Thursday, May 16, 2013
Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, May 16, 2013
Good morning, readers!
First off... to start your day... click on this link. (And inside the link you'll find further corroborating links.)
Next... click this link.
Notice, folks... I'd directing you not to the New York Times or Washington Post, but rather to the Weekly Standard and the Daily Caller. I'm doing this deliberately. So far these are the first two articles that caught my attention via The Drudge Report. It'll be interesting to see how the mainstream media... the NYT... the Washington Post... the broadcast Networks... cover these latest revelations.
Anyway... on to today's newsbiting!
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http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/05/15/Exclusive-Holder-Says-No-To-Special-Counsel-To-Investigate-Benghazi
Breitbart News has obtained an exclusive video of Attorney General Eric Holder flatly rejecting the idea of appointing a special counsel to investigate Benghazi.
Filmed on May 15 and provided to Breitbart News by Special Operations Speaks, the video shows Holder emerge from his car and walk towards the Rayburn House Office Building for hearings on the IRS scandal. Holder is clearly asked, "Mr. Holder, will you appoint a Special Counsel to investigate Benghazi?"
In equally clear tones, Holder answers, "No," and disappears into the building.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
* AS MY REGULARS - AND MY FRIENDS - KNOW, I WAS OUTRAGED THAT HOLDER WAS APPOINTED - AND CONFIRMED - AS ATTORNEY GENERAL IN THE FIRST PLACE BACK IN 2009. THIS MAN IS A SELF-SERVING PARTISAN POLITICAL HACK FIRST... A PROFESSIONAL LAST. WHEN I WRITE "THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM" I'M NOT EXAGGERATING ONE BIT!
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/05/15/will_benghazi_furor_keep_susan_rice_out_of_the_white_house
Insiders with ties to the Obama administration tell The Cable that U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice has become the heir apparent to National Security Advisor Tom Donilon -- a post at the epicenter of foreign-policy decision making and arguably more influential than secretary of state, a job for which she withdrew her candidacy last fall amid severe political pressure.
* SEE WHAT I MEAN...?!?! IF THIS COMES TO PASS...
(*SIGH*)
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/benghazi-emails-talking-points-changed-state-depts-request/t/story?id=19187137&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.1stheadlines.com%2Fcgi-bin%2Fsearchheds2.cgi%3Fsearch%3Dbenghazi%26action%3DSearch%26stype%3D2
* READ THIS, FOLKS! PLEASE!
* NOW... COMPARE AND CONTRAST TO THE "REPORTING" OF "THE HILL" - WASHINGTON'S MAIN "INSIDER" PUBLICATION! (NOTE: IT'S NOT TILL PARAGRAPH FOUR THAT THE REPORTERS/EDITORS GET TO THE POINT; IN THEIR FIRST THREE PARAGRAPHS - AND VIA THE "NOTHING AMISS HERE" TITLE - "THE HILL" IS OBVIOUSLY ATTEMPTING TO BURY THE LEAD.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/300039-white-house-releases-benghazi-emails
* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-eric-holders-abdication/2013/05/15/61a42d12-bdaf-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html
* DANA MILBANK... (*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD IN AMUSEMENT*)
As the nation’s top law enforcement official, Eric Holder is privy to all kinds of sensitive information.
* ONE WOULD THINK!
But he seems to be proud of how little he knows.
* YEP!
Why didn’t his Justice Department inform the Associated Press, as the law requires, before pawing through reporters’ phone records?
“I do not know,” the attorney general told the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday afternoon, “why that was or was not done. I simply don’t have a factual basis to answer that question.”
Why didn’t the DOJ seek the AP’s cooperation, as the law also requires, before issuing subpoenas?
“I don’t know what happened there,” Holder replied. “I was recused from the case.”
Why, asked the committee’s chairman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), was the whole matter handled in a manner that appears “contrary to the law and standard procedure”?
“I don’t have a factual basis to answer the questions that you have asked, because I was recused,” the attorney general said.
On and on Holder went: “I don’t know. I don’t know. . . . I would not want to reveal what I know. . . . I don’t know why that didn’t happen. . . . I know nothing, so I’m not in a position really to answer.”
* IT'S LIKE FRIGGIN' SGT. SCHULTZ!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)
Holder seemed to regard this ignorance as a shield protecting him and the Justice Department from all criticism of the Obama administration’s assault on press freedoms. But his claim that his “recusal” from the case exempted him from all discussion of the matter didn’t fly with Republicans or Democrats on the committee, who justifiably saw his recusal as more of an abdication.
* AND YET... WHO - BESIDES ME - IS CALLING FOR HOLDER'S OUSTER... FOR HIS RESIGNATION IF NOT FOR HIS IMPEACHMENT AND PERHAPS BEYOND THAT CRIMINAL CONVICTION?
