Friday, May 10, 2013

With back against the wall, embattled Obama administration still stonewalls on Benghazi


 Twelve Times?

Yes . . . Benghazi memos reportedly revised 12 times. But was it intentional? Oh, yes.

 

Verne Strickland / USA DOT COM / May 10, 2013

Published May 10, 2013

New details about the Obama administration's initial story-line on the Benghazi attack are raising additional questions about top-level efforts to downplay terrorism, with one report showing a State Department official pushed to delete a section that could have been used to "beat up" her department. 

The fresh reports have surfaced two days after three whistle-blowers testified on Capitol Hill about the Benghazi attack. One of them sharply challenged the administration's decision to describe the attack out of the gate as a protest gone wrong.

ABC News reported Friday that, despite administration claims that the flawed description reflected the best intelligence at the time, the talking points that led to the statement were revised 12 times.

Initial versions, as has been previously reported, contained references to Al Qaeda that were later deleted. But the latest excerpts show how State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland pressed the CIA to scrub references to the agency's prior security warnings.

According to ABC News, the original paragraph read:
"The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa'ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya. These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador's convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks." 
But Nuland wrote that the lines  "could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either? Concerned ..."
The paragraph in question was then reportedly deleted.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki defended her agency's actions Friday after the excerpts were published.

She said in a statement: "The State Department first reviewed the talking points on Friday evening with the understanding that they were prepared for public use by members of Congress. The  spokesperson's office raised two primary concerns about the talking points. First that the points went further in assigning responsibility than preliminary assessments suggested and there was concern about preserving the integrity of the investigation.  Second, that the points were inconsistent with the public language the Administration had used to date -- meaning members of Congress would be providing more guidance to the public than the Administration."

The Weekly Standard, which referenced the Nuland exchange briefly in a prior account, also reported new details Friday, describing how then-CIA Director David Petraeus voiced surprise when he learned the Saturday after the attack that officials had deleted all prior references to Al Qaeda and jihadists, leaving only the word "extremists."

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice would use the final version of the talking points to say on several Sunday shows that the attack was triggered by protests over an anti-Islam film. 
While administration officials and congressional Democrats have described the protracted debate over the talking points as politically motivated and inconsequential, the testimony this week drew new attention to it.
Greg Hicks, former deputy chief of mission in Libya, said Rice's comments actually hurt the FBI investigation by insulting the Libyan president -- who gave a conflicting account at the time by saying the attack was premeditated.

Hicks said the anti-Islam film was actually a "nonevent" in Libya, and his "jaw dropped" when he heard Rice's comments.

ABC News reported that the CIA's first drafts did say the attack appeared to be "spontaneously inspired" by the protests at the embassy in Cairo. However, the early versions also said "we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa'ida participated in the attack."

The State Department and White House have continued to defend their actions and intervention in light of the new details. 

After it was first revealed that references to security concerns -- in addition to references to Al Qaeda -- were removed, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said: "What we said and what remains true to this day is that the intelligence community drafted and redrafted these points."

He defended administration claims that the faulty statements were merely the product of incomplete intelligence in a rapidly changing environment. Despite the excerpts, he stood by claims that White House involvement was minimal.

"The fact that there are inputs is always the case in a process like this. But the only edits made by anyone here at the White House were stylistic and non-substantive. They corrected the description of the building or the facility in Benghazi from 'consulate' to 'diplomatic facility' and the like," he said.

State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell also said Rice's comments were based on the intelligence community's "best assessment that there was not any evidence of months-long pre-planning or pre-meditation, which remains their assess

Thursday, May 9, 2013

The Obamacare "Death Panel" is Real: Republicans Refusing to Appoint Serving Members

Verne Strickland USA DOT COM  May 9, 2013

The case for killing Granny, you say? Granny is my wife, Durrene, mother of our three strong boys, now grown into strong Christian men. Grandmother to our two precious grandchildren. We've been married for 52 years. I'm 76. "Granny" is 71. We've struggled to make a home, send our kids to college, survive threatening illnesses, and find loving moments together. And President Barack Obama is going to take her from me? Through a federal program called "Affordable Health Care"? Well this is odious, and I think it's time we brought the Heavenly Father into this. I pray that God will give us the means to destroy Obamacare, which is intended to spawn the New American Holocaust. Our president says we elders don't deserve to live? Well, we don't believe Obamacare, led by a federal "death panel", should survive. And we're calling God in on the case. His will be done. Amen.

