PK'S NOTE: I've been listening to the Benghazi testimony today. Hearing these men trying to control their emotions is so moving. How the administration could be so corrupt is astounding. I love Issa and Gowdy. Otherwise, it is pissing me off that the R side of the aisle is trying to get info from the witnesses and the D side is running cover. And it is pathetic to see members of committee using their time to do most of the talking.
Benghazi Revelations Today Could Obliterate Obama’s Credibility and Sink Hillary’s 2016 Ambitions
We may finally learn the truth about Benghazi. Eight months have passed since the September 11th attacks
on the U.S. Mission there, but a moment of reckoning has come. The
House Oversight Committee has brought forth whistle-blowers with direct
and unique knowledge of the Benghazi attack and the Obama
administration’s inept, dishonest response to it.
Today could be politically devastating
for the president and his party. Or it could merely solidify that which
we already know about the Benghazi debacle.
Either way, here’s a breakdown of some
of the key issues that the whistle-blowers are likely to address, and
the possible ramifications of the hearings for the Obama administration
as well as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Inaction During the Attack
There is no argument that crucial
warnings were missed in the run-up to the Benghazi attack. The security
environment was deteriorating, multiple requests for help from
Ambassador Stephens went unheeded. Inexplicably, the State Department
pulled security resources away from a critical threat post.
This incompetence is well-documented,
and unless new information surfaces today to shine a spotlight on then
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s direct role in this, the narrative
of bureaucratic stupidity is unlikely to change.
The administration’s actions during the
hours of the attack itself, however, could be up for a major thrashing.
Based on early excerpts of testimony from the Deputy Chief of Mission,
Greg Hicks, senior administration officials both failed to act
decisively to save U.S. lives, and even stood in the way of an effort to
do so.
No Fighter Planes Deployed: Why?
DCM Hicks has stated that, in his
opinion, aerial assets such as an F-16 fighter could have been deployed
as a show of force over the Benghazi compound. He suggested that
“buzzing” the attackers may have caused some to withdraw for fear of
being targeted. The U.S. airbase in Aviano, Sicily, or the Naval Base at
Souda Bay, in Greece, could have possibly provided fighter aircraft.
If this is true, it portrays a chain
of command that not only failed to plan for such a critical contingency,
but one that was unwilling to take the risk of deploying manned aerial
assets to help those fighting off the terrorist attack.
Was a Stand Down Order Given?
There are also reports that Hicks told
House investigators that a Quick Reaction Force from Tripoli was held
back despite being ready to deploy to Benghazi. This occurred before the
second wave of attacks on the annex facility, and therefore the delay
could have cost American lives.
That any U.S. official would hamper a
rescue team from deploying with all due haste to assist a U.S.
Ambassador and numerous other Americans in jeopardy defies our most
basic expectations. If political optics—the possibility that a large,
sustained gunfight with Benghazi terrorists may have looked bad on
television the next day—influenced the decision to give the stand down
order in any way, the American people have a right to know. And someone
must be held accountable.
The Cover Up: How Deep and High Up Does it Go?
Anyone with an internet connection can
prove that the Obama administration lied about the Benghazi attacks to
prevent an election-changing narrative from taking hold in the minds of
the American people. The three whistle-blowers today could be in a
position to make such an airtight case for a cover up at the top levels
of the administration that efforts to downplay or dismiss it will
finally become impossible.
Here’s what we already know: It was
obviously a terrorist attack from the start. The talking points were
changed to avoid calling it that. The claims about the Youtube video
were a cynical smokescreen, meant to stall the news cycle. For two
weeks, officials obfuscated and lied about the attacks. And the FBI took
an astonishing 24 days to get on site—long after news outlets like CNN
were able to rummage through the wreckage.
What we don’t know—and what the
whistle blowers may be able to tell us—is just who exactly made those
decisions. And while we can come to our own conclusion about why, we
don’t have hard evidence– yet.
What’s At Stake for Obama, Hillary, and the Democrats?
The Benghazi hearing could reestablish
an old narrative: that Democrats are feckless on national security and
place raw domestic political considerations above all else. This would
be a disaster, not just for those currently in power, but for Hillary
“Benghazi” Clinton in 2016.
To be sure, the Democrats will fight
this tooth and nail. They will try to undermine the credibility of the
whistle-blowers. If that doesn’t work, they will downplay their
testimony as old news, and claim that all of this is a political
witch-hunt.