“There doesn’t seem to be any acceptance of responsibility in the Justice Department for things that have gone wrong,” said Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), after Holder placed the AP matter in the lap of his deputy. “We don’t know where the buck stops.”
* ULTIMATELY... THE BUCK STOPS WITH OBAMA... JUST AS IT STOPPED WITH TRUMAN... JUST AS IT STOPPED WITH REAGAN. UNFORTUNATELY - IN AMERICA 2013 - WE'RE STUCK WITH THE LIKES OF HOLDER, OBAMA, THE CLINTONS, SUSAN RICE... WHILE HARRY TRUMAN AND RONALD REAGAN ARE DEAD AND BURIED.
(*TEARS RUNNING DOWN MY CHEEKS*)
The best Holder could do was offer an “after-action analysis” of the matter and pledge the administration’s renewed support for a media shield law (the same proposed law the Obama administration undermined three years ago). But that does nothing to reverse the damage the administration has already done with its wholesale snooping into reporters’ phone records and its unprecedented number of leak prosecutions.
“I realize there are exceptions and that you have recused yourself, but it seems to me clear that the actions of the department have, in fact, impaired the First Amendment,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) told Holder. “Reporters who might have previously believed that a confidential source would speak to them would no longer have that level of confidence, because those confidential sources are now going to be chilled in their relationship with the press.”
In a sense, the two topics that dogged Holder most on Wednesday — the AP phone records and the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups — were one and the same. In both cases, Americans are being punished and intimidated for exercising their right of free expression — by the taxing authorities, in the conservatives’ case, and by federal prosecutors, in the reporters’ case. But Holder cared so little about those two issues that he said not a peep about either the IRS or the AP in his opening statement.
* ONE... MORE... TIME...
But Holder cared so little about those two issues that he said not a peep about either the IRS or the AP in his opening statement.
(*SHRUG*)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
When Holder was questioned about the AP case, his first response was to suggest the criticism of him was political. “I mean, there’s been a lot of criticism,” Holder said. “In fact, the head of the RNC called for my resignation, in spite of the fact that I was not the person involved in that decision.”
* THREE CHEERS TO THE HEAD OF THE RNC - WHOMEVER HE OR SHE IS! (I ONLY WISH BOEHNER AND MCCONNELL HAD THE BALLS TO CALL FOR HOLDER'S OUSTER!)
Republicans on the House committee had voted previously to hold Holder in contempt of Congress, and Holder made clear the feeling was mutual; he informed Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) that his line of questioning was “too consistent with the way in which you conduct yourself as a member of Congress. It’s unacceptable, and it’s shameful.”
* FRANKLY... ISSA SHOULD HAVE HAD HOLDER TAKEN TO A CELL AT THAT POINT. (JUST AS ANY JUDGE WOULD HAVE!)
Some of the Republicans provided Holder justification for his disdain. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.), defying the chairman’s gavel, shouted a stream of exotic accusations at Holder, closing with the complaint that Holder was casting “aspersions on my asparagus.”
* LISTEN... CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS ELICIT SUCH BEHAVIOR FROM MEMBERS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ISLE AND I CERTAINLY DON'T DEFEND BOORISH BEHAVIOR. THAT SAID... JUST AS WHEN DEALING WITH AN OBNOXIOUS JUDGE... FAIR OR UNFAIR THE JUDGE GETS TO BE OBNOXIOUS. A COURTROOM ISN'T A DEMOCRACY. NEITHER IS A HEARING. HOLDER SHOULD HAVE BEEN HELD IN CONTEMPT AND LED TO A CELL.
But there would be more sympathy, and support, for Holder if he took seriously the lawmakers’ legitimate questions about his department’s abuse of power in the AP case. He may have recused himself from the leak probe that led to the searches of reporters’ phone records (a decision he took so lightly that he didn’t put it in writing), but he isn’t recused from defending the First Amendment.
* DIDN'T... PUT... IT... IN... WRITING...?!?! (IN THAT CASE IS IT EVEN LEGALLY AN OFFICIAL RECUSAL...?!?!)
Didn’t the deputy attorney general who approved the subpoenas have the same potential conflict of interest that Holder claimed?
“I don’t know.”
When did Holder recuse himself?
“I’m not sure.”
How much time was spent exploring alternatives to the subpoenas?
“I don’t know, because, as I said, I recused myself.”
But when the Justice Department undermines the Constitution, recusal is no excuse.
* FOLKS... AS I WROTE YESTERDAY... AS I'VE INFERRED TIME AND AGAIN... ERIC HOLDER IS A BAD GUY.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/16/obama-to-meet-with-treasury-officials-over-irs-scandal/
President Obama announced Wednesday that acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller would resign in the wake of the agency scandal in which conservative groups were targeted...
