of rights, particularly women's rights.

While still in his teens, the young al-Banna and friends (they referred to each other as ‘brethren’) met frequently to discuss the situation in the Middle East, to argue about the ills of Arab society, and to lament the decline of Islam. Their angst was in large part a reaction to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the end of the Muslim Caliphate, the British occupation of Egypt, and the resulting exposure of Arab society to Western values.

In order to strike back against these evils, al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928. Among the perspectives he drew on to address these issues were the anti-capitalist doctrines of European Marxism and especially fascism.

The group expanded during the 1930’s as Al-Banna would describe, in inflammatory speeches, the horrors of hell expected for heretics, and consequently, the need for Muslims to return to their purest religious roots, re-establish the Caliphate, and resume the great and final holy war, or jihad, against the non-Muslim world.

...Read the Rest...

Monday, November 19, 2012

YOU MOST LIKELY KNOW IT AS MYANMAR, BUT IT'LL ALWAYS BE BURMA TO ME: Creepiest Mural Ever Greets Obama

It looks more like a movie poster for Barack Obama, Vampire Hunter:

Oh, dear. The beautiful child farthest from the mural looks to be pointedly staring ahead. “Don’t make me look, don’t make me look, I can’t see you.”

Creepy seems to be the operative word here.


Creepier than Jim Messina, Axelrod’s creep-stache, the Obama #ForAll cult or Biden’s woman-handling and lap-sitting biker babe?

You decide.

The only thing I can figure is that it's satirical.


Sunday, November 18, 2012

And The Award For Best Gun Camera Footage Goes To...

The IDF!


The other nominees in the best gun camera footage category are here and here.


Hat tip: Dan from New York.

KNOCK KNOCK: Who's there? Hellfire. Hellfire who?

Hellfire missile up your kazoo.

The IDF assassinated the head of Hamas' rocket program, Yahyia Byya, after a heavy barrage of rocket fire engulfed Ashdod Sunday afternoon.


The assassination was directly ordered by Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz.

Army sources say that Byya was directly responsible for the majority of rockets that have been fired on Israel.

Hey, the IDF gave the erstwhile Nazis fair warning. They told them a few days ago to not show their faces above ground.

Hey, Yahyia, can I get you some ice for that?


Friday, November 16, 2012

THE OBAMA DOCTRINE: Helpful Foreign Policy Cheat Sheet

A quick review -- and a reminder that elections have consequences.

Libya is supplying Hamas with the most advanced weaponry it's ever had

Iran's Green Revolution was crushed by the Mullahs with the tacit approval of Barack Obama

Egypt -- an ostensible ally of the U.S. and Israel -- was thrown under the bus by Barack Obama, ceding control of the country to the erstwhile Nazi-aligned Muslim Brotherhood

Algeria and Tunisia are likewise aligning with Al Qaeda

Jordan, Israel's last regional ally -- is also about to fall

• And Turkey, once a secular and stabilizing force in the Middle East, is now succumbing to a radical brand of Islamism. Even better: it's a member of NATO

Israel is surrounded.

And where is Barack Obama as the rockets fall on Jerusalem, Tel Avis and Sderot?

Who knows? If you have Beyonce or Jay-Z's cell numbers, perhaps we could find out.

Say a prayer for Israel tonight.

And remember: if Israel falls, we're next.


SHOCK! EXCLUSIVE! MUST CREDIT BIFF SPACKLE: Stunning Photo of Israeli Brutality Against Innocent Jihadis!!!!!!!!!


Rest assured that Anderson Cooper and the rest of the propagandist-nincompoops at CNN will run with it.


Wednesday, November 14, 2012

REMEMBER THE BENGHAZI FOUR: The Bumper Sticker

From the artisans at The Morlock Revolt:


They're only charging $3.95 a sticker. Order yours today.


A MILLION ISRAELIS HAVE 15 SECONDS TO FIND SHELTER: Any other country would have turned Gaza into the Bonneville Salt Flats

If Hillary Clinton weren't ducking the growing Benghazi scandal enjoying "wine-tastings" in Australia, I'd ask her, Hey, Hill, how's that Arab Spring thingamabob workin' out?"

