Saturday, May 31, 2014
Netanyahu: Obama demanded that not even one house be built in settlements
“Netanyahu – US Forced Construction Freeze,” by Shalom Bear, The Jewish Press, May 30, 2014 (thanks to Marla):
In a meeting this week between Prime Minister Netanyahu and twenty settlement leaders, Netanyahu said that it was the US’s demand to freeze settlements that prevented the meeting of the Department of Planning in the Civil Administration.
Netanyahu said he was the one who gave the order for the department to not meet, but didn’t anticipate the extensive damage that came about as a result, where, even to put up a light post, much less build a needed nursery school, became impossible.
Netanyahu told the leaders that Obama had demanded of him that not even one house be built.
Our president went to West Point this week, looked over all his works
in shaping American foreign policy and the world in general ... and
pronounced it good. "This is American leadership," he concluded. "This
is American strength."Gentle (and unbiased) Reader can look around at the results of this president's decisions, or rather non-decisions, and judge the truth of that conclusion for himself:
Russia's new-old regime doesn't seem to have got the word about American leadership, strength and how successful both have been. Maybe it's been too busy digesting Crimea, sparking a civil war in what remains of Ukraine, and unsettling its neighbors from Stettin in the Baltic to Tbilisi in the Caucasus as Moscow restarts its own, unilateral Cold War. This is American leadership. This is American strength.
The horrors in Syria now enter their -- what? -- fourth, fifth year? More than 100,000 people have been killed, so many that the United Nations has stopped counting the bodies. The slaughter continues despite promises and investigations and bright red lines our president has laid down that soon fade into pale pink before disappearing altogether. This is American leadership. This is American strength.
Bashar Assad's sporadic chemical attacks on his own people continue despite all the dictator's solemn assurances and Washington's. At least 2 million Syrian refugees, an estimated three-quarters of them women and children, have fled their own country, straining the resources of neighboring states like Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq ... all of which have their own unrest, instability and deep-seated crises to deal with. This is American leadership. This is American strength.
Another 4 million-plus Syrians (who can count all the refugees?) have been displaced within their own country, creating still more breeding grounds for terrorists and terrorism. This is American leadership. This is American strength.
The usual charade of negotiations with Iran continues in palatial settings like Geneva, home of the defunct League of Nations, and Vienna, storied old capital of the Anschluss, while the mullahs' cyclotrons keep spinning and their Bomb comes ever nearer completion, along with the missiles awaiting their nuclear tips. But never fear. This is American leadership. This is American strength.
All across North Africa and the Middle East, from Benghazi to Baghdad, terrorism rises again. Without the presence of American troops, Iraq hurtles toward a level of chaos not seen since 2006, when George W. Bush ditched his increasingly ineffective secretary of defense and embraced a new strategy and a new strategist (Gen. David H. Petraeus) who devised the Surge that reversed the war's tragic course and restored that country to a semblance of order and democracy. But that was before this president withdrew American troops, and now Iraq totters again as terrorists regain the upper hand. And with the announcement that American forces are being reduced to an isolated, skeletal force in Afghanistan, the same fate may now await that country and morass. This is American leadership. This is American strength.
And all this is but to skim the surface of the collapsing world our president -- and commander-in-chief! -- is reshaping. And calling a picture of multilateral success. The whole structure of collective security, of alliances put together by a long succession of American presidents from Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan, is unraveling, and not slowly. If this be success, if this be evidence of American leadership and strength, what would be abnegation and failure?
Barack Obama might like to retire from the world (who wouldn't at times?) but that doesn't mean the world is going to retire from America -- as we learned, once again, on September 11, 2001. It's no surprise our president's popularity continues to drop overseas. America's enemies don't fear him and our friends have learned they can't rely on him.
Once upon a similar time, when another celebrated leader was proclaiming Peace in Our Time to applause and acclaim, a lone voice was heard daring to speak truth to power as he leveled with the people of a soon to be embattled island. For appeasement would soon enough produce not peace but the most awful war in man's history:
"I will begin by saying what everybody would like to ignore or forget but which nevertheless must be stated, namely, that we have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat. ... And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor, we arise again and make our stand for freedom as in the olden time." --Winston Churchill in the House of Commons, October 5, 1938.
Who now will speak such home truths to the American people? Not this president, as his self-satisfied and self-celebrating address to the cadets at West Point demonstrates. All his policies must be working just fine, for he says so.
But it is not Barack Obama's purblind view of a world collapsing all around him and the rest of us that was the saddest part of his rhetorical performance this week, with its straw arguments against straw men and its smug dismissals of anyone who can see further than all his happy-talk. No, it is not what he said but what he didn't that represents the greatest danger to both world peace and America's sense of honor, which are inextricably bound together.
What saddens most about Mr. Obama's rhetoric is the absence of the kind of moral vision that other presidents have shown in the face of all too real and all too growing threats. Where is the spirit of Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan and all those other leaders who understood how wrong, and how dangerous, the old siren songs of American isolationism can be? They advocated rearmament not just in the material sense but moral rearmament. America will yet regain her old spirit. And her old vision. For we all live in hope. But hope is no substitute for policy.
This is no time to go wobbly.
President Obama's announcement that he has accepted VA Secretary Eric Shinseki's resignation did not come
as a shock to many of us, and neither did the shameless and revisionist
nature of his statement. Obama called the Shinseki controversy a
"distraction" (this is what he really means
by that), praised Shinseki's job performance at the VA as among the
best in history, suggested that the "bad news" about the agency's
failings and abuses never reached the highest levels, and claimed that
old computer systems contributed to the wait list problems. He also
called for more resources -- ie, taxpayer money -- to be devoted to the
VA. Every one of these arguments is specious.If Shinseki's leadership was truly "exemplary," he wouldn't have been forced out amid scandal. If it were true that unpleasant information had been suppressed and kept from the big bosses, that would have been an indictment of Shinseki's management -- not to mention Obama's, who made reforming and improving the VA a centerpiece of his 2008 campaign. But it's not true. Numerous internal red flags and warnings over the last five-plus years weren't dealt with adequately, or sometimes at all.
Since administration higher-ups frequently claim to discover problems from the media, how is it that they could have missed major exposes in the press regarding the state of affairs at the VA? The computers line is particularly risible -- and not just because the VA instituted a buggy, Healthcare.gov-esque IT system just last year. The crux of this scandal is that VA administrators instructed employees to create secret wait lists in order to conceal how badly the were falling short of DC-mandated targets. Promotions and bonus money was at stake. That has absolutely, positively nothing to do with computers. And finally, click through for all the evidence you need that these problems were not caused by a lack of "resources." Obama characteristically claimed "responsibility" for the debacle, then noted that the issues pre-date his presidency in his next breath. Yes, we're aware. But he campaigned to fix those flaws -- and that was almost six years ago. Obama wasn't the only one tripping over himself to lavish praise upon the resigning cabinet secretary. Vermont Socialist Bernie Sanders, who chairs the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, uncorked this jaw-dropper on CNN:
Jimmy
@JimmyPrinceton
Follow
Exact Bernie Sanders quote: "They have
cut waiting lists in half and they're on their way to almost end waiting
lists in the next year."