(*SINCERE STANDING OVATION*)
... though Miller was apparently set to step down anyway.
(*ABRUPTLY SITTING DOWN*)
An official close to Miller told Fox News, shortly after Obama's brief announcement, that the IRS chief was "set to resign the position of acting commission as of early June." He was planning to leave the IRS entirely a "couple of months later, regardless of the current controversy," the source said.
These details were not mentioned by the president as he announced Wednesday evening Miller was resigning.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
Obama spoke following a meeting with Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and other top department officials in which they reviewed a highly critical inspector general’s report on the practice. The report concluded poor management...
* UH-HUH... (SO WHY DIDN'T THIS "POOR MANAGEMENT" LEAD TO EVEN-HANDED VIOLATIONS OF INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS? WHY WEREN'T LIBERAL ORGANIZATIONS... TAX-EXEMPT STATUS PETITIONERS CONNECTED TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY... ALSO TARGETED?)
...allowed agents to improperly target Tea Party and other groups for more than 18 months, starting in 2010.
* OTHER CONSERVATIVE GROUPS!
Obama said Lew asked for the resignation and Miller agreed, after being on the job since November 2012.
* 1) WHO APPOINTED MILLER? 2) WHO WAS MILLER'S DIRECT BOSS? 3) WHY AREN'T HEADS ABOVE MILLER'S ROLLING...???
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/16/us-syria-crisis-executions-idUSBRE94F0AM20130516
* OUR SYRIAN REBEL "ALLIES."
* THESE ARE THE PEOPLE OBAMA SUPPORTS.
* NO LESSONS WERE LEARNED BY LIBYA. NOT THE MURDER OF GADDAFI... NOT THE MURDER OF AMBASSADOR STEVENS AND OUR OTHER FELLOW-CITIZENS.
* GOD HELP US...
http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2013/05/15/feds-forcing-small-business-owner-out-in-favor-of-starbucks/
As a small-business owner, Ken Gilmore loves serving veterans coffee and donuts at the V.A. Medical Center on Mather Field.
They’ve supported him through some major personal challenges.
“I had cancer, and the cancer ended up leading to heart disease,” Gilmore said.
As he continues to recover from two heart attacks, he faces another major setback: After 15 years, the V.A. is pushing his coffee business out and bringing in a Starbucks instead.
* THE OBAMA V.A.
“The government is supposed to support small business, and the agreement with Starbucks and the V.A. really just smashes small businesses nationwide,” he said.
The decision doesn’t just affect Gilmore. The deal with Starbucks affects 150 medical centers nationwide.
“For years we’ve had these vendor contractors provide coffee at various medical centers and clinics, and now they want to standardize it,” said Robin Jackson, a spokesman for the medical center.
* "STANDARIZE." UM-HMM.
Gilmore says because of his disabilities, being forced out will make reinventing himself even more difficult. “I’ve been in the same job for 15 years. I’m a 47-year-old barista,” Gilmore said.
The V.A. says they’ve given Gilmore an option: He can shut down his business and become an employee instead at that same location.
* AN EMPLOYEE OF STARBUCKS...???
That’s something Gilmore says he can’t afford.
The timing of the notice that gives him 90 days to vacate his shop surprised Gilmore. “The notice came a lot sooner than what we had planned, so we’re just scrambling,” he said.
* NICE... REAL FUCKING NICE...
http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/16/first-on-cnn-pickering-mullen-challenge-issa-to-let-them-testify-in-public/
In a letter to Rep. Darrell Issa exclusively obtained by CNN, the co-chairmen behind an independent review of September's deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya, expressed irritation over the House Oversight Committee chairman's portrayal of their work and requested he call a public hearing at which they can testify.
* AND I'M ALL FOR THIS! (SO FAR ISSA HAS CLAIMED HE INVITED PICKERING TO TESTIFY AND SAYS PICKERING REFUSED; PICKERING CALLED ISSA A LIAR; I HAVE NO IDEA WHO IS TELLING THE TRUTH.)
"The public deserves to hear your questions and our answers," wrote former Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, co-chairmen of the Accountability Review Board that was convened to investigate the September 11th attack.
* GOOD FOR THEM! DAMN RIGHT I WANT TO HEAR THEM TESTIFY UNDER OATH!
The dispute between Issa and the co-chairmen came to a head after neither Pickering nor Mullen attended a May 8 House Oversight Committee hearing on the attacks, sparking a heated back and forth about who was invited and when. The rhetoric intensified Sunday during a highly contentious joint appearance with Issa and Pickering on NBC's "Meet the Press" in which Issa maintained the two "refused to come before our committee." Pickering insisted that he was not invited despite expressing a willingness to testify.
