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

Saturday, May 25, 2013

EUROPE BURNING: I blame the Militant Quakers

In Sweden, the city of Stockholm has been torched every night for nearly a week. The authorities have responded not by cracking down on the Militant Quakers behind the riots, but by ticketing vehicles destroyed by the barbarians.

STOCKHOLM (FRIA TIDER). Owners of cars destroyed in the riots fined for parking illegally while police adopt non-intervention policy.

Since last Sunday, May 19, rioters have taken to the streets of Stockholm’s suburbs every night, torching cars, schools, stores, office buildings and residential complexes. Yesterday, a police station in Rågsved, a suburb four kilometers south of Stockholm, was attacked and set on fire...

But while the Stockholm riots keep spreading and intensifying, Swedish police have adopted a tactic of non-interference. ”Our ambition is really to do as little as possible,” Stockholm Chief of Police Mats Löfving explained to the Swedish newspaper Expressen on Tuesday.

In Merry Olde Englande, authorities have responded to this:


With the arrests of Twitter users for anti-Islamic tweets and proposed censorship like this:


Hey, geniuses: blocking the Internet, China-style, ain't gonna solve your radical cleric problem.

Exhibit A: Anjem Choudary, the infamous U.K. Islamofascist hate-cleric, opined on one of the Woolwich savages: "What he said, not many Muslims disagree with."

Best of all, the British citizenry is subsidizing kooks like Choudary. The "cleric" receives £25,000 a year in public assistance benefits — £8,000 more than the take-home pay of soldiers fighting in Afghanistan -- and lives in a £320,000 house in Leytonstone, East London.

Earlier today, a French soldier walking on the streets of Paris was stabbed in the neck by "bearded man of North-African origin."

Europe is doomed.


Hat tip: American Digest.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

NEW HERITAGE INFOGRAPHIC: The Gang of Eight's Amnesty Scam

While the country focuses on an endless series of scandals emanating from the Executive Branch, the Senate is quietly preparing to vote on the Gang of Eight's Amnesty bill.

...It will go to the Senate floor after the Memorial Day recess. Heritage has pointed out the problems with this “comprehensive” approach — including the staggering costs of amnesty and a failure to secure the border.


This bill would be an unmitigated economic disaster. As the brilliant Milton Friedman said long ago, "open borders are incompatible with a welfare state."


Wednesday, May 22, 2013

And the Band Played On [Jim Quinn]

Guest post by Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform.


A confluence of events last week has me reminiscing about the days gone by and apprehensive about the future. I’ve spent a substantial portion of my adulthood rushing to baseball fields, hockey rinks, gymnasiums, and school auditoriums after a long day at work. I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed every moment. Watching eight year olds trying to throw a strike for two hours can become excruciatingly mind-numbing. But, the years of baseball, hockey, basketball, and band taught my boys life lessons about teamwork, sportsmanship, winning, losing, hard work, and having fun. There were championship teams, awful teams and of course trophies for finishing in 7th place. As my boys have gotten older and no longer participate in organized sports, the time commitment has dropped considerably. Last week was one of those few occasions where I had to rush home from work, wolf down a slice of pizza and head out to a school function. It was the annual 8th grade Spring concert.

My youngest son was one of a hundred kids in the 8th grade choir. I think it was mandatory, since none of my kids like to sing. As my wife and I found a seat in the back of the auditorium where we could make a quick escape at the conclusion of the show, neither of us were enthused with the prospect of spending the next ninety minutes listening to off-key music and lame songs. I’ve been jaded by sitting through these ordeals since pre-school. But a funny thing happened during my 30th band concert. I began to feel sentimental about the past and sorrowful about the future for these Millennials.

Monday, May 20, 2013

AND IN ENLIGHTENED SAUDI ARABIA: Two Asian Maids Sentenced to 10 Years and 1,000 Lashes for Practicing Sorcery

But according to Leftists like the loathsome Juan Cole, it's Israel that's barbaric.

A Saudi court sentenced two Asian housemaids to 10 years in jail and ordered their lashed 1,000 times each after they were found guilty of indulging in sorcery at their employers’ houses... Their Saudi employers reported the two maids to the Gulf country’s feared religious police, saying they had discovered that their families had been harmed because of sorcery practiced by the maids against them.

Members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice who searched the two houses in Riyadh found talismans and other magic items in the bedrooms of the two maids... Saudi Arabia, which strictly enforces Islamic law, has beheaded many persons convicted of practicing magic over the past years.

And I'm sure they were given a fair trial with a jury of their peers.


Sunday, May 19, 2013

DAMNING: The Complete Benghazi Timeline Spreadsheet [Updated]

The complete Benghazi timeline, now augmented with information from eyewitness testimony before Congress, various leaks from the warring Obama/Clinton camps, Stephen Hayes, Sharyl Attkisson, and the House Oversight Committee [PDF], leads me to four inescapable conclusions.


It is now clear to me that:

a) Hillary Clinton lied to Congress.
b) Barack Obama went to sleep knowing that a U.S. Ambassador and other Americans were under terrorist attack.
c) Barack Obama awoke refreshed the next day to begin fundraising.
d) The entire Executive Branch lied repeatedly to the American people to save Obama's chances for reelection.

Could someone drag John Boehner out of whatever bar he's in, wake him up, and get him to name a Select Committee on Benghazi?



Related: OBAMA AIDE: It's Now "Offensive" to Ask What President Did for Eight Hours as Four Americans Fought and Died in #Benghazi


Saturday, May 18, 2013

THE TRAP: What did Hillary and Obama discuss at 10pm on the night of the Benghazi attacks?

