Free Republic

Since the IRS scam has become the most momentous topic of the day, we now know, thanks to my father, that Obama’s brother, Malik Obama, is deeply associated with Omar al-Bashir, the one who was behind the attack on the US embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, which occurred at around the same time as the Benghazi attack ... Malik is the Executive Secretary for the Islamic Da’wa Organization (IDO), which is stationed in Khartoum, Sudan, and which has its primary focus in expanding Wahhabist Islam in the African subcontinent. It was also in Khartoum, as I have written on before, where...

Scandal is the worst thing that can befall a president. Yet as debilitating as scandals always are, the ones Obama now faces are particularly so. They intimately and simultaneously strike at his public persona, which has been his strongest asset, while seemingly verifying his critics' worst accusations. Scandals leave a president weaker for four reasons. First, they are decidedly negative issues. No president, or politician for that matter, seeks out negative issues. All go after the overwhelmingly popular, which is why politicians so quickly and frequently embrace symbolic ones. When pressed, a president takes on "tough" substantive issues, which are...

Elite U.S. troops were completely capable of saving Ambassador Chris Stevens during the Benghazi Consulate attacks on September 11, 2012. Elements of the highly specialized Combatant Commanders In-Extremis (CIF) units are always on alert, on forward deployment, ready to respond. Their job description is to hit the ground in 3 to 5 hours. CIF elements are ready to engage in active combat anywhere in their region, 3 to 5 hours after the call. Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense at the time, either misled the U.S. Congress or was incompetent. Panetta testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 7,...

The complexity of Washington scandals as they unfold usually involves many moments at which it is possible to lose sight of the forest for the trees. Two such instances have come into sharper relief in recent weeks. One is that we still have no good explanation for U.N. ambassador Susan Rice’s talking points for her round of talk show appearances the Sunday after the 9/11/12 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi. A second is that focusing on the question of whether the loss of four lives there could have been avoided is actually a clever diversion from a...

Washington rumor has it that Obama wants to be U.N. Secretary General. There are several reasons that make that likely, and if it's true, it throws new light on a lot of Obama's oddities -- including his Royalty Bows, his Apology Tours, his Muslim Sellout, and the Benghazi Cover-Up. But first -- why would Obama be planning to become the chief of the U.N. before he has even finished his second term? 1. Obama's unbounded ego. In three and a half years, Obama will be out of a job. He is 50 now and wants to soar to greater heights,...

This week the AP reported the United States government knows who are responsible for the murders of Americans at the U.S. Mission in Benghazi. Despite Mr. Obama’s promise to punish the terrorists he is doing nothing. Talk is cheap. The White house resident could easily order armed drones to target these thugs but he doesn’t. This is a feckless President whose inaction can be easily explained by the Limbaugh theorem. If he gave the order to kill the terrorists, Obama would be seen as governing. Should anything go wrong he just might have to accept responsibility. Such a possibility is...

I don’t want to come right out and say that BO is losing it. Butt for a guy who has been regaled for his rhetorical gifts, has raised over $1 billion in campaign funds, and ran a political organization the envy of Tammany Hall, how else do you explain all these things? Tell me, how can someone like Big Guy surround himself with so many incompetent people heading up so many agencies that keep coming up with such “suboptimal outcomes?” For starters: an IRS staffed with senior management who either know nothing, or are unwilling to tell us what they...

Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham were vocal critics of the administration’s messaging after the Benghazi attacks, but on Friday, they issued a laudatory statement about Victoria Nuland — the woman behind a number of the changes to the talking points — and her nomination to be assistant secretary of state for Europe. “Ambassador Victoria Nuland has a long and distinguished record of service to our nation in both Republican and Democrat administrations. She is knowledgeable and well-versed on the major foreign policy issues as well as respected by foreign policy experts in both parties. We look forward to...

Elite U.S. troops were completely capable of saving Ambassador Chris Stevens during the Benghazi Consulate attacks on September 11, 2012. Elements of the highly specialized Combatant Commanders In-Extremis (CIF) units are always on alert, on forward deployment, ready to respond. Their job description is to hit the ground in 3 to 5 hours. CIF elements are ready to engage in active combat anywhere in their region, 3 to 5 hours after the call. Leon Panetta, Secretary of Defense at the time, either misled the U.S. Congress or was incompetent. Panetta testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on February 7,...