* AGAIN... I HAVE NO IDEA WHO IS TELLING THE TRUTH.
Pickering and Mullen assert that since they are not witnesses, but rather officials asked to serve on a review board, they should be permitted to testify in public.
* AND I AGREE! THEY SHOULD BE ASKED TO TESTIFY - UNDER OATH!
* STILL... IN A SENSE THIS WOULD BE A SIDE-SHOW. THE PEOPLE WE NEED TO HEAR FROM - UNDER OATH - ARE HILLARY CLINTON, LEON PANETTA, SUSAN RICE, AND BARRACK OBAMA. YES... IT WOULD BE HIGHLY UNUSUAL FROM A SITTING PRESIDENT TO BE ASKED TO SWEAR UNDER OATH... BUT CONSIDERING WHAT WE KNOW SO FAR...
(*SHRUG*)
"What the Committee is now proposing is highly unusual in the context of senior officials who are not fact witnesses but instead are reporting their own independent review."
* YEP... WHICH IS WHAT I MEANT UP ABOVE WHEN I REFERRED TO "IN A SENSE A SIDE-SHOW."
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323716304578483823268932776.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
President Obama fired acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller on Wednesday, two days after claiming it was an "independent" agency.
That was certainly a rapid re-education[!]
* AGAIN, FOLKS, UNDERSTAND... OBAMA IS FULL OF SHIT! THIS RELATIVELY MEANINGLESS TURN ON A DIME DOES HOWEVER SERVE AS A REMINDER! OBAMA WILL LIE AT THE DROP OF A HAT AND IF HE'S FORCED TO CHANGE TACTICS HE'LL RELEGATE INTELLECTUAL CONSISTENCY TO THE ASH BIN.
But Mr. Miller shouldn't be the only fall guy, because the 54-page report released Tuesday by the Treasury Inspector General of Tax Administration makes clear that the tax agency tried to quash the political speech of groups opposed to Democrats during a Presidential election.
Beginning in early 2010, the report says, IRS officials in Cincinnati began using "inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention." The Cincinnati workers also developed a spreadsheet that was dubbed "Be On The Look Out" with key words to target conservative groups.
Related Video
Over the next 18 months those groups found their applications delayed, and they were served with aggressive and burdensome questionnaires as part of the process of applying for tax-exempt status. Of the 170 groups that got requests for extra information, the Treasury report finds that 98 or 58% of the requests were unnecessary.
IRS defenders have said in recent days that the operation wasn't really partisan because tea party and similar groups only made up a third of all groups flagged for additional scrutiny. But according to the report, "all cases with Tea Party, Patriots, or 9/12 in their names were forwarded to the team of specialists." Of the 296 applications that were selected as "potential political cases," 91 of them, or 31%, were selected for scrutiny even though they showed no evidence of major political campaign activity.
(*SHRUG*)
Once they were selected, the report confirms they were slow-tracked: While a few applications got attention, the vast majority sat interminably as the 2012 campaign rolled on.
* TIMING, FOLKS... TIMING...
According to the report, "No work was completed on the majority of these applications for 13 months." And "all applications that were forwarded to the team of specialists experienced substantial delays in processing." The political cases took the IRS some 574 days on average to process compared to 238 days for other non-profit applications.
* IN THE CONTEXT OF THE RUN-UP TO A PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION...!!!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Those delays effectively sidelined the political activity of groups that would have opposed the re-election of President Obama and other Democratic priorities.
(*NOD*)
The report acknowledges that "For I.R.C. § 501(c)(3) organizations, this means that potential donors and grantors could be reluctant to provide donations or grants. In addition, some organizations withdrew their applications and others may not have begun conducting planned charitable or social welfare work."
* THE POLITICS OF FEAR... DELIBERATE PARTISAN ABUSE OF POLITICAL POWER...
In a September 2010 letter to then-IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman, Montana Senator Max Baucus encouraged the IRS to investigate the use of non-profit status by conservative groups. Noting media reports on conservative groups like Crossroads GPS, American Action Network and Americans for Job Security, Mr. Baucus wrote that there are "serious questions about whether such organizations are operating in compliance with the Internal Revenue Code."
In March 2012, New York Senator Chuck Schumer and six other Democrats signed a letter demanding that the IRS put a "cap" on spending by non-profits or face legislation. In the meantime, they wrote, the groups should be forced to "show their math" to prove that they deserve the tax-exempt status they are applying for. "The IRS should already possess the authority to issue immediate guidance on this matter," the Senators wrote.
* TRUE! BUT THE PROBLEM HERE ISN'T WHAT AUTHORITY THE IRS POSSESSED; THE PROBLEM IS WHAT AUTHORITY THE IRS ABUSED - FOR PARTISAN POLITICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL PURPOSES!