 

 The Obamacare "Death Panel" is Real: Republicans Refusing to Appoint Serving Members

Posted by: Barry Secrest
Published on May 9th, 2013 @ 11:18:28 pm 
 

Businessinsider
Brett LoGiurato

One of the most politically intense fights over the Affordable Care Act was over the creation of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, infamously dubbed a "death panel" by Republicans during the 2010 elections.
On Thursday, Republican House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell signaled that they would keep working to keep opposition alive by doing everything they can to impede the board's implementation.
The two leaders wrote a letter to President Barack Obama, notifying him that they would not be submitting any recommendations to the panel because of their opposition to it and to the law in general.
Here's the relevant part of their letter explaining why they aren't offering any recommendations:

In order to allow supporters to claim that the law’s Medicare cuts would be realized in the future, it tasked IPAB with reducing payments to providers or eliminating payments for certain treatments and procedures altogether.  These reduced payments will force providers to stop seeing Medicare patients, the same way an increased number of doctors have stopped taking Medicaid patients.  This will lead to access problems, waiting lists and denied care for seniors.

The unfortunate result is that decisions which impact America’s seniors will be made in the absence of the democratic process, without the system of checks and balances that would normally apply to important matters of public policy.  Yet your recent budget called for expanding IPAB by tasking it with making even larger cuts to Medicare than those called for in the health law, even though the trustees of the Medicare program have told us that IPAB’s provider cuts would be “difficult to achieve in practice,” because of the denied care that seniors would experience.

Though the move will likely play well for Republicans politically, it won't have much of an effect on the implementation of the health care law, at least for the foreseeable future, according to health care law professors.
The IPAB is set up to be a 15-member panel. Three members will be chosen by the Republican leaders of the House and Senate, and the remaining three are chosen by Obama and the executive branch. All of the members have to be confirmed by the Senate.
But the IPAB is only needed if Medicare costs are projected to go beyond economic growth plus an additional percentage point in any given year, said Allison Hoffman, an assistant professor of law at UCLA. Right now, Medicare costs aren't growing fast enough to require the board to decide which cuts to make to Medicare providers.
"There's actually no work for the IPAB to do this year," Hoffman told Business Insider.
McConnell and Boehner's letter has "no impact on the ground," Hoffman said. "It's a protest move. You know — we're not going to cooperate with what the law says in this regard."


Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Was Ambassador Chris Stephens "expendable" because our top diplomat to Lybia was gay?

Verne Strickland / USA DOT COM / May 8, 2013

So the curtain has been raised on an attempt by a U.S. House Oversight Committee to probe the ugly guts of the Democrats' twisted Benghazi scandal -- or, Benghazi-Gate, as some would have it. It was arresting theater, and has the potential to derail President Obama's second term in the Oval Office, as well as Hillary Clinton's attempt to get another political life. It will continue to play out on national broadcast and cable channels, and thank goodness for that, because the interminable trial of Jodi Arias has gone to the nineteenth hole, and the players are still on the course. Can America possibly make the switch from Jodi the murderess to Barack and Hillary the international scoundrels? Heck, I don't know. I just report on this stuff. But where Benghazi is concerned, some of the most telling events in the saga can be dug up from the past. I found these two stories, buried by the Obama/Clinton press, to be especially relevant.

Did Hillary Clinton send a gay ambassador to Libya as intentional provocation?

Serbian diplomat, and friend of Christopher Stevens, says State Department knowingly sent gay ambassador to Libya.
Arab media says ambassador Stevens was gang raped and then his body was put on display.
Hillary Clinton has been spending US taxpayer dollars to fund homosexual pride events in foreign countries. Her actions have prompted backlashes against the US in Italy, Russia, Pakistan, and other nations. Last year, Barack Obama made it official US policy to fund homosexual rights groups overseas with US tax-dollars.
In Pakistan, the staff of the US embassy in Islamabad was placed in serious danger after being ordered to host a homosexual pride event. Pakistanis rioted outside the embassy and burned American flags.
Friends of Christopher Stevens in Chicago say he was gay. A member of the Serbian diplomatic team based in Chicago told HillBuzz.org that the State Department knowingly sent a gay man to be the ambassador of Libya. HillBuzz.org reports "in Chicago’s diplomatic circles at least there is no doubt that Chris Stevens was gay."
The question is, did Hillary Clinton know this? If so, she knowingly sent him into an environment where his presence would be considered a provocation. Hillary Clinton's track record in North Africa is absolutely dismal. The US State Department has successfully turned Libya and Egypt upside down and placed militant Islam in charge of those nations.
Clinton claimed that Libya and Egypt would become western style democracies. She even made the comical assertion that the Muslim Brotherhood was "committed to democracy." Now Clinton's "democracy activists" are murdering Christians in the streets of Egypt, burning American flags, and calling for holy war against Israel. Clinton seems hellbent on bringing the same chaos to Syria as well.
Clinton stated that Stevens killers were well armed and probably connected to Al-Qaeda. She neglects to mention that the Obama administration armed and supported hard-core Jihadists in Libya. Some of whom openly bragged about ties to Al-Qaeda. Hillary Clinton acts like she is surprised that such a reckless policy has blown up in her face.
According to leading Arab media outlets, the murder of US Ambassador Christopher Stevens was even more horrible than what was reported in on the US media. The Arab media reports that Stevens was beaten, gang raped, killed, and then his body was publicly displayed in a manner similar to Gaddafi.
A Libyan doctor who examined the body said Stevens had severe internal injuries and died of "severe asphyxia."
Three other Americans were murdered, including former Navy Seal Glen Doherty.
Christopher Stevens is the first US ambassador to be murder overseas since Adolph Dubs was killed in Afghanistan in 1976.


