Who will pay the political price for the loss of American life in Benghazi?
Will Hillary “What difference does it make?” Clinton or Barack “Candy, I did call it terrorism” Obama have to pay the political price for the security debacle in Benghazi?
Signs point to ‘no’ per the Magic Eight Ball of government scandal. Obama isn’t going to get a third term and the many Clinton clingers in the traditional media can be expected to continue to worship their idol.
But how wholly politicized and self-protecting is the State Department? Well, they’re a huge government bureaucracy, so the answer is wholly wholly. And during the many edits of the Administration’s post-Benghazi/pre-election talking points this appears:
[State Department spokesman Victoria] Nuland objected to naming the terrorist groups [in the talking points] because “we don’t want to prejudice the investigation.”
Or in other words, “Let’s not tell America what we think to be true and provide updates as they emerge. Instead, let’s hold out for a meaningless investigation which will be released after the presidential election.”
What happened next? More historical revisionism.
[After the Deputies Committee meeting] which took place Saturday morning at the White House, the CIA drafted the final version of the talking points – deleting all references to al Qaeda and to the security warnings in Benghazi prior to the attack.
The CIA, in this case, almost certainly served as a voice actuated switch: they input the changes—that is, they drafted the final version of the talking points—that others directed.
Just before half-time in the Obama Administration’s Benghazi Bowl, the score was Ministry of Truth 44, Truth 0. And just after half-time, Truth is now on the board.
Hillary Clinton may find out her lies have aged poorly
It’s true that bad news ages poorly: by withholding bad news or papering over it, action is not taken which might help mitigate the problem(s).
Now, Hillary Clinton is finding out that lies tend to age poorly as well. Especially when one is under oath, as in, providing testimony (see Clinton, William Jefferson), for example, in her case, to Congress.
Will there be a bill to pay for Clinton’s highly elastic definition of truth? Not until the run-up to the 2016 elections, if ever. Voters have short memories—there’s still plenty of time for them to forget what has happened—and the traditional media famously chooses to practice selective outrage.
And still, the truth is out there.
The iron illogic of Barack Obama
Understanding the iron illogic of Barack Obama—whether on the economy, personal freedom, national security, or foreign policy—is simple enough. He’s been steeped in disinformation, denial, and propaganda.
Although actions speak louder than words, the President’s language is clear enough: he believes in government. What is the likely cause of such belief? A massive personal investment made in seeking power and control, which can only happen via government.
Because government is the best tool to achieve the Obama agenda, he views it as good. Similarly, because Obama is the face of the federal government, more government (and more power and control) is therefore better. While Obama may, in his heart, have some concerns about the limits of unending government, these have never emerged in the manner in which he practices politics.
However, the President ignores the fact that government, like Soylent Green, is people.
People, even government-preferred people, must operate with certain restrictions which sometimes thwart the President’s politics. Of course, there are people who disagree with the President and with his practices. Because this second group has been unmoved by the President’s words, he works to ignore, demonize, and threaten them, normally in that order.
But by his words, the President shows that people—all people, even those that are government-preferred—can’t be really trusted and as such, they need to be protected from others and from themselves. Therefore, additional legislation and regulation, that is, more governmental power and control, is required. However, such legislation and regulation is written and practiced by people who, going full circle, still need to be protected from themselves.
Because of this conundrum, “elites” such as the President and his fellow travelers—apparently exempt from the weaknesses of the hoi polloi—are needed to watch the more ordinary watchers in a sort of grand bureaucratic pyramid. Watching the watchers is arduous work and warrants special privileges of all sorts, including a quasi-permanent ruling class. Keeping the correct elites in power becomes a critical task and those that support the elites will be rewarded.
Nowhere are the ideas of justice or truth to be found in Mr. Obama’s politics. Instead, we have ideals of “fairness” (imposed, of course) while truth becomes malleable; living and breathing and changing with the opinions of the elites.
For our President, “justice” needs to be actively steered and the idea of eternal truths, except that government is good (when directed by the correct elite), is simply absurd. Instead, his actions show that he believes when the American people are operating under the benevolent guidance of the government and as controlled by his elites, great things will naturally follow.