An IRS culture of politicized enforcement has shown up elsewhere too. The ProPublica website said recently that in 2012 the Cincinnati IRS gave it the confidential nonprofit applications of nine conservative groups, of which ProPublica later published six. The ProPublica reports were exploring the theme that Ms. Pelosi and Democrats sounded on tax-exemptions and political spending.
These leaks were an abuse of power.
By all means let's hear from the folks in Cincinnati, but the idea that conservative group tax-exemptions should be targeted also has a Washington pedigree.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/15/191329/administration-releases-benghazi.html#.UZUP-kr1DXQ
* TALK ABOUT "IN THE TANK"... "ON THE PAYROLL..."
President Barack Obama succumbed to days of withering criticism Wednesday, releasing dozens of emails in an effort to demonstrate that the White House did not try to cover up information about the September 2012 attacks on diplomatic facilities in Libya that killed four Americans.
* FOLKS... I'M NEWSBITING THIS FOR ONE REASON AND ONE REASON ALONE: TO USE IT AS A DEMONSTRATION PIECE OF THE LENGTHS THAT "IN THE BAG" MAINSTREAM MEDIA WILL GO TO IN ORDER TO TRY AND DEFEND OBAMA.
* FOLKS... I'M NOT GONNA "BARKERIZE" THIS. I ACTUALLY WANT YOU TO READ THE ARTICLE IN IT'S ENTIRETY AND THEN COMPARE AND CONTRAST TO EVERYTHING YOU - AS REGULAR READERS OF THIS BLOG - KNOW!
* FOLKS... JUST TO "BARKERIZE" THE FIRST PARAGRAPH: "SUCCUMBED...?" UH-HUH. AS IF POOR, "ILL" PRESIDENT OBAMA HAD FINALLY "FALLEN" TO AN "ASSAULT." YES, FOLKS... THAT WORD "SUCCUMBED" WASN'T CHOSEN AT RANDOM.
* "...TO DEMONSTRATE THAT THE WHITE HOUSE DID NOT TRY TO COVER UP INFORMATION..."
* FOLKS... INHERENT IN THE WAY THIS IS PHRASED IS THE IDEA THAT... WELL... THE WHITE HOUSE DIDN'T TRY TO COVER UP INFORMATION.
(*SNORT*)
* AGAIN... COMPARE AND CONTRAST TO ALL WE ALREADY KNOW... ALL WE'VE LEARNED JUST OVER THE LAST FEW WEEKS! (WHICH ACTUALLY JIBE WITH EVERYTHING I RAN WITH FROM 9/11/12 ONWARD!)
* JUST AS A POINT OF REFERENCE.. MCCLATCHY IS THE MOST "OPEN BOOK" WIRE SERVICE IN THE SENSE OF NOT EVEN BOTHERING TO TRY AND DEFEND THEMSELVES AGAINST CHARGES OF PARTISAN/IDEOLOGICAL BIAS. THEY'RE MORE RELIABLY "IN THE TANK" THAN THE AP OR REUTERS!
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/348428/nine-lies-lois-lerner-kevin-williamson
* THIS IS INTERESTING, FOLKS, AND AGAIN, I URGE YOU TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE BY A GUY I RESPECT, KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON OF NRO. THE ARTICLE IS TITLED "The Nine Lies of Lois Lerner" AND IT DETAILS HOW THERE WAS NOTHING "HAPPENSTANCE" ABOUT HOW WE CAME TO FIND OUT ABOUT THE IRS SCANDAL.
Lie No. 1: Lois Lerner’s apology last Friday was a spontaneous reaction to an unexpected question from an unknown audience member. In fact, the question came from tax lawyer and lobbyist Celia Roady. Ms. Roady has some interesting career highlights: She was part of the 1997 ethics investigation of Newt Gingrich, but, more to the point, she was appointed to the IRS’s Advisory Council on Tax-Exempt and Government Entities by IRS commissioner Douglas Shulman. She is a longtime colleague of Lerner, who is director of tax-exempt organizations. Ms. Roady has declined to comment on whether her question was planted, but it obviously was. The IRS had contacted reporters and encouraged them beforehand to attend the otherwise un-newsworthy event, and it had an entire team of press handlers on hand. So what we have is the staged rollout of what turns out to be — given the rest of this list — a disinformation campaign.
* EIGHT MORE LIES TO GO... AGAIN... READ FOR YOURSELVES!
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/348421/benghazi-and-irs-scandal-politics-other-means-michael-barone
What do the Benghazi cover-up and the IRS scandal have in common?
They were both about winning elections under false pretenses.
(*NOD*)
Winning elections...is something Barack Obama is good at. He obviously loves campaigning and delivering grand orations to enormous adoring crowds. He loves it so much that he flew off to Las Vegas to campaign the day after the first murder of a U.S. ambassador in 33 years.