For Hillary Clinton, any gender-related problems she encountered in previous races have been “wiped out,” and her gender would only be an asset if she runs in 2016, writer Anna Quindlen asserted on Thursday. “I think the gender issue as a problem or a deal breaker — ‘Can we have a woman as president of the United States?’ … it was wiped out,” Quindlen said at a talk at the Center for American Progress in Washington. “It was wiped out when she ran and nearly won in 2008, and it since has been even further wiped out by her performance...

On Thursday, The Daily Caller published a story — “Despite momentum, GOP leadership still against special Benghazi committee” — that offers new evidence of the accuracy of two assessments long maintained by so many true conservatives: 1) The people who refer to themselves as the House Republican “leadership” are far more interested in their own big egos and little fiefdoms than they are in serving the best interests of the American people and protecting the national security of the United States. 2) When it comes to crafting and implementing political strategy, they are pretty much complete morons. Most House Republicans...

The State Department spokeswoman who played a pivotal role in deleting portions of the Benghazi talking points has been tapped by President Obama for a plum new post, bagging a nomination to become assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. During the process of whittling the original CIA talking points down, a reference to participation in the Benghazi attack by al Qaeda-linked elements was deleted. Nuland had expressed “serious concerns” about mentioning the terrorists. And she also asserted that including references to previous attacks against foreigners in Benghazi “could be abused by members to beat the State Department...

Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Friday offered a preemptive defense of President Obama's nominee to head European affairs at the State Department amid concerns about her role in the Benghazi talking points. snip Other vocal critics of the administration's response to last year's terrorist attack – notably Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and James Inhofe (R-Okla.) – may yet decide to block her long-expected nomination.

Earlier this week, Roger L. Simon of PJ Media broke a story with shocking revelations, contending that slain U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens was in Benghazi on September 11 to buy back Stinger missiles from al-Qaeda groups that had been originally provided to them by the U.S. State Department. Simon cited two former U.S. diplomats: Stevens’ mission in Benghazi, they will say, was to buy back Stinger missiles from al-Qaeda groups issued to them by the State Department, not by the CIA. Such a mission would usually be a CIA effort, but the intelligence agency had opposed the idea because of...

Hey, if Susan Rice qualifies for a big promotion, why not Victoria Nuland?  She's the State Department spokeswoman at the center of the firestorm over the administration's Benghazi talking points -- and if the president has his way, she'll be movin' on up to Assistant Secretary of State: The State Department spokeswoman who earlier this month found herself in the middle of the controversy surrounding key revisions to the Benghazi talking points appears to be in line for a promotion. The White House announced Thursday that President Barack Obama intends to nominate Victoria Nuland as assistant secretary for European and...

This does not bode well for my future as MOTUS (Mirror Of The United States): That’s right; simply by peering into the mirror, we have met the enemy and, shockingly, he is us. “We are the enemy we have been waiting for” As always, the people responsible for this travesty will be held accountable, so I expect to receive my notice of (paid) administrative leave shortly. Butt wait! I think I’ve found an IRS approved loophole! You can’t really blame an empty chair can you? Good work MOTUS! - if I do say so myself. With a h/t to Clint...

Gird your loins, America. President Obama intends to empty out Guantanamo Bay and send scores of suspected Muslim terror operatives back to their jihadist-coddling native countries. Goaded by anti-war activists and soft-on-terror attorneys (including those from Attorney General Eric Holder’s former private law firm), Obama announced Thursday that he’ll lift a ban on sending up to 90 Yemeni detainees home and will initiate other stalled transfers out of the compound. This radical appeasement of Obama’s left flank is a surefire recipe for more Benghazis, more U.S.S. Coles and more innocent lives at risk.

As the House Oversight Committee prepares to question Benghazi witnesses on Wednesday, we need to remember that the accounts of personnel on the ground have long contradicted the account the CIA adopted just weeks after the attacks took the lives of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. In early Nov., the CIA said the consulate's earliest call for help came in at 9:40 p.m. on Sept. 11. But the Blue Mountain Security manager, "who was in charge of the local force hired to guard the consulate perimeter," says he realized something was happening and put out calls for...

President Obama on Thursday nominated Victoria Nuland, a State Department official involved in the editing of the administration's talking points on Benghazi, to be the next assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland, a career foreign service officer who was until recently State's top spokesperson, had long been expected to be nominated the post to replace Philip Gordon, who Obama picked to serve as Middle East coordinator for the National Security Council. Nuland's nomination -- which requires Senate confirmation -- could come under scrutiny from Republicans who see her as playing a central role in shaping the...

Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes isn’t afraid to talk to the press. After the Navy SEAL raid in which Osama bin Laden died, he spoke to The New Yorker, Newsweek, the Washington Post, National Journal, and Vanity Fair — at least. He also helped coordinate access for the filmmakers of Zero Dark Thirty. He recently cooperated with a New York Times profile of himself, and his mother, Jane Rhodes, answered questions for a GQ feature about him and his brother, CBS News President David Rhodes — the byline of which included Ben’s former White House colleague Reid Cherlin. But...

On Wednesday, Deputy CIA Director Mike Morrell—along with CIA officers who were at the Agency’s Benghazi base on the night of the attack—testified at a classified hearing before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. In the closed hearing, according to U.S. officials with knowledge of the proceedings, Morrell was asked by Republican members about how the second wave of attackers knew to go to the CIA annex, which was a mile away from the diplomatic mission. Morrell responded that at this point the CIA did not know whether the attackers had known the location of the annex or learned...

GREAT MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY!“Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” - Admiral David Farragut“Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!” - Attributed to Colonel William Prescott“I have not yet begun to fight!” - Captain John Paul Jones“What difference does it make?” - Secretary of State Hillary ClintonI used to think that Hillary Clinton was a pretty smart politician, as far as Washington bureaucrats go, but following the Benghazi fiasco and her defense of that terrible sequence of events, I think Hillary displayed such an unknowledgeable level of unpreparedness that one can only question her qualifications to perform...

Coming out of the weekend, after a brutal week for their president, the media held tight to a little lifeboat in an ocean of bad news: Polls from CNN and The Washington Post had Obama's approval rating at 53% and 50%, respectively. But Monday was a lifetime and countless revelations ago, and today, four newer polls all show Obama's approval rating sinking below 50%. Fox News has Obama upside down with 45% approving of the president and 51% disapproving. Rasmussen shows a similar trend with 46% - 53%; as does The Economist, 45% - 51%. Gallup sits at 49% -...

Kirk Douglas played a down-on-his-luck news reporter... a man named Leo was trapped in a collapsed cave...Keeping Leo trapped for at least seven days could revive Douglas's career. He had exclusive access to Leo. Writing daily updates could produce tremendous financial rewards; it could land Douglas a job with a major newspaper and a possible Pulitzer Prize. Folks, I was struck by how closely the scenario in the movie paralleled real-life current events. After the movie, I told my wife, "Oh my gosh, I just watched the Obama administration in Benghazi"...

As the investigation into the Obama administration’s handling of the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi intensifies, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are seeking to conduct transcribed interviews with thirteen top State Department officials in the coming weeks in order to learn more. Those named in the letter include a wide range of current and former State Department personnel, from senior advisers to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to mid-level career officials with responsibility for diplomatic security. Among those officials: Jacob Sullivan, then deputy chief of staff and director of policy planning (and currently national security adviser to Vice President Joe...

Every day brings new revelations about who knew what about the IRS targeting conservative groups during President Obama's re-election campaign, but the overall impression is of a vast federal bureaucracy run amok. While the White House continues to peddle the story of a driverless train wreck, taxpayers are being treated to a demonstration of the dangers of an unwieldy and unaccountable administrative state. Look, Ma, no hands! In his press events, Mr. Obama has said that while he learned about the Cincinnati rogues on the news, he plans to "hold accountable those who have taken these outrageous actions." But the...

WASHINGTON — While momentum has been building inside the House Republican conference for a special congressional committee to investigate last year’s terrorist attacks in Benghazi, the GOP leadership is making it clear they still have no enthusiasm for establishing such a committee. About two-thirds of House Republicans — 153 in total — have signed on to the resolution offered by Rep. Frank Wolf of Virginia to establish “a select committee to investigate and report on the attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi, Libya.” “I think there’s a lot of frustration up here among members that the stuff that’s...

On “Fox News Sunday” last weekend, White House aide Dan Pfeiffer was asked about President Barack Obama’s whereabouts the night of the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi. This was the night when we lost our first ambassador in 30 years, and when three other Americans were killed in an attack that lasted all night long at multiple locations within the eastern Libyan city. Since the president is commander in chief, one would think where he was and what he did during such an event would be of obvious public concern. Not according to Pfeiffer. He deemed the president’s location, and...

Col. Allen West on the Melody Burns Show at 4:05 pm Eastern.

Three U.S. senators have identified the missing parts of the response to the Benghazi terror attack. In a statement, Senators Kelly Ayotte, Lindsey Graham, and John McCain list "What We Do Not Know" about Benghazi: · We do not know whether the President was made aware of the classified cable that, according to published media reports, Ambassador Chris Stevens sent in August 2012, stating that the U.S. Mission in Benghazi could not survive a sustained assault from one or more of the threatening militia groups that were operating in eastern Libya. · We do not know whether the President’s national...