Sean Davis
I mean, this one from @mattyglesias where he lectures an actual doctor on how amazing the VA is, is spectacular. http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2009/06/10/193264/coburn-claims-va-is-not-up-to-the-level-of-health-care-of-the-rest-of-the-country-ignoring-clear-evidence-of-its-quality/ …
1:19 PM - 30 May 2014 Finally, if you read nothing else today about the VA mess, read these two items. First, a WSJ op/ed on rationing and bureaucratic lethargy by a VA doctor:
In my experience at VA hospitals in San Antonio and San Diego, patients were seen in clinics that were understaffed and overscheduled. Appointments for X-rays and other tests had to be scheduled months in advance, and longer for surgery. Hospital administrators limited operating time, making sure that work stopped by 3 p.m.
Consequently, the physician in charge kept a list of patients who needed surgery and rationed the available slots to those with the most urgent problems. Scott Barbour, an orthopedic surgeon and a friend, trained at the Miami VA hospital. In an attempt to get more patients onto the operating-room schedule, he enlisted fellow residents to clean the operating rooms between cases and transport patients from their rooms into the surgical suites. Instead of offering praise for their industriousness, the chief of surgery reprimanded the doctors and put a stop to their actions. From his perspective, they were not solving a problem but were making federal workers look bad, and creating more work for others...At the VA hospital in St. Louis, urologist Michael Packer, a former partner of mine, had difficulty getting charts from the medical records department. He and another resident hunted them down themselves. It was easier for department workers to say that they couldn’t find a chart than to go through the trouble of looking. Without these records, patients could not receive care, which was an unacceptable situation to these doctors. Not long after they began doing this, they were warned to stand down.And second, this analysis by Yuval Levin, who explains why the VA will be extremely difficult to reform:
The fact is that the VA has not been able to translate its relative advantages, or its growing budgets (the agency’s budget has grown far more quickly than its patient load over the past decade), into the sort of superior performance that Congress and successive administrations have hoped for. A major reason for that is the department’s (and not just each hospital’s or sub-agency’s) administrative dysfunction, which really has to be seen to be believed. The Department of Veterans Affairs is almost certainly the most poorly managed cabinet department, and it has to rank among the most poorly managed federal agencies at any level. It is characterized by deep dysfunction at pretty much every level (and not just in its health-care system; the veterans’ disability system has enormous problems too).Read the whole thing for an explanation of why well-meaning veterans' groups also contribute to the VA's endemic failings. Also, don't miss this NYT report on the VA's doctor shortage. All three pieces point to an unwieldy, bloated, wasteful, unresponsive, unaccountable, and too-often callous bureaucratic swamp. Which is, by definition, what government healthcare looks like.
House Speaker John A. Boehner said Friday that the select committee charged with investigating the 2012 terrorist attack on a U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, is about getting the truth and that it’s up to the committee members to decide who they want to call as witnesses.
Mr. Boehner, Ohio Republican, was asked about a reported excerpt from a forthcoming book by former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in which Mrs. Clinton accuses people of exploiting the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack for political gain.
“This is about one issue and one issue only, and that is getting the truth for the American people and the truth about what happened in Benghazi for the four families who lost their loved ones there,” Mr. Boehner said.
Mrs. Clinton has said that Benghazi is her biggest regret during her time in the Obama administration, but has also dismissed the need for a special panel to investigate the attack, which claimed the lives of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens.
“Those who exploit this tragedy over and over as a political tool minimize the sacrifice of those who served our country,” Mrs. Clinton writes in the chapter titled “Benghazi: Under Attack,” according to Politico.
The committee, chaired by South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, held an organizational meeting last week on the structure of the majority side of the committee. A spokeswoman for Mr. Gowdy said the focus at this point is to get it up and running.
Mr. Gowdy has also spoken with the committee’s ranking member, Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland. Mr. Cummings also serves as the ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) committee.
Mr. Gowdy himself waved off Mrs. Clinton’s reported words in an interview with CNN Friday, saying that “there is a time and a place for everything and her book tour is neither for me.”
He said the committee is going to talk to all witnesses who have relevant information.
“It’s a brand new committee that is going from infancy to adulthood in a short amount of time. All of my energy now is trying to get staff done,” he said.
Democrats were weighing whether or not to even participate in the panel but ultimately yielded and appointed their full allotment of members. They had unsuccessfully appealed to Mr. Boehner to divide the panel equally between the two parties, rather than its current composition of seven Republicans and five Democrats.
Mr. Boehner himself had been reluctant to appoint a select committee, but has said that the White House’s repeated stonewalling of Congress for information on the attack forced his hand.
“You have to remember, we’ve been asking for documents now for 18 months,” he said Friday. “Why does the administration refuse to turn over the documents? Why do they refuse to tell the American people the truth about what happened?”
The White House and many Democrats have said the formation of the panel is being driven by politics and have pointed to the handful of investigations and reports that have already been issued on the attack.
Pat Buchanan to Newsmax: VA Needs 'Complete Overhaul'
/ Townhall Columnist
Former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan praised Veterans
Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki but said that the agency the retired
four-star general directed needed a "complete overhaul" after reports of
falsified waiting times at VA centers nationwide.
Buchanan called Shinseki, who resigned Friday, "a brave soldier and honorable man" in an email statement to Newsmax. The conservative columnist served the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations and ran for the White House three times.
"But the VA's inspector's report that veterans who put everything on the line for our country were denied medical care for weeks and months, that some died, and then bureaucrats covered up their criminal neglect — and it has been going on for years — mandated his resignation," Buchanan said.
Shinseki stepped down after a tumultuous week in which the VA inspector general found widespread problems in its vast hospital system and reported that 1,700 veterans seeking treatment at a Phoenix VA center were consigned to uncertainty because they had never been added to official wait lists.
President Barack Obama said he accepted Shinseki's resignation "with considerable regret," naming Sloan Gibson, the agency's No. 2 official, as temporary secretary.
The president said the Justice Department would determine if any illegality had occurred, and that a top White House aide who had been assigned to investigate the VA would remain there for the time being.
More than 100 members of Congress from both parties had called for Shinseki, a Vietnam veteran and former Army chief of staff, to resign.
But Shinseki's departure is not enough to reform the VA system, Buchanan told Newsmax.
"The question here is whether parts of the VA system, and some hospitals, are steeped in this immorality and corruption, or whether the systemic problem is so broad, the system needs a complete overhaul," he said. "If we were starting from ground zero to provide medical care to veterans, no one would build the VA system we now have."
Buchanan called Shinseki, who resigned Friday, "a brave soldier and honorable man" in an email statement to Newsmax. The conservative columnist served the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations and ran for the White House three times.
"But the VA's inspector's report that veterans who put everything on the line for our country were denied medical care for weeks and months, that some died, and then bureaucrats covered up their criminal neglect — and it has been going on for years — mandated his resignation," Buchanan said.
Shinseki stepped down after a tumultuous week in which the VA inspector general found widespread problems in its vast hospital system and reported that 1,700 veterans seeking treatment at a Phoenix VA center were consigned to uncertainty because they had never been added to official wait lists.
President Barack Obama said he accepted Shinseki's resignation "with considerable regret," naming Sloan Gibson, the agency's No. 2 official, as temporary secretary.
The president said the Justice Department would determine if any illegality had occurred, and that a top White House aide who had been assigned to investigate the VA would remain there for the time being.
More than 100 members of Congress from both parties had called for Shinseki, a Vietnam veteran and former Army chief of staff, to resign.
But Shinseki's departure is not enough to reform the VA system, Buchanan told Newsmax.
"The question here is whether parts of the VA system, and some hospitals, are steeped in this immorality and corruption, or whether the systemic problem is so broad, the system needs a complete overhaul," he said. "If we were starting from ground zero to provide medical care to veterans, no one would build the VA system we now have."
RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS...Call-In Saturday
Don't forget
today's RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS on CPR Worldwide Media. It's 'Call-In'
Saturday and with all that's happened in ObamaLand this week Craig and I
will have much to discuss.
Hope you guys call in and help us add a bit more unhappiness to the very bad week our 'traitor-in-chief' is having. The show stars at 11am EST and the call-in number is 928-255-0201. RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS...LIVE...11am EST on CPR Worldwide Media.
http://cprworldwidemedia.com/live-radio/
Hope you guys call in and help us add a bit more unhappiness to the very bad week our 'traitor-in-chief' is having. The show stars at 11am EST and the call-in number is 928-255-0201. RIGHT SIDE PATRIOTS...LIVE...11am EST on CPR Worldwide Media.
http://cprworldwidemedia.com/live-radio/
Op-ed:
A house cleaning long
overdue
By: Diane Sori
Yesterday America got a 'two-fer' as both Obama mouth piece Jay Carney and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki both resigned.
Yesterday America got a 'two-fer' as both Obama mouth piece Jay Carney and VA Secretary Eric Shinseki both resigned.
First Shinseki...now folks please let's NOT get all excited by Eric
Shenseki's resignation for all this resignation means is that Barack
HUSSEIN Obama found his fall guy...while our veterans will still be the ones hurting...and hurting for some time to come.
Prompted by outrage from both Republicans and Democrats calling for Shinseki to resign, Obama announced that VA Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson...who has been on the job just three short months...would serve as interim head of the department while he chooses a permanent replacement. But you just know the fix is in as Gibson being Shinseki's right-hand man...NO matter the short length of time...knew just as much about what was going on with the VA as Shinseki did, especially with all having come to light over these past few months.
And because he was NOT fired...as he should have been if Obama had
any true concern or feeling for America's veterans...Shinseki gets to
keep his government pension and his military pension both which reach
into six-figures yearly...so don't shed any tears for him...for it's our
veterans who get screwed yet again as this most shameful of injustices
against them cannot and will NOT be fixed overnight.
And Obama's saying yesterday that it was "with considerable regret"
that he had accepted Shinseki's resignation...a resignation that
followed whistle-blower allegations that have been proven true that
there's massive mismanagement and manipulation of data related to
veterans wait times at VA hospitals and clinics that resulted in over
100 veterans dying...Shinseki's resigning really amounts to NOTHING for
being that this concerns injustices done to both our vets and our
returning troops and with Obama being their Commander-in-Chief...the
blame and the taking of responsibility needs to be placed at the feet of
its rightful owner...that being Barack HUSSEIN Obama.
But with Shinseki...a 4-star general and war hero twice wounded and three times awarded
a Bronze Star for valor in Vietnam... resigning as the scandal grows
with each passing day...attention is now diverted away from Obama's role
in this injustice. And with Shenseki willing to be the fall guy, all
while saying that he was shocked by widespread evidence of a loss in
integrity within the VA system, you just know he is somehow being rewarded with more than just being
able to keep his cushy pensions. And asked why he decided to accept
Shinseki's resignation and accept it now as the scandal heats up, Obama
said he regretted accepting said resignation, but he knows "the VA needs
new leadership" and that he agreed with Shinseki's own assessment that
he has become too much of a distraction.
"We don't have time for distractions...We need to fix the problem," Obama said.
And even with Shinseki issuing an apology for the scandal and with his last official act being the firing of administrators at the Phoenix VA hospital...ground zero from which this scandal originated...where 1,700 veterans were removed from any official list and kept waiting for appointments some for up to six months or longer...the only way to truly fix the problems at the VA is to have the one causing all the problems...the one who knew about all the problems but who chose to look away...resign and take responsibility...and that means Barack HUSSEIN Obama... but we know that sadly that will NEVER happen...and our precious and hurting veterans lose again.
Also yesterday, coming a scant three hours after he confirmed the
resignation of Eric Shinseki, Obama announced that also resigning was
Press Secretary Jay Carney...another resignation way overdue. Now being
replaced by White House special assistant to the president and principal
Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest...a longtime fixture in Obama’s
circle “going all the way back to the Iowa caucuses” in 2008...as in
replacing one bloviating mouthpiece with another bloviating
mouthpiece...Carney stood by Obama's side while he called him one of his
closest advisers and friends at the White House. Carney then told
reporters that "It's been an amazing experience...just so fulfilling" to have worked with this administration.
I guess knowingly lying through one's teeth and helping to talk Obama out of involvement in one scandal after another...and know that Carney's been one of the most effective liars this administration has had as witnessed by his helping Obama cover-up the murders of four brave Americans at Benghazi...Carney's saying his experience with Obama is "just so fulfilling," shows what a sick and vile bast*rd he really is.
Just like his boss I guess...
Carney, whose LIES started with the questionable circumstances surrounding the death of Osama bin-Laden and the subsequent cover-up of Extortion 17, then leading into all things Benghazi, going into the fraud ridden 2012 elections and the IRS and NSA scandals that followed, then leading into the shutdown of the federal government, and into the disastrous roll out of HealthCare.gov, finally culminating with the current VA scandal...also said it had been honor to be this president's press secretary.
"I'm not saying it's easy every day but I love it," Carney said. "It's an important interaction that takes place here...To be a part of it is an honor and a joy for me."
So while it might be 'an honor and a joy for him' it sure the hell isn't for 'We the People' as Carney's adding that “it’s not my last briefing” and by his NOT laying out a transition schedule for Josh Earnest to take over...to take over the 'Obama Ministry of Propaganda'...means we're stuck hearing his LIES a bit longer as Carney's official departure does NOT take effect until mid-June.
So while Obama cleans house we're left wondering just how fast that house will get dirty again.
So while it might be 'an honor and a joy for him' it sure the hell isn't for 'We the People' as Carney's adding that “it’s not my last briefing” and by his NOT laying out a transition schedule for Josh Earnest to take over...to take over the 'Obama Ministry of Propaganda'...means we're stuck hearing his LIES a bit longer as Carney's official departure does NOT take effect until mid-June.
So while Obama cleans house we're left wondering just how fast that house will get dirty again.
Friday, May 30, 2014
“It is inaccurate to state that every single one of them was influenced by this hateful video."
This statement is part of Hillary's 36 page "fog of war" chapter on Benghazi in her forthcoming memoir, a chapter obtained at least in part by Politico's Maggie Haberman, and it appears to be indicative of how she filled those 36 pages without answering any of the crucial questions about the events of that night and the following day.
This line refers to the killers.
And this line is of course a straw man, easily recognized after the president's straw man Woodstock at West Point earlier this week. It is also "inaccurate to state" that the whereabouts and actions of the president, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense that night are well known or even understood in general outline. That Hillary even bothers to spend time on the laughable "the video made them do it" argument tells us that the chapter is an exercise in space-filling, an effort to appear to be transparent and forthright about the most obvious, tragic failure of her trail of tears tenure at State. This chapter appears to be just another part of the ongoing refusal to come clean about what happened that night both in Benghazi and much more importantly for Hillary's future political ambitions in D.C.
“I will not be a part of a political slugfest on the backs of dead Americans," Haberman quotes Clinton as writing. "It’s just plain wrong, and it’s unworthy of our great country. Those who insist on politicizing the tragedy will have to do so without me.”
This is a three-part lie: It is not "just plain wrong" to demand answers from those in charge that night, it is not "politicizing" to hold those people to account for their failures, and the investigation into Benghazi will indeed involve Clinton whether or not she agrees to be questioned about her collapse that night. This risible attempt at a "pre-emptive strike" on the subject will not work, not when the event it seeks to exile from the national debate involves the death of an ambassador and three other Americans at the hands of terrorists and not when her failure to anticipate the attack and her collapse in the face of it goes to her central claim of competency to be president.