* YEP... (REMEMBER THAT, FOLKS?)
What actually happened in Benghazi was out of sync with the Obama campaign line [that] Osama bin Laden was dead... Al-Qaeda was on the run.
The global war on terror — well, don’t call it that anymore.
(*SHRUG*)
A deliberate effort to mislead the voters was launched.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, White House press secretary Jay Carney, and the president himself talked about a spontaneous protest of an anti-Muslim video — even though no evidence of that came from Benghazi.
The White House and the State Department altered the CIA’s talking points — not just in one minor particular, as Carney claimed, but through twelve separate versions.
Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, armed with the talking points, spoke sternly about a spontaneous protest and an anti-Muslim video on five Sunday interview shows.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
Debate moderator Candy Crowley came to Obama’s defense when he claimed that he had immediately stated that Benghazi was a terrorist attack — a claim Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler has awarded four Pinocchios.
* FOUR PINOCCHIOS - WE WENT OVER THIS THE OTHER DAY!
This attempt to mislead the electorate worked. It seems a stretch to say that it determined the outcome of the election. But it certainly helped the Obama campaign.
And what about the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative 501(c)(4) groups?
Starting in March 2010, it questioned the tax-free status of one group after another with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names. That’s reminiscent of the Department of Homeland Security memo warning of the potential of such groups to engage in terrorist-type violence — which of course hasn’t happened.
An IRS official acknowledged and "apologized" for this misuse of government power last Friday. She attributed it to low-level IRS employees in Cincinnati. She said she had been informed about it in May 2011.
* FOLKS... THEY KNEW WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN 2010! THAT'S BEEN DOCUMENTED!
Later news came out that tea-party groups received letters of inquiry from Washington and IRS offices in California, as well.
* SO MUCH FOR "LOW LEVEL EMPLOYEES IN CINCINNATI..."
The IRS pressed some groups for very detailed information, e.g., Has a family member been a member of another organization or planned to run for political office? The targeting continued into 2012, when the criteria were changed to “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement.”
(We can’t have people educating people about the Constitution, can we?)
The acting IRS director, who assured Congress that no group was targeted because of its beliefs, was informed of the targeting of conservative groups in May 2012. Jay Carney has said that the White House had no knowledge of it until a few weeks ago. Maybe. We’ll see.
* OH, PLEEEASE...!!!
The fact is that the targeting of tea party groups by the IRS helped Democrats win elections. It’s hard not to believe that at least some IRS employees intended it to have that effect. Those who leaked confidential information certainly did so.
* YEP...
[I]n 2009 at Arizona State University’s commencement, President Obama noted that he had not been given an honorary degree and added that the school’s president and board of regents “will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS.”
* FUNNY. A JOKE! I MYSELF WOULD HAVE LAUGHED!
That doesn’t sound so funny now.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/16/feds-gave-witness-protection-terrorists/
The federal government gave witness protection to known and suspected terrorists...
* UH-HUH...
...and the U.S. Marshals Service even lost track of two of those people, according to a report Thursday from the Justice Department’s auditor that exposes the previously hidden side of the witness program.
(*JUST THROWING MY ARMS UP*)
“We found that the department did not definitively know how many known or suspected terrorists were admitted into the [witness protection] program,” the Justice inspector general said.
The auditor said that until it raised concerns, those terrorists were able to board airplanes and were able to “evade one of the government’s primary means of identifying and tracking terrorists’ movements and actions” through the new identities the government provided them.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
At one point, one federal agency concluded that someone in the program was trying to gather sensitive intelligence information, but that was never shared with the FBI.
* BRAVO!
The Justice Department, in a response to the auditors, said anyone admitted to the witness protection program “undergoes an intensive vetting process” and only after a federal agency has decided the needs outweigh the risks.
* AND WE ALL KNOW HOW COMPETENT THESE PEOPLE ARE... RIGHT...?
“In the 40-year history of the WitSec program, no terrorism-linked witness has ever committed a single act of terrorism after entering the program,” Armando O. Bonilla, senior counsel to the deputy attorney general, wrote in a reply memo.
* 1) HAVE THEY COMMITTED OTHER CRIMES...??? 2) WHAT'S THIS HAVE TO DO WITH YOUR HAVING L*O*S*T TRACK OF THEM...?!?!
Mr. Bonilla also said the universe of known or suspected terrorists is a small part of the witness protection program, but is a necessary balancing act.
“The government generally cannot choose its witnesses. This is particularly true in cases involving terrorism, where our witnesses are often former known or suspected terrorists, or individuals who are close enough to terrorists to have information about them, their organizations and their plans, but whose cooperation is necessary to successfully prosecute those who post the most significant threat to our national security,” Mr. Bonilla wrote.