Of course, the President’s iron illogic falls apart in the face of facts on the ground. Ergo, facts must be suppressed, cherry-picked, spun, or otherwise mutilated into a storyline which is harmonious with the direction established by our (his) ruling class. The lack of a feedback process is causing the President’s entire paternalistic agenda—like that of Paul Krugman—to fall apart, a systemic failure which can then be rationalized as the work of evil and nefarious beings.
When the government—the elites—picks winners and losers, as they so often now do, these decisions result in the suboptimization of choice, or worse, misinvestment. History shows that when the market—the people—picks, things end better. But Barack Obama is the personification of the elites…and of their many cognitive flaws and the power and control agenda.
The iron illogic of the President is that these many biases, clearly seen by others but not by him, have made it impossible for him to serve as the transitional president many hoped he could be. (That and his self-held superiority illusion.) Instead, America serves him.
How will the quest for an elite-led utopia end for Mr. Obama? Just as it always has and as it’s now trending; poorly.
Benghazi isn’t Obama’s Watergate; it’s his Monica Lewinsky
Although it’s imprudent to disagree with Victor Davis Hanson, those who say the revelations (that is, the truth) behind the Obama Administration’s Benghazi security debacle may turn the incident into their own private Watergate are simply wrong.
Instead, it’s far more likely that Benghazi will instead become the Obama Administration’s version of Lewinskygate. That is, it will be ignored as long as possible and then, ignored some more. “It’s the YouTube video,” “What difference does it make?!,” “That was a long time ago…”
Why and how can such a thing be shrugged off? It’s the media. Never estimate the ability of the traditional media to disregard a blockbuster story if it portrays one of their idols in a negative light. (More recently, ponder the Kermit Gosnell abortion non-story.)
While it may be true that at some point, Benghazi will simply become too big to ignore, don’t just fall back on platitudes like ‘follow the money.’ Rather, follow the loyalty.
WARNING, IRONY ALERT: On the other hand, is it possible that Benghazi—sometime before the 2016 elections—could turn into Hillary Clinton’s Watergate?
When is wealth evil? When you’re a Republican
From Bloomberg on Al Gore, the $200 million dollar man, also known as the Gorafice and/or the crazed sex-poodle:
Albert Arnold Gore Jr., 65, is a lot of things to a lot of people. Among friends and fans, he’s the progressive Democrat who should have been president, visionary author and Internet prophet, the man who more than anyone drove climate change to the center of public consciousness.
Detractors see Gore as a limousine liberal, tiresome pedant and climate alarmist who lives a jet-setting, carbon-profligate lifestyle while preaching asceticism for everyone else.
His work and writing on global warming have earned him a share of a Nobel Prize as well as a South Park cartoon parody in which he tries to scare school kids to his beliefs with a fictitious global-warming surrogate monster known as ManBearPig.
The above block quote contains an error-in-fact. Gore is not a limousine liberal; he’s a Learjet liberal. There’s a hypocrisy order-of-magnitude difference between the two.
Wealth is only evil when one is a Republican. As a for example, just ask Mr. Teresa Heinz where he’s parking his $7 million yacht these days.
Obama aides to Obama: stick to the script, stupid
While the traditional media lauds President Obama for his ability to read a speech, the presidential debates suggested he needs to stay on teleprompter all the time (even though the American voters failed to punish him for his in-office and on-stage performances). Dear Reader and all that.
But what about the President’s ability to stay on-topic as it regards… say, Syria and the President’s “red-line” policy on the Syrian use of weapons of mass destruction? In such cases, it appears to be even more important he stay on teleprompter, especially if he doesn’t have Candy Crowley to sway the axle of evil foreign powers of North Korea and Iran. Oh, and it seems Syria can be added to the axle as well (is this now the tricycle of evil?).
From the New York Times on the Obama’s Syrian policy and the President’s self-created “red-line” blunder box:
“The idea was to put a chill into the Assad regime without actually trapping the president into any predetermined action,” said one senior official, who, like others, discussed the internal debate on the condition of anonymity. But “what the president said in August was unscripted,” another official said.