Thanks to the least transparent administration in history, Americans still don't know what the President did during the night of the terror attacks that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other heroes.

What did he order? What did he do? Did he take any steps to save the diplomats who were systematically slaughtered over the course of a 6-hour terrorist attack?

One little-mentioned aspect of the evening is a 10pm phone call to Hillary Clinton from Barack Obama.

...Benghazi is not a scandal because of Ambassador Susan Rice, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, and “talking points.” The scandal is about Rice and Nuland’s principals, and about what the talking points were intended to accomplish. Benghazi is about derelictions of duty by President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton before and during the massacre of our ambassador and three other American officials, as well as Obama and Clinton’s fraud on the public afterward.

...Fraud flows from the top down, not the mid-level up. Mid-level officials in the White House and the State Department do not call the shots — they carry out orders. They also were not running for reelection in 2012 or positioning themselves for a campaign in 2016. The people doing that were, respectively, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton.

Obama and Clinton had been the architects of American foreign policy. As Election Day 2012 loomed, each of them had a powerful motive to promote the impressions (a) that al-Qaeda had been decimated; (b) that the administration’s deft handling of the Arab Spring — by empowering Islamists — had been a boon for democracy, regional stability, and American national security; and (c) that our real security problem was “Islamophobia” and the “violent extremism” it allegedly causes — which was why Obama and Clinton had worked for years with Islamists, both overseas and at home, to promote international resolutions that would make it illegal to incite hostility to Islam, the First Amendment be damned.

All of that being the case, I am puzzled why so little attention has been paid to the Obama-Clinton phone call at 10 p.m. on the night of September 11.

...There is good reason to believe that while Americans were still fighting for their lives in Benghazi, while no military efforts were being made to rescue them, and while those desperately trying to rescue them were being told to stand down, the president was busy shaping the “blame the video” narrative to which his administration clung in the aftermath.

We have heard almost nothing about what Obama was doing that night. Back in February, though, CNS News did manage to pry one grudging disclosure out of White House mendacity mogul Jay Carney: “At about 10 p.m., the president called Secretary Clinton to get an update on the situation.”

Obviously, it is not a detail Carney was anxious to share. Indeed, it contradicted an earlier White House account that claimed the president had not spoken with Clinton or other top administration officials that night.

...Carney’s hand was forced by then-secretary Clinton. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January, she recounted first learning at about 4 p.m. on September 11 that the State Department facility in Benghazi was under attack. That was very shortly after the siege started. Over the hours that followed, Clinton stated, “we were in continuous meetings and conversations, both within the department, with our team in Tripoli, with the interagency and internationally.” It was in the course of this “constant ongoing discussion and sets of meetings” that Clinton then recalled: “I spoke with President Obama later in the evening to, you know, bring him up to date, to hear his perspective.”

The 10pm phone call is a trap waiting to be sprung. It could be the lynchpin that holds together the last vestiges of the most inept and corrupt administration in modern American history.

Congress must demand Clinton testify under oath and send an interrogatory to the President.

The critical questions for both parties:

    a) What were the topics of the 10pm discussion?
    b) Were either a "protest" or an Internet video raised as a cause of the Benghazi attack?
    c) Who raised using a "protest" based upon an "Internet video" as a cover story for that attack?
    d) Who gave the order to use the video/protest pretense?
    e) Who gave the "stand down" order to prevent the rescue of Americans under attack?

Putting both Clinton and Obama under oath will raise an interesting dilemma for both. Which ever party answers first could be contradicted on any of these matters. If Clinton answers under oath to protect herself, Obama could easily throw her under the bus. Conversely, if Obama replies to an interrogatory first, Clinton could contradict any of his answers.

Benghazi is ultimately a conflict between the Clinton Democrats and the Chicago Machine. A wedge can be driven between these two destructive forces with some well thought-out subpoenas. Exploiting that wedge could light the fuse on the time-bomb and detonate the Obama administration once and for all.


Related: DAMNING: The Complete Benghazi Timeline Spreadsheet - Updated With the Latest Testimony and Leaks

Thursday, May 16, 2013

"Reject these voices that warn of... me"

Dan from New York:

Via The People's Cube:

Obama Tells Graduates to Reject Voices Warning of Government Tyranny

By Katie Pavlich

Last week, President Obama gave a commencement address to The Ohio State University. In his remarks, he urged graduates to reject voices warning about government tyranny.

"Unfortunately you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all of our problems. Some of these same voices do their best to gum up the works. They'll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self rule is somehow just a sham with which we can't be trusted."

As a reminder of current Obama administration scandals:

-The IRS systematically abusing conservative groups

-The DOJ monitoring dozens or hundreds of reporters

-Kathleen Sebelius extorting money from companies she regulates

-Lies and cover-ups concerning the terror attack in Benghazi

That's right kids, you can totally trust Big Brother. Now move out into the world and ignore that "tyranny" thing.

Yes, kids: move out into the world and ignore that "tyranny" thing, from your parents' basement.



Related: President Barack Obama's Complete List of Historic Firsts.

Monday, May 13, 2013

CHAOS AND CORRUPTION ON THE SOUTHERN BORDER: A Texas Rancher Speaks

On the way to Blogcon, I struck up a conversation with a longtime Texas rancher who was headed home. We ended up talking about the real situation on the border. "Rancher X" owns a large ranch near MacAllen, Texas. The following is not word for word, but captured from my notes during a two hour discussion.