(*HEADACHE*)
* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/16/the-amazing-shrinking-benghazi-talking-points/
The White House finally released the e-mail string that led to the creation of the talking points for the Benghazi terrorist attack that somehow completely missed the fact that it was a terrorist attack.
* WELL... AS THE WEEKLY STANDARD PUT IT, "The emails provide further detail about the rewriting of the talking points during a 24-hour period from midday September 14 to midday September 15." LET'S NOT CONFUSE "PARTS" WITH "THE WHOLE."
Did that succeed in having the Obama administration’s argument that it reflected the best intelligence at the time? Not if you read page 57, in which everyone on the e-mail circuit was informed of this:
On Friday evening at 9:43 pm, the CIA acknowledged that ”FBI says AQ (not AQIM) was involved and they are pursuing that theory. So we are not ahead of law enforcement now[,]” referring to an earlier concern that identifying this as a terrorist attack would interfere with the FBI’s investigation of the attack.
* FOLKS... AGAIN... THE FBI DIDN'T BOTHER TO ACTUALLY VISIT THE SCENE - THE BURNED OUT CONSULATE IN BENGHAZI - TILL EARLY OCTOBER! AND ON THEIR FIRST VISIT THERE (OCT. 4 OR THEREABOUT) THEY ONLY SPENT THREE HOURS "ON THE GROUND."
* FOLKS... THE FBI's INVESTIGATION WAS NON-EXISTENT IN THE SENSE OF WHAT YOU'RE USED TO SEEING ON CSI OR NCIS! THE EXTREME FOOT DRAGGING IS ACTUALLY ANOTHER ISSUE THAT REQUIRES IN-DEPTH INVESTIGATION - UNDER OATH!
* SEPTEMBER 11TH 2012... OCTOBER 4TH 2012...??? DOES THIS MAKE SENSE TO ANYONE? ANYONE AT ALL?
* ANYWAY... BACK TO THE TALKING POINTS AND WHO KNEW WHAT WHEN...
However, almost immediately thereafter, even the more generic mentions of purposeful attacks involving Islamic extremists disappear from the talking points, which left Susan Rice with little more to offer than a demonstration involving a YouTube video — a video which, it should be pointed out, never gets mentioned in the e-mail string.
(*SMIRK*)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)
Who made that decision? It’s difficult to say. The CIA did a lot of the editing on the talking points, but as Politico notes, much of that was driven by State Department concerns about how the information would reflect on them:
* FOLKS... COM'ON... THE STATE DEPARTMENT - HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON'S STATE DEPARTMENT - AND THE WHITE HOUSE - VIA OBAMA AIDES - RE-WROTE THE ORIGINAL CIA TALKING POINTS... DELIBERATELY SCRUBBING THEM OVER THE COURSE OF 12 RE-WRITES. PATRAEUS - THEN-DIRECTOR CIA - IS BASICALLY ON RECORD AS SAYING THE STATE DEPARTMENT/WHITE HOUSE RE-WRITES WERE BULL!
Emails and documents released by the White House Wednesday reveal an editing process that valued caution over comprehensiveness as officials worked to remove language that would have assigned blame for the attack or suggested ways the incident could have been prevented. The release also showed that the CIA, and not the State Department, made the decision to scrub references to al Qaeda, al Qaeda linked groups, and prior terrorist attacks in the region.
* NOT AS I ANALYSE WHAT HAPPENED! FOLKS... THE CIA WASN'T IN CHARGE! NOR WAS THE PENTAGON! THE STATE DEPARTMENT AND WHITE HOUSE POLITICAL APPOINTEES WERE IN CHARGE!
[T]he newly public email chains suggest it was the State Department that was most concerned about taking the blame for the attack. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland sought changes to the talking points that would shield the agency — then led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — from congressional accusations that it had failed to properly secure the post, given the unstable situation in that area.
* FOLKS... THERE'S NO "SUGGESTION!" THERE'S A FRIGGIN' PAPER TRAIL...!!!
At one point, Nuland even wrote to a chain of administration officials relaying her concern that the talking points could be used as a cudgel against the State Department.
* OBAMA... ADMINISTRATION... OFFICIALS...!!! THE WHITE HOUSE...!!!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
Interestingly, Politico never picks up on the reference on page 57 that the FBI had already figured out that al-Qaeda was involved, and not the local branch/affiliate. Neither, for that matter, does Jake Tapper at CNN. Jon Karl doesn’t mention the FBI assessment on page 57, but does note another excised passage:
The emails confirm the ABC News report that the so-called “talking points” written by the CIA on the attack underwent extensive revisions – 12 versions – and that substantial changes were made after the State Department expressed concerns.