When Hillary sits down with various journalists, they should all bear down on what did she know and when did she know it; what did she do and when did she do it --in the weeks and months before the attack and the night of the attack. They should press again and again --patiently and respectfully-- for detailed answers on chronology and specifics.
"It is our job to figure out what happened."
That is what then Secretary of State Clinton told Senator Ron Johnson immediately after her infamous "What difference at this point does it make?" outburst that defines her failure at State.
That is in fact the job of every journalist who gets to ask a question of the would-be president. None have dared tried yet, but eventually someone will, and if no one does, Hillary will ask for the country's votes without ever having given an account of her actions or her non-actions. Perhaps she can bluff, bluster and bully her way to the Oval Office but the country does not seem to be in the mood for another era of dodges, half-truths, and false outrage over being asked not only legitimate but absolutely essential questions.
Hillary's 36 page leak won't put out the fire and it won't stop the questions or the commentary. Only the detailed truth would do so, and given Hillary's adamant refusal to provide that, we can assume the truth is even more damaging than her continued stonewalling.
This statement is part of Hillary's 36 page "fog of war" chapter on Benghazi in her forthcoming memoir, a chapter obtained at least in part by Politico's Maggie Haberman, and it appears to be indicative of how she filled those 36 pages without answering any of the crucial questions about the events of that night and the following day.
This line refers to the killers.
And this line is of course a straw man, easily recognized after the president's straw man Woodstock at West Point earlier this week. It is also "inaccurate to state" that the whereabouts and actions of the president, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense that night are well known or even understood in general outline. That Hillary even bothers to spend time on the laughable "the video made them do it" argument tells us that the chapter is an exercise in space-filling, an effort to appear to be transparent and forthright about the most obvious, tragic failure of her trail of tears tenure at State. This chapter appears to be just another part of the ongoing refusal to come clean about what happened that night both in Benghazi and much more importantly for Hillary's future political ambitions in D.C.
“I will not be a part of a political slugfest on the backs of dead Americans," Haberman quotes Clinton as writing. "It’s just plain wrong, and it’s unworthy of our great country. Those who insist on politicizing the tragedy will have to do so without me.”
This is a three-part lie: It is not "just plain wrong" to demand answers from those in charge that night, it is not "politicizing" to hold those people to account for their failures, and the investigation into Benghazi will indeed involve Clinton whether or not she agrees to be questioned about her collapse that night. This risible attempt at a "pre-emptive strike" on the subject will not work, not when the event it seeks to exile from the national debate involves the death of an ambassador and three other Americans at the hands of terrorists and not when her failure to anticipate the attack and her collapse in the face of it goes to her central claim of competency to be president.
When Hillary sits down with various journalists, they should all bear down on what did she know and when did she know it; what did she do and when did she do it --in the weeks and months before the attack and the night of the attack. They should press again and again --patiently and respectfully-- for detailed answers on chronology and specifics.
"It is our job to figure out what happened."
That is what then Secretary of State Clinton told Senator Ron Johnson immediately after her infamous "What difference at this point does it make?" outburst that defines her failure at State.
That is in fact the job of every journalist who gets to ask a question of the would-be president. None have dared tried yet, but eventually someone will, and if no one does, Hillary will ask for the country's votes without ever having given an account of her actions or her non-actions. Perhaps she can bluff, bluster and bully her way to the Oval Office but the country does not seem to be in the mood for another era of dodges, half-truths, and false outrage over being asked not only legitimate but absolutely essential questions.
Hillary's 36 page leak won't put out the fire and it won't stop the questions or the commentary. Only the detailed truth would do so, and given Hillary's adamant refusal to provide that, we can assume the truth is even more damaging than her continued stonewalling.
Like
millions of other American parents, my husband and I received a warning
letter from the BMI police last week. Our active, healthy 8th-grade
daughter is "very lean," according to her school-administered
"Fitnessgram." The national student body monitors think this is a public
health problem. The obesity report card lectured that because our daughter's body-mass index is "very low," we "should make certain" that she "is eating a healthy diet that includes the appropriate number of calories." Thanks, geniuses. We had no idea such measurements were taking place, and we wondered whether we were alone in objecting to this unsolicited Nanny State dispatch. We're not.
In New York, mom Laura Williams blew the whistle on how her perfectly healthy daughter Gwendolyn was branded "overweight" by her Fitnessgram. City schools sent the reports home to nearly 900,000 students in their backpacks. Gwendolyn showed the assessment to the New York Post last week, exclaiming: "I'm 4-foot-1, and 66 pounds, and I'm like, what?!"
Thanks to the Williams family's whistleblowing and a huge public backlash, Big Apple schools will now change the way the fitness reports are distributed to families. But changing the delivery route doesn't address the expansive government encroachment on our children's health based on dubious science.
Gwendolyn's absurd classification exposes the unreliability of BMI ratings, which many public health scientists admit are inadequate health predictors. The Centers for Disease Control itself says that "the accuracy of BMI varies substantially according to the individual child's degree of body fatness" and doesn't distinguish between "excess fat, muscle or bone mass, nor does it provide any indication of the distribution of fat among individuals."
Yet some school districts have pushed to incorporate BMI results in physical fitness grades, and dozens of states have adopted the BMI-snitching Fitnessgrams, which are marketed by an outfit called the Cooper Institute. The group contracts with New York, Texas, California and a total of nearly 70,000 schools across the country to provide training, administration, data collection and dissemination of its reports. Big Brother is big business.
One of the Cooper Institute's most prominent members of its board of directors: Big Government Republican Mike Huckabee, who spearheaded mandatory student BMI reports in 2003 while he was governor of Arkansas. Huckabee has sided with first lady Michelle Obama's meddling initiatives on childhood obesity -- which he calls an "issue of national security." Public health bureaucrats use exactly such hyperbolic rhetoric to justify increasing their powers, budgets and control.
Riding the manufactured obesity-crisis wave, BMI report card promoters are pushing for far more radical data-mining intrusion. A little-noticed study published in the journal Health Affairs a few years ago on "state surveillance of childhood obesity" proposes getting around federal family privacy protections by declaring obesity a "public health threat" at every state level. This would allow agencies to invoke "public health protection powers" to allow unfettered sharing of student BMI data.
These obesity police also advocate circumventing legislative debate by "simply adding a new function to state-run registries and databases" and slipping height and weight monitoring into immunization information-gathering systems.
Exploiting the captive student population for childhood obesity health research, grants, contracts and new tech boondoggles is yet another method of fattening Fed Ed's overstuffed coffers. It's time for parents to opt out and put these government data gluttons on a diet. Hands off. Butt out.
Shinseki apologizes, gets summoned to White House for ominous meeting
For the second time in just over a week, President Obama has called Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to the Oval Office, the White House said Friday, raising more questions about whether the embattled secretary will offer his resignation.
Mr. Shinseki, under increasing fire to step down, will meet with the president at 10:15 a.m. Friday.
He also was summoned to the White House on May 21, the same day White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rob Nabors left for Phoenix to investigate claims as many as 40 veterans died there while waiting for care at a VA facility.
For the second time in just over a week, President Obama has called Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to the Oval Office, the White House said Friday, raising more questions about whether the embattled secretary will offer his resignation.Mr. Shinseki, under increasing fire to step down, will meet with the president at 10:15 a.m. Friday.