"If an alarm is sounded, people in southern Israel—1 million people—have 15 seconds to find shelter. I don’t know if any of your governments will accept this reality. I cannot accept this." -- PM Netanyahu



Some simple facts about the ongoing Blitzkrieg from Gaza:

  • +120 rockets have been fired at Israel this week.
  • +760 rockets have been fired at Israel in 2012.
  • +2500 rockets have been fired at Israel since 2009.
  • Terrorists hold more than 10,000 rockets in Gaza.
  • One million Israelis, 14% of the population, are under the threat of rocket fire.
    • That is equivalent to 44 million U.S. citizens under the threat of rocket fire.
  • Gaza terrorists targeted an IDF jeep this week, injuring four soldiers. (Video)
  • Hamas rules the Gaza strip and is responsible for all that occurs in Gaza and all that is launched form there.
  • Hamas, supported by Iran, has wielded authority over the Gaza Strip since 2007.

  • No other state would accept a similar reality.
  • The targets of the Israeli operation are all military.
  • Hamas and the other terrorist organizations hide among the civilian population of Gaza. They also deliberately direct their fire at the civilian population of Israel. These acts constitute a double war crime.
  • Israel will make every effort to prevent harm to the civilian population of Gaza, and regrets any injury to civilians.
  • The border crossings from Israel to the Gaza Strip remain open, allowing for the routine passage of goods and humanitarian aid.
  • The international community must act to stop the attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip. The message to Hamas should be clear: stop the attacks on Israel.
  • Time and again, Israel has warned that it would not tolerate these attacks.

Watch the videos. It's like the Battle of Britain being reenacted in Israel.

If I were commanding the IDF, my calculus would be very simple: we will level block by block, town by town, city by city, until the attacks stop.

No other country on Earth would tolerate a million citizens fleeing for bomb shelters dozens of times per day.

It's time to draw a line in the sand. And if that line happens to be as wide as Gaza, so be it.


Saturday, November 10, 2012

GOOD NEWS: Employers in Merry Old England Happily Enforce Sharia Law

Clothing retailer Boo Hoo recently circulated the following memo to its employees.


Along with socialized medicine, the act of banning bacon represents the ultimate capitulation to a soft tyranny.


Hat tip: BH.

Sunday, November 04, 2012

TWIN TIMELINE: What was happening in Benghazi and Washington

Update: The latest version of the timeline is here.


On October 31st, I heard Newt Gingrich ask for a twin timeline to help illustrate what was happening in Benghazi and in Washington. Newt's wish is my command:


Some interesting observations:

• Hillary Clinton's aspirations for higher office are toast: despite numerous requests for additional security, the State Department adamantly refused each time -- for, what would seem, purely political reasons. Those partisan games cost four Americans their lives.

• The "Internet video" tale was an egregious lie foisted upon the American public by an administration committed to additional spiking of the Bin Laden football -- again, for purely political reasons.

• Methinks any effort to distribute the Bin Laden movie/Obama infomercial before the election will be extremely distasteful for most American.

What are your thoughts?


Friday, November 02, 2012

YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TO ARMED FORCES BALLOTS MAILED FROM AFGHANISTAN: Yep. They Were "Lost".

But I'm sure Eric Holder will launch a thorough investigation any second now:

Postal officials are investigating the apparent loss of some absentee ballots mailed from Afghanistan.

A contractor who sent an email to Military Times said his county elections clerk in Texas had not received his ballot or his co-worker’s ballot by Thursday, although they mailed the ballots Sept. 27. “The Bagram Airfield Army post office placed Express mail tracking numbers on them, placed the ballots in an orange ‘Ballot Box,’ and probably in a dedicated mail bag.

“If our ballots got lost, how many other ballots are lost as well?” he wrote.

Military Postal Service Agency officials are working with the U.S. Postal Service to resolve the issue, said James Clark, chief of the operations division of the Military Postal Service Agency. It’s unknown whether other ballots may have been affected.

The contractor stated the tracking information shows their ballots are still in Bahrain, and have been sitting there since Sept. 30.

Once again, the votes of our best and brightest are suppressed, while the Obama administration tacitly encourages illegal immigrants, felons and the dead to vote Democrat.

You know what we need to do on November 6th. And hopefully the margin of victory will be sufficient to represent a complete and total repudiation of the Democrat Party.

Flush twice. It's the only way to be sure.


Wednesday, October 31, 2012

BOOM: Hey, How's That "Ignoring Benghazi" Strategy Working Out for Antique Media?

