Saturday, May 03, 2014

ANOTHER NEW LOW FOR JOHN KERRY: "We need another intifada" to force Israel to surrender its sovereignty

And you thought John Kerry had already hit rock bottom, n'est ce pas?

In anonymous briefing to top columnist, members of Kerry’s team slam Netanyahu, empathize with Abbas, warn Palestine will rise ‘whether through violence or via int’l organizations’


American officials directly involved in the failed Israeli-Palestinian peace process over the last nine months gave a leading Israeli columnist a withering assessment of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the negotiations, indicated that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has completely given up on the prospect of a negotiated solution, and warned Israel that the Palestinians will achieve statehood come what may — either via international organizations or through violence...

...One bitter American official told Barnea, “I guess we need another intifada to create the circumstances that would allow progress...”

...In a rare attribution of some blame to Abbas, the Americans said they “couldn’t understand why it bothered him so much” to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. But here too, ultimately, the Americans were empathetic to Abbas: “The Palestinians came to the conclusion that Israel was pulling a nasty trick on them. They suspected there was an effort to get from them approval of the Zionist narrative.

...Israel can expect to face international isolation and possible sanctions from countries and companies across the world if Netanyahu fails to endorse a framework agreement with the Palestinians, Obama cautioned in an interview with Bloomberg at the time. If Netanyahu “does not believe that a peace deal with the Palestinians is the right thing to do for Israel, then he needs to articulate an alternative approach,” Obama said then. “There comes a point where you can’t manage this anymore, and then you start having to make very difficult choices,” he said.

The president went on to condemn Israel’s settlement activities in the West Bank, and said that though his allegiance to the Jewish state was permanent, building settlements across the Green Line was counterproductive and would make it extremely difficult for the US to defend Israel from painful repercussions in the international community. “If you see no peace deal and continued aggressive settlement construction — and we have seen more aggressive settlement construction over the last couple years than we’ve seen in a very long time — if Palestinians come to believe that the possibility of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state is no longer within reach, then our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited,” Obama warned.

Late last year, Kerry -- whose face has been distorted by repeated failed plastic surgeries and now resembles that of Mr. Potato Head -- lashed out at Israel and mentioned the possibility of a "Third Intifida" (i.e., a wave of mass murders of innocent women and children).

Never before, to my knowledge, has an American diplomat hoped for a wave of mass murder on the civilian population of an ally.

I placed the map of Israel above for a reason. The purple borders illustrate how Egypt and Jordan could tear down their security walls and thereby allow Palestinians freedom in Arab lands.

Why doesn't John Kerry talk about that? Why doesn't Barack Obama mention that?

We know why. Indeed, we know exactly why.


Hat tip: BadBlue News

Larwyn's Linx: Boehner announces he will allow vote to establish select committee on Benghazi

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Boehner to allow vote to establish select committee on Benghazi: UnitedLiberty
Trey Gowdy ‘On the Record’ on the Select Committee for Benghazi: Gretawire
Boehner to appoint panel on Benghazi: The Hill

S&P Capital IQ: 144 Million to Lose Their Employer Health Plans: Lid
Yet Again, Anarchists Highjack Peaceful Left Wing Protest: Ace
GOP Establishment: ‘The McConnell Strategy’: Rotten

Is Obama Too Smart for the Presidency-or Is It Too Tough for Him?: Michael Walsh
Bunkerville Remains The Flash Point: Christian Mercenary
Wendy Davis has Some Explaining to do on Ethics: RWN

Economy

5 Ways Liberals Hurt The Poor: John Hawkins
What is the Real Unemployment Rate?: Federalist
Break Up the Golden State?: City Journal

Scandal Central

Vid: A few times Obama, Clinton, etc. blamed Benghazi on Video: Bryan Preston
Finally, Boehner to Launch a Select Committee on Benghazi: David Weigel
Go Trey, Go Trey: William A. Jacobson

Does Harry Reid Own 93 Acres Near Bundy Grazing Land?: BuzzPo
Obama Had “Debate Prep” Meeting on September 11, 2012, the Day of the Benghazi Attack: Patterico
Benghazi Vs. Botched Execution: Cove

Climate & Energy

Supreme Court Ruling Empowers EPA: Bill Straub
How To Talk To People About Hotcoldwetdry: Cove
Claim: U.S. corn increasingly vulnerable to hot, dry weather; Data: corn trend positive: WUWT

Media

CBS Evening News Finally Notices Benghazi Emails; Discloses Exec.'s Family Tie to White House: MRC
David Gregory Connects Benghazi Directly to Hillary Clinton: Bryan Preston
100,000 New Yorkers demonstrate downtown against Nazi Jew-hatred, media doesn’t run it: Geller

Benghazi: Not Exactly Rocket Science: DiploMad
Krauthammer's Take: New Benghazi E-mail Akin to Discovery of Nixon Tapes: NRO
LIBS TO LIBS: 'CNN Has Gone In The Toilet, FOX Is Only Place For Straight News': Clash

World

Obama Never Made it to Situation Room During Benghazi Attack!: GWP
Benghazi, Lies and Videotape: Nonie Darwish
Pope Francis Says He Cried After Seeing Pictures of Christians Crucified By Islamists In Syria: WZ