He also was summoned to the White House on May 21, the same day White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rob Nabors left for Phoenix to investigate claims as many as 40 veterans died there while waiting for care at a VA facility.
Mr. Nabors is assisting Mr. Shinseki with his probe into care at VA hospitals, specifically lengthy wait times for care and allegations that VA officials kept false records to hide those wait times.
The VA inspector general also has launched a separate investigation.
Following last week’s meeting with Mr. Shinseki, the president addressed the scandal for the first time and clearly left open the door to fire Mr. Shinseki at a later date.
“If these allegations prove to be true, it is dishonorable, it is disgraceful, and I will not tolerate it, period,” Mr. Obama said last week. “I know that people are angry and want swift reckoning. I sympathize with that. But we have to let the investigators do their job and get to the bottom of what happened.”
On Thursday, the White House refused to say whether Mr. Obama still has full confidence in the secretary.
At least 70 lawmakers have called for Mr. Shinseki to resign. Powerful groups such as the American Legion have echoed those concerns.
Earlier Friday, Mr. Shinseki apologized Friday to veterans, members of Congress and the American for what he called “irresponsible, indefensible and unacceptable” actions at VA facilities across the country.
“I will not defend it because it is indefensible, but I can take responsibility for it and I do. So given the facts I now know, I apologize as the senior leader of the Department of Veteran’s Affairs,” he said at the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans conference in Washington.
“Truth About CAIR” Awareness Ad Campaign Hits Washington DC Metro
Pamela Geller / Atlas Shruggs
These huge dioramas (lit up at night) will be going up all around Washington DC for the next six months. More on the Truth About CAIR campaign here.
The leading Muslim Brotherhood-tied organization in America has deceived the media, cultural and political elites in America for years, to the great peril of the American people. Despite the overwhelming evidence presented in the largest terrorist funding trial in our nation’s history, the Holy Land foundation trial, the sharia-compliant media has continued to advance Hamas-CAIR’s supremacist agenda, with willing help from all too many law enforcement and government officials.
CAIR’s influence is vast, and growing all the time. Just recently they got ABC Family to drop its projected show Alice In Arabia, solely because it contained some dramatization of the all-too-common phenomenon of child kidnapping by Muslim relatives. For years now, they have prevailed upon Hollywood to downplay or even change the identity of celluloid villains, so that Muslims are never portrayed negatively in films (thus the Muslim terrorists in the novel The Sum of All Fears became neo-Nazis in the movie).
CAIR pressured Brandeis University to rescind an honorary degree it
had planned to award to human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali. It
regularly pressures (and usually succeeds) in getting any and every
counter-jihad speaker canceled from events. Recently it even tried to
bribe the sheriff of Culpepper County, Virginia with $15,000 to get him
to cancel a counter-terror training seminar.Because of this kind of activity, Hamas-CAIR should be shunned by all decent people. But instead, this unsavory gang of thugs is stronger than ever. JP Morgan and ABC are sponsoring their annual banquet this year. And the general silence about their terror-linked background has enabled them to infiltrate the highest levels of the political and cultural spheres.
That’s why my organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), is now unveiling a new ad campaign that tells the truth about this Islamic supremacist hate group.
Now more than ever, as CAIR’s influence grows in the media and government, this ad campaign is necessary to raise awareness among the public, to protect people from being taken in by this unsavory and unscrupulous group.
The ad depicts several CAIR officials who have been arrested and convicted of terror-related crimes. CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department during the trial of the Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation.
CAIR has a long record of duplicity and deception. Although it has received millions of dollars in donations from foreign Islamic entities, it has not registered as a foreign agent as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), despite spreading Islamic supremacist propaganda within the United States.
Although it presents itself as a civil rights group, CAIR actually has numerous links to Islamic supremacist and jihad groups. CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Niwad Awad (who still serves as CAIR’s executive director), were present at a Hamas planning meeting in Philadelphia in 1993 where they and other Hamas operatives conspired to raise funds for Hamas and to promote jihad in the Middle East. CAIR has steadfastly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups.
Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror:
Ghassan Elashi, founder of CAIR’s Texas chapter, in 2009 received a 65-year prison sentence for funneling over $12 million from the Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation to the jihad terrorist group Hamas, which is responsible for murdering hundreds of Israeli civilians Mousa Abu Marzook, a former CAIR official, was in 1995 designated by the U.S. government in 1995 as a “terrorist and Hamas leader.” He now is a Hamas leader in Syria.
Randall Royer, CAIR’s former civil rights coordinator, in 2004 began serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding al-Qaida and the Taliban against American troops in Afghanistan and recruiting for Lashkar e-Taiba, the jihadist group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai jihad massacres.
Bassem Khafagi, CAIR’s former community relations director, was arrested for involvement with the Islamic Assembly of North America, which was linked to al-Qaida. After pleading guilty to visa and bank fraud charges, Khafagi was deported.
Rabih Haddad, a former CAIR fundraiser, was deported for his work with the Global Relief Foundation (which he co-founded), a terror-financing organization.
In 1998 Omar Ahmad, CAIR’s co-founder and longtime Board Chairman, said: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.”
After he received unwelcome publicity as a result of this statement, Ahmad denied saying it, several years after the fact. However, the original reporter, Lisa Gardiner of the Fremont Argus, stands by her story.
CAIR’s spokesman Ibrahim Hooper once said: “I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future.”
The post “Truth About CAIR” Awareness Ad Campaign Hits Washington DC Metro appeared first on Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs.
Friday Fume
By: Craig Andresen
It
seems like it SHOULD have been a short week, what with Memorial Day and
all but…LIBERALS COULD MAKE A ONE CAR PARADE SEEM LIKE IT TAKES A MONTH
OF SUNDAYS!!!
It
seems like it SHOULD have been a short week, what with Memorial Day and
all but…LIBERALS COULD MAKE A ONE CAR PARADE SEEM LIKE IT TAKES A MONTH
OF SUNDAYS!!!
Not to worry though, we made it through and we’ve come to yet another Friday.
Let’s just jump into the deep end of liberal insanity shall we?
Friends and Patriots…
I’m fuming.
We have an URGENT update on the “MISSING” Malaysian Flight 370!!!!
Yes, I KNOW this has been covered ad nauseum …hell
I’m ad NAUSEATED by it MYSELF but THIS is important and I feel COMPELLED
to bring it to you.
Dear whoever built the thing that looks for things that are lost and make noise so you can find them…
You had ONE job…
I’m talking to the nerd or team of nerds who, no
doubt, acquired taxpayer dollars to fund their research to build
something called a…”Towed Pinger Locator”…It’s a thingy that gets towed
behind a ship to listen for and locate the black boxes of flying
machines that may well have become submersibles.
Within days of Flight 370 going missing…EVERYBODY
just KNEW it went into the Indian Ocean so…they go and get the ”Towed
Pinger Locator” and start dragging it around and VIOLA…they started
hearing “PINGS!!!”
That was 2 ½ months ago but the “PINGS” faded away
and they’ve been looking around in the same area ever since but…on
WEDNESDAY…we learned THIS…it seems the “PINGS” they were hearing either
came from…THE SHIP they were using or…
THEY CAME FROM THE DAMNED THINGY THEY WERE TOWING BEHIND THE SHIP!!!
Yep…according to Michael Dean, the U.S. Navy’s deputy director of ocean engineering…“Our
best theory at this point is that (the pings were) likely some sound
produced by the ship … or within the electronics of the Towed Pinger
Locator.”