Let's compare Mondays -- one before Benghazi, one after -- and remove as much noise as we can from the equation (debates, Hurricane Sandy, etc.).

Fox News must be praying that the Leftist kooks running the other cable news operations continue their embargo on the biggest political scandal since Watergate.


FAST AND FURIOUS IN BENGHAZI: Timing of Attack Hints at Double-Cross of White House Gun-Running Operation by Turkey

Clare Lopez is an international security consultant at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies. She is uniquely qualified to analyze the intelligence and defense communities not only through her current professional connections, but also because of her 20-year background with the CIA. She served for 20 years as an operations officer specializing in counterintelligence, counternarcotics, and counterproliferation programs.

Today, writing at RI.org, Lopez spots a very troubling anomaly with the timeline of the Benghazi attack. And, as if there aren't enough unanswered questions about the attacks and the subsequent White House cover-up, her discovery has the potential to implicate Turkish officials in the murders.

...Ambassador Christopher Stevens held his last meeting of the day on September 11 with [a]] Turkish diplomat [Ali Sait Akin] from 7:30pm to 8:30pm and then escorted him out to the compound gate to bid farewell. At that point, the briefing states, “Everything is calm at 8:30 p.m. There’s nothing unusual.”

But the AP witnesses said that, “The neighbors all described the militants setting up checkpoints around the compound at about 8 p.m.” The checkpoints were described as being manned by bearded jihadis in pickup trucks mounted with heavy machine guns and bearing the logo of the Al-Qaeda terror franchise, Ansar al-Shariah.

That means that the Turkish Consul General would have had to pass out through the blockade as he departed the American compound and left the area. There is no record that he phoned a warning to his American colleague, the one he’d just had dinner with, Ambassador Stevens. Given the description of the blockade around the American compound and of the jihadis and their trucks that were manning it, it seems unlikely that the he somehow just failed to notice. “[N]o one could get out or in,” according to one neighbor interviewed by the AP.

Except for the Turkish Consul General, it would appear.

Stevens was a sitting duck, a target surrounded by the jihadist attackers who shortly would take his life and that of his Public Affairs Officer, Sean Smith.

...Similarly, this raises the question of the Libyan gate guards from the "February 17 Martyrs Brigade," the jihadi militia subcontracted by the British firm Blue Mountain, which was the prime contractor for the U.S. Benghazi compound security contract... [T]he Libyans of the Martyrs Brigade surely must have been [aware of the checkpoints]. Yet they provided no warning to the Ambassador and his people either, because again, according to the State Department briefing, the American security officers inside were taken by surprise when the first gunshots and explosions rang out around 9:40 pm...

In other words, the Turkish Consul General met with Stevens -- the discussion topics of which have not been released by the State Department -- and then left the Ambassador, drove safely through a newly-established terrorist checkpoint, and disappeared into the night without warning his colleague.

Lopez asserts that "it is obvious that the Turkish diplomat and by extension, his government, were at least to some degree complicit in the attack against Ambassador Stevens and the others."

What was the subject of the discussion between Stevens and Akin? Malta Today offers some context that hints at some strong possibilities.

A Libyan-flagged vessel which last year was used by a Malta-based humanitarian organisation in supplying a lifeline to rebels in Misurata, has been implicated in a covert US arms smuggling operation to Syrian freedom fighters, which may also be linked to murdered US ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi last month.

The ship 'Al Entisar' which was chartered last year by I-Go Aid Libya, then run by businessman Mario Debono, has been reported to be linked to last September's attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.


A Fox News investigation revealed that shipping records confirmed that the Al Entisar entered the Turkish port of Iskenderun, some 35 miles from the Syrian border, just five days before Ambassador Chris Stevens, and three other US officials were killed during an assault by more than 100 Islamist militants on the US Consulate compound in Benghazi.

Another report, this time appearing on the Times of London, said that the Al Entisar was carrying 400 tons of cargo. Some of it was humanitarian, but also reportedly weapons, described by the report as the largest consignment of weapons headed for Syria's rebels on the frontlines...

...The cargo reportedly included surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles, RPGs and Russian-designed shoulder-launched missiles known as MANPADS.

The ship's Libyan captain reportedly told the Times of London that "I can only talk about the medicine and humanitarian aid" for the Syrian rebels.

It was reported there was a fight about the weapons and who got what "between the free Syrian Army and the Muslim Brotherhood."

