To anyone who thinks I was "a bit harsh" with
regard to my critique of President Obama's Syrian address delivered Tuesday
night, here's an excerpt from the AP Fact Check issued post-speech:
President Barack Obama voiced his conviction Tuesday
night that Syrian President Bashar Assad was to blame for deadly chemical
attacks against civilians, but again he offered no proof.
A look at his remarks to the nation, seeking support for
a military strike against Syria, and how they compare with the facts as
publicly known:
OBAMA: "We know the Assad regime was responsible.
... The facts cannot be denied."
THE FACTS: The Obama administration has not laid out
proof Assad was behind the attack.
The administration has cited satellite imagery and
communications intercepts, backed by social media and intelligence reports from
sources in Syria, as the basis for blaming the Assad government. But the only
evidence the administration has made public is a collection of videos it has
verified of the victims. The videos do not demonstrate who launched the
attacks.
Administration officials have not shared the satellite
imagery they say shows rockets and artillery fire leaving government-held areas
and landing in 12 rebel-held neighborhoods outside Damascus where chemical
attacks were reported. Nor have they shared transcripts of the Syrian officials
allegedly warning units to ready gas masks or discussing how to handle U.N.
investigators after it happened.
6 comments:
* TWO PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
* FOLKS... FIRST READ THIS ARTICLE: http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/07/12/12943/clinton-supporter-suspected-illegal-donations
* AND THEN... READ THIS NEWSBITE:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/investigators-probe-jeffrey-e-thompsons-possible-role-in-clintons-2008-campaign/2013/09/12/1faaa992-1bb8-11e3-a628-7e6dde8f889d_story.html
Federal investigators are probing Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign as part of an effort to expand their case against a D.C. businessman alleged to have financed below-the-radar political operations, people familiar with the investigation said.
The businessman, Jeffrey E. Thompson, allegedly provided more than $600,000 to fund secret get-out-the-vote efforts to help Clinton in at least four primary states.
(Prosecutors do not expect to pursue a separate criminal case against Clinton’s campaign, these people said.)
* NO... OF COURSE NOT...
(*SNORT*) (*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
In a wide-ranging effort to expand their 18-month-old corruption case against Thompson, federal investigators have reviewed hundreds of e-mails and interviewed more than a dozen Clinton campaign staffers and supporters, according to people familiar with the probe. Investigators have focused their questioning on the role of Minyon Moore, a senior campaign adviser, and the extent of her role in arranging a “street teams” operation in Texas, Indiana, North Carolina and Pennsylvania that was financed by Thompson and run by marketing executive Troy White, according to those sources.
These people and others familiar with the investigation spoke on the condition of anonymity because the probe is continuing.
An attorney for White declined to comment, as has Thompson’s attorney, Brendan Sullivan.
Moore’s employer, the political consulting firm Dewey Square Group, issued a statement on her behalf this week, saying that she “was entirely unaware of any inappropriate activities” and is cooperating with authorities.
* UH-HUH...
In a series of interviews over several months, investigators have asked former Clinton campaign officials whether they knew White or were aware of his election-related efforts - which were not publicly disclosed as required by law some of those familiar with the probe said.
These people said the questioning also focused on e-mails between Moore and campaign staffers about voter turnout strategies in majority-African American and Hispanic urban precincts, as well as about the campaign’s schedule of public events, signs and literature. In many instances, these people said, Moore sought information from staffers who did not know she was also allegedly helping White’s “street teams” operation.
“Minyon, she was influential in the campaign,” said one former campaign official. “If she came in and asked for something, you kind of perked up and did it. But at no point did I have an interaction with her that led me to believe we were doing something wrong.”
*UHHHH... HUUUUH...
Moore, a longtime Clinton operative and confidante...
(*RUEFUL SMILE*)
...is part of a close-knit circle of advisers who have had preliminary discussions about Clinton running for president again in 2016, when she would be an overwhelming favorite for the Democratic nomination.
* WHICH TELLS YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE...
(*SIGH*) (*SPITTING ON THE GROUND*)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Moore was a senior adviser on Clinton’s 2008 campaign with several responsibilities, including outreach to minority voters, managing relationships with surrogates and recruiting super delegates.
"At the time, she was working at Dewey Square Group as state and local director. Clinton’s campaign paid the firm nearly $420,000 for strategic consulting, according to campaign finance records."
* NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT!
The pro-Clinton shadow campaigns were first revealed Wednesday in court documents and interviews in connection with White’s guilty plea to a misdemeanor tax charge.
The get-out-the-vote operation allegedly began in Texas, where Clinton’s survival in the drawn-out battle with then-Sen. Barack Obama was on the line. By early February, Clinton had lost 11 consecutive contests to Obama and was narrowly behind him in the count of pledged delegates. Her campaign was running up debt. Next on the calendar were the March 4 Ohio and Texas primaries. Clinton had an edge in Ohio, but Texas loomed especially large. Clinton won the Texas primary, 51% to 47%, but in the end Obama got more delegates out of the state by dominating party caucuses held the same day.