Our President: the man who believes his own self-described b.s., who is better with policy than his policy makers, who writes better speeches than his speechwriters, and who is clearly pulling some sort of unending Jedi-mind trick… on himself.
While any president has a hard job, to paraphrase John Wayne, it becomes much harder when you’re stupid.
Why liberals like rules
Why is it that liberals like rules? I’d offer it’s because rules help provide them with power. Power allows the repression and minimization of those who disagree with them and the maximization of those who hold to liberals’ ways of thinking.
“It’s all about fairness,” liberals say. Sadly, they confuse fairness of opportunity with fairness of outcomes. Fairness of opportunity means anyone, if qualified, can work at (for example) Google or Apple. Fairness of outcomes means Google and Apple would be stuck hiring people who aren’t qualified.
However, some rules—those that give individuals power (the Second Amendment and elements of the First)—are to be ignored, suppressed, or mangled beyond all logic and recognition. As such, homosexuals deserve special honor and glory; Christians special persecutions.
A rules-based case in point:
An act of faith has cost an area track team a win and a chance to advance to the state championships.
This past weekend, the Columbus [Texas] High School Mighty Cardinals had just won a boys relay race when a runner’s final gesture got them disqualified.
As he was crossing the finish line, Derrick Hayes pointed up to the sky. His father believes he was giving thanks in a gesture to God.
“It was a reaction,” father KC Hayes said. “I mean you’re brought up your whole life that God gives you good things, you’re blessed.”
Columbus ISD Superintendent Robert O’Connor said the team had won the race by seven yards. It was their fastest race of the year.
Though O’Connor cannot say why the student pointed, he says it was against the rules that govern high school sports. The rules state there can be no excessive act of celebration, which includes raising the hands.
“I don’t think that the situation was technically a terrible scenario as far as his action, but the action did violate the context of the rule,” Supt. O’Connor said.
But critics, including the runner’s father, see it as a violation of religious freedom. Some of them have even complained to the state, which does not appear to be budging.
So what do we have? A situation—what appears to be giving glory to God—that wasn’t technically a terrible violation. Good grief.
Liberals everywhere tremble with concern that someone, somewhere, might being doing something without permission.
Why the Muslim world hates Obama
Why does the Muslim world hate Barack Obama? Two possible reasons come to mind: First, he rejected Islam. Second, his global war on terror is that of George W. Bush… writ large.
… Barack Obama greatly expanded the secret war that George W. Bush began. In the fall of 2009, Obama approved a “long list” of new CIA paramilitary operation proposals, as well as CIA requests for more armed drones, more spies, and larger targeting areas in Pakistan. “The CIA gets what it wants,” said the president, approving the CIA requests, and conveying what [writer Mark] Mazzetti thinks was his first-term attitude toward the Agency. The Department of Defense also got most of what it wanted. Obama approved an initiative by General David Petraeus to expand “military spying activities throughout the Muslim world,” and gave special operations forces “even broader authorities to run spying missions across the globe” than they possessed under the Bush administration.
[snip]
In 2009, the Obama administration conducted more drone strikes in those countries than the Bush administration had done in the seven years after 9/11; and to date, it has conducted almost nine times more drone strikes there than its predecessor.
Obviously, to the Muslim world (and to the American people), the promises of Obama the candidate do not equal the actions of Obama the president. Watch what they do and not what they say and all that.
The self-evident lessons: 1) don’t trust this President whether or not his lips are moving and 2) foreign policy-wise, send lawyers, drones, and money.
While the first lesson reflects poorly on the American voting public, the second shows the Administration’s emphasis on tactics at the expense of strategy. A more appropriate strategy would be: develop energy in friendly parts of the world (the Keystone XL pipeline, North Dakota, and federal lands seem to come to mind); have other nations take more responsibility in securing the Muslim world (that is, those with self-interest); cut foreign aid to the Muslim world (unless and until human rights atrocities are effectively addressed), and; control both permanent and temporary entry (that is, have coherent and enforced immigration and visa control processes) into the United States.