The Real Problem With Kerry’s ‘Apartheid’ Myth: RWN
Mexican Military Repeatedly Invades the USA – Obama Does Nothing: Eagle Rising
Japan puts early-warning aircraft on Okinawa amid China's moves: Stripes

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue Tech News)

The Flying Car That Could Expedite Your Morning Commute: Discover
Mind blown! Facebook’s f8 makes a mobile move into marketing automation: InsideFacebook
BICEP2 and the Origins of the Universe: Behind the Buzz: Space.com

Cornucopia

No Sex, Just Lies: Still Waiting On the Emails and Videotape: MOTUS
Bizarre Arizona landscape swirls and sways like brushstrokes from a surrealist painting: Daily Mail
Rob Schneider Tells Chris Stigall: We Are Sliding Very Fast Towards Fascism: CBS Philly

Image: Officials to hold largest security drill in Boston’s history
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: John Lott starting an honest gun research center

QOTD: "...a trio of Republican senators wrote to Obama Friday, demanding he reveal his whereabouts during the attack after former National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor told Fox News that Obama was not in the White House’s basement Situation Room monitoring events.

“Over a year and a half has passed since the terrorist attacks, and the American people still do not have an accounting of your activities during the attack. Mr. President, can you now confirm that Mr. Vietor’s account of your absence in the White House Situation Room is accurate?” the letter asks." --Russell Berman

Friday, May 02, 2014

BEN RHODES HITS THE QUADFECTA: Email Breakdown

Thanks to JudicialWatch (PDF), we have the original email from White House propagandist Ben Rhodes regarding the Benghazi cover-up.

Check out the four talking points, annotated by @BiffSpackle:


Oh, my.


Related: May 10, 2013: Ted Cruz has 12 Questions for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

TOMMY VIETOR COMIX in "Dude, where's my van?"

Via our summer intern, @BiffSpackle and based on a true story.


Methinks Mr. Vietor will soon be back living in his van, down by the river.


THE PUPPETMASTERS: Meet The Radical Billionaires Controlling the Democrat Party

Guest post by Tori Richards

This weekend, a shadowy leftist group named Democracy Alliance will meet in Chicago to figure out a way to thwart conservative rivals.

As the adage goes, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.

While top liberal organizations blast the right for accepting dark money, the Alliance’s entire business model is based on maintaining secrecy akin to the Illuminati.

“Like a lot of elite groups, we fly beneath the radar,” Oakland lawyer and Alliance donor Guy Saperstein told the Washington Post in 2006, a year after the group was formed. “We are not so stupid though (to) deny our existence.”

The group requires some hefty financial backing. It costs $25,000 just to join, yearly dues of $30,000 and an additional $200,000 donation to Alliance causes. Donation recipients must sign confidentiality agreements, the Post reported.

The Alliance was founded by a group of billionaires, including George Soros and philanthropist Peter B. Lewis, as a result of George W. Bush’s re-election. Its goal was to fund think tanks and media organizations to move societal change toward a more socialist agenda. But the focus changed to funding political endeavors after Vice President Joe Biden asked for help in 2011 for the upcoming election.

Obama’s campaign and his umbrella activist group Organizing for Action have received millions from Democracy Alliance members.

JAY CARNEY: Man Without Shame

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily

Benghazi Cover-Up: The administration's tangled web of deceit now includes lying about prior lies as the White House press secretary tries to cover up its cover-up of why four Americans died in a terrorist attack.

No, that was not Winston Smith, the rewriter of history working for the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's classic novel "1984," tap-dancing once again before a no-longer-sycophantic White House press corps. Rather, it was that master storyteller, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

Carney shamefully continued to insist that when then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice went on five Sunday talk shows days after the 2012 attack to offer an untrue story that Benghazi was the result of an inflammatory video, she was acting on the best intelligence offered by the intelligence community.

Carney said this knowing that Mike Morell, CIA deputy director two years ago, testified before Congress and said the video story did not come from CIA analysts.

As for the emails that showed the administration's motives for the story were political, to protect a president running for re-election and a secretary of state that wanted to be his successor, Carney offered his entry for 2014 Lie Of The Year: The emails obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch in a lawsuit specifically seeking Benghazi documents weren't really about Benghazi.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in an interview on TheBlaze TV that the newly released emails bring questions about the slaughter "into the White House, and it shows that the idea that the CIA created the talking points that Susan Rice was using is a big fat lie."

In an argumentative exchange between Carney and ABC News' Jon Karl, Carney insisted that "if you look at the document in question here, it is not about Benghazi; it is about the protests around the Muslim world outside of U.S. embassies" and it was the general situation in the Middle East that Rice was being prepped for.

To his credit, Karl asked all the right questions in response to Carney's song and dance: "Why were you holding back this information? Why was this email not turned over to the Congress? Why was it not released when you released all the other emails?" and, of course, if what Carney was saying is true, why did it take a court case to get the unredacted email released?