The entire border area is dominated by corruption. There are corrupt judges, corrupt ICE agents, corrupt sheriffs, and it's not just me saying that: you can read about indictments and convictions every week. It seems like there's a new federal indictment of a district judge, a border patrol agent, a local sheriff, etc. coming down that often.

We're one of the poorest areas in the country, so lots of federal dollars are headed here. So it's not fair to say that all of the corruption is just fueled by the drugs, humans and other stuff smuggled over the border. Also, I shouldn't say "smuggled", because it's just flowing over the border. All of the money corrupts every layer of government. Remember that officials get elected with money, and they are put into office by money.

Mexico: a Preview of the Chaos to Come Here in the U.S.

Here's something important to consider : As people lose confidence in law enforcement and judges, the civil society decays.

That's what's happened in Mexico. And we're just a couple of decades behind them.

In Mexico, I think we're seeing a preview of the United States in maybe 20 or 30 years.

Here's another important concept: don't spend more money on border security!

The money you spend on border security, getting more and more layers of law enforcement involved, is financing drug cartels. You know why? Because these layers of "human security" are corruptible by large amounts of money.

On a Physical Barrier or a Security Fence

A fence is a no-brainer. There are fences on the border in the cities. And they work. They're not perfect, but they drive smuggling traffic into the unprotected rural areas.

Do you have a fence at home? Most people do. Since when is anyone against a fence?

Only on the Mexican border do people oppose a fence.

In fact, there was an 18-foot levy built near us a while back and even that, while not for security reasons, drove smuggling traffic away.

The Hidden Secret: Oil and the Cartels

So here's the deal no one talks about with the border. The oil business and the cartels are intimately linked together. How "official" that linkage is up for debate. How high up the cartels and the oil companies are linked is up for debate.

So here's the backdrop. The whole south Texas border area is an oil field. The oil companies dominate the state. The landowner, ranchers like us, are subservient to the oil companies.

There are all kinds of right-of-ways and roads and oil infrastructure on the ranches. Which means oil tankers, maintenance trucks, all kinds of vehicles are entering and leaving our ranch every day. We might have 300 or 400 trucks coming in and out of our ranch.

Here's the deal with that: no one knows what those trucks are. Are they smuggling stuff? Or are they legitimate? No one knows, no one knows who is coming or going. Including the oil companies!

Why don't the oil companies know who's coming or going? Because they sub out the work. And the subs sub out the work. And on down the line. Who's authorized to be using the oil companies' infrastructure? No one knows who's authorized.

A Dirty Little Secret: The Border Patrol and Oil Infrastructure

Here's something crazy: the border patrol is not authorized to operate on oil company infrastructure, ostensibly for reasons of safety. So you've got heavy trucks, loaders, cranes moving heaven knows what.

A typical load might be 6,000 pounds of pot. This kind of volume demands 18-wheelers. And 18-wheelers demand oil field infrastructure.

And the oil companies do not involve themselves with the detail of these logistics. The details aren't visible to the oil companies, intentionally or unintentionally.

It's like a UPS driver on your street. How do you know whether that's a real UPS driver? Unless you had some way of authenticating and verifying that driver, you don't know if it's a legitimate UPS truck.

The oil companies have lost control of the border area. Because of the subcontracting, the oil companies appear to have some level of "plausible deniability". They can claim they don't know or don't have control of their infrastructure.

In the early 20th century, the oil companies locked up huge swaths of lands. And the infrastructure is extremely difficult to track ownership of. There are thousands of companies and joint ventures involved, and these J.V.s are "classified" as trade secrets, so you can't find out who is really responsible for the roads or whatever. There is no way for the landowners or the federal government to control oil field traffic. Under Texas law, the mineral estate (the oil company) is the dominant estate. It is actually called "Dominant Estate Law".

Why spending more on border security is nonsensical

Here's how high volume human smuggling operates. Our ranch has miles of highway frontage. These huge criminal operations run massive, sophisticated convoy operations.

They'll put a scout vehicle out on the highway to see if the border patrol is around. There are scouts and enforcers and what not. Sometimes these people are being held hostage or as sex slaves and are coming across the border against their will. The enforcers are there to prevent escapes.

But back to the scouts: if it's all clear, some Suburbans will pull up. Each Suburban can hold 30 people, seriously. So once nightfall comes, the vehicles pop open and everyone starts moving.

And a single Border Patrol unit is trying to catch 100 people? Seriously? For those 100 folks, Border Patrol might catch 7, 40 might perish, and the rest make it to the U.S.

Most of the border area is sand. And the Border Patrol can't do pursuits because the catalytic converters can cause huge brush-fires. And it's not just sand, there are huge bee colonies. Aggressive bee colonies that are crazy dangerous.

And the Border Patrol isn't like it's incorruptible. There are corrupt BP folks.

The Private Prison Scam

We have major private prisons in our area. Here's how the private prison scam works.

While Mexico has a "return treaty", meaning if we catch a Mexican national, we can return them through official channels. But OTMs [Other Than Mexicans] often don't have return treaties.

In our district, when you catch an OTM, there's a hearing with mandatory detention. Mandatory detention, which ties right into private prisons and the money used to fund those detentions.

These folks can spend 17 years in prison. And you're paying for it all.

A few years back, there were thousands of Eritreans captured trying to cross the border. I don't even know what an Eritrean is. But if there's no return treaty, they're languishing in private prisons. And you're paying for it.

Upset about illegal kids in schools?