A reasonable person would deduce from these stories that the United States was running weapons (does "Fast and Furious" ring a bell?) from Libya to Syria using Turkey as a go-between. The end result turned out to be a complete disaster -- like everything this administration attempts.

The Libyan weapons likely went to the Muslim Brotherhood and a Turkish diplomat appears to have helped set up the assassination of Ambassador Stevens. We simply don't know whether the government of Turkey itself was involved with the double-cross or whether Akin was a Brotherhood sympathizer who helped set up the attack.

The families of those murdered deserve answers. America deserves answers. And we can start the interrogatory by firing this administration on November 6th and launching a full-scale Congressional investigation. We don't have to take this s*** any more.


Update: Clinton discloses West's effort to help reshape Syria opposition

Sunday, October 28, 2012

GOSH, WHICH COULD IT BE? "Either Fox is making stuff up, or the administration is lying through its teeth"

Rick Moran deconstructs the latest Benghazi-gate revelations and finds only one possible scenario: the White House is lying.

The CIA is denying. The Pentagon is denying. And now the White House is denying that anyone refused to send help to our embattled CIA and State Department personnel engaged in a seven hour running firefight with more than 150 jihadists.

It just doesn’t get any lamer than this:

The White House on Saturday flatly denied that President Barack Obama withheld requests for help from the besieged American compound in Benghazi, Libya, as it came under on attack by suspected terrorists on September 11th.

“Neither the president nor anyone in the White House denied any requests for assistance in Benghazi,” National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor told Yahoo News by email.

Why was this so hard for President Obama to say on Friday when asked a direct question about assistance to Americans under fire?...

...How do we know that the White House is lying about denying requests for military assistance from our beleaguered diplomats? Consider: If a news story is published basically accusing the President of the United States of standing by while Americans were killed, shouldn’t the reaction from the White House be a little more indignant? A little more agitated? Perhaps a lot angrier?

All of these denials point to one of two conclusions; either Fox News is making stuff up, or the administration is lying through its teeth. There is no other possible explanation.

And I would note the extraordinary detail in the Fox article, including specific communications between the various locations in Libya and national security people in Washington. If Fox is making stuff up, someone has a pretty vivid imagination.

Jennifer Rubin observes that the Benghazi cover-up now has three distinct facets, none of which have been suitably addressed by the administration.

The Benghazi debacle has three parts: how we neglected security while al-Qaeda was building a presence in Libya; whether the administration tried to mislead the public as to the nature of the attack; and now whether the administration denied pleas for help from operatives on the ground at the consulate.

Daniel Gardner goes further, labeling the president a "coward and a disgrace":

Obama was meeting with national security leaders when the attack in Benghazi went down. Unclassified documents reveal he received emails directly from Benghazi within minutes of the beginning of the attack, staff in Benghazi were in real-time contact with the State Department, and two drones overhead in Benghazi showed Washington exactly what was happening on the ground there.

Unclassified emails reveal three requests were made from Benghazi for help, and all three requests were rejected with orders to “stand down.” Special Forces troops were available and within two or three hours could have saved at least two of the four who died at the end of the seven-hour attack.

Obama literally watched the seven-hour battle refusing to send troops to save Americans…or, he didn’t care to watch or to intervene. Regardless, he didn’t care enough to save American lives when he had the opportunity.

The mainstream media is not even covering this story, but is [instead] parroting Obama’s talking points...

And all of this misdirection, all of the lies, all of the cover-ups detract from the simple truths of heroism that have been all but ignored by antique media:

A short distance from the American compound, two Americans were sleeping. They were in Libya as independent contractors working an assignment totally unrelated to our embassy. They also happened to be former Navy SEALs. When they heard the noise coming from the attack on our embassy, as you would expect from highly trained warriors, they ran to the fight. Apparently, they had no weapons, but seeing the Libyan guards dropping their guns in their haste in fleeing the scene, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty snatched up several of these discarded weapons and prepared to defend the American compound.

Not knowing exactly what was taking place, the two SEALs set up a defensive perimeter. Unfortunately Ambassador Stevens was already gravely injured, and Foreign Service officer, Sean Smith, was dead. However, due to their quick action and suppressive fire, twenty administrative personnel in the embassy were able to escape to safety. Eventually, these two courageous men were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers brought against them, an enemy force numbering between 100 to 200 attackers which came in two waves. But the stunning part of the story is that Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty killed 60 of the attacking force. Once the compound was overrun, the attackers were incensed to discover that just two men had inflicted so much death and destruction.