It's been burbling up from the conservative media for nearly six months, starting with Fox News. Last year, the network's reporter Catherine Herridge reported on a ship that had arrived to Turkey from Libya laden with weapons. Ordnance left unsecured after the fall of Gaddafi was being taken to Syria to overthrow another dictator. This isn't in much dispute. The dispute, and the theory, is that the weapons used to kill Americans in Benghazi were made available by bungling American gun-runners. That's the theory floated by Roger Simon, who talks to two "Benghazi whistleblowers" (multiplying like rabbits now). [Chris] Stevens’...

How does President Barack Obama, a man of such keen intelligence, with such promise to "change" America, find himself in so much serious trouble? From the IRS targeting conservatives to the continued confusion over what happened at Benghazi to provoking a battle with The Associated Press by subpoenaing phone records that could involve as many as 100 reporters, what went wrong? The answer is simple: arrogance, aided and abetted by a compliant, adoring "news" media. CNN's Roland Martin urged the president to "go gangsta" on conservatives who wouldn't confirm his political appointments. Supporters like MSNBC's the Rev. Al Sharpton publicly...

Talk about art imitating life. I landed upon a classic movie while surfing TV channels. Kirk Douglas played a down-on-his-luck news reporter. When I began watching the movie, a man named Leo was trapped in a collapsed cave. Douglas managed to crawl within a few feet of Leo and was chatting with Leo, assuring the scared man that he would be rescued ASAP. But secretly, Douglas had other plans. Keeping Leo trapped for at least seven days could revive Douglas's career. He had exclusive access to Leo. Writing daily updates could produce tremendous financial rewards; it could land Douglas a...

  Rome may be burning… “Up on the Roof” Nero may be fiddling… “The Awful Truth” and diddling… “Sweet Adonis” Whoops! Sorry, that last one’s actually New York’s latest mayoral candidate, Anthony Weiner; welcome back codder! Butt back to my story: While Rome burns, and Nero rests up for the next party: "So Far Away” The rest of the staff scrambles around to put out all those pesky little grease fires that keep  popping up now that the election is over: (SNIP) “Chains” – IRS targets   “Read Between the Lines” - AP/Fox News “One Small Voice” - (Breitbart vindicated)...

Not that I go there much, but: Anyone else see that the IRS and Benghazi and AP scandal stories are always absent from Google News headlines? More "backward watchdog" press behavior--the Google News dog protecting its elite masters from potentially meddlesome little people.

IPT News June 9, 2010 SNIPPET: "The Turkish-based charity that helped drive last week's deadly confrontation with Israeli commandos has deep ties to Hamas and other terrorist groups. The Hamas ties are not in question. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and IHH officials simply do not acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist group." SNIPPET: "U.S. officials have expressed concern over the fact that "IHH representatives have met with senior Hamas officials in Turkey, Syria, and Gaza over the past three years," but IHH is not a designated terrorist organization in the United States. It's fair to ask, why not?"...

TEL AVIV – In a largely unnoticed speech to a think tank seven months before the Benghazi attack, a top State Department official described an unprecedented multi-million-dollar U.S. effort to secure anti-aircraft weapons in Libya after the fall of Muammar Gadhafi’s regime. The official, Andrew J. Shapiro, assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, explained how U.S. experts were fully coordinating the collection efforts with the Libyan opposition. He said the efforts were taking place in Benghazi, where a leading U.S. expert was deployed. Shapiro conceded that the Western-backed rebels did not want to give up the...

Seems she's pulled a Houdini since her infamous "what difference does it make?" Seriously, any ideas on her whereabouts and/or why we've not heard/seen her in some time?

Sarah Palin says President Barack Obama is either a “liar or a hugely incompetent CEO” in regard to his handling of the recent controversies surrounding his presidency. “For the president to deny any knowledge of what was brewing [with the IRS] and to claim to know nothing about the Benghazi cover-up or anything about anything White House-related lately, he’s either a liar or a hugely incompetent CEO. You decide,” Palin wrote in an op-ed published Tuesday night on the conservative website Breitbart . The IRS is under fire for unfairly targeting conservative groups that were seeking non-profit status. Meanwhile, conservatives...