That's a spit in the bucket compared to the private prison business. The costs are unbelievable. And the medical care is probably far better than what these folks could get in their home countries.

The federal government pays for those private prisons with your tax dollars and I guarantee private prisons are expensive. They are publicly traded companies and their stock prices have generally skyrocketed thanks to all this "homeland security" hoopla.

More Security Spending Isn't the Answer

The money you and your community sends to the border is incentivizing the wrong behavior.

All this money is being spent and it's having the consequence of just robbing legitimate citizens of their freedoms -- like no search and seizure. All of this homeland security stuff just means I am stripping down to get on an airplane - the immigrants and drug smugglers don't go through the checkpoint - they just walk around it or drive around it because it's an oilfield with roads.

More money spent down here has just made things worse. It adds more layers of government and more nooks and crannies that get corrupted. Things keep getting worse, and it's government corruption behind much of it.

Example: a while back, a bunch of sheriffs got arrested. They were literally part of the cartels. They weren't paid enough to take risks and they certainly don't have the resources to pursue the smugglers.

So the money you send to the border isn't really spent on security. How much do you hear about illegal immigration in Alabama. Well, I've got news for you: it's happening. You think the cartels can't buy some boats?

So think before you advocate for more "border security". The border security bulls*** is counter-productive.

When you send more money, think about more border patrol agents sitting on the highway and the scouts avoiding them.

That money adds layers of government, susceptible to corruption, and it takes away money to police your community.

You want to secure the border - prosecute corrupt public officials. It's much better use of our prison space.

I think the key points of the corruption issue and the actual inconvenience to law abiding citizens are the most logical and motivating things to consider. People are so quick to demand border security but they don't make the connection that putting police on the border means taking that money out of the budget of the cities around the country for police on their city streets.

Plus, 99 percent of the drugs and immigrants are just passing through to get to the cities around the country where the pay is higher and there are huge markets for drugs. We are in sparsely populated rural areas. We aren't smoking all those tons of weed--they are going to cities around the U.S.

And a border wall won't work everywhere, but it's one hell of a good start.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Benghazi, Version 12.0

Guest post by Investors Business Daily


Libya: At least a dozen rewrites of the Benghazi talking points were made, with all references to al-Qaida and prior attacks removed at the direction of the secretary of state's office.

The astonishing thing about the administration's Benghazi cover-up is that it actually thought it could get away with it. But each lie has been successfully peeled away, from the protest that never happened, to the irrelevant filmmaker who was blamed, to the intelligence community whose talking points were used as a cover for incompetence and malfeasance.

Now White House and State Department emails obtained by ABC News, some first published by the Weekly Standard, show that the intelligence community, led by the CIA, told the truth about terrorist involvement in the Benghazi attacks and prior warnings in its original talking points draft. It was the White House and the State Department that lied and had them altered.

"Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC's best assessments of what they thought had happened," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters last Nov. 28. "The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word 'consulate' to 'diplomatic facility' because 'consulate' was inaccurate."

What the talking points reflected, after a dozen heavy edits dictated by the State Department, was a sanitized version designed to protect President Obama's re-election chances and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's prospective candidacy in 2016. They were deliberately altered to eliminate references to terrorism so the whole thing could be blamed on an inflammatory video and no one in the administration could be held responsible.

As ABC's Jonathan Karl reported, edits included requests from the State Department that references to the al Qaida-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well as references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.

The original CIA talking points contained this paragraph: "The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qaida in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including a June attack against the British ambassador's convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals had previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks."

In an email to White House officials and the intelligence agencies, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland took issue with including that information, saying it "could be abused by members (of Congress) to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either?" The paragraph was entirely deleted.

Why would a State Department interested in protecting its secretary and its president want to tell the truth?
The original CIA draft said "we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qaida participated in the attack." It specifically named the al-Qaida-linked Ansar al-Sharia. Nuland objected, and it was taken out.

In an email dated Sept. 14, 2012, at 9:34 p.m. — three days after the attack and two days before Ambassador Rice appeared on the Sunday shows — Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes wrote an email saying the State Department's concerns needed to be addressed.

At a meeting Saturday morning, Sept. 15, at the White House, they were. The CIA drafted a final version of the talking points by deleting all references to al-Qaida and to the security warnings in Benghazi before the attack. In that email, Rhodes used the excuse that "we don't want to undermine the FBI investigation." Ironically, it was Rice's recitation of the censored talking points that impeded the FBI investigation and reduced cooperation by insulting the Libyan president. As Deputy Chief of Mission Gregory Hicks said during his recent testimony to Congress, Rice contradicted the Libyan president's Sept. 16 claims that the attack was premeditated.

"President Magariaf was insulted in front of his own people, in front of the world. His credibility was reduced," Hicks said. "It was planned, definitely, it was planned by foreigners, by people who entered the country a few months ago, and they were planning this criminal act since their arrival," Libyan President Mohamed Yousef El-Magariaf told CBS News' "Face The Nation" on Sept. 16 after Rice appeared saying exactly the opposite.

So as we've noted, we have Hillary Clinton's chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, trying to intimidate Gregory Hicks from telling the truth that they knew it was a terrorist attack from the "get-go," that there was no "protest" or mention of one from anyone on the ground and that the infamous YouTube video was "a non-event" in Libya.

And we have Clinton spokesman Victoria Nuland censoring CIA talking points that note terrorist involvement in the attacks and mention prior attacks in an environment full of terrorist training camps.