As it became apparent to these selfless heroes, they were definitely going to lose their lives unless some reinforcements showed up in a hurry. As we know now, that was not to be. I’m fairly certain they knew they were going to die in this gun fight, but not before they took a whole lot of bad guys with them!

Consider these tenets of the Navy SEAL Code: 1) Loyalty to Country, Team and Teammate, 2) Serve with Honor and Integrity On and Off the Battlefield, 3) Ready to Lead, Ready to Follow, Never Quit, 4) Take responsibility for your actions and the actions of your teammates, 5) Excel as Warriors through Discipline and Innovation, 6) Train for War, Fight to Win, Defeat our Nation’s Enemies, and 7) Earn your Trident every day.

Thank you, Tyrone and Glen. To the very last breath, you both lived up to the SEAL Code. You served all of us well. You were courageous in the face of certain death.

And Tyrone, even though you never got to hold your newborn son, he will grow up knowing the character and quality of his father, a man among men who sacrificed himself defending others. God bless America!


Last night, Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer said his sources revealed that Obama was one of the people in the room watching the Benghazi attack occur in real-time.

This entire administration needs to go.


Saturday, October 27, 2012

NO INVESTIGATION NECESSARY: 10 Questions President Obama Can Answer Himself

I'm not much of a fan of the Weekly Standard or its editor Bill Kristol, but his Ten Questions for the White House is getting a lot of play -- and rightfully so:

...it should be possible to answer these simple questions as to what the president did that afternoon and evening, and when he did it, simply by consulting White House meeting and phone records, and asking the president for his recollections.

1.) To whom did the president give the first of his "three very clear directives"—that is, "make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to?"

2.) How did he transmit this directive to the military and other agencies?

3.) During the time when Americans were under attack, did the president convene a formal or informal meeting of his national security council? Did the president go to the situation room?

4.) During this time, with which members of the national security team did the president speak directly?

5.) Did Obama speak by phone or teleconference with the combatant commanders who would have sent assistance to the men under attack?

6.) Did he speak with CIA director David Petraeus?

7.) Was the president made aware of the repeated requests for assistance from the men under attack? When and by whom?

8.) Did he issue any directives in response to these requests?

9.) Did the president refuse to authorize an armed drone strike on the attackers?

10.) Did the president refuse to authorize a AC-130 or MC-130 to enter Libyan airspace during the attack?

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has asked the White House these questions, and awaits a response.

As an aside, wouldn't it be great if we had a functioning antique media?


IMPLOSION: Obama fumbles local reporter's Benghazi question; CIA director throws President under bus

When confronted with a local reporter's pointed questions regarding Benghazi, President Obama fumbled his response and inadvertently provided a few clues into the timing and the cover-up.

KYLE CLARK: Were they denied requests for help during the attack?


PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, we are finding out exactly what happened. I can tell you, as I've said over the last couple of months since this happened, the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to. Number two, we're going to investigate exactly what happened so that it doesn't happen again. Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice. And I guarantee you that everyone in the state department, our military, the CIA, you name it, had number one priority making sure that people were safe. These were our folks and we're going to find out exactly what happened, but what we're also going to do it make sure that we are identifying those who carried out these terrible attacks.

Last night, attorney Mark Levin deconstructed Obama's response as follows:

• ...the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives...

Note that this is stated in the present tense. The president found out about the attack while it was happening.

• ...make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to...

Well, sir, what orders did you give? Were they disobeyed? Did you receive requests for help? Notice that the president carefully avoided the reporter's actual question (lesson for vintage media: this is what your predecessors actually used to do) about whether calls for help were refused.

• ...Number two, we're going to investigate exactly what happened so that it doesn't happen again...

So during the attack, you clearly ordered an "investigation"? Does that make sense to anyone?

• ...Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice...

So while the attack was occurring, you want to find out who was attacking and arrest them? Again, does this make any sense at all?

Late last night, CIA Director Petraeus absolved the agency of blame:

Breaking news on Benghazi: the CIA spokesman, presumably at the direction of CIA director David Petraeus, has put out this statement: “No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate.”

Put simply, Petraeus has handed the hot potato to President Obama.

