Thursday, May 16, 2013

Storm clouds gathering -- your safety, your freedoms and the Obama White House

Government is bad for personal freedom. That argument is premised upon the truism that everything government does interferes with freedom because it either prohibits or compels.Everything it owns it has taken from others. Much of what it says is divorced from the truth.
President Obama, like President George W. Bush, has argued that his first job is to keep America safe, and if he impairs personal freedom in the process, that is a small price to pay for safety. Many of my colleagues in the media on the left and right have bought this argument, notwithstanding its fallacies.
Until now.
This past week, we learned that the IRS has targeted for additional scrutiny the tax exemption applications of groups with whose messages it disagrees. We also learned that the Department of Justice obtained the personal telephone records of hundreds of reporters and editors employed by the Associated Press without a search warrant issued by a judge. And during this past week we learned that the White House, the Department of State and the CIA all engaged in a conspiracy of disinformation so that the official version of events of what caused the murders of four Americans at our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, would not impair Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012.

Is this really a surprise to anyone. With our wonderful transparent administration

Benghazi Emails Directly Contradict White House Claims

12:09 AM, MAY 16, 2013 • BY STEPHEN F. HAYES        

The White House on Wednesday released 94 pages of emails between top administration and intelligence officials who helped shape the talking points about the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that the CIA would provide to policymakers in both the legislative and executive branches.


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 show heavy input from top Obama administration officials, particularly those at the State Department.

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. As THE WEEKLY STANDARD previously reported, a briefing from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence shows that the big changes came in three waves – internally at the CIA, after email feedback from top administration officials, and during or after a meeting of high-ranking intelligence and national security officials the following morning.
Breitbart Exclusive: EXCLUSIVE: HOLDER SAYS 'NO' TO SPECIAL COUNSEL TO INVESTIGATE BENGHAZIBreitbart 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.
Inside the Latest Benghazi Emails: No One Knew Much of Anything

Four days after the attacks on 9/11 anniversary attacks in Benghazi, Libya, the U.S. intelligence community knew very little about who did it, how it happened, and whether it was planned or not, according to 100 pages of internal emails released Wednesday afternoon by the White House.


President Barack Obama prays at a recent event in Washington, DC. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

Those emails provide the clearest record to date of the genesis of government-wide talking points for senior Obama administration officials that asserted that the Benghazi attacks stemmed from a demonstration that never occurred.

House Republicans have been calling for weeks for the White House to release the emails, claiming in a report issued last month from Republican leadership that the emails show the edits to the talking points were not done to protect classified information as the White House initially claimed.

The talking points were first generated by the CIA for a briefing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

The real reason for the scnadle?: Petraeus email objected to Benghazi talking pointsBy NEDRA PICKLER
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Then CIA-Director David Petraeus objected to the final talking points the Obama administration used after the deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, because he wanted to see more details revealed to the public, according to emails released Wednesday by the White House.

Under pressure in the investigation that continues eight months after the attacks, the White House on Wednesday released 99 pages of emails and a single page of hand-written notes made by Petraeus' deputy, Mike Morell, after a meeting at the White House on Saturday, Sept. 15. On that page, Morell scratched out from the CIA's early drafts of talking points mentions of al-Qaida, the experience of fighters in Libya, Islamic extremists and a warning to the Cairo embassy on the eve of the attacks of calls for a demonstration and break-in by jihadists.

Petraeus apparently was displeased by the removal of so much of the material his analysts initially had proposed for release. The talking points were sent to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to prepare her for an appearance on news shows on Sunday, Sept. 16, and also to members of the House Intelligence Committee.



2 Day Gap?: White House’s Benghazi email dump shows critical two-day gap, CIA objectionThe Benghazi-related emails released by the White House late May 15 exclude the critical emails between administration officials that were sent during the crucial first two days after the deadly jihadi attack that killed four Americans last September.
The 100 pages of partially redacted emails also conclude with a dismissive message from CIA chief David Petraeus.
“Frankly, I’d just as soon not use this,” Petraeus said about the heavily edited, four-sentence “talking points” that the White House used to downplay Al Qaeda’s role in the Sep. 11 attack on the poorly protected diplomatic compound.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Hubris isn’t just the stuff of Greek tragedies

May 15, 2012
John SACS
Original Content: Full Story

The Curse of the Second Term – Benghazi, IRS attack on Tea Party/Patriot groups, and Justice Department Spying on Journalists

Barely 100 days has passed since Barack Hussein Obama was inaugurated to his second term on January 21, 2013.

In that time, he has failed miserably in his attempt to exploit the Newtown Tragedy. Obama’s, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s, and Senator Diane Feinstein’s goal was to begin the assault against the 2nd amendment and destroy it slowly one bill at a time. 

Sadly, for Obama, but not for the 2nd Amendment, he couldn’t even pass a watered down anti-gun bill that supposedly ninety percent of the American people support. Who are these 90 percent? They are certainly not any believer in the Bill of Rights that I know.

What else was on Mr. Obama’s agenda? Oh yes, Immigration Reform. Here is another item that was critically important to Obama, the Democrats, and many Republicans. 

Where are Congress and the White House on the Immigration Bill?  Nowhere as far any one can see nothing and nothing will come of it based on Obama’s drive and legislative effectiveness.

All of the above items plus the sequester redo and lowering how Social Security payments are made and other items on the Obama agenda are grinding to a halt.

What is amazing is that Obama was becoming a lame duck based on his own arrogance, laziness, and ineptitude at governing.

But, then Monday May 13, 2013 occurred.

What happened? Three seemingly different stories began to get linked.  Benghazi, the IRS targeting of Tea Party and Patriot groups, and the Justice Department (led by Attorney General Eric Holder) spying on the Associated Press (AP).

The establishment and the incestuous main stream media were going to give Obama their usual free pass on Benghazi and the IRS stories, by claiming they were the usual Democrat versus Republican stories but then the AP story broke.

The media adores Obama, but they love themselves even more.

The Justice Departments attack on AP and all of their reporters, phone lines, cell phones and who knows what else is just to much for media to take.

If the media doesn’t circle their wagons and protect each other and go after Obama ferociously and immediately, their 1st Amendment right will be gone and they know it.

As long as it was just our Bill of Rights, especially the 2nd and 4th Amendments, the media was only too happy to dance to Obama’s tune and support him obsequiously.

However no that it is the media’s rights that are under assault, they will not stand for it and they will go on the attack.

The AP story is the only story that will get the media to do their job on Benghazi and the IRS stories and many others.

The press is beyond angry. Obama crossed a line that should never be crossed by anyone including the President, Congress, and business leaders.

Going after the press is career suicide. Ask Richard Nixon, Patricia Dunn (former Chairman of HP, who authorized spying on reporters) or General Motors in the 1970s when they spied on Ralph Nader and his Raiders (yes, the same Ralph Nader who ran for President on 2000 and 2004)

President Obama, promised to have the most transparent administration in history, is proving to be the second coming of Richard Nixon, without having Nixon’s brains, foreign policy chops (unless you count Leading From Behind in Libya) and his legislative agenda successes.

Obama has Nixon’s arrogance, sneakiness, and overall meanness and now he has made Nixon’s great mistake of going after the press.

For a person who we are constantly told is so smart, how could he have done something so stupid?

Hubris. Hubris isn’t just the stuff of Greek tragedies, it the key ingredient for all monumental human failings and it looks like President Barack Hussein Obama is about to join the long list of presidents, which includes Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, who destroyed their second terms, some worse than others, based on hubris.

It couldn’t have happened to a more arrogant guy.