Look…I’m not a towed thingy engineer but, I do have
a little advice for those who are…IF YOU’RE GONNA MAKE SOMETHING THAT
LOOKS FOR LOST THINGS THAT MAKE A CERTAIN NOISE SO YOU CAN FIND
THEM…MAKE SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T MAKE THE SAME CERTAIN NOISE AS WHAT YOU’RE LOOK FOR…FOR GOD’S SAKE!!!!
I know nerds have a hard time getting dates and all
but geez…a BLACK BOX is NOT going to COME TO YOU when it HEARS ITS
MATING CALL!!!!!
Fuming.
Click on link to read entire article... http://www.thenationalpatriot.com/2014/05/30/friday-fume-124/
Op-ed:
Playing for the cameras as he spewed his empty words that so lacked passion of the heart that “America must always lead on the world stage” but that America would use its military might only at times when its “core interests” were under threat, this address was full of platitudes and excuses, and was received with an oh-so-cool reception and rightly so as its now come to light that among all those serving in our military a mere 32% approve of his job as Commander-in-Chief. And how can our armed forces be successfully led into war when the leader in charge is NOT respected...simply...they cannot. And when that Commander-in-Chief is also embroiled in scandal after scandal...including a scandal directly related to those who wear our country's uniform...being respected overseas takes a back seat to a lack of respect here at home.
And
this address was also full of silent mockery as it was NOT an address
any Commander-in-Chief should ever have given to Army cadets
about to be dispatched around the world... especially with those cadets
encompassing many heading off to war. And ignoring the fact that
leadership...strong determined and focused leadership...is needed now
more
than ever...this man stood before our nations next generation of
military leaders and told them basically that diplomacy trumps strong
leadership ...that diplomacy trumps war...that our military is NOT
needed
unless he alone deems it necessary.
With his emphasis on diplomacy and the continuing use of (useless) sanctions, Obama blatantly told these graduating cadets that under his command America will rely less on our military force to keep peace in the world. Yet he NEVER mentions that it's his very lack of leadership and his selective use of our military (and his carefulness NOT to step on muslim toes) that translates into the world's perceived lack of American resolve and action in hot-spots ranging from Syria to Ukraine to allowing Iran to do as they so choose.
And with this address at West Point coming right after Obama's it's all about a photo-op Memorial Day weekend visit to Afghanistan...a visit solely taken in hopes of deflecting some attention off the ever expanding VA scandal and Benghazi... Obama's announcing for all to hear...for America's enemies to hear...and remember that America's enemies are NOT his enemies as Barack HUSSEIN Obama views all conflicts and wars from a muslim NOT American point of view...by giving the date for our final troop withdrawal from the Afghan theater...a bulls eye has now been placed on our remaining troops.
And this being reminiscent of a replay
of Iraq in Afghanistan, that bulls eye makes it easier for the
enemy...for the Taliban and al-Qaeda...to kill as many of our brave
warriors as they possibly can before they swarm in and retake a country
so much American blood has been shed to free...so much American treasure
has been spent to free...before they swarm in as we withdraw in what
Barack HUSSEIN Obama's actions...or lack thereof...he sees as a way for
him to say...for him to add to his legacy...that by the end of this his second term
in office that the war in Afghanistan is finally over. But what Obama has now done by announcing
the date of our withdrawal is turning American victory into American
surrender...as he bows yet again to his brethren's wishes.
Simply stated...and while his minions and cronies might NOT like it...this announcing of the 2015 Afghan withdrawal date...and having the gall to do so at the West Point commencement...basically sets the stage for a said enemy retake of a country we fought hard to free...and thus has Barack HUSSEIN Obama in his capacity as president committing treason by directly aiding and abetting the enemy in that retake.
And NOT a word from Congress is said...NOT a word from the media is said...and our troops will continue to die on his watch as Barack HUSSEIN Obama simply looks away.
An address NOT
needed...especially by those going off to war
By: Diane Sori
"It's your task to extend peace and prosperity."
-Barack HUSSEIN Obama to West Point graduating class of 2014
NO it is NOT. That task falls squarely on the shoulders of the President of the United States and while Obama might hold that title...or should I say he usurped that title...he is but a sham of a president.
And so Barack HUSSEIN Obama sashayed into West Point on Wednesday to give the Commencement Address to this year's graduates. And while as president and Commander-in-Chief he has every right to give this address, as the man who defames and dishonors our military every chance he gets he had NO business being there.
Rattling off uninspiring boring words that first spoke as usual about his
narcissistic self and his 'supposed' accomplishments, then carefully
choosing words to mask the very radical changes he's made to our
military...including making our military caretakers of the
ridiculousness of non-existent climate change...Obama's address was
devoid of much needed and wanted strategic goals thus rendering it
shameful at best. Proving once again that he is continuing on with his
failed foreign policy agenda of hand-picking conflicts for America to
get involved in... foreign policies based solely on what's paramount to
political expediency for he and his party...as well as policies that
pander to a carefully chosen block of voters tired of spending our
dollars on war instead of on them...this most shameful of presidents has once again defamed
our brave warriors by alluding instead to a loss of U.S. credibility and
respect in the eyes of the world.
-Barack HUSSEIN Obama to West Point graduating class of 2014
NO it is NOT. That task falls squarely on the shoulders of the President of the United States and while Obama might hold that title...or should I say he usurped that title...he is but a sham of a president.
And so Barack HUSSEIN Obama sashayed into West Point on Wednesday to give the Commencement Address to this year's graduates. And while as president and Commander-in-Chief he has every right to give this address, as the man who defames and dishonors our military every chance he gets he had NO business being there.
Rattling off uninspiring boring words that first spoke as usual about his
narcissistic self and his 'supposed' accomplishments, then carefully
choosing words to mask the very radical changes he's made to our
military...including making our military caretakers of the
ridiculousness of non-existent climate change...Obama's address was
devoid of much needed and wanted strategic goals thus rendering it
shameful at best. Proving once again that he is continuing on with his
failed foreign policy agenda of hand-picking conflicts for America to
get involved in... foreign policies based solely on what's paramount to
political expediency for he and his party...as well as policies that
pander to a carefully chosen block of voters tired of spending our
dollars on war instead of on them...this most shameful of presidents has once again defamed
our brave warriors by alluding instead to a loss of U.S. credibility and
respect in the eyes of the world.
Playing for the cameras as he spewed his empty words that so lacked passion of the heart that “America must always lead on the world stage” but that America would use its military might only at times when its “core interests” were under threat, this address was full of platitudes and excuses, and was received with an oh-so-cool reception and rightly so as its now come to light that among all those serving in our military a mere 32% approve of his job as Commander-in-Chief. And how can our armed forces be successfully led into war when the leader in charge is NOT respected...simply...they cannot. And when that Commander-in-Chief is also embroiled in scandal after scandal...including a scandal directly related to those who wear our country's uniform...being respected overseas takes a back seat to a lack of respect here at home.
And
this address was also full of silent mockery as it was NOT an address
any Commander-in-Chief should ever have given to Army cadets
about to be dispatched around the world... especially with those cadets
encompassing many heading off to war. And ignoring the fact that
leadership...strong determined and focused leadership...is needed now
more
than ever...this man stood before our nations next generation of
military leaders and told them basically that diplomacy trumps strong
leadership ...that diplomacy trumps war...that our military is NOT
needed
unless he alone deems it necessary.