But their primary goal at this point
will be to protect Hillary Clinton’s legacy. President Obama will never
run for office again, and despite the wishes of some conservatives,
Obama will not be pushed from office. The House is very unlikely to
impeach him, and even if they did, the Democrat-controlled Senate would
not remove him from office.
While Benghazi is much worse than Watergate, the consequences for President Obama will definitely not be.
Former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton is another matter. An Ambassador was killed under her watch, a
man who was her responsibility. Three other brave Americans died with
him. Hillary’s signature, automatic or not, was on cables pulling back
security resources. Her previous testimony to Congress could be
described as misleading at best.
The Benghazi hearing will not just be a
search for the truth—it will inevitably be a preemptive political
battle against Hillary Clinton, the presumed next Democratic nominee.
Americans had a chance to enforce
accountability for Benghazi at the ballot box last November, and more
than half failed to do so. If the whistle-blowers today have their say,
and enough of the American people are listening, we may have one last
chance to punish—or at least avoid—dishonest leadership in the form of
Hillary 2016.
http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/benghazi-revelations-today-could-obliterate-obamas-credibility-and-sink-hillarys-2016-ambitions/
Operation Smear Benghazi Whistleblowers
By Michelle MalkinIt's on. As the White House grapples with a growing backlash over its Libya lies and lapses, President Obama's apologists are gearing up for battle. Put on your hip-waders. Grab those tar buckets. Get ready for Operation Smear Benghazi Whistleblowers.
Capitol Hill hearings this Wednesday on the deadly 9/11 consulate attack by jihadists will feature three compelling witnesses, all State Department veterans: Gregory N. Hicks, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya and highest-ranking U.S. diplomat in the country at the time of the Benghazi jihad attacks; Mark I. Thompson, a former Marine who now serves as deputy coordinator for operations in the agency's Counterterrorism Bureau; and Eric Nordstrom, a diplomatic security officer who was the top security officer in Libya.
Nordstrom first testified last fall about how State Department brass spurned his requests for increased security at the compound. Hicks and Thompson are coming forward publicly for the first time this week with more damning evidence contradicting Team Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's claims about the administration's response the night of the attack and in the ensuing months of cover-ups.
According to the House Oversight Committee, Hicks reportedly will refute Team Obama's claims that nobody was told to stand down and that all military resources available were used in the rescue efforts. As Special Forces prepared to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi to save lives during the attacks, Hicks says the team received a phone call from the U.S. Special Operations Command Africa telling them "you can't go" and that the decision was "purely political."
The State Department press office already has accused Victoria Toensing, attorney for one of the Benghazi whistleblowers, of "lying" about administration pressure on her clients. Left-wing operatives funded by billionaire George Soros have taken to Twitter to mock reports of fear and intimidation among the new witnesses. White House press secretary Jay Carney continues to sing "Long, Long Ago" and deny all wrongdoing.
And one anonymous State Department official told Fox News reporter James Rosen that Hicks and Thompson have "axes to grind."
Gee, who wouldn't have an "axe to grind" if your bosses lied to you, blocked you from saving your co-workers and friends, and lied shamelessly and repeatedly to the American public about the reasons for their deaths?
It's this corrupt and vengeful White House that wields the sharpest axes and biggest grindstones. The casualty count in Obama's war on whistleblowers is double-digit.
ATF insiders who testified before Congress about Obama's Fast and Furious gun-running nightmare faced systemic retaliation and harassment -- both from government supervisors who openly declared witch hunts against them and from liberal media water-carriers.
Maverick journalist Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News faced White House retaliation of her own over her Fast and Furious investigations. Department of Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler "was just yelling at me," and White House spokesman Eric Schultz "literally screamed at me and cussed at me," she told radio talk show host Laura Ingraham in 2011.
Former DOJ attorney J. Christian Adams, who blew the whistle on Attorney General Eric Holder's rule of law-perverting, race-baiting reign, was basely smeared as a "liar" and perjurer by DOJ proxy and Washington Post tool E.J. Dionne -- who ignored Adams' stellar career record at DOJ and unassailable sworn testimony.
Gerald Walpin, former AmeriCorps inspector general, was pushed out of his job by the Obamas after exposing fraud and corruption perpetrated by Democratic mayor of Sacramento and Obama friend Kevin Johnson. The White House baselessly questioned the veteran watchdog's mental health and never apologized for slandering him.
The Pleasanton (CA) Weekly was bullied by the White House press shop over a benign article that irked the administration because it made Michelle Obama look snooty. The San Francisco Chronicle was punished by the White House because a print pool reporter used a cellphone to record video of protesters at an Obama Bay Area fundraiser.