Larwyn's Linx: Benghazi --- American ‘Liberalism’ and the Mainstream Media on Trial

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

Benghazi: U.S. 'Liberalism' and the Mainstream Media on Trial: Roger L. Simon
The Dishonored Dead: Mark Steyn
ObamaCare: Healthcare Spending Rise Fastest Since Carter in Office: MB

Whatever happened to free-speech panic?: Jonah Goldberg
Ted Cruz Leading A Grassroots Tsunami: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
Senate Dems to Hold Vote to Change the First Amendment: ConTrib

Carney Blames CIA For WH Telling Susan Rice To Lie About Benghazi: WZ
Cummings lies about Benghazi response; Issa and Chaffetz respond: Scoop
The Bundy Paradox: Starving the Monkeys

So it Looks Like Wendy Davis Might be Finished: Glob
Obama administration plans to destroy $1.2 billion of ammunition: John Lott
Thin Ice: Why at Least 10 Senators Should Be Worried: Minority Report

Economy

The East Baton Rouge Schools Grade-Fixing Scandal Grows: HayRide
Bummer: SEIU can no longer skim from poor, sick Michigan residents: ConIntel
Democrat Utopia of Venezuela: High Wages, But No Food: Walter Russell Mead

Scandal Central

General: We Didn't Even Try To Save American Lives In Benghazi: Eli Lake
Could You Lie to a Bereaved Father? Hillary Could.: Mona Charen
Top Intel Chief Testifies: 'We Should Have Sent Help For Americans in Benghazi': Katie Pavlich

Chaffetz Unloads on Hillary's State Department Leaving Americans to Die in Benghazi: Breitbart
Issa: WH Withholding Benghazi Docs ‘Disturbing and Perhaps Criminal’: Nice Deb
Enough White House Lies on Benghazi: David Limbaugh

Jay Carney Lashes Out at Ed Henry Over New Benghazi Emails: Blaze
Boehner’s Last Two Opponents Were Fired From Their Jobs: DC
Ethics Complaint Filed Against Landrieu For Staged Political Ad : HayRide

Climate & Energy

Former NASA Scientist Calls "Climate Change" Nonsense: Cove
Federal Regulators Could Be Empowered To Enter Your Property To Inspect Your Cars: DC
Bummer: Polar Bears Endangered By Too Much Ice: Cove

Media

Mentioned on DC: "More than 100,000 Gang Members in Texas"—Unmentioned: Immigration!: VDARE
MSNBC: “We Never Have a Conversation About Race”: Nice Deb
Brother of CBS News head at center of plan to whitewash Benghazi terror attack: Creeping

Even NBC's David Gregory Isn't Buying What Jay Carney Is Selling on Benghazi: PJM
MSNBC Is Now Admitting There MAY Be Something To This Whole Benghazi Thing: DC
Gosnell: The Movie Hollywood Won’t Make, But You Can: Michelle Malkin

MSM Warned: Be Nice or Hillary Won’t Give Us Her Presidency!: Anchoress
ABC, NBC Ignore Shocking Economic Slowdown: MRC
Jay Carney’s Tower of Lies: Peter Wehner

World

The Nightmare of a Defenseless America: Kurt Schlichter
Sharia Advisors – Barack Obama's Muslim Appointees in High Security Positions: FreePost
Jihad in India: Twin bomb blasts hit India express train: Geller

Vladimir Putin's long—and very dangerous—game: Leon Aron
Japanese Nazis Parade Through Tokyo: The American Interest
Afghanistan’s ‘torturer in chief’ now living in Los Angeles: Creeping

Border Patrol Found 194 Bodies in Tucson Sector Alone Last Year: TR
N4T Investigators: Rogue Mexican Army troops crossing the line: Lupita Murillo and Michel Marizco, KVOA
Keep beefing up Border Patrol? Some Arizona ranchers say no: McClatchy

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue Tech News)

Microsoft Office applications barely used by many employees, new study shows: TechWorld
E-ZPass Tracks Motorists Outside Of Toll Booths: WBGO
Would you want Apple to put health sensors in your EarPods?: iMore

Cornucopia

Cops Must Swear Silence to Access Vehicle Tracking System: Instapundit
Congratulations - We Are the .1 Percenters!: MOTUS
After America Moves a Step Close to Reality: Ed Driscoll

Image: Ukraine crisis: Small numbers, global impact
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Fire John "Amnesty" Boehner Today -- Support J.D. Winteregg!

QOTD: "Has a unit of Mexican Army soldiers who patrol right on the Arizona border gone rogue?

This small group has attacked U.S. citizens, and even challenged U.S. federal agents within the U.S. A News 4 Tucson investigation into the dangerous world of rogue soldiers in Mexico's military.

In January, soldiers from this lonely outpost of the Mexican Army drew their guns on U.S. Border Patrol agents just 50 yards into the United States. Then in March, they opened fire on Javier Jose Rodriguez, a young Tucson man visiting family in Sásabe when he was driving around the town early on a Saturday morning after drinking beers with friends. Rodriguez was shot in the arm and in the side, he spent three weeks at University of Arizona Medical Center.

The United States' reaction has been tepid, angering people who live and patrol along the Arizona border." --Lupita Murillo and Michel Marizco

Thursday, May 01, 2014

ILLINOIS: We're Number One, Again!

Gallup has some interesting new poll results out. They asked residents of all 50 states whether they are unhappy enough to want to move out of state.