No evidence has emerged detailing what White’s “street teams” did on Clinton’s behalf or whether they made a difference.
* AGAIN... NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT!
Several former Clinton campaign officials said they had no knowledge of the operation and had never heard of White.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
According to a narrative detailed in court documents and interviews, White first pitched his firm’s “street teams” services to Guy Cecil, Clinton’s national political director, in January 2008. Cecil declined the offer. But Moore disagreed, writing in an e-mail to White and Cecil: “I am piping up saying we need your services. [Guy], let’s [find] some money. I will fight for it.”
Moore then introduced White to Thompson, who directed White to put together a plan detailing costs for services to support Clinton in Texas. White pitched a plan to hire “street teams” and made plans to distribute materials prepared by Clinton’s campaign — including lawn signs, pamphlets and stickers — in such cities as Austin, Dallas, El Paso, Houston and San Antonio, according to a statement signed by White and prosecutors as part of his plea agreement.
* NOW IT GETS A BIT COMPLICATED, FOLKS...
White got help from a Clinton supporter in San Antonio affiliated with a group identified as “Civic Organization A” in court documents. The group in question was the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, according to people familiar with the investigation.
The San Antonio-based supporter, whose name was not revealed, reached out to members of LULAC to help recruit paid canvassers in cities such as Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Lubbock and McAllen. After Clinton’s win in Texas, the Clinton supporter affiliated with LULAC continued to help White find workers in other states, the court filing said.
LULAC, a nonprofit social welfare group that says it is the oldest Latino civil rights organization in the United States, does not endorse candidates, but top members of the organization personally supported Clinton.
Luis Vera, LULAC’s general counsel, said that the organization itself had no role in any efforts to aid Clinton. He declined to comment further, citing the ongoing investigation.
The creation of an off-the-books campaign with the cooperation of a senior campaign adviser could violate campaign finance rules if it was determined that the effort constituted an undisclosed, in-kind campaign donation in excess of federal contribution limits. (But legal experts said federal investigators would be unlikely to open a separate case because a five-year statute of limitations has expired.)
* THANK YOU ERIC HOLDER!
http://washingtonexaminer.com/john-kerrys-russian-counterpart-mocks-him-for-talking-too-much/article/2535731
Secretary of State John Kerry's negotiations with the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov got off to a rocky start Thursday, with the Russian mocking Kerry right at the outset.
"They got off to a really bad start yesterday - partly because of the Putin op-ed and partly because Kerry in the opening remarks spoke at length - and I mean at length - compared to the unprepared few welcoming comments from the Russian counterpart," NBC News foreign correspondent Andrea Mitchell said on "Morning Joe."
* ANDREA FRIGGIN' MITCHELL...
"And then the Russian minister said at the end, very tartly, 'Sometimes diplomacy demands silence.'"
* FIVE YEARS OF OBAMA AND WE'RE A JOKE...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358413/benghazi-one-year-later-editors
What we know about the attack in Benghazi one year after the fact is that it is an example of the Obama administration’s incompetence and mendacity.
More worrisome still... is what we don’t know.
We do not know how or why the State Department would send Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team to work at a facility with almost comically insufficient security, in a city that was growing more dangerous by the week — in Libya, dangerous territory for Americans at the best of times.
Shortly after the attack, Hillary Clinton called for an internal Accountability Review Board to examine the decisions surrounding security in Benghazi. The ARB report faulted four mid-level officials, conspicuously absolving of all responsibility the secretary herself and her closest advisers.
(Whether Secretary Clinton’s thinking on the events was unclear or mistaken at the time, we do not know, since the so-called accountability panel unaccountably did not even bother to interview her.)
The four found to be at fault were placed on paid administrative leave, but Secretary of State John Kerry returned them to regular duty in August; they will not face any formal disciplinary action... which is to say they were punished with extra vacation time.
Secretary Clinton may not have wanted to speak to the accountability panel; [but] strangely, the accountability panel also refused to interview those who did desire to share their testimony! The decision to willfully ignore State Department employees who were volunteering information about the murder of an American ambassador suggests that the board began with a conclusion and avoided any possible contact with evidence that might contradict that conclusion.
(The State Department inspector general’s office announced in May that it would investigate why the review board had “failed to interview key witnesses who had asked to provide their accounts of the Benghazi attacks to the panel.”)
[Which takes us back to] the great mystery about why Stevens and his team were in that dangerous city to begin with.
We know Washington was deeply concerned about dangerous Islamists obtaining “stinger” surface-to-air missiles that were smuggled into Libya during the civil war by Qatar — with the secret blessing of the Obama administration.
* WITH THE SECRET BLESSING OF THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION... (SECRET AT THE TIME, PERHAPS; NO LONGER SECRET NOW!)
On August 1, CNN reported that “dozens” — as many as 35 — CIA personnel were in Benghazi the night of the attack and that seven were injured, a figure out of line with any previous government explanation of those bloody events.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
There also remain the troubling questions about whether anything could have been done to save Stevens and his team that night.