Sadly, these necessary elements of strategy tend to line up poorly with the Administration’s mindset, hence their devolution towards tactics. (And no, this is not the most transparent Administration ever.)
Will the President adopt and adjust? Can the President adopt and adjust? His unrepentant passive-aggressive behavior points towards “no.”
Ain’t direct democracy great?
From Pew (via The Economist) comes compelling data why direct democracy isn’t all the left thinks it is: mob rule.
But liberals have hope. While hope is not a strategy, the left can still cling to the hope the peeps of the Islamic-theocrats might kill them last…
The chart below also reflects the foreign policy brilliance of the Administration in sending Egypt 200 Abrams tanks and 20 F-16s by year’s end.
There is good news as well: at some point, President Obama is likely to give a soaring speech which will certainly placate those wanting to kill anyone who leave the religion of peace.
Political correctness turns into Constitution-crushing political Insanity
There’s the lunacy called political correctness. There’s also the military equivalent, military correctness.
And under military correctness, freedom of speech and freedom of religion instead become censorship and oppression… at least according to a “religious tolerance” plan within the Department of Defense.
Religious liberty groups have grave concerns after they learned the Pentagon is vetting its guide on religious tolerance with a group that compared Christian evangelism to “rape” and advocated that military personnel who proselytize should be court martialed.
The “religious tolerance” punch line comes from the guy doing the “vetting.”
“Someone needs to be punished for this [expression of religion],” [Mikey] Weinstein [who fronts Orwellian “Military Religious Freedom Foundation”] 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.”
First, consider the absurdity in the fact Weinstein thinks that exercising one’s right to religion and free speech is a crime worthy of a court martial. Next, consider the full power and coherence of Weinstein’s intellect.
“If a member of the military is proselytizing in a manner that violates the law [the Weinstein proposed law which prohibits military members’ freedom of speech and religion], well then of course they can be prosecuted,” he said. “We would love to see hundreds of prosecutions to stop this outrage of fundamentalist religious persecution.”
He 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 told Fox News.
Thus, Weinstein-style, the circle is squared and the corruption of language is completed. Or as George Orwell would say, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever.”
If homosexuality is a choice, how do you explain Jarron Collins?
Homosexuality is a choice: just look at NBA player Jason Collins as proof.
How so? Collins has an twin brother, Jarron, who isn’t homosexual.
Are genetics destiny? No. Then what is destiny? Choices.
You pays your money and you takes your choices. And remember, pay no attention to the propagandist behind the curtain.
Is America reverting to the mean?
Reality can be such a drag.
Robert Samuelson suggests Americans are losing their hope in achieving the American dream. He makes a compelling case as to why hope dies.
- Economists know little. What they do know is often wrong and experience shows, not to be trusted.
- Many large corporations have become sclerotic and survive—barely—only by practicing political-favor based crony capitalism.
- Productivity gains are failing to keep pace as they trickle-down, especially growth in health care costs, other inflation (food and energy), and in light of government-sanctioned wealth transfers to older Americans (and governmental debt transfers to younger Americans).
- The breakdown of the traditional family worsens everything.
Responsibility for essential items—security, housing, food, retirement, education, health care—has been transferred to government. Sadly, government is, and will be, unable to provide. Meanwhile, regulation—and legislation—strangles improvement while it’s still in the crib, or perhaps more often, before it’s born. (And Facebook and Twitter are not improvements; they’re distractions… generally.)
Unchanged, this will not end well. Therefore, onto the real questions: 1) Are we past the point of no return? 2) Is there something we can do?
Obama’s Syria policies reduced to word-parsing and quibbling
The President, who once said the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime would be a red-line, a “grave and tragic mistake” and a “game-changer,” has backed away from that statement by providing clarification without calling it such.
Now (and in a piece of totally on-target analysis) the red-line is the systematic use of chemical weapons. “Use ‘em a few times? Meh… But use ‘em 24/7 and lookout, Assad.”
Right. Whatever “lookout” then means.
Iran has already learned the lesson of Obama’s many warnings. Not only does Iran have China and Russia in its corner, it also has this President’s fear of starting another war in the Middle East. Leading from behind and all that.