And in case you needed reminding: Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius threatened to crack down on health insurers for candidly tying Obamacare mandates to rising premiums -- something that Sebelius herself now acknowledges. Team Obama lambasted other whistle-blowing companies such as Deere, Caterpillar, Verizon and ATT for speaking out about the cost implications and financial burdens of Obamacare -- and then cheered from the sidelines while Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman attempted to haul the firms up for a congressional inquisition.
If you thought Chicago-on-the-Potomac was dirty, you ain't seen nothing yet. No stone will be left unturned in the effort to slime, sully and squelch the Benghazi truth-tellers. Mark my words: This is how Obama's thugs roll.
http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2013/05/08/operation-smear-benghazi-whistleblowers-n1590605/page/full
The Profound Moral Failure of Benghazi
I hope military and civilian policy makers carefully read Bing West’s post responding to various excuses advanced for failing to aid embattled Americans in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. I could never improve on a Bing West military analysis, but let me also add that September 11, 2012, was a profound moral failure. The degree of courage displayed that night was apparently inversely proportional to the decision-maker’s distance from Libya. The Americans on the scene fought valiantly, outgunned (by a rag-tag band of terrorists, no less; thanks to inexcusably negligent decisions to drawdown before the attack), with men giving their lives in a successful effort to prevent even greater carnage. Other Americans in Libya made desperate efforts to reach the embattled compound in time. The Americans in Washington? In Italy? Elsewhere in our vast and expensive military/civilian national-security apparatus? They failed.
As I noted in Patheos last November, the peace and prosperity of the great mass of Americans depends to a large degre on the willingness of a certain, small number of their fellow citizens to forgo that peace and prosperity, to stand “on the wall” as warriors or — in the case of Ambassador Stevens and those lost last September — as diplomats in harm’s way. We need men and women who are ready to lay down their lives to defeat our enemies when they must and risk their lives to extend the hand of friendship when they should.
We can never adequately repay these individuals, but one thing we must do: promise that we’ll never leave them behind. This is the heart of the Soldier’s Creed: “I will never leave a fallen comrade.” In the military, it is difficult to overstate the sense of betrayal — of anguish — if any soldier feels this sacred pledge has been violated. Absent the most compelling of circumstances, if you violate that pledge, you commit a grave injustice. If you later lie, seek to cover up your failure, or fail to “man up” and explain why you didn’t send help, then you have no shame.
If the most current reports can be believed, after depriving our men and women on the ground of the security they begged for, our leaders didn’t just stand by and watch as a tiny band of courageous but out-gunned Americans gave their last full measure of devotion to try to save an ambassador, save their fellow diplomats, and save themselves against an overwhelming terrorist force; those same leaders told potential rescuers to “stand down.” This isn’t just a tactical failure, or a failure of process. It’s a failure of character, and if there is any honor left in Washington, those responsible should resign.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/347638/profound-moral-failure-benghazi
How Do We Make Sense of Obama’s, Clinton’s and Panetta’s Actions During the Benghazi Attack?
...While the Obama administration was quick to blame the movie, they have been slow to explain what they were actually doing during the 10-hour attack, and who was involved in what. Defense Secretary Panetta has testified that he was not in contact with either President Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the attack unfolded, and despite the fact that it was being monitored in real-time in Washington. The attack would also have weighed heavily on the minds of the president’s re-election campaign advisers. It could cost him and them their jobs.
Does it make any sense that on the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, that as another terrorist attack transpires, in a country bearing the fingerprints of Obama and Clinton after their air war helped oust Muammar Gaddafi, that POTUS, SecDef, and SecState all decided not to discuss the attack and coordinate a response? Does it make any sense for a secretary of State to handle the attack without communicating with her counterpart at the Pentagon, who would have been in charge of any military response to it? Does it make any sense for Panetta to green-light or red-light any response without consulting the commander-in-chief? Does he even have such authority?
None of that makes any sense. It’s inconceivable that the top three U.S. officials who would be accountable for the American lives and property at Benghazi would not communicate with each other during an ongoing attack. If she had nothing to hide, Clinton should have been climbing the walls until Obama authorized a serious and forceful response to rescue her friend Chris Stevens. Panetta should have been responding to Obama’s orders to bring our people home if possible, or disperse or kill the attackers if it wasn’t.