With his emphasis on diplomacy and the continuing use of (useless) sanctions, Obama blatantly told these graduating cadets that under his command America will rely less on our military force to keep peace in the world. Yet he NEVER mentions that it's his very lack of leadership and his selective use of our military (and his carefulness NOT to step on muslim toes) that translates into the world's perceived lack of American resolve and action in hot-spots ranging from Syria to Ukraine to allowing Iran to do as they so choose.
And with this address at West Point coming right after Obama's it's all about a photo-op Memorial Day weekend visit to Afghanistan...a visit solely taken in hopes of deflecting some attention off the ever expanding VA scandal and Benghazi... Obama's announcing for all to hear...for America's enemies to hear...and remember that America's enemies are NOT his enemies as Barack HUSSEIN Obama views all conflicts and wars from a muslim NOT American point of view...by giving the date for our final troop withdrawal from the Afghan theater...a bulls eye has now been placed on our remaining troops.
And this being reminiscent of a replay
of Iraq in Afghanistan, that bulls eye makes it easier for the
enemy...for the Taliban and al-Qaeda...to kill as many of our brave
warriors as they possibly can before they swarm in and retake a country
so much American blood has been shed to free...so much American treasure
has been spent to free...before they swarm in as we withdraw in what
Barack HUSSEIN Obama's actions...or lack thereof...he sees as a way for
him to say...for him to add to his legacy...that by the end of this his second term
in office that the war in Afghanistan is finally over. But what Obama has now done by announcing
the date of our withdrawal is turning American victory into American
surrender...as he bows yet again to his brethren's wishes.
Simply stated...and while his minions and cronies might NOT like it...this announcing of the 2015 Afghan withdrawal date...and having the gall to do so at the West Point commencement...basically sets the stage for a said enemy retake of a country we fought hard to free...and thus has Barack HUSSEIN Obama in his capacity as president committing treason by directly aiding and abetting the enemy in that retake.
And NOT a word from Congress is said...NOT a word from the media is said...and our troops will continue to die on his watch as Barack HUSSEIN Obama simply looks away.
Thursday, May 29, 2014
It's all in the wording...
By: Diane Sori
OK guys let's get this straight...some present at the Benghazi briefings that fateful night are saying Obama was NOT in the Situation Room when the briefings were going on. Now read this wording of theirs very carefully... 'Obama was NOT in the Situation Room when the briefings about Benghazi were going on.' This will be his defense if and when questioned by Trey Gowdy, the standard I did NOT know about it as I was NOT in the room...I heard it on the news nonsense.
Now listen carefully...'I was NOT in the room'...which could be true but wording is everything folks as Obama might NOT have been in the actual room but HE WAS STANDING RIGHT OUTSIDE IT AND HEARD EVERYTHING GOING ON!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT in the actual room...possible and what a great cover if the truth...but standing outside and hearing everything...most probable...as it's all in the wording folks...all in the wording.
By: Diane Sori
OK guys let's get this straight...some present at the Benghazi briefings that fateful night are saying Obama was NOT in the Situation Room when the briefings were going on. Now read this wording of theirs very carefully... 'Obama was NOT in the Situation Room when the briefings about Benghazi were going on.' This will be his defense if and when questioned by Trey Gowdy, the standard I did NOT know about it as I was NOT in the room...I heard it on the news nonsense.
Now listen carefully...'I was NOT in the room'...which could be true but wording is everything folks as Obama might NOT have been in the actual room but HE WAS STANDING RIGHT OUTSIDE IT AND HEARD EVERYTHING GOING ON!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT in the actual room...possible and what a great cover if the truth...but standing outside and hearing everything...most probable...as it's all in the wording folks...all in the wording.
Arrogant Muslims Kick All Americans Out Of This Country
“The Department of State warns U.S. citizens..."
Christopher Agree / Western Journalism
As a select committee in the U.S. House attempts to find the truth about the 2012 terror attack that left four Americans dead in Benghazi, Libya, U.S. citizens in that nation are being urged this week to leave immediately amid security threats.
The State Department issued a warning Tuesday evening for all Americans who remained in Libya following a U.S. Marines mission to help Americans evacuate.
“The Department of State warns U.S. citizens against all travel to
Libya and recommends that U.S. citizens currently in Libya depart
immediately,” the statement explained. “The security situation in Libya
remains unpredictable and unstable. The Libyan government has not been
able to adequately build its military and police forces and improve
security following the 2011 revolution.”
The agency explained a number of threats by “various groups” have been made against Americans in the nation, noting its capability to offer protection or emergency services at this time is “very limited.”
Staffing at the U.S. Embassy in Libya’s capital city of Tripoli has been pared down significantly as a result of the ongoing threats, the statement indicated.
As for those citizens targeting Americans, the State Department indicated many have access to powerful military equipment and weaponry, including some devices that can effectively attack aircraft.
Coinciding with the evacuation warning is an ongoing battle waged by Libyan Gen. Khalifa Hifter against Islamic operatives and supporters in the region. Though many of the nation’s officials and military personnel support Hifter’s mission and are backing him as a political leader, he has earned the wrath of those in the Islamic militias he is targeting.
A number of these radicals – including members of Ansar al-Shariah – are fighting back against the military leader, whom they conclude is acting on America’s behalf. The group, which has ties to terror organization Al Qaeda, has been linked to the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.
Read more at http://www.westernjournalism.com/americans-evacuated-islamic-country/#ZBY01Wk7RI4fR7g8.99
An initial investigation by the VA's Inspector General confirms sordid allegations of rampant records manipulation designed to hide chronic failures within the Phoenix-based system, as originally reported by CNN. A snippet from the report:
To date, our work has substantiated serious conditions at the Phoenix HCS. We identified about 1,400 veterans who did not have a primary care appointment but were appropriately included on the Phoenix HCS’ EWLs [electronic wait lists]. However, we identified an additional 1,700 veterans who were waiting for a primary care appointment but were not on the EWL. Until that happens, the reported wait time for these veterans has not started.
Most importantly, these veterans were and continue to be at risk of being forgotten or lost in Phoenix HCS’s convoluted scheduling process. As a result, these veterans may never obtain a requested or required clinical appointment. A direct consequence of not appropriately placing veterans on EWLs is that the Phoenix HCS leadership significantly understated the time new patients waited for their primary care appointment in their FY 2013 performance appraisal accomplishments,which is one of the factors considered for awards and salary increases.That's a total of 3,100 Phoenix-area veterans in limbo, more than half of whom were off the books.
And don't miss that last sentence, which affirms that at least part of the motive behind this scheme was financial. Bureaucrats were more interested in protecting their pay increases and performance bonuses than protecting the veterans in their care. That appalling reality isn't a new revelation, but it's still arresting to see it described in black and white, from the government's own watchdog. As you're by now well aware, Phoenix wasn't an isolated "bad apple" event. Abuses along the same lines are under investigation at dozens of VA facilities, with allegations surfacing from coast to coast. Back to the Phoenix report:
To review the new patient wait times for primary care in FY 2013, we reviewed a statistical sample of 226 Phoenix HCS appointments. VA national data, which was reported by Phoenix HCS, showed these 226 veterans waited on average 24 days for their first primary care appointment and only 43 percent waited more than 14 days.
However, our review showed these 226 veterans waited on average 115 days for their first primary care appointment with approximately 84 percent waiting more than 14 days. At this time, we believe that most of the waiting time discrepancies occurred because of delays between the veteran’s requested appointment date and the date the appointment was created. However, we found that in at least 25 percent of the 226 appointments reviewed, evidence, in veterans’ medical records, indicates that these veterans received some level of care in the Phoenix HCS, such as treatment in the emergency room, walk in clinics, or mental health clinics.A New York Times reporter boils the key numbers down:
What was D-Day?