Ambassador Christopher Stevens was aware of the threat and had warned Benghazi could not be defended after what security they had was withdrawn.

In Stevens' name, and the names of Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, the American people deserve to know the truth. Those responsible for this fiasco and its cover-up must be held accountable.


I'm sure there were no illegal aliens involved in this little dust-up

PoliceMag relays some startling footage from a Miami drug dealer's house.

Suspects involved in a drug trafficking operation opened fire on investigating Miami-Dade Police detectives in a deadly gunfight captured by the video surveillance cameras of a marijuana grow house.

The dramatic footage, which was played Thursday at a court hearing, shows the rapidly unfolding gunfight at the west Miami home. Plainclothes detectives had visited the home on July 31 for a "knock and talk" during their investigation.


After arriving, they began to question Luis Estevanell, 60. Estevanell's cohort, Gerardo Delgado, emerges from a parked BMW and opened fire at the officers while attempting to take cover behind a tree.

The officers returned fire striking Delgado several times as the suspect continued firing. Three rounds from Delgado struck John Saavedra, who can be seen falling outside the screen.

Thank heavens no LE folks were injured or worse.

Oh, and hey, Gang o' Eight: these folks are just doing the jobs Americans won't do, right?


Hat tip: BadBlue Guns.

Ted Cruz has 12 Questions for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton #Benghazi

The masterful Ted Cruz has some questions for the Obama administration:

• Why was the State Department unwilling to provide the requested level of security to Benghazi?

• Were there really no military assets available to provide relief during the seven hours of the attacks? If so, why not? During the attacks, were any military assets ordered to stand down?

• If the Secretary of Defense thought there was “no question” this was a coordinated terrorist attack, why did Ambassador Susan Rice, Secretary Clinton, and President Obama all tell the American people that the cause was a “spontaneous demonstration” about an Internet video?

• Why did the State Department and/or the White House edit the intelligence talking points to delete the references to “Islamic extremists” and “al Qa’ida”?

• Why did the FBI release pictures of militants taken the day of the attack only eight months after the fact? Why not immediately, as proved so effective in the Boston bombing?

• Why have none of the survivors testified to Congress?

• Why is the administration apparently unaware of the whistle-blowers who have been attempting to tell their stories? Is it true that these career civil servants have been threatened with retaliation?

• Did President Obama sleep the night of September 11, 2012? Did Secretary Clinton?

• When was President Obama told about the murder of our ambassador? About the murder of all four Americans? What did he do in response?

• What role, if any, did the State Department’s own counterterrorism office play during the attacks and in their immediate aftermath?

• Why was Secretary Clinton not interviewed for the ARB report?

• And why, if all relevant questions were answered in the ARB report, has the State Department’s own inspector-general office opened a probe into the methods of that very report?

Oh, and let's add another one: what games were on ESPN the night of 9/11/2012? Just wondering.


ACTION: Call John Boehner Now: We Demand a Select Committee on Benghazi.

Thursday, May 09, 2013

SCANDAL VS. SCANDAL: A Media Retrospective #Benghazi

Compare and contrast:

The Pet Goat vs. Going to Sleep During an Attack

Remember The Pet Goat? That was the book that President George W. Bush read for seven (7) minutes to an elementary school class after he received word of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Bush was pilloried mercilessly for his "inaction", even though the Secret Service is reported to have requested the delay to enhance the president's security for the trip to the airport.

How does that compare to Benghazi? Eight months after the slaughter of Americans, we still don't know what the president did after a 5pm ET meeting with SECDEF Panetta. No one knows, but many have surmised he watched sports and then went to sleep to prepare for a fundraiser the next day.

Cindy Sheehan vs. Pat Smith
The mother of a fallen soldier during the Iraq War, Cindy Sheehan became a poster child for the Democrat-media complex. No less a vintage media star than Maureen Dowd stated unequivocally that "the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute".

As for the mother of murdered diplomatic official Sean Smith, Dowd is less vocal. Silent, even. Pat Smith has struggled to make her voice heard because, though apolitical, her message is one of pain, grief and anger. "They want to shut me up," she's stated, referring to the Obama administration that has treated her with utter disdain.

Valerie Plame vs. Benghazi
Remember what all of the hullabaloo about Valerie Plame was about?

Neither do I.

The former intelligence officer didn't get shipped to one of the most dangerous locations on earth, she didn't have all of her security stripped from her over her vociferous pleas, she wasn't the victim of an all-out terrorist attack on her office, she wasn't killed during a firefight, her body wasn't dragged through the streets of Benghazi, and her death wasn't the subject of administration lies and a massive cover-up.

No, that was Ambassador Chris Stevens along with the heroes who tried to save his life.

* * * * * * * * *

And a cadre of propagandists in the mold of Julius Streicher claim that Benghazi isn't a scandal. Michael Hersh is one such pathetic hack. Writing in the left wing National Journal, Hersh claims that there was no cover-up at all.

Hersh intentionally omitted referencing yesterday's most damning testimony. After the attack, Clinton consigliere Cheryl Mills demanded that Gregory Hicks, the former deputy chief of mission/chargé d’affairs in Libya, avoid answering any questions from the visiting Congressional delegation.

Hicks was asked whether he’d ever been told before not to meet with a congressional delegation; his response: “Never.”

And just who is Cheryl Mills?

Cheryl Mills is no run-of-the-mill State Department apparatchik, even among the top tier. She’s been one of the Clintons’ right-hand men for decades. She worked in Bill’s White House legal office, then as counsel to Hillary’s presidential campaign, then became chief of staff at State when Hillary was appointed secretary. If she’s the right-hand man, what other conclusion is there than that Hillary’s the one who wanted Hicks to keep his mouth shut when meeting with Chaffetz?