Every state has at least some residents who are looking for greener pastures, but nowhere is the desire to move more prevalent than in Illinois and Connecticut. In both of these states, about half of residents say that if given the chance to move to a different state, they would like to do so. Maryland is a close third, at 47%.

I added the blue for a reason. David Freddoso explains:

I find it fascinating that seven of the top eight — all but foreclosure-plagued Nevada — are wealthy and thoroughly liberal bastions, followed by two of the poorest states in the U.S. to round out the top ten.

Illinois, by the way, is also number one for residents who think their state is the worst of all.

I think it was Mark Levin who first noted that Democrats are like locusts. They destroy a state and then, having sufficiently eradicated growth and opportunity, move on to the next. New York-to-Connecticut and Maryland-to-Virginia serving as archetypes.


Hat tip: BadBlue News

The Two Brothers at the Center of the Benghazi Cover-up

Guest post by Rob Bluey

The disclosure this week of a White House document on Benghazi has thrust CBS News into the spotlight for its coverage in the aftermath of the terrorist attack.

CBS News President David Rhodes is the brother of Ben Rhodes, the White House deputy national security adviser who drafted the newly released document about Benghazi just days after the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed four Americans. Ben Rhodes’s involvement was first revealed Tuesday when Judicial Watch obtained the document as part of a court case.

Last night, “CBS Evening News” did not cover the latest developments on the story, even though reporters peppered White House press secretary Jay Carney with questions earlier in the day.

The Washington Free Beacon reports CBS was the only evening newscast not to cover the latest details on Benghazi. The program instead covered “the weather, Oklahoma executions, and the arrest of a former Irish Republican Army operative.”

Earlier yesterday, Glenn Beck interviewed Sharyl Attkisson, a former CBS News investigative reporter, about the Benghazi disclosure and the Rhodes brothers. Attkisson revealed that she sought the same Ben Rhodes document that Judicial Watch eventually obtained. CBS News, however, would not take the matter to court.

“CBS wasn’t willing to file a [Freedom of Information Act] lawsuit when I was there to try to get some of these documents,” Attkisson said.

Toothless John Boehner and Inspector Clouseau Issa outraged over Benghazi emails: plan strongly worded memo

The Keystone GOPs -- and of course I refer to Speaker John Boehner and House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa -- have been proven utterly incompetent and quite possibly complicit with the Obama administration's myriad scandals.

Their refusal to name a Select Investigative Committee -- for either Benghazi or the weaponization of the IRS -- is an outrage and now an embarrassment. A private organization, Judicial Watch, secured the "Smoking Gun" emails that tied the White House directly to the cover-up foisted upon the victims' families and the American public.

Boehner and Issa look like either buffoons or accomplices. Which is not to rule out the possibility that they are both.

Suitably humiliated, Boehner is squealing like a stuck pig, claiming he's outraged -- outraged, I say -- that the Obama administration lied, stonewalled and illegally withheld evidence from his toothless circle twerk.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday called on Secretary of State John Kerry to testify as to why a newly revealed email prepping Susan Rice for a series of television interviews was not handed over to Congress last year... Boehner said the White House or someone in the administration must explain why the email was not included when Congress subpoenaed documents and emails last year about the deadly terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012 that killed four Americans.

"If the White House won’t explain it, Secretary Kerry should come to the Capitol to explain why he defied an official congressional subpoena," Boehner said in a statement. "And the White House needs to understand that this investigation will not end until the entire truth is revealed and justice and accountability are served.”

Boehner said the withholding of the email constitutes the "most flagrant example yet of the administration's contempt for the American people’s right to know the truth about what happened when four Americans died in a fiery terrorist attack."

I'm surprised he didn't say, "It's a sad day" like his equally dimwitted counterpart in the Senate.

Darrell "Inspector Clouseau" (which is the nickname he prefers, I hear) Issa appears equally outraged!

[Issa] complained that the Benghazi documents recently released by the White House to Judicial Watch in response to their FOIA request, should have been turned over to Congress a year and a half ago.

...“The documents from Judicial Watch’s FOIA which was pursuant to our request more than over a year and a half ago, show a direct White House role outside of talking points prepared by the intelligence community... In pushing the false narrative that a YouTube video was responsible for the deaths of four brave Americans, it is disturbing and perhaps criminal that these documents — that documents like these — were hidden by the Obama administration from Congress and the public alike, particularly after Secretary Kerry pledged cooperation and the president himself told the American people in November of 2012 that, quote, ‘every bit of information we have on Benghazi has been provided,’” Issa said.

He noted that “the president himself said in November of 2012, that every bit of information that we have on Benghazi has been provided.”

I just emailed some of the Republican National Committee's public relations muckety-mucks, asking them what the official position is on a Select Committee on Benghazi. I fully expect an answer by 2037.

John "Amnesty" Boehner needs to go. He's not a leader; but he is a weakling, a coward, and a buffoon. And those are among his more positive traits. With all due respect.

As an aside, did you know that the last two credible challengers to John Boehner in Ohio's District 8 suddenly happened to lose their jobs?