And of course, Syria is an Iranian proxy.
Iran appears to be at the point where its nuclear weapons program and its nuclear weapons delivery program can only be destroyed and not deterred. The large lessons in this scenario? 1) When Iran is full-on nuclear, they will have Syria’s back. 2) American presidents need to know when to keep their mouths shut, be purposefully vague, or let others speak on their behalf or face being painted into a corner by their own words.
And in President Obama’s case, he’s waiting for the paint to dry so he can re-paint the floor something other than red. Will he have time? As it regards Syria, the Magic Eight-Ball of foreign policy says, “Signs point to yes.”
For another world leader, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and as it regards both Syria and Iran, signs point to “no.”
Three cheers for the New York Times
Actually, three cheers for Sharon LaFraniere who had the guts to write a big time story and to her Times’ editors who had the guts to run it. The story is one of fraud, fear, and the general idiocy that’s come to characterize the federal government, as epitomized by the current Administration. As such, LaFraniere provides a long-form story; yes, there’s much to tell.
Also present: massive lawyers’ fees, sidestepping the Congress, and a pathetic failure of stewardship. It’s all a cash-based form of Obamaphone, for “discriminated-against farmers,” writ large, real or imagined.
And the documentary requirement to get paid by the government in the case was set quite low: nothing.
John C. Coffee Jr., a Columbia Law School professor and specialist in complex litigation, said that not requiring documentary evidence “was quite unusual, but there were also special circumstances.”
Still, he said, “I don’t think they realized how much of an incentive they were creating for claims to multiply. It is a little bit like putting out milk for a kitten.
“The next night, you get 15 kittens.”
The kittens at the milk-pan analogy is… kind.
“It was the craziest thing I have ever seen,” one former high-ranking department official said. “We had applications for kids who were 4 or 5 years old. We had cases where every single member of the family applied.” The official added, “You couldn’t have designed it worse if you had tried.”
Yet the bigger question is this: are the conditions described in the article an exception to the rule of government or do they rather reflect the rule itself?
The Clinton Administration had the issue basically put to bed: just 91 claimants were to receive $50K each for a total payout of less than $4.5 million. By the time it got to the Obama Administration, it had grown a thousand times, exploding into a $4.4 billion handout.
In 16 ZIP codes in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and North Carolina, the number of successful claimants exceeded the total number of farms operated by people of any race in 1997, the year the lawsuit was filed. Those applicants received nearly $100 million.
In Maple Hill, a struggling town in southeastern North Carolina, the number of people paid was nearly four times the total number of farms.
And the money line, so to speak?
“Basically, it was a rip-off of the American taxpayers.”
Disgraceful. Criminal. Disgusting. Normal.
Demand better, America.
Hubris or idiocy?
From Keith Koffler, writing at Politico, comes Obama’s Hubris Problem:
Tuesday morning, a peculiar announcement trickled out of the White House press office: President Barack Obama would be holding a moment of silence for the victims of the Boston bombings. At the White House. By himself. No press or other intruders allowed.
Except the White House photographer.
The only thing missing is something about Obama barking at the photographer for not back-lighting him to his presidential liking.
However, what Koffler attributes to hubris can more easily be attributed to Obama’s blind spot. (Or perhaps, old-fashioned idiocy.)
Still, George W. Bush might have done just the same thing. Only without the photographer. Or the press release.
The vacuous threats of Barack Obama
Domestically, the President expected Senate Democrats not to abandon him on gun control. They bailed.
Internationally, the President warned Iran not to make a nuclear weapon. Iran yawned. (Actually, they didn’t just yawn; they not only kept at it, but they’ve developed missiles to deliver those nuclear weapons as well.)
Also, the President warned Syria not to use chemical weapons. They did.
What’s next Mr. President, a demarche? A staring contest with Candy Crowley providing the binding arbitration? A few harshly worded letters?
Everywhere, those opposed to the will of Barack Obama tremble at his indignation and power.
Not.
How can a lie, repeated a thousand times, become the truth?