Yet Panetta says that after the 5 p.m. meeting he never communicated with either Obama or Clinton. If this is true, were they not derelict in their duties? Obama cannot have been unaware of the scale of the attack: We had a drone overhead and security cameras on the ground, and our forces on the ground were telling Washington what was happening. The fog of war was not very thick.
When the Benghazi attack occurred, Barack Obama was less than two months away from his reckoning with the voters. The polls were tight and any event could have moved them one way or the other. Mitt Romney had sewn up the GOP nomination and was flexing his muscle as a fundraiser. He had outfoxed Obama’s campaign a couple of times, pushing Solyndra into the headlines and even getting into David Axelrod’s grill and under his skin at an event in Boston.
Obama could not run on the economy or his signature legislative achievement, ObamaCare. His campaign had built a narrative of the president as an effective commander-in-chief who had killed Osama bin Laden and put al Qaeda on the run. “Osama is dead and GM is alive!” was Vice President Joe Biden’s favorite sentence. Other than the fact of bin Laden’s demise, this was not a national security fact; it was a political narrative aimed at getting Obama re-elected. Al Qaeda had in fact begun to cement a new relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt and had grown in influence in Libya and across the Middle East. Its Libya brand, Ansar al-Sharia, had become a threat in the Benghazi area itself the summer leading up to the attack. Ansar al-Sharia was the author of the attack in Benghazi.
Here is a theory regarding Obama’s, Panetta’s, and Clinton’s actions that night.
Barack Obama comes to the job of the presidency with no command experience at all. His career included years as an adjunct professor and a community organizer before becoming the senator best known for voting “present” in Illinois. He was never a leader when he was in the U.S. Senate. His experience is chiefly as an agitator against command, not in exercising command itself. The largest effort he had ever run had been his own campaign for president, and it’s debatable how much of that he ran and how much was run for him by his lieutenant, David Axelrod.
Just weeks before the election, the Benghazi attack threatened to undo Obama’s carefully crafted al Qaeda campaign narrative. That night, during the attack, President Barack Obama had no idea what to do. He is not a born or trained commander. With lives and American prestige in his hands, he flinched. He stayed true to his character and voted “present.”
Two debacles of the past were probably foremost in his mind and in the mind of David Axelrod, who was probably involved in decision-making during the attack: Desert One and Mogadishu. Desert One was a U.S. rescue attempt in Iran in 1980 that ended in humiliating failure, and contributed to the building narrative that President Jimmy Carter was not up to the job of the presidency. Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993 handed the U.S. military and President Bill Clinton a humiliating public-relations defeat in what turned out to be an early battle against al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden later turned Mogadishu into a rallying point, using it to cast America as a “paper tiger” that would run from a real fight. Both Desert One and Mogadishu happened under Democratic presidents, both began as military rescues, and both were failures. Desert One helped cost President Carter his job. Benghazi threatened to cost Barack Obama his.
The night of the Benghazi attack, Obama had command authority and responsibility in his hands, and he froze. His inexperience in command — he never served in the military, and none of his close cabinet members ever served in the military — and his eye on the election owned his mind. He ordered the stand-down (an order which must ultimately have come from him as the commander-in-chief) to preserve his political narrative as best he could by avoiding any possibility of suffering both an undeniable terrorist attack and a Mogadishu catastrophe on his watch. He chose to let four Americans die rather than risk sending in any rescue attempt, because the potential political optics were so dire. He chose to blame a movie for the same reason his Defense Department has chosen to call the Ft. Hood massacre “workplace violence” rather than a terrorist attack, which it was. Acknowledging the truth could destroy his precious narrative and cost him the election.
In this theory, then, Panetta, Obama and Clinton actually were communicating during the attack. Axelrod was also involved, which itself should be a scandal as he is not in the national security loop. He is a political adviser. But because of Obama’s actions during the battle and Clinton’s refusals to improve security before, they have chosen to lie to preserve their own respective political positions. Panetta, ever the party man, has played along to defend the Democratic Party from any consequences if Axelrod’s role is exposed. If they acknowledge that they were communicating during the attack, they acknowledge that Obama was in command and that he ultimately failed and left four Americans to die. Or, they acknowledge that he misread the attack so badly that he never bothered to authorize a rescue until it was too late, then ordered a stand-down to avoid a Mogadishu situation. They are covering up their collective failure to secure the U.S. mission before the attack, they are covering up Obama’s failure to send forces to the rescue that night, and they used the movie to prop up Obama’s crumbling al Qaeda narrative long enough to get past the election, which after all was only a few weeks away. In at least the latter, they succeeded.