But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

But in case not, please support his conservative challenger, J.D. Winteregg.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Larwyn's Linx: White House Tries Jedi Mind Trick to Explain Smoking Gun Benghazi Email

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

WH Tries Jedi Mind Trick to Explain Smoking Gun Benghazi Email: Jeff Dunetz
Judicial Watch: Jay Carney has zero credibility: Scoop
Benghazi Keeps Bubbling Up Despite WH Spin : Jon Gabriel

Indisputable Proof the Left Is Lying to You About Guns: Rusty Weiss
“Republicans block Dems’ minimum wage hike, citing stagnant economy”: PW
Why, Oh Why, Oh Why, Oh…: WRSA

“Federal Judge Strikes Down Wisconsin Voter ID Law”: PW
The End of Affirmative Action: Victor Davis Hanson
Sterling, Media and the Race Card — a Confederacy of Dunces: Larry Elder

Sean Eldridge, Married to Media Guru, Can’t Find Time to Talk to Media: MenRec
'One Nation Under Allah': The Islamization of American Public Schools: Geller
Burke Dodges Answers, Befuddles Milwaukee Reporters: MediaTrackers

Economy

The Road We're Kicking the Can Down: Mark Steyn
Fake It ‘Til You Make It!: HayRide
Obama-Biden vacation tab reaches $40 million: Exam

Scandal Central

ABC’s Jonathan Karl GRILLS Jay Carney over new Benghazi email: Scoop
Gowdy Blasts House Leaders: “Congress Is Supposed To Provide Oversight – Not Judicial Watch!”: Nce Deb
There Is A Smoking Gun In the Benghazi Scandal: HayRide

Climate & Energy

The United States of Regulation: Compliance Costs Consume Huge Chunks of Our Economy: Scott Shackford
Federal Land Grab Comes to California at Vail Lake: Breitbart
White House opens door to tolls on interstate highways, removing long-standing prohibition: WaPo

Media

Dana Perino notes ‘something missing’ from Benghazi email story, wallops the lapdog media: Twitchy
CNBC Anchor: GDP numbers were so bad, I thought it was a MISPRINT: Scoop
John Paul Stevens: ‘Money is not speech’: Hill

Levin: Benghazi emails show AP reporter colluding with State Dept. against Fox News: Scoop
Malkin shreds Jeb Bush, Common Core and ‘John Dewey/Saul Alinsky-marinated progressives’: EAG
Folks, you're missing the point about Donald Sterling: Allen West

World

Never Again: Daniel Greenfield
Good news: Arizona man says Islamic law gives him right to kill his wife: Allen West
Muslim Community of Knoxville — The Facts: GoV

Kerry will escape: Richard Baehr
USAID Awards $341 Mil in April, Including $24.5 Mil for Circumcisions in Swaziland: JW
A Deadly Recipe For War With China: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

UKIP confounds the mainstream media yet again: Commentator
The West Prepares: These Are All NATO Aircraft Deployments In Response To The Ukraine Crisis: ZH
Chinese spies at Sydney University: John Garnaut

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue Tech News)

The Liberal Creationists: Steve Sailer
FCC Chairman: I’d Rather Give In To Verizon’s Definition Of Net Neutrality Than Fight: Consumerist
Facebook grows up as a software firm, though some developers are wary: PC World

Cornucopia

Race to the Bottom: Hopenchange
Michelle Visits a Virginia Spa in Equestrian Country: That’s a Horse of Different Color.: MOTUS
Racist Offsets now accepted by NAACP: Cube

Image: Never Again
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Fire John "Amnesty" Boehner Now -- Support J.D. Winteregg!

QOTD: “Democrat demagoguery to the contrary, one does not help the impoverished by rewarding the few by taking away opportunity for employment from the many, then in essence taxing all of us on goods and services. This is just another example of the left choosing winners and losers. And when they do so, the biggest loser is the country — and the only winner is the Democrats, should they prevail in making emotional appeals about ‘fairness’ that are fundamentally unfair to the majority of Americans.” --Jeff Goldstein

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Government-Media Incest Comix

Another keeper by our year-around summer intern, @BiffSpackle:


Just a reminder: you can always read the real, uncensored news at BadBlue. 24 x 7 x 365. Unfiltered by vintage media.


Obama's 3-Part Benghazi Strategy: Lie, Lie, and Lie Again

Guest post by Investor's Business Daily

Scandal: Newly obtained emails on Benghazi show then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice was coached by a key White House aide to lie and ignore the facts known and reported on the ground to make the administration look good.

The fish rots from the head, as the saying goes, and no further proof is needed than a Sept. 14, 2012, email from Ben Rhodes, an assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, contained in more than 100 pages of documents released by Judicial Watch and obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request.

That email, with the subject line: "RE: PREP Call with Susan: Saturday at 4:00 p.m. ET," was sent to other key White House staffers such as then-Communications Director David Plouffe and Press Secretary Jay Carney the day before now-National Security Adviser Susan Rice made her whirlwind tour on five Sunday news show appearances to specifically and emphatically blame an Internet video for the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, in which U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other nationals were killed.

One of the goals listed in the emails was the need for Rice "to underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy." She was also to "reinforce the President and Administration's strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges." Her job was not to tell the truth, but to put lipstick on the Obama administration's Benghazi pig.

17 Facts To Show Anyone Who Believes The U.S. Economy Is Just Fine

Guest post by Michael Snyder

No, the economy is most definitely not "recovering".