Yes, it’s true. A lie, repeated a thousand times, can become the truth. How so? Just change the definition of “truth.” (See homosexual marriage, or austerity. Human being-wise, “is-master” Bill Clinton comes to mind.)
The lie being repeated today is this: The Economic Argument Is Over — And Paul Krugman Won. How did Krugman win? Because Krugman fanboy Henry Blodget says so. And who is Blodget? He’s a banned for life financial-insider and $4 million disgorgement/fine guy whose bona fides speak for themselves.
What is the Blodget hypothesis?
…”stimulus” spending, economists like Paul Krugman argued, would help reduce unemployment and prop up economic growth until the private sector healed itself and began to spend again.
Yes, we saw how well that worked with the Democrats’ “stimulus,” did we not? And we’re still seeing it in America’s brilliant ongoing economic performance.
Blodget also says a spreadsheet error in has disqualified “austerity” and that we can continue to accumulate debt ad infinitum:
An academic paper that found that a ratio of 90%-debt-to-GDP was a threshold above which countries experienced slow or no economic growth was found to contain an arithmetic calculation error.
Once the error was corrected, the “90% debt-to-GDP threshold” instantly disappeared. Higher government debt levels still correlated with slower economic growth, but the relationship was not nearly as pronounced. And there was no dangerous point-of-no-return that countries had to avoid exceeding at all costs.
Despite Blodget’s assertions—not the same as proofs—reality suggests there are points-of-no return unless the debt accumulator, that is, national governments all around the world, decide to 1) inflate the debt away by making more money or 2) default. And there is, of course, the dread U.S. economic performance where the Obama recovery has been worse than the Bush recession.
They say economics is the dismal science. A better description would be that we have economists who are dismal pseudo-scientists. And those pseudo-scientists who can’t keep up with reality choose to write (as do those who are banned for life from the investment industry).
Oh and that “Nobel Prize for Economics” thing? A bit misleading, to say the least.
Food stamp alchemy will save America!
From the Washington Post comes the story of a food stamp recruiter.
Yes, a food stamp recruiter: someone who is paid to sign people up for food stamps.
And from a modest government pro-food stamp brochure comes the profound, even magical, secret to reviving our moribund economy:
“Every $5 in SNAP [AKA food stamps] generates $9.20 for the local economy.”
Yes, the magic multiplier, the secret to our economic recovery and eternal wellbeing, is the simple yet profound observation that $5 of federal taxpayer spending and/or borrowing creates $9.20 for the local economy.
As such, a Krugman-like solution to our current economic condition is simple: sign every American up for food stamps and we will reap almost twice the cost of our spending.
And thus, the miracles of the Bible are made to appear modest vis-à-vis the miracles of the economic scientism practiced by our leading thinkers. (Some, sadly, seem to disagree. Thankfully our enlightened leadership has accurately placed them into the “bitter clinger” category.)
Someday, hopefully soon, the carbon tax as a national-level value-added program will likely provide similar results… as it did with the President’s stimulus.
Is Obama a lame-duck President?
Is Barack Obama a lame-duck president? Of course not; he’s merely lame.
But lame doesn’t mean the President and his handlers aren’t completely tone deaf, since they decided to cancel his keynote speaking engagement for Abort America! headquarters a Planned Parenthood fundraiser.
White House spokesman Jay Carney-Wurkur, in easily understood code, explained to the gathered media that the President instead decided the optics of his gala pro-abortion speech were less favorable than the opportunity to appear with the distraught families of the devastating fertilizer plant disaster in Waco, Texas.
Instead, Carney-Wurkur said the President will speak at a pro-abortion brunch now tentatively scheduled for Mother’s Day.
They say hindsight’s 20/20
In hindsight, President Obama might have gone Eric Holder on the two Boston Marathon bombers and given the pair a couple of extra-judicial death-by-drone sentences.
Think of all the human suffering, money, and time that could have been saved.
Of course there’s no way Obama would have the stones to do such a thing: the bombers could claim membership in the left’s most-favored and protected groups. If they’d only been Tea Partying, gun-totin’, anti-abortion Christians…
Based on observed history, Janet Reno would have made the call.