Now let's examine the president's schedule on 9/11/12:


According to the official White House record, Obama, Biden and SECDEF Panetta were meeting approximately one hour after the Benghazi attack began.

Time for some answers, Mr. President, and we don't have to wait for the results of an "investigation" to hear your responses:

1. When did you first receive word of the Benghazi attacks?

2. Did you receive requests for help from those on-scene and, if so, when?

3. What orders did you issue, if any, after receiving word of the attacks and when did you issue them?

4. Within two hours of the attack, your own schedule indicates you were meeting with the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense. Did you discuss Benghazi and, if so, what information did you receive and what orders did you issue in that meeting?

5. There have been no White House press briefings for more than a week. Why?


Levin believes that the president received word immediately of the attacks and, whether through fear of the political ramifications or simple indecision (akin to voting "present"), watched as Americans were slaughtered as they begged for help.

And then he headed to Vegas for a fundraiser.

There are, of course, other theories worth exploring.


RESET: Russia conducts first large-scale exercises of strategic nuclear forces since Cold War

Hey, beatnik: need more proof that the only way to deter tyrants and preserve peace is through strength?

Large-scale exercises of the Strategic Nuclear Forces under the command of President Vladimir Putin have completed in Russia, the president’s press-secretary Dmitri Peskov reports.


He says that these were the first nuclear force exercises on such a large scale in Russia’s modern history.

On Friday, a Topol intercontinental ballistic missile was successfully launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk Region.

Also on Friday, The Svyatoy Georgiy Pobedonosets nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine of the Pacific Fleet launched a ballistic missile from the Sea of Okhotsk to the Chizha testing ground in the north of European Russia and Tupolev-95 and Tupolev-160 strategic bombers launched four missiles to the Pemboi testing site in the Urals Region.

Pemboi has also become the site where the Russian troops for the first time successfully hit a cruise missile with the Pantsir-S surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft artillery weapon systems of the latest generation (the NATO name SA-22 Greyhound).

Voice of Russia, RIA, Interfax

Gee, that Hillary Clinton is doing a swell job, ain't she?

Consider this reason seventy bajillion proving that Democrats remain The Party of Weakness and Appeasement.

And weakness invites war, which is the course this administration has set for America.

Mitt Romney was completely, utterly correct when he named Russia a primary geopolitical foe. It is arming Iran and once again threatening its neighbors. None of its strategies, perforce, are intended to do anything but harm the interests of the United States.

Hat tip: Canada Free Press.

MUST WATCH: An Urgent Message for America

Though he's a New Zealander, author Trevor Loudon is one of America's national treasures. No one is a more tireless and accomplished researcher of the global Marxist movement -- and its covert ties to the Democrat Party -- than Loudon. His KeyWiki.org project is an invaluable online resource for exploring these links.

Loudon is currently on a speaking tour of the U.S., concentrating heavily in battleground states. If you are anywhere within driving distance, it's something you will not want to miss.


If you do nothing else today, watch this video. Don't worry, I'll wait here.

Monday, October 22, 2012

MARC FABER: Reduce the Size of Government by 50 Percent

Rut Roh.

The debt burden in the U.S. and other Western countries will continue to increase, Marc Faber, author of the Gloom, Boom and Doom Report told CNBC on Monday, leading to a “colossal mess” within the next five to 10 years.

“I think the regimes will try to keep the system alive as it is for as long as possible, which means there’s no “fiscal cliff,” there’s a fiscal grand canyon,” Faber told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Faber argued that the political systems in place in the West would allow the debt burden to continue to expand. Under such a scenario of never-ending deficits, the Western world would rack up huge deficits.

One day, the system would break, he said.

“Eventually, you have either huge changes occurring in a peaceful fashion through reforms, or, usually, through revolutions,” he said. The U.S. is getting closer to such a revolution, he said, as is Europe.

“I think the timeframe would be within five to ten years you have a colossal mess … everywhere in the Western world,” Faber said. “I think the deficit here (in the U.S.) — irrespective of who is in the White House — will stay above a trillion dollars per annum for at least as far as the eye can see.”

Bureaucracies in the U.S., as well as Europe, are far too big, he said, and are a burden on the economy.

“My medicine for the U.S. is: Reduce government by minimum 50 percent,” he said. “The impact would be immediately an improvement in the economy.”

With the current bloated leviathan, 50 percent is what I call a good start.