Despite what you may hear from the politicians and from the mainstream media, the truth is that the U.S. economy is in far worse shape than it was prior to the last recession. In fact, we are still pretty much where we were at when the last recession finally ended.

When the financial crisis of 2008 struck, it took us down to a much lower level economically. Thankfully, things have at least stabilized at this much lower level. For example, the percentage of working age Americans that are employed has stayed remarkably flat for the past four years. We should be grateful that things have not continued to get even worse. It is almost as if someone has hit the "pause button" on the U.S. economy. But things are definitely not getting better, and there are a whole host of signs that this bubble of false stability will soon come to an end and that our economic decline will accelerate once again. The following are 17 facts to show to anyone that believes that the U.S. economy is just fine...

#1 The homeownership rate in the United States has dropped to the lowest level in 19 years.

#2 Consumer spending for durable goods has dropped by 3.23 percent since November. This is a clear sign that an economic slowdown is ahead.

#3 Major retailers are closing stores at the fastest pace that we have seen since the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

#4 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20 percent of all families in the United States do not have a single member that is employed. That means that one out of every five families in the entire country is completely unemployed.

#5 There are 1.3 million fewer jobs in the U.S. economy than when the last recession began in December 2007. Meanwhile, our population has continued to grow steadily since that time.

INTERNET SMACKDOWN O' THE DAY: Benghazi Edition

Over at The Daily Beast, investigative journalist Eli Lake has been doing yeoman's work exposing the Obama administration's scandals to otherwise clueless Newsweek readers (Lake is responsible for the Beast's inclusion on The Top 150 Conservative Websites, an admittedly controversial move on my part).

Lake's reporting on the latest Benghazi revelations is articulate, factual and damning. As any rational observer could have predicted -- and the latest emails now prove -- the White House lied to the faces of the Benghazi victims' families, lied to the American public, and lied to Congress about the nature of the attack.

Oh, and as an added bonus, President Obama and Hillary Clinton tossed an innocent filmmaker in the clink to reinforce their cover story.

No matter. The point of this particular post -- I'm rambling, I know -- is the commentary following Lake's revelations. An ever-dwindling number of Obama defenders, drones, sycophants, and other miscreants are still attempting to defend the indefensible.

Like this schmuck, who goes by the handle "Leftcoastnative" (a liberal in California? Who knew?):

Here's what republicans would have said if the Benghazi attack had happened on a republican president's watch, and if the Secretary of State's name hadn't been "Clinton."

(crickets.........crickets..........crickets........ crickets.........)

Somewhere deep in the recesses of congressional republicans' digital trash cans, are the deleted e-mails that said: "Whatever you do, don't mention the fact that we cut the State Department's security budget by half a billion dollars in the two yeas before Benghazi, and be sure we keep calling it a consulate even though we all know it was a CIA station."

"And just for the heck of it, let's not mention that Stevens was our point man with the Libyan rebels before he was Ambassador. It might muddy the water. Oh.....if someone asks what the heck the ambassador was doing at a lightly defended CIA station in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9/11 instead of tucked away safe and sound at the embassy in Tripoli, just pivot to the IRS or Fast and Furious."

Regarding the State Department's security budget, that tired canard -- first marketed by the dumbest Vice President in American history -- was long ago refuted by the State Department itself:

In testimony Wednesday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Charlene Lamb, a deputy assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, was asked, “Was there any budget consideration and lack of budget which led you not to increase the number of people in the security force there?”

Lamb responded, “No, sir.”

Recall that Lamb is the person who denied requests from the top diplomatic security officer in Libya to retain a 16-man team of military personnel who had been protecting diplomats.

But the funniest smackdown of Leftcoastnative's central contention was proferred by "F_this_State":

@Leftcoastnative: I think it's amazing that so many liberals know what would happen in this imaginary alternate universe where a republican got elected instead of obama. You should all really go find a scientist, tell them you can see into alternate realities, and then prove that you can. You'd win a nobel prize for sure, and advance humanity into a new golden age.

It's just amazing that so many people have access to all the multiple universes and never told anyone. The physics community is going to be ecstatic.

And as it pertains to Benghazi, my primary question remains unanswered.

The same Leftist twits who reveled in George W. Bush reading My Pet Goat for seven minutes during the 9/11 attacks (as it turns out, at Secret Service request to prepare for a safe evacuation route to Air Force One) haven't once asked what Barack Obama did for 12 hours after being notified his Ambassador was about to be kidnapped or murdered.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Larwyn's Linx: The White House’s Calculated Lie On The Benghazi Fiasco

Send us tips! Bloggers: install a Larwyn's Linx widget. Get real-time news, 24/7, at BadBlue.