And precisely what did President Obama do after he received word of the attacks? No one knows and an incurious media has never bothered to ask that question.

When a local reporter unexpectedly broached the subject with the president, Obama stumbled through an ill-conceived and incoherent answer.

We know, in fact, that the president did nothing. Except watch sports on TV and then go to sleep.

And we also know, despite his sputtering exhortations to the contrary, that "there was never any intention to rescue our people in Libya."

Consider what met the threshold for a scandal then versus now: can there be any doubt that the media, as this country once knew it, is dead?


Wednesday, May 08, 2013

RED ALERT -- ACTION REQUIRED: #Benghazi Hearings and the Need for a Select Committee–Now [Hugh Hewitt]

Guest post by Hugh Hewitt

Call 202-225-3121 and ask for the Speaker’s office. Tweet him @SpeakerBoehner and @EricCantor as well. Be polite and firm: Set up a Select Committee now to follow up on today's shocking testimony.

Set aside the disgraceful actions of the broadcast MSM today in not covering the riveting testimony of Greg Hicks, and set aside even the shocking conduct of the Administration on the night of 9/11/12 and during the days, weeks and months following.

The MSM is almost exclusive hard left and almost completely committed to the defense of President Obama and former Secretary of State Clinton. With a few, honorable exceptions they will ask no hard questions and conduct no follow-up, and of course the senior levels of the Administration are beyond shame and no “Deep Throat” is likely to emerge from their ranks.

But Speaker Boehner and the GOP control the House and they can almost instantly set-up a Select Committee to follow up on the shocking testimony today. The transcripts of my interviews with Stephen Hayes and Eli Lake will be posted here later, but it is enough to say that there were many extraordinary revelations made today and a great number of serious questions rasied which need to be asked and answered, quickly.



At a minimum the House needs to subpoena the NSA and the Department of State for the recording of the 2:00 AM phone call between Mr. Hicks and Hillary and her senior staff, a recording both I and Eli Lake suspect exists as a matter of routine NSA practice, if it has not already been erased. Subpoenas must also go out to Hillary, everyone on the conference call at 2:00 AM, and of course to Cheryl Mills, the enforcer of the cover-up. Lt. Colonel Gibson must be deposed, and his commander and then that man’s commander etc. until we get to the bottom of the stand down order. The denial of air assets from Aviano is another area of great interest. Investigators need to travel to Libya and speak with the senior officials there as to their response to being embarrassed by the Admiistration.

It must all happen quickly and without fear or favor. Not to establish a Select Committee draws the Speaker and the GOP majority into the very cover-up they are supposed to be investigating.

Call 202-225-3121 and ask for the Speaker’s office. Tweet him @SpeakerBoehner and @EricCantor as well. On my show alone we have heard calls for a Select Committee from Senators Ayotte and McCain and from Congressmen DeSantis, Gowdy and Jordan, all three of whom did extraordinarily fine work today, as did Chairman Issa and Congressman Chaffetz and many others. It is clear the Oversight and Governmental Reform Committee is far ahead of the other four committees “investigating” this scandal, but all must be brought under one roof with one staff and one set of questions and evidence.

Think about this: At 2:00 AM Hillary Clinton spoke with the man in charge in Libya who informed her the consulate had been attacked, the Ambassador was missing, and that his people had to evacuate. An hour later news of the ambassador’s death reached that man, Greg Hicks, and he informed the State Department.

Hillary never called him back that night or the next day.

Think as well about the fact that some of the most extraordinarily moving testimony ever given in the halls of Congress –given by Mr. Hicks about the entire evening but especially about the security forces who climbed the roof of the Annex in Benghazi to recover the dead and the wounded– and that it is not being played on most American media tonight.

Astonishing and disgusting.

There is nothing the Speaker and his colleagues in the House can do about the media or the Administration. But they can do the obvious and right thing, by establishing a Select Committee and thereby build upon the sense of urgency developed today, and they should do it now.


Call 202-225-3121 and ask for the Speaker’s office. Tweet him @SpeakerBoehner and @EricCantor as well. Be polite and firm: Set up a Select Committee now to follow up on today's shocking testimony.


Reprinted without with (thanks, Dr. Hewitt!) the permission of Hugh Hewitt. So I hope he doesn't sue me. But he's absolutely right. We need action now.

15 Stunning Tweets From Today's #Benghazi Whistleblower Testimony

I am speechless not only at the depravity of this administration but also its enablers in both the Democrat Party and the Julius Streicher media. I never thought I'd live to see the day. Have you no shame, sir? Have you no shame?
















Tragic, shocking and utterly emblematic of the sickness of the left.


Related: DAMNING: The Complete Benghazi Timeline in Spreadsheet Format

Tuesday, May 07, 2013

BOOM BOOM HUME: With Benghazi revelations, Hillary's political aspirations are kaput

I paraphrase, of course, but Brit Hume's message is clear. The longtime Beltway insider believes there is no possible way for Hillary Clinton to evade responsibility for her leadership failures and bungled cover-up.

Earlier today, on America Live, Hume had the following to say:

There’s really no way for her to escape responsibility for this if this testimony does what we all expect now that it will do. Of course, over the years in Washington I’ve seen many a hype hearing fail to live up to expectations. But if it does live up, there’s no way I think she can escape this. I think she recognized from the start that this was trouble. I don’t think it was an accident that Susan Rice, the U.N. ambassador, who was kind of an unusual choice, was the person who went out on the Sunday shows to recite those talking points. I think then-Secretary Clinton knew that the talking points were shaky.