* FOLKS... I KNOW I'M BEATING A DEAD HORSE HERE... BUT UNDERSTAND... EVEN AS I'M NEWSBITING, THE OBAMA FORCES AND THEIR MEDIA ALLIES ARE DOING EVERYTHING IN THEIR POWER TO DEFINE BLACK AS WHITE, UP AS DOWN! A CONSTANT STREAM OF TRUTH IS NEEDED TO BLUNT A CONSTANT STREAM OF LIES!
Stephen Hayes, another reporter whose work the White House wanted to refute, wrote later that the release confirmed his and Karl’s accounts:
The documents, first reported by THE WEEKLY STANDARD in articles here and here, directly contradict claims by White House press secretary Jay Carney and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that the revisions of those talking points were driven by the intelligence community and [instead] show heavy input from top Obama administration officials, particularly those at the State Department.
The initial CIA changes softened some of the language about the participants in the Benghazi assault – from “Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda” to “Islamic extremists.” But CIA officials also added bullet points about the possible participation of Ansar al Sharia, an al Qaeda-linked jihadist group, and previous warnings about the deteriorating security situation in Benghazi. Those additions came out after the talking points were sent to “the interagency,” where the CIA’s final draft was further stripped down to little more than boilerplate. The half dozen references to terrorists – both in Benghazi and more generally – all but disappeared. Gone were references to al Qaeda, Ansar al Sharia, jihadists, Islamic extremists, etc. The only remaining mention was a note that “extremists” had participated in the attack.
* AND, THUS... YOU SEE WHAT I WAS REFERRING TO ABOVE WHEN I ADDRESSED THE FALSE PREMISE THAT THE CIA HAD SCRUBBED STUFF THAT THEY JUST HADN'T SCRUBBED!
* OOPS... I MISCALCULATED THE SPACE REQUIREMENTS... THIS IS GONNA NEED ONE LAST POST TO FINISH IT OFF! SO... TO BE CONTINUED!
* CONCLUDING... (Part 4 of 4) (Yes... 4... not 3... but FOUR!)
As striking as what appears in the email traffic is what does not. There is no mention of the YouTube video that would become a central part of the administration’s explanation of the attacks to the American people until a brief mention in the subject line of emails coming out of an important meeting where further revisions were made.
* YEP...!
Hayes notes that Hillary Clinton’s and Jay Carney’s attempts to shove the changes off onto the CIA were less than honest. (Mike Morell made the changes, but on the urging of State):
Carney, in particular, is likely to face tough questioning about the contents of the emails because he made claims to reporters that were untrue. “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 – of these two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility,’ because the word ‘consulate’ was inaccurate,” he told reporters on November 28, 2012.
That’s not true.
* FOLKS...! IT WAS A BALDFACED FUCKING LIE...!!! GET THAT THROUGH YOUR HEADS IF IT'S NOT THERE ALREADY...!!!
* NOW... BACK TO THE FBI...
We have an unequivocal statement almost in the exact middle of the evolution of these data points that the FBI had already determined that the attack involved al-Qaeda, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone, considering that the attack took place on the anniversary of the original 9/11 attacks. Yet the final product, pushed in large part by State, eliminated all but the most ambiguous of suggestions that [terrorists] had conducted an attack.
* FOLKS... NOTICE WHERE I'VE BRACKETED THE WORD "TERRORISTS." THAT'S BECAUSE I SWITCHED OUT THE WORD "EXTREMISTS" THAT WAS ORIGINALLY THERE! WHY...? BECAUSE THE ADMINISTRATION'S USE OF THE WORD "EXTREMISTS" WAS ITSELF PART OF THE ATTEMPTED COVER-UP! COM'ON... "EXTRMISTS" ARE NOT NECESSARILY "TERRORISTS." THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION CONSIDERS THE NRA TO BE EXTREMISTS! THEY CONSIDER PEACEFUL PRO-LIFE GROUPS TO BE EXTREMISTS! THERE'S NO DOUBT A FILE SOMEWHERE DESCRIBING YOURS TRULY AS AN "EXTREMIST." WHAT THE ADMINISTRATION WAS DOING WAS COVERING THEIR ASSES... FIGURING THAT IF THEY GOT CAUGHT WITH THEIR LIES THEY COULD ALSO CLAIM THAT BY "EXTREMISTS" THEY MEANT AL-QAIDA OR OTHER ORGANIZED TERRORIST GROUPS!
The talking points as communicated on September 16th added in the YouTube video nonsense to which the administration clung through the funerals and Obama’s speech to the UN late in September before finally giving it up.
How did the YouTube video get added to the State Department presentation? How did everyone manage to ignore the FBI’s investigative direction and produce talking points that suggested almost the total opposite? Those are questions the HPSCI should ask, and demand answers.
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