This theory doesn’t account for everything, nor does it attempt to. It doesn’t account for why Stevens was in Benghazi that night, for instance, and it doesn’t account for why Clinton’s State Department left the mission so exposed. It doesn’t account for what the U.S. mission in Benghazi was doing, or whether it was involved in any way in the war in Syria. But it does try to account for Obama’s and Panetta’s and Clinton’s actions that night, which on their face make no sense.
http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/05/07/how-do-we-make-sense-of-obamas-clintons-and-panettas-actions-during-the-benghazi-attack/?singlepage=true
Why the Benghazi Cover-Up is Not the Next Watergate
By Neal BoortzHere we go. The House Oversight Committee hearings on Benghazi begin today, and do you know what we’re going to learn? We’re going to learn that 0bama and Hillary Clinton were informed almost immediately that the attack on the Benghazi consulate was being waged by Islamic jihadists connected to al Qaeda. Then we’re going to learn that 0bama and Hillary immediately went into protective mode … protecting 0bama’s reelection efforts and Hillary’s chances for 2016.
0bama had a narrative to protect. His diplomatic efforts in the Middle East had brought about a new era of cooperation and peace, right? Al Qaeda was on the run and all but decimated, right?
Hillary? She had incompetence to cover up. Almost immediately she came to understand that this consulate had requested additional security and protection, and that her chain of command had said no. Now she had four dead Americans, including one dead Ambassador to deal with. The 3:00 am phone call came, and her phone was turned off.
There was one current and one future presidency to be saved here, so a narrative had to be developed and presented to the American people that would clear 0bama and Hillary of any culpability. So not only did they come up with this phony YouTube video lie, they actually used the police power of the Executive branch of government to take an American citizen, an unknown video producer from California, and jam him in jail on spurious (at best) charges in order to support their phony and entirely contrived YouTube video narrative.
Now, as the hearings begin, we have luminaries such as Senator Lindsey Graham, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton and my friend Mike Huckabee all predicting, to one degree or another, dreadful times ahead for 0bama. The predictions range from a Watergate-style scandal to outright impeachment.
Forget it. Ain’t going to happen. You’re dreaming.
Only a minority of Americans give a flying widget about any 0bama cover-up of the Benghazi matter. They are more likely to buy into White House Spokesman Jay Carney’s “That was a long time ago” narrative, or Hillary’s “What difference does it make” rant than they are to actually care about a deliberate, lying cover-up of the reasons behind the death of four Americans.
Watergate? Gimme a big league break here. There’s a HUGE difference between 0bama’s problems with Benghazi and Nixon’s Watergate mess. When the Watergate scandal broke we had a New York and D.C. press corps with a burning desire to destroy Richard Nixon. With 0bama and the Benghazi scandal we have the very same press corps ready to do anything it can reasonably expect to get away with to protect their God-like hero and preserve his presidency. “But people died in Benghazi!” you say? And you think that’s enough to stop the 0bama hero-worship among the Fourth Estate?
But what about the American people? Really? Think about that for a few moments. Now … you’re not telling me that the same people who put this colossal failure back into the White House for four more years is going to get worked up over Benghazi, are you?
Let me tell you what the American people are concerned with right now – and we’re talking about those who aren’t gunched up with 24/7 discussions about college football recruiting and gay NBA players. In a nutshell (and thank goodness for the few exceptions we DO have) the majority of the American people are more worried right now about acquiring and keeping their monthly checks from the government than they are about 0bama’s lies or foreign policy failures. They think a Benghazi is a small yappy dog.
These people are more concerned about next Winter’s home heating assistance checks than they are about dead ambassadors. They’re worrying about getting more federal dollars for child care to help them take care of the next tricycle motor they’re fixin’ to download without the benefit of a husband. They’re wondering who is going to pay their medical bills, and how they can get their hands on one of those great Section 8 housing vouchers. Some are looking to upgrade their 0bamaPhones.
How many people do we have on Social Security disability right now? The figure is nearing 12 million Americans. These 12 million are principally worried about how to keep those checks coming, while another 12 million (at least) are wondering how to get on this bandwagon as well. After all, their backs hurt and you surely can’t expect them to get out there and work for a living, can you? (Apologies to those of you with actual disabilities, but we could probably cram every one of you into a Jai Alai Fronton somewhere in Miami if we had to.)