Obama to Restart Transfers From Guantanamo By JULIAN E. BARNES, EVAN PEREZ and ADAM ENTOUS WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is set to restart transfers of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, U.S. officials said, kick-starting a long-stalled drive to close the prison. In a speech Thursday, President Barack Obama will reassert his case that closing Guantanamo is crucial to U.S. counterterrorism goals. While he isn't planning to detail in the speech how to speed up transfers from the prison, officials said the president in coming weeks plans to lift the administration's prohibition on sending detainees to Yemen. The president in the speech...

One day before President Obama is due to deliver a major speech on national security, his administration on Wednesday formally acknowledged that the United States had killed four American citizens in drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan. In a letter to Congressional leaders obtained by The New York Times, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. disclosed that the administration had deliberately killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who was killed in a drone strike in September 2011 in Yemen. The American responsibility for Mr. Awlaki’s death has been widely reported, but the administration had until now refused to confirm...

What’s the difference between keeping President Obama “updated throughout the night” on a deadly terrorist attack in Benghazi and keeping him “updated throughout the night” on a deadly tornado in Oklahoma? The president could have actually done something about Benghazi. Have you been watching the president the past 36 hours or so? Lots of photos of him calling officials in Oklahoma, offering federal help. Speeches in front of the camera expressing his condolences to the tornado victims and pledging to rebuild. “Our prayers are with the people of Oklahoma today,” Obama said yesterday, “and we’ll back up those prayers with...

The spin that the American people aren’t interested in Benghazi or that it’s only Republicans who think something is fishy isn’t faring too well in a plethora of other polls. The GOP figures on all these are off the charts (vs. the administration). But independents are much more like GOP voters than Dems. In some cases, they view the president more harshly.

More whistleblowers will emerge shortly in the escalating Benghazi scandal, according to two former U.S. diplomats who spoke with PJ Media Monday afternoon. These whistleblowers, colleagues of the former diplomats, are currently securing legal counsel because they work in areas not fully protected by the Whistleblower law. According to the diplomats, what these whistleblowers will say will be at least as explosive as what we have already learned about the scandal, including details about what really transpired in Benghazi that are potentially devastating to both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The former diplomats inform PJM the new revelations concentrate in...

<p>The controversy over the Obama administration’s response to the Benghazi attack last year began at a meeting over coffee on Capitol Hill three days after the assault.</p> <p>It was at this informal session with House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that the ranking Democrat asked David H. Petraeus, who was CIA director at the time, to ensure that committee members did not inadvertently disclose classified information when talking to the news media about the attack.</p>

I spent some time shooting Sporting Clays with Ika Ika last weekend. I was kind of gratified to hear him say that when he first read my Google Purge posts, he thought, "That guy's off his rocker." I felt off my rocker when I posted them. But I just could not make sense of what was happening. The pattern of how things should happen was just little bit off. So I wrote those posts, cracked myself up in the process and hit the "publish" button. In the first Google Purge post I observed: Somebody somewhere got the goods on General...

When Lady M addressed the graduating class at Nashville’s Martin Luther King Jr. Academic Magnet High School last week she reminded them that failure was a part of life – no matter who you are: “And then there’s this guy Barack Obama ... he lost his first race for Congress, and now he gets to call himself my husband.” Lucky him “I could take up a whole afternoon talking about his failures.” Well, now it looks like Congress is considering calling her up to testify on the Hill, as they can’t seem to locate another soul who’s willing to talk about...

Remember Lake Wobegon, Garrison Keillor’s fictional Minnesota town where “all the children are above average?” Well, too many members of Congress inhabit a Lake Wobegon government, where every government program is also above average — not just successful, but essential. Here is just one example: Among the many outrages that congressional Democrats have assigned to the sequester is that it could reduce the available slots in the Head Start program by as many as 70,000 children. This was repeatedly hammered home last month when the Democratic leadership complained that Congress was giving additional flexibility to the FAA to avoid furloughs...

It has been over 9 months since Jihadist terrorists attacked a US diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya and killed 4 Americans, including the US ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens. Make no mistake, an attack on a diplomatic facility is an act of war. And Christopher Stevens was the first US ambassador killed in the line of duty in over 30 years. Despite this, America finds itself mired in a scandal surrounding this incident and the Obama administration’s shameful handling of it. Meanwhile, there has been no response from America to this act of war. That transmits profound weakness to the...

Voters think President Obama could have done more to help the Americans at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya when it was being attacked, according to a Fox News poll. In addition, a majority says the Obama administration is trying to cover-up what happened there. The new poll, released Tuesday, shows 62 percent of voters think Obama could have done more to help those at the consulate in Benghazi on the night of the attack. Even Democrats are about equally likely to say the president could have done more (44 percent) as to say he did all he could (43...