She may have participated in making them shaky. But she did not want any of that mud on her shoes that might be caused. And Susan Rice, of course, has paid a price for being the one who recited them. But we also know, as you suggest, Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman was involved in the crafting of those talking points. She reports directly or indirectly to Hillary Clinton, and she was telling the other people that were crafting the points that ‘my building,’ that means Hillary Clinton’s State Department, had a problem with this or that or the other thing and they were changed at her behest. Secretary Clinton cannot escape responsibility for that.

Let’s assume that she claims that she didn’t have any responsibility for that.” “What does that say about her stewardship of her department at a moment when a terrible thing has happened to an ambassador whom we’re to believe and she’s given every indication she had great faith in and cared a lot about? The murdered ambassador there was her subordinate. The staff there at the embassy were her subordinates. So if she took a walk during this, that doesn’t exactly recommend her for the person that will receive the middle of the night phone calls, does it?

I mean, I don’t think there’s any way for her to escape this even if she succeeds in arguing that she didn’t have her fingerprints on it. If she didn’t, she should have. And when she heard the talking points recited, she had to know they were wrong. If she didn’t, that’s dereliction. And if she didn’t know they were wrong, she should have said something. So she’s — I just don’t think there’s any way out, really. Look, she’ll get a vast amount of forgiveness. She’s an icon of the Democratic Party. A lot of people in the media will want to excuse her if they can, but the facts will prove too heavy.

We’ll have to see how bad it gets, but it’s certainly a weapon in the hands of her potential opponents, both within her party and in a general election if she gets that far. And the other thing, Megyn, is this also contributes to another question, which is — was she really a very successful and special secretary of state? I think the case for that is pretty weak. There was no great Clinton doctrine in foreign policy. Are there any treaties that she forwarded and help negotiate that made a big difference? Is the situation in the Middle East, which has always been a tinderbox that every American secretary of state must deal with — is that markedly improved by virtue of her stewardship of the State Department? I think the answer to all of those questions is probably no. So is this really a great credential for her as the last job she held going into a presidential campaign?

Of course not. Hillary Clinton has been an utter disaster as Secretary of State. Syria is awash in mass murder, chemical weapons, and Iranian missiles. Egypt is under the control of the Nazi-esque Muslim Brotherhood. Libya is a cauldron of terrorist activity. And Iran has -- or is about to -- acquire nuclear weapons. At the same time, North Korea and the People's Republic of China are seemingly at a tipping point.

But she's the greatest Secretary of State ever!


Hat tips: Michael Ramirez Cartoons and Protein Wisdom.

Monday, May 06, 2013

LEFT TO DIE: Obama and Clinton blocked special forces -- only an hour away -- from rescuing beleaguered Benghazi annex

They didn't have to die. Ex-Navy SEALs -- and the heroes of Benghazi -- Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods didn't have to die. That much is clear from the latest appalling revelation now confirmed by multiple whistleblowers.

The deputy of slain U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens has told congressional investigators that a team of Special Forces prepared to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi during the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks was forbidden from doing so by U.S. Special Operations Command Africa [Ed: a one hour trip].

The account from Gregory Hicks is in stark contrast to assertions from the Obama administration, which insisted that nobody was ever told to stand down and that all available resources were utilized. Hicks gave private testimony to congressional investigators last month...

...SOCAFRICA commander Lt. Col. Gibson and his team were on their way to board a C-130 from Tripoli for Benghazi prior to an attack on a second U.S. compound "when [Col. Gibson] got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, 'you can't go now, you don't have the authority to go now.' And so they missed the flight ... They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it."

No assistance arrived from the U.S. military outside of Libya during the hours that Americans were under attack or trapped inside compounds by hostile forces armed with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and AK-47 rifles... Hicks told congressional investigators that if the U.S. had quickly sent a military aircraft over Benghazi, it might have saved American lives. The U.S. Souda Bay Naval Base is an hour's flight from Libya.

I believe that if -- I believe if we had been able to scramble a fighter or aircraft or two over Benghazi as quickly as possible after the attack commenced, I believe there would not have been a mortar attack on the annex in the morning because I believe the Libyans would have split. They would have been scared to death that we would have gotten a laser on them and killed them...

In other words: Obama, Hillary and Carney lied. And people died.

Why? Why would they engage in such despicable behavior, even lying to Congress?

Months ago, Sara Marie Brenner proffered an excellent summary of the political climate during the month of September, 2012 that could explain the willful inaction of the Obama administration:

In Sep. 2012, the DNC convention occurred a week prior to the Benghazi terrorist attack, and it’s theme was rooted in Barack Obama’s perceived foreign policy success.

We heard the phrase “Osama Bin Laden is dead, and al-Qaeda is on the run,” along with John Kerry’s famous one-liner, “ask Osama bin Laden if he’s better off now than four years ago.”

Make no mistake, this hawkish message was calculated by Obama’s reelection team, and used to distract from the administration’s unpopular domestic policies... During a hotly contested battle for reelection, the 24/7 news coverage of a terrorist attack on a U. S. Consulate by an al-Qaeda insurgency within a country Obama ‘liberated’ would be, in a word, devastating. Thus, the political calculation to attack, delay and mislead was launched with little regard for the truth nor the lives lost. Unfortunately, the Obama campaign succeeded by using tactics allowing scarcely enough time to secure The President’s re-election.