* AGAIN... FOLKS... IMAGINE... AIRFORCE ONE CRASHES IN BENGHAZI...
* AGAIN... FOLKS... IMAGINE... AIRFORCE TWO CRASHING IN BENGHAZI...
* A PLANE CARRYING MICHELLE OBAMA - AND THE OBAMA CHILDREN - CRASHES IN BENGHAZI...
* A PLANE CARRYING HILLARY CLINTON... OR LEON PANETTA... OR... OR... OR...
(*SHRUG*)
* YOU GET THE IDEA, FOLKS.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* DAMN... MAKE THIS A THREE-PARTER... (Part 2 of 3)
While testifying before Congress, Stevens’s deputy, Greg Hicks, said a security team at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli had been ordered to “stand down” — that is, ordered not to go to Benghazi to rescue U.S. personnel. Hicks described security-team leader Army Lt. Col. S. E. Gibson’s frustration over that order. In June, the House Armed Services Committee issued a terse statement insisting that Gibson was “not ordered to ‘stand down’ by higher command authorities” — with no explanation of why Hicks had testified otherwise.
* FOLKS... EITHER HICKS WAS TELLING THE TRUTH OR HE WASN'T. EITHER GIBSON WAS TELLING THE TRUTH OR HE WASN'T. IF THE HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE SAYS EITHER ONE OR BOTH MEN DIED, SHOULDN'T THE LIARS BE FACING SERIOUS PUNISHMENT - DISCHARGE AT THE VERY LEAST AND PERHAPS JAIL TIME...???
* FOLKS... THIS STINKS TO HIGH HEAVEN. BY OFFERING NO EXPLANATION - AND NO FOLLOW-UP - TO THEIR CONCLUSION, THE HOUSE ARMED FORCES COMMITTEE FORFEITS MY TRUST. INDEED, THIS WHO THING STINKS!
A CBS News report in October 2012 said that a Germany-based "Commander’s In Extremis force" was moved to Italy that night, but State Department “concerns about violating Libyan sovereignty made a military rescue mission impractical.”
* HILLARY...? ONE OF HER DEPUTIES...? WE NEED A NAME! IT'S BEEN OVER A YEAR! WHERE DOES THE PAPER TRAIL LEAD? WHERE DOES THE ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS TRAIL LEAD? AT SOME POINT AN ORDER WAS GIVEN BY SOMEONE IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT AND OBEYED BY SOMEONE IN THE MILITARY. WHAT IS THE TRUE STORY?
If a military rescue was attempted, it is critical to know why it was aborted — and by whom.
* OR, RATHER, IF A MILITARY RESCUE ATTEMPT WAS BEING READIED... WHO - WHICH INDIVIDUAL - ORDERED CEASE AND DESIST? (AGAIN, FOLKS, IT'S BEEN OVER A YEAR...)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
Finally, there is the issue of the laughably false explanation initially given to the American public surrounding the attack. White House press secretary Jay Carney has already been caught offering the bald-faced lie that the only changes to the “talking points” attributing the Benghazi attack to a protest over a YouTube video were “stylistic edits.” No one on the ground in Benghazi reported a protest, leaving no clear explanation of how it became the centerpiece of the administration’s storyline on the attacks. Unless, of course, the administration invented that explanation out of whole cloth.
* TO REPEAT:
No one on the ground in Benghazi reported a protest, leaving no clear explanation of how it became the centerpiece of the administration’s storyline on the attacks. Unless, of course, the administration invented that explanation out of whole cloth
The demonization of a nobody uploading videos onto YouTube, and his subsequent arrest on a parole violation, suggest a chilling cynicism at the highest levels of the Obama administration.
* "SUGGEST...?!?!" YEAH... I SUPPOSE THAT'S ONE WORD THAT CAN BE USED...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
In what may very well have been the most shameful moment in a career full of them, Hillary Clinton assured Charles Woods, the father of the slain former Navy SEAL, at a memorial service, “We will make sure the person who made that film is arrested and prosecuted.” Obama continued to cite the video while discussing the Benghazi attacks on The Late Show with David Letterman and at a forum on Univision. Either he knew full well that his account was malicious fiction or his administration has been culpably negligent in its handling of sensitive intelligence.
After the attacks, the president made his usual rote pledges to ensure that justice is done. Today, one year later, no one has been arrested, jailed, or executed for his role in the murder of four Americans.
* EXCEPT THE POOR SCHMUCK "FILM MAKER."
Special operators in the region told Fox News in August that while Benghazi-related targets have been identified for months, officials in Washington could “never pull the trigger.”
* WHO ARE YOU GOING TO BELIEVE HERE?
* ME? I'M WITH FOX AND THE "SPECIAL OPERATORS.
For its stunning blend of recklessness, fecklessness, callousness, and shamelessness, Benghazi overcomes steep competition to remain the worst of the Obama administration’s collection of scandals. The American people deserve to know what happened and why.
* MOST DON'T CARE. HOW SAD... HOW VERY, VERY SAD...
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