Victor Davis Hanson / Townhall Columnist
Seventy years ago this June
6, the Americans, British and Canadians stormed the beaches of Normandy
in the largest amphibious invasion of Europe since the Persian king
Xerxes invaded Greece in 480 B.C.
About 160,000 troops landed on five Normandy beaches and linked up with airborne troops in a masterful display of planning and courage.
Within a month almost a million Allied troops had landed in France and were heading eastward toward the German border. Within 11 months the war with Germany was over.
The western front required the diversion of hundreds of thousands of German troops. It weakened Nazi resistance to the Russians while robbing the Third Reich of its valuable occupied European territory.
The impatient and long-suffering Russians had demanded of their allies a second front commensurate with their own sacrifices. Their Herculean efforts by war's end would account for two out of every three dead German soldiers -- at a cost of 20 million Russian civilian and military casualties.
Yet for all the sacrifices of the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin was largely responsible for his war with Nazi Germany. In 1939, he signed a foolish non-aggression pact with Hitler that allowed the Nazis to gobble up Western democracies. Hitler's Panzers were aided by Russians in Poland and overran Western Europe fueled by supplies from the Soviets.
The Western Allies had hardly been idle before D-Day. They had taken North Africa and Sicily from the Germans and Italians. They were bogged down in brutal fighting in Italy. The Western Allies and China fought the Japanese in the Pacific, Burma and China.
The U.S. and the British Commonwealth fought almost everywhere. They waged a multiform war on and under the seas. They eventually destroyed Japanese and German heavy industry with a costly and controversial strategic bombing campaign.
The Allies sent friends such as the Russians and Chinese billions of dollars worth of food and war materiel.
In sum, while Russia bore the brunt of the German land army, the Western Allies fought all three Axis powers everywhere else and in every conceivable fashion.
Yet if D-Day was brilliantly planned and executed, the follow-up advance through France in June 1944 was not always so. The Allies seemed to know the texture of every beach in Normandy, but nothing about the thick bocage just a few miles inland from Omaha Beach. The result was that the Americans were bogged down in the French hedgerows for almost seven weeks until late July -- suffering about 10 times the casualties as were lost from the Normandy landings.
So how did the Allies get from the beaches of Normandy to Germany in less than a year? Largely by overwhelming the Wehrmacht with lots of good soldiers and practical war materiel. If German tanks, mines, machine guns and artillery were superbly crafted, more utilitarian American counterparts were good enough -- and about 10 times as numerous. Mechanically intricate German Tiger and Panther tanks could usually knock out durable American Sherman tanks, but the Americans produced almost 50,000 of the latter, and the Germans less than 8,000 of the former.
Over Normandy, British and American fighter aircraft were not only as good or better than German models but were far more numerous. By mid-1944, Germany had produced almost no four-engine bombers. The British and Americans built almost 50,000 that by 1944 were systematically leveling German cities.
Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt were far more pragmatic supreme commanders than the increasingly delusional and sick Adolf Hitler. American war planners such as George Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower and Alan Brooke understood grand strategy better than the more experienced German chief of staff. Allied field generals such as George S. Patton and Bernard Montgomery were comparable to German legends like Gerd von Rundstedt or Erwin Rommel, who were worn out by 1944.
The German soldier was the more disciplined, experienced, armed and deadly warrior of World War II. But his cause was bad, and by 1944 his enemies were far more numerous and far better supplied.
No soldiers fought better on their home soil than did the Russians, and none more resourcefully abroad than the British Tommy and the American G.I., when bolstered by ample air, armor and artillery support.
Omaha Beach to central Germany was about the same distance as the Russian Front to Berlin. But the Western Allies covered the same approximate ground in about a quarter of the time as had the beleaguered Russians.
D-Day ushered in the end of the Third Reich. It was the most brilliantly conducted invasion in military history, and probably no one but a unique generation of British, Canadians and Americans could have pulled it off.
About 160,000 troops landed on five Normandy beaches and linked up with airborne troops in a masterful display of planning and courage.
Within a month almost a million Allied troops had landed in France and were heading eastward toward the German border. Within 11 months the war with Germany was over.
The western front required the diversion of hundreds of thousands of German troops. It weakened Nazi resistance to the Russians while robbing the Third Reich of its valuable occupied European territory.
The impatient and long-suffering Russians had demanded of their allies a second front commensurate with their own sacrifices. Their Herculean efforts by war's end would account for two out of every three dead German soldiers -- at a cost of 20 million Russian civilian and military casualties.
Yet for all the sacrifices of the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin was largely responsible for his war with Nazi Germany. In 1939, he signed a foolish non-aggression pact with Hitler that allowed the Nazis to gobble up Western democracies. Hitler's Panzers were aided by Russians in Poland and overran Western Europe fueled by supplies from the Soviets.
The Western Allies had hardly been idle before D-Day. They had taken North Africa and Sicily from the Germans and Italians. They were bogged down in brutal fighting in Italy. The Western Allies and China fought the Japanese in the Pacific, Burma and China.
The U.S. and the British Commonwealth fought almost everywhere. They waged a multiform war on and under the seas. They eventually destroyed Japanese and German heavy industry with a costly and controversial strategic bombing campaign.
The Allies sent friends such as the Russians and Chinese billions of dollars worth of food and war materiel.
In sum, while Russia bore the brunt of the German land army, the Western Allies fought all three Axis powers everywhere else and in every conceivable fashion.
Yet if D-Day was brilliantly planned and executed, the follow-up advance through France in June 1944 was not always so. The Allies seemed to know the texture of every beach in Normandy, but nothing about the thick bocage just a few miles inland from Omaha Beach. The result was that the Americans were bogged down in the French hedgerows for almost seven weeks until late July -- suffering about 10 times the casualties as were lost from the Normandy landings.
So how did the Allies get from the beaches of Normandy to Germany in less than a year? Largely by overwhelming the Wehrmacht with lots of good soldiers and practical war materiel. If German tanks, mines, machine guns and artillery were superbly crafted, more utilitarian American counterparts were good enough -- and about 10 times as numerous. Mechanically intricate German Tiger and Panther tanks could usually knock out durable American Sherman tanks, but the Americans produced almost 50,000 of the latter, and the Germans less than 8,000 of the former.
Over Normandy, British and American fighter aircraft were not only as good or better than German models but were far more numerous. By mid-1944, Germany had produced almost no four-engine bombers. The British and Americans built almost 50,000 that by 1944 were systematically leveling German cities.
Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt were far more pragmatic supreme commanders than the increasingly delusional and sick Adolf Hitler. American war planners such as George Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower and Alan Brooke understood grand strategy better than the more experienced German chief of staff. Allied field generals such as George S. Patton and Bernard Montgomery were comparable to German legends like Gerd von Rundstedt or Erwin Rommel, who were worn out by 1944.
The German soldier was the more disciplined, experienced, armed and deadly warrior of World War II. But his cause was bad, and by 1944 his enemies were far more numerous and far better supplied.
No soldiers fought better on their home soil than did the Russians, and none more resourcefully abroad than the British Tommy and the American G.I., when bolstered by ample air, armor and artillery support.
Omaha Beach to central Germany was about the same distance as the Russian Front to Berlin. But the Western Allies covered the same approximate ground in about a quarter of the time as had the beleaguered Russians.
D-Day ushered in the end of the Third Reich. It was the most brilliantly conducted invasion in military history, and probably no one but a unique generation of British, Canadians and Americans could have pulled it off.
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