Then there’s millions more who’s main concern is making sure their unemployment benefits don’t run out (Me? Get a job?) and others who are waiting for 0bama to make their boss pay them more than they’re actually worth on their jobs.
Benghazi 0bama’s Watergate? For that to happen you need concerned citizens who actually care and a media that will do it’s job objectively. Both ingredients are in short supply.
It’s going to be a great show, to be sure. But in the end it adds up to nothing.
http://townhall.com/columnists/nealboortz/2013/05/08/why-the-benghazi-coverup-is-not-the-next-watergate-n1590848/page/full
Putin keeps Kerry waiting 3 hours for Syria talks
Mr. Putin couldn't find his own reset button that would have transported our Secretary of State back in time to his days as a senator. Instead, John Kerry was left cooling his heels for 3 hours until the Soviet - er - Russian president deigned to sit down with him.
The issue is Syria and the Russian leader doesn't much care about anything except the contiuation in office of Bashar Assad. Gas attacks, massacres, starving citizens - these issues pale in significance to Russian strategic interests in the Middle East.
You might call Putin a cynic on the issue - and you'd be right. But it might help if we had a president and Secretary of State who demanded respect from the former KGB worm, instead of going to him on bended knee, pleading for his help.
Daily Mail:
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was looking to strengthen ties with Russia as he tries to put an end to the dictatorial regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, but instead he was met with the coldest of receptions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin kept Kerry waiting three hours before their meeting at the Kremlin on Tuesday and continuously fiddled with his pen as the top American diplomat spoke about the ongoing crisis in Syria.
Kerry's visit to Moscow comes as he seeks Russian help in ending Syria's civil, telling President Putin that common interest in a stable Middle East could bridge divisions among the big powers.Putin, however, made no mention in his own public remarks of the conflict in Syria, which has generated some of the frostiest exchanges between Washington and Moscow since the Cold War.
Yet with the killing now in a third year and no end in sight as U.N. intervention remains stymied by international arguments, Kerry struck a positive tone as he set about trying to narrow differences sufficiently to agree a plan for a settlement that proved out of reach at talks in Geneva almost a year ago.
"The United States believes that we share some very significant common interests with respect to Syria - stability in the region, not having extremists creating problems throughout the region and elsewhere,' Kerry told Putin.
'We have both embraced in the Geneva communiqué a common approach, so it's my hope that today we'll be able to dig in to that a little bit and see if we can find common ground.'
The United States and Russia endorsed a plan in Geneva last June that called for the creation of a transitional government in Syria, where at least 70,000 people have now been killed since March 2011, but which left open the question of what would happen to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Long-time arms supplier to Assad and suspicious of Western aid for opponents of authoritarian leaders around the world, Moscow says Assad's departure must not be a precondition for a dialogue among Syrians to end the conflict.
Russia, backed by China, has refused Western appeals to consider sanctions on Assad, vetoing three U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning his crackdown on opposition groups.
Putin is about as subtle as an Abrams tank. And Kerry stood there and took the insult without batting an eye. It would have been far better for Kerry to have waited a half an hour, and if Putin didn't show, thank his hosts for their hospitality and leave. No representative of the US should ever absorb such insulting, disrespectful behavior - unless you think that the problems in the world are all America's fault and we deserve to be treated like a Moscow taxi driver.
What do you think Putin made of Kerry's little speech? Putin said in his remarks, that "he was glad to see him in Moscow and expressed hope that relations would improve." Did anyone notice if he was crossing his fingers when he said that? How can you be "glad" to see our secretary of state and hope for improved relations if you keep someone on ice for 3 hours before agreeing to see him?
Putin must have been smirking when he said that.
Turnabout is fair play. Next time the Russian ambassador to the US comes to the state department to meet with Kerry, he should be kept waiting 4 hours. It won't happen - a blue blood like Kerry doesn't have the gut instincts of a street fighter that Putin has. But simply ignoring insults only emboldens the insulter. And Putin hardly needs any more encouragement to disrespect the US.
Lawmaker: Military Developing Culture Hostile to Religion
Members of Congress are concerned over how much influence the Military Religious Freedom Foundation may have in military policies that critics fear may curtail religious freedom within the Armed Forces.Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) is circulating a letter on Capitol Hill seeking assurances from the Department of Defense that the religious freedoms of service members are protected. He also wants to know who the Pentagon has been consulting with on revisions to religious freedom regulations.
“Congress deliberately included religious freedom protections in the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) to address this growing pattern of hostility and to protect the constitutionality guaranteed right of religious freedom for our service members and chaplains,” Lamborn wrote in a letter obtained by Fox News.