Nation

The White House’s Calculated Lie On The Benghazi Fiasco: RS
Kerry Echoes His Boss: Andrew C. McCarthy
Administration Accused Of Slow Walking Congress On Benghazi: Eli Lake

The Ten Commandments Of Liberalism: John Hawkins
Paradox Of Liberalism: A twisted ideology: BuzzPo
Anti-Government Protester, On Camera, Threatens FIGHT TO THE DEATH: TR

A Passionate Amnesty Advocate: Rep Renee Ellmers (R-NC): John Bennett
FBI: Illinois Democrat Bragged About Molesting 6-Year-Old Girl: R.S. McCain
NJ Democrat on Tape: Fears Her Town May Become “F—ing N—–town”: JWF

Economy

U.S. Federal Regulatory Costs Are The World's 10th Largest Economy: IBD
Sebelius Proposes Medicaid Cuts in States That Expanded Medicaid: HayRide
Taxman auctions widow's home over $6 bill: Rick Moran

Minimum wage for 300 White House interns: $0.00 per hour: PJM
Teachers Union Boss Randi Weingarten: My Salary's Only $360K: MediaTrack
McWages for the McAmerica job recovery: My Budget 360

Scandal Central

Benghazi Emails Show Blaming Video Was Effort to Protect, Re-Elect Obama: Tatler
Benghazi Documents Point to White House Ordering Misleading Talking Points: JW
Sharyl Attkisson finds the ‘smoking gun’ in latest Benghazi document dump: Twitchy

Benghazi Documents Point to White House on Misleading Talking Points : FW
Senator: E-mails show how Benghazi story shaped: USA Today
Benghazi scandal tied to White House: WaPo

Climate & Energy

EPA Delayed Climate Change Regulation Until After Midterms: DC
EPA Vows To Go After Republicans Who Dare Question Agency’s Science: DC
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy: ‘Pollution Is Holding Back Millions of African Americans’: GWP

Media

The Right Believes We’re All ‘Just a Blogger’: Rusty Weiss
A Typical ObamaCare Nightmare: R.S. McCain
Krauthammer on Benghazi emails: We now have the smoking document: Scoop

Poll: Obama Approval at Lowest Ever: WS
“Morning Joe” – New Poll Indicates Barack Obama may be “Politically Toxic”: FreeLight
Washington Post Shocked — Shocked! — to Learn Failed President Is Unpopular: R.S. McCain

The Media Finally Notices The Decades-Long Drop In Violent Crime: Ace
FAIL: Violence Policy Center Is Caught Fabricating Anti-Gun Data. Again. Still.: Bob Owens
Juan Williams’s Wife Wishes She Had a Gun: MB

World

John Kerry’s Jewish best friends: Caroline Glick
Bipartisan outrage explodes on John Kerry for ‘apartheid’ comments; Ted Cruz calls for resignation: BPR
Say What? Top 10 Controversial Kerry Comments on Israel: Algemeiner

Kerry Blurts Out More Top Secret Info: U.S. Taped Moscow’s Calls to Its Ukraine Spies: Daily Beast
Video: Annoyed Obama pretty sick and tired of people calling his foreign policy weak: Hot Air
Thank You John Kerry! PLO Negotiator Blames Failure of Talks on "Apartheid Regime": Lid

Obama’s Transportation Secretary Defends Muslim Airline’s Ban On Israeli Jews: RWN
Mark Levin: "John Kerry Is An Anti-Semite": RCP
US judge: our digital search warrants apply ANYWHERE: Richard Chirgwin, The Register

Sci-Tech (courtesy BadBlue Tech News)

Avram Miller says Steve Jobs has one more Apple intro: Cringely
Windows Phone: Just as well Microsoft bought an Android maker, RIGHT?: Register
iWatch Reportedly Entering Production in Small Quantities Ahead of Fall 2014 Launch: MacRumors

Cornucopia

Obama’s Top Secret Social Media Defense Plan Revealed!: Sooper Mexican
Papers, Please: American Digest
“America” Trailer Shows How Much Some Prominent Americans Hate The USA: Federalist Papers

Image: Chicago, Chicago, That Obama Toddlin' Town
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Fire John "Amnesty" Boehner Now -- Support J.D. Winteregg!

QOTD: "[We now] know that there had been a specific warning regarding the embassy in Cairo, Egypt the day before both it and the facility in Benghazi were assaulted. That warning destroys any notion that a YouTube movie motivated either attack, as Cairo preceded Benghazi, and the motivations for the attack in Cairo were clear. It was not about a movie. The terrorists who attacked the embassy in Cairo wanted to force the U.S. to release the blind sheikh who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center attack. What did the terrorists who attacked Benghazi shortly thereafter want? Why did they attack that facility, and did they know that the U.S. ambassador was there? Where was Barack Obama while Ben Rhodes was directing a cover-up? Why was the military not allowed to respond?" --Bryan Preston

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Krauthammer on the sad, amoral, and pathetic excuse for a human being known as Hillary Clinton

Dr. Krauthammer about sums it up.

I find the most scandalous element of this from purely just a human point of view, is the fact that the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with the bodies of the dead lying in front of her and with the families there, brought up the video and said a video with which we had nothing to do, and then according to one of the family members, when she went over to console that family member, she said ‘We’re going to get the guy who did the video.’


Now, that to me, if she knew that this was a phony story and I’m not sure I can understand how it would be otherwise, is a form of deception that I think is truly scandalous.

The back-story, for those who may have missed it, is here.


WHATEVER YOU DO: Please do not share this chart with the left-wing economedian Thomas Piketty

I only say that to spare random passersby from being wounded by a Piketty cranium explosion.



Via @hankishtwit.

HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS: Administration's Benghazi Lies Were an "Effort to Protect, Re-Elect Obama"

The cover-up is confirmed.

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that on April 18, 2014, it obtained 41 new Benghazi-related State Department documents. They include a newly declassified email showing then-White House Deputy Strategic Communications Adviser Ben Rhodes and other Obama administration public relations officials attempting to orchestrate a campaign to “reinforce” President Obama and to portray the Benghazi consulate terrorist attack as being “rooted in an Internet video, and not a failure of policy.”  Other documents show that State Department officials initially described the incident as an “attack” and a possible kidnap attempt.

Cold-blooded lies invented to hide the fact that American heroes fought and died while awaiting a rescue that would never come.

Previously unreleased internal Obama administration emails show that a coordinated effort was made in the days following the Benghazi terror attacks to portray the incident as “rooted in [an] Internet video, and not [in] a broader failure or policy.”

Emails sent by senior White House adviser Ben Rhodes to other top administration officials reveal an effort to insulate President Barack Obama from the attacks that killed four Americans.

Rhodes sent this email to top White House officials such as David Plouffe and Jay Carney just a day before National Security Adviser Susan Rice made her infamous Sunday news show appearances to discuss the attack.

The “goal,” according to these emails, was “to underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure or policy.”

Bryan Preston well summarizes the implications for the Beltway Elite.

The “goal,” therefore, was to lie convincingly enough to get the president re-elected. It takes a special coldness to tell that lie with the bodies of the dead in coffins behind you. Hillary Clinton managed that without a trace of a conscience to slow her down...

...It’s well to remember at this point who Ben Rhodes is. According to the White House, he is assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for strategic communications and speechwriting. That sounds nice, but he has no career in the military or intelligence. Rhodes is a career partisan Democrat and Obama loyalist who was put on the National Security Council because he is a loyalist to the man. Not the nation. Or the facts on the ground in Libya or anywhere else. Rhodes’ loyalty belongs to Barack Obama.

He needs to be compelled to testify under oath about all this.

The latest revelation is, in Roger L. Simon's opinion, the lynchpin for an impeachment trial.

The levels of criminality involved in this are mind-boggling. Everyone from Ben Rhodes to Hillary Clinton to Jay Carney to Susan Rice to Mike Morell to Barack Obama and on and on must explain themselves minute-by-minute. American “liberals” and their media consorts should search their souls. People died here...

...Anyone who now considers Benghazi a “fake scandal” is a either a complete liar or a moron. This new release of emails thanks to Judicial Watch is literally a call to arms. We will now see if there is even a figment of honesty in our mainstream media and if our elected representatives are to be trusted in any way.

It is our duty as citizens to put as pressure on those representatives as possible to carry through this investigation to its natural conclusion — impeachment.

In light of this discovery, will the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, finally name a Select Committee on Benghazi?

Will Darrell "Inspector Clouseau" Issa explain why a watchdog group like Judicial Watch -- and not his unfocused and possibly incompetent Oversight Committee -- is doing all of the heavy lifting in this investigation?

Will the media finally admit that they are co-conspirators in the cover-up?

As Preston concludes:

It was not about a movie. The terrorists who attacked the embassy in Cairo wanted to force the U.S. to release the blind sheikh who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center attack. What did the terrorists who attacked Benghazi shortly thereafter want? Why did they attack that facility, and did they know that the U.S. ambassador was there? Where was Barack Obama while Ben Rhodes was directing a cover-up? Why was the military not allowed to respond?

I have my theories.


Hat tip: BadBlue News

RESET: The Obama administration opts for fake sanctions on Putin

Guest post by George Friedman

The United States announced new sanctions on seven Russian government officials April 28. A long-used tactic, sanctions can yield unpredictable effects or have no effect at all, depending upon how they are crafted. It is commonly assumed that sanctions are applied when a target country's actions are deemed unacceptable. The sanctioning nation presumably chooses sanctions to avoid war when war would be too costly or could result in defeat.

Sanctions' stated purpose is to induce behavioral changes in a target state by causing economic pain. To work, sanctions must therefore cause pain. But they must not be so severe that they convince the target state that war is more desirable than capitulating to the demands of the sanctioning nation.

When Sanctions Work Too Well

In July 1941, when the Japanese invaded Indo-China, the United States responded by freezing all Japanese assets. The United Kingdom and the Dutch East Indies (today's Indonesia) followed suit. The sanctions were quite effective, and Japan wound up cut off from the bulk of international trade, losing 90 percent of its imported oil. Japan had to respond, but instead of withdrawing from Indo-China, it attacked Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese example is worth considering. The United States placed Japan in a situation where its oil supplies would be depleted in months, at which point Japan would cease to be an industrial power. Tokyo could have accepted the American terms, but once it did this, it would have established a U.S. veto over Japanese decisions.

The Japanese did not trust the United States and were convinced that any capitulation to sanctions would simply lead to more U.S. demands. Tokyo understood the risks of war but calculated that these risks were lower than the risks of complying with U.S. demands (though the Japanese might well have been wrong in this calculation, and Franklin Roosevelt might well have known that Tokyo would choose war over capitulation). Faced with sanctions that would cripple the nation, Japan chose war.