• Tactic one: The White House immediately attacks Mitt Romney for speaking out about the Benghazi attack and Obama’s foreign policy mistakes prior to the president’s official response.

• Tactic two: MSM falls in line, picking up the White House’s attack Romney narrative. Immediate post-Benghazi coverage is focused on the timing of Mitt Romney’s statement rather than on the attack itself. The MSM’s attack Mitt coverage allowed enough time for low information voters to be influenced by tactic three.

• Tactic three: Mislead the American people by, repeatedly blaming the attack’s source, not on al-Qaeda or terrorism, but instead on a non-existent, spontaneous demonstration to a supposedly disgusting, awful, anti-Muslim, video.

In a White House press briefing, Jay Carney illustrates the importance of the video narrative, saying: “…And I would note that, again, the protests we’re seeing around the region are in reaction to this movie. They are not directly in reaction to any policy of the United States or the government….”

So twisted and despicable is the Obama administration that it was willing to lie to the American people to retain its white-knuckled death grip on power.

So invested in the progressive agenda is the fascist media that it was willing to go to the mat to suppress the truth, a few brave souls like Sharyl Attkisson excepted.

Let me say for the record: Barack Obama must be impeached. Hillary Clinton needs to be charged with Perjury and Contempt of Congress. And Jay Carney? Well, Jay Carney may not have committed a crime, but he's a laughingstock and a contemptible human being.


Related Reference Material:

DAMNING: The Complete Benghazi Timeline in Spreadsheet Format

That Crazy Benghazi Conspiracy Theory? It Just Got Less Crazy

Saturday, May 04, 2013

Gang of Eight's Stuttering Cluster of an Immigration Bill Deconstructed With a Single Infographic

Courtesy of the Heritage Foundation:


A better question is: "What's not wrong with the Gang of Eight's ludicrous bill"?

[The bill gives DHS Secretary] Janet Napolitano freedom to do pretty much whatever she wants and the authority to let in anyone she pleases... Just in case anyone is concerned that senators aren’t reading the 844-page immigration reform bill from the Group of Eight closely before returning from recess next week, note that Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) is tweeting as he goes, calling out concerning elements of the legislation:

• #Gof8Fact pg 11 of #Gangof8 bill says that Secretary of Homeland Security can alter legal immigrant status of #DREAM and ag. workers.

• #Gof8Fact pg 65 of #Gangof8 bill says Homeland Security Secretary can waive inadmissibility for humanitarian purposes and public interest

• #Gof8Fact pg 66 of #Gangof8 bill says Sec of Homeland Security gets discretion on whether to start legal proceedings to remove illegals

• Still going through #Gangof8 bill. #Gof8Fact pg 69 says Sec of Homeland Security can extend time allowed to apply for legal status

One report states that the bill would give legal status to 57 million, including non-immigra​nt visas.

This bill is utter garbage. It must be stopped. Call your Senator now at 202-224-3121 and demand they crush this bill.


DAMNING: The Complete Benghazi Timeline in Spreadsheet Format

Update: The latest version of the timeline is here.


The complete Benghazi timeline, now augmented with information culled by Stephen Hayes and the House Oversight Committee [PDF], leads me to four inescapable conclusions.


It is now clear to me that:

a) Hillary Clinton lied under oath to Congress.
b) Barack Obama went to sleep knowing that a U.S. Ambassador and other Americans were under terrorist attack.
c) Barack Obama awoke refreshed the next day to begin fundraising.
d) The entire Executive Branch lied repeatedly to the American people to save Obama's chances for reelection.

Could someone drag John Boehner out of whatever bar he's in, wake him up, and let him know: There is more than enough material for impeachment proceedings to begin and criminal charges levied against Hillary Clinton.

Friday, May 03, 2013

Obama on SNL a Day Early: I Sent Thousands of Guns to Drug Cartels, But I Blame You for Mexican Crime Wave

You heard that right: the same man who gave thousands of military-grade weapons to Mexican drug cartels during "Operation Fast and Furious" now blames law-abiding citizens for gun violence in Mexico.

President Barack Obama told the Mexican people on Friday that he sees a “new Mexico” emerging, with a deepening democracy and growing economy, and that Mexico and the United States should be viewed as equal partners...

Drug-fueled violence in Mexico is not entirely the fault of the Mexican people, he said. Instead, the United States shares the blame because much of the violence is centered around the Americans’ demand for illegal drugs and the fact that guns are smuggled into Mexico from the United States.

“In this relationship there is no senior partner or junior partner. We are two equal partners, two sovereign nations that must work together in mutual interest and mutual respect,” Obama said.

A new book -- "Prisoners of the White House: The Isolation of America's Presidents and the Crisis of Leadership" -- describes how utterly insulated Barack Obama is from the real world:

"Obama has a cadre of idolizers around him, people such as Chicago friend and confidante Valerie Jarrett, and devoted adviser Denis McDonough, who is now White House chief of staff," Walsh says in a note about his book.

... "He follows sports, which gives him a break from the tedium and keeps him from obsessing about politics, his advisers say. He watches ESPN and frequently will relax by enjoying games on live TV, especially basketball and football.

"But staying in touch requires constant effort, and it's unclear whether Obama will, or can, keep up his current efforts amid all the time constraints, security limitations and pressures of office."

In other words, Obama is so completely surrounded by sycophants that no one objected when he floated the idea of giving a speech indicting his own actions.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.