President Obama took the unusual step of noting that the conscience protections were “unnecessary and ill-advised.”
Lamborn said the president’s statement – along with reports of Christianity under attack have raised “concerns that the military is developing a culture that is hostile to religion.”
He noted recent incidents that included a 2011 memorandum that banned visitors from bringing Bibles and other religious materials into Walter Reed Hospital and a memorandum from Gen. Norton A. Schwartz that prohibited commanders from notifying Airmen about Chaplain Corps programs.
Last month, an Army briefing labeled Evangelical Christians and Catholics as examples of religious extremism. They were included on a list that also mentioned Al Qaeda and Hamas.
“It appalls me to hear the military of the freest nation in the world has labeled people of faith as religious extremists and continues this hostile attitude even after offering a half-hearted, public apology,” said Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA).
Collins, who is a minister and Air Force reservist, is demanding the military end all religious censorship.
“Our valiant servicemen and women are fighting every single day to protect our individual freedoms, how can we idly stand aside and let theirs be so easily taken?” he asked.
The latest concerns came after Mikey Weinstein, head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation met with military officials at the Pentagon about an instructional guide on religious tolerance.
Weinstein called for the military to enforce a regulation that he believes calls for the court martial of any service member who proselytizes.
“Someone needs to be punished for this,” Weinstein told Fox News. “Until the Air Force or Army or Navy or Marine Corps punishes a member of the military for unconstitutional religious proselytizing and oppression, we will never have the ability to stop this horrible, horrendous, dehumanizing behavior.”
Weinstein compared the act of proselytizing to rape.
“It is a version of being spiritually raped and you are being spiritually raped by fundamentalist Christian religious predators,” he said.
The Pentagon initially issued a statement acknowledging that religious proselytizing is not permitted within the Department of Defense.
On May 2, they issued a new statement noting that “service members can share their faith (evangelize), but must not force unwanted, intrusive attempts to convert others of any faith or no faith to one’s beliefs (proselytization).”
“The U.S. Department of Defense has never and will never single out a particular religious group for persecution or prosecution,” Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen said in a statement. “The Department makes reasonable accommodations for all religions and celebrates the religious diversity of our service members.”
However, last Thursday, Coast Guard Rear Admiral William Lee dropped a bombshell at a National Day of Prayer gathering in Washington, D.C. when he declared that religious freedom is under attack.
“As one general so aptly put it – they expect us to check our religion in at the door – don’t bring that here,” Lee told the audience. “Leaders like myself are feeling the constraints of rules and regulations and guidance issued by lawyers that put us in a tighter and tighter box regarding our constitutional rights to express our religious faith.”
And the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Freedom reported that an Air Force officer was told to remove a Bible from his desk because it might imply he condoned a certain religion.
Meanwhile, members of Congress and religious liberty groups want to know how much influence Weinstein may have at the Pentagon.
“The fact that the U.S. Air Force is consulting with Mr. Weinstein and possibly allowing him to shape policies relative to religious freedom is of great concern to Christians across the nation,” wrote Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin in a letter to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.
Boykin, an executive vice president of the Family Research Council, said nearly 150,000 people have signed a petition supporting true religious freedom in the military.
Christensen said Weinstein is not part of any Department of Defense advisory group – nor is he a consultant to the Defense Department regarding religious matters.
“Mr. Weinstein requested and was granted a meeting at the Pentagon April 23, with the Air Force Judge Advocate General and others, to include the Deputy Chief of Chaplains, to express his concerns of religious issues in the military.”
Jay Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice said Weinstein’s beliefs and statements are not only offensive, “but clearly represent the vehement intolerance that our military should reject.”
“To use him as an adviser in crafting policy for religious tolerance is absurd,” Sekulow said. “Without question, he’s among the world’s worst candidates to advise Pentagon officials on religious matters. This extremist has no business advising the Pentagon on any matters – much less the critically important need to protect the religious freedom of our men and women serving in the military.”
Christensen stressed that the Pentagon “places a high value on the rights of members of the Military Services to observe the tenets of their respective religions and respects (and supports by policy) the rights of others to their own religious beliefs, including the right to hold no beliefs.”
http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/lawmaker-military-developing-culture-hostile-to-religion.html
Here’s what kids will read under Common Core
With the Common Core national education
standards coming under
increased scrutiny from conservative activists, Republican politicians,
and even teachers unions, The Daily Caller News Foundation took a look
at the Obama administration’s recommended reading list for K-12 kids.Common Core’s English standards stress nonfiction over literature. By grade 12, 70 percent of what students read
should be informational rather than literary. Supporters of the
guidelines say an increased focus on informational texts will better
prepare kids for post-college employment.Many of these nonfiction texts come from government websites and promote the findings of various government agencies.
Another Energy Dept.-backed vehicle company shuts its doors
Another alternative vehicle company that received a federal loan guarantee from the Obama administration has quietly closed its doors and laid off all its employees after it failed to meet financial benchmarks required to keep getting taxpayer dollars.Vehicle Production Group CEO John Walsh said that the company has stopped production and laid off about 100 staff. However, the company has not yet sought bankruptcy protection. Walsh said that the federal loan was spent wisely on his company and that he hoped the loan would be repaid if the company is sold.
“I hung in there as long as I could,” says Walsh, who was only CEO for about a year before going to another company. “I saw the handwriting on the wall months ago. We just couldn’t get the capital to keep it going.”
The company was given a $50 million loan guarantee by the Obama administration in 2011 to build the MV-1– a six-passenger, wheelchair-accessible van that would run on compressed natural gas. The vans went on sale in 2011 at a starting price
of $39,950.However, The Washington Post raised questions about the loan in 2011, pointing out that VPG was part of a portfolio of companies under the investment firm
Perseus. Perseus vice chairman James Johnson was an adviser and
fundraiser to President Obama. Another notable investor in the company
was T. Boone Pickens.The Detroit Free Press reports, “Perseus said at the time that Johnson played no role in procuring the loan for VPG. The Energy Department said at the time that the loan was based entirely on its merit after two years of review.”
The company was estimated to produce up to 22,000 gasoline and natural gas-powered vehicles annually and create 900 permanent jobs. however, the company stopped production six months ago after the DOE cut off its funding
— they built 2,500 MV-1 vans.“They wanted us to get the remaining capital raised and we couldn’t get it done,” said former VPG CEO Dave Schembri.
Report: Energy Dept. spent $11 million per green job
Despite the Obama administration’s generous support for green energy, job creation in the sector has both lagged and come at a hefty cost to taxpayers, according to a new report.According to the Institute for Energy Research, the Department of Energy has spent nearly $26 billion since 2009 on its Section 1703 and 1705 loan programs. However, these two programs only yielded 2,308 permanent jobs — meaning the cost to taxpayers was $11.25 million per job.
“Clearly, in terms of ‘bang for the buck,” government programs that coddle renewable energy are losers,” according to IER. “In terms of jobs, the losers are the American workers who would otherwise be gainfully employed but for the tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars on the administration’s obsession with “green energy.’”
House Republicans recently questioned the Energy Department’s estimates of green jobs that were created from its controversial Section 1705 loan program which gave money to the now bankrupt Solyndra.
“Unfortunately, based on Committee staff’s review of the redacted annual loan reviews for each project, it appears that these job estimates have failed to materialize, in part, due to the aforementioned bankruptcies and the precarious financial
positions of certain other projects,” Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee wrote to the Energy Department.Solyndra was the first major loan guarantee failure, and filed for bankruptcy in August 2011 after receiving a $528 million loan guarantee. According to the DOE’s loan programs website, none of that money has been recovered.
One of Solyndra’s primary investors was billionaire George Kaiser, also an Obama supporter. Kaiser along with other Solyndra executives and board members donated $87,050 total to the president’s election campaign.
“It’s here that companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future,” said President Obama during a 2010 speech in Fremont, Calif. “And you’re doing so at a time of real challenge for America.”
The Beacon Power bankruptcy quickly followed. The energy storage company filed for bankruptcy in October 2011 after getting a $43 million federal loan guarantee as well as $29 million from the federal government and the state of Pennsylvania.
Abound Solar filed for bankruptcy last year after drawing down $68 million on a $400 million DOE loan guarantee. An early investor in Abound was Obama bundler Pat Stryker who has given more than $440,000 to Democratic groups and candidates in the last three elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
A Daily Caller News Foundation investigation later revealed that Abound was selling underperforming solar panels. The DOE has only recovered between $7.4 million and $25.6 million on the failed loan — meaning at least $42.4 million in taxpayer funds
was never recovered.“As the economy continues to suffer and dollars for federal programs get harder to come by, it is getting increasingly difficult to defend a program that costs so much and produces so little,” said IER.
No comments:
Post a Comment