HILLBUZZ 9/16/2012 — The corrupt media is still not reporting on Ambassador Stevens being raped by Muslims before and after he was assassinated.  The Left is claiming “that didn’t happen” and also showing only cropped images of the Ambassador, shirtless, with captions saying “he’s being carried to safely by helpers from the crowd!”.  No, the Muslims were stripping him naked, removing his belt and pants, and raping him. The uncensored photos show the man stripped nude and being dragged off by Muslims to be violated.
The corrupt media is whitewashing all this because it (a) makes Muslims look terrible for raping Ambassador Stevens (and then his corpse) and (b) it hurts Obama for people to know that Muslims raped the male American ambassador before and after killing him.  Male-rape is not what this administration wants to talk about six weeks before an election.


You can EASILY read all about the rape via foreign news sources in the Middle East which have no qualms reporting it.
One good source is the Lebanese media. If you can’t read squiggles and little dots that look like bugs, they have an English version too that was linked here.  The Libyan Free Press is also extensively reporting on the rape of Ambassador Stevens.
















Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Benghazi: Democrats in Congress 'running from this' on eve of hearings.

 Verne Strickland USA DOT COM May 7, 2013

John Bolton: Benghazi could bring down Obama administration. Let us hope so.

The Benghazi scandal could be the final “hinge point” that brings down the Obama administration, former U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton said. “This could be the hinge point,” he said to Newsmax. “It’s that serious for them.”


Mr. Bolton is now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
His comments came as Congress is readying to hear testimony from several witnesses about the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

Witness Greg Hicks already has stated publicly that the administration was aware that the attack was terrorist in nature, and not related to protests of a YouTube film about Muslims, as originally stated.
Mr. Bolton said these witnesses’ testimonies could prove explosive.

“The three witnesses who have been identified are not bystanders,” he said in the Newsmax report. “These are not people who are going to report on hearsay of what somebody in Tripoli told somebody that they heard from. These are people who are directly involved in different capacities before, during and after the attack.”

Committee staffers have hinted that the witnesses’ statements are going to prove “devastating,” especially for then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. And “you’ve already seen some Democratic members of Congress … beginning to run from this,” Mr. Bolton said in the Newsmax report.

© Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.

Arizona Gov. signs Bill to establish State Militia to be used at her Discretion


          From SB1495:
If the national guard of Arizona or a major portion thereof is called into active federal service, or if the national guard or a major portion thereof is alerted for federal service OR FOR ANY OTHER REASON THE GOVERNOR CONSIDERS TO BE NECESSARY, the governor may establish an armed force for the safety and protection of the lives and property of the citizens of the state which shall be known as the Arizona state guard.
The Arizona state guard could be established and utilized for a whole plethora of situations, but most likely would include helping to secure the United States-Mexico border, or situations such as nuclear, biological or chemical attacks or accidents. In such instances, the state guard would be of great benefit to first responders, who lack a population of trained support staff.


Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer

With a heavy National Guard presence at the United States-Mexico border in Arizona and National Guard funding for the border due to expire in June, Rep. Jack Harper, who sponsored a similar bill, said the measure couldn’t have come at a better time.

According to a local newspaper, Harper, who has also previously spoken with the Arizona National Guard’s adjutant general about how to use a volunteer militia to secure the borders, states that he is “very excited that she [Gov. Jan Brewer] signed it.” He also expressed that he would like to see her sign an executive order to immediately establish the guard to help with securing the border.

While the National Guard is not allowed to engage in direct hands-on law enforcement, they are an asset to the Border Patrol, helping to secure the border through surveillance, among other operations. But it’s not just about keeping illegal migrants out of the country either as drug smuggling operations are also a major concern with border security.

In the past, there were some complaints about the heavy military presence in the area, though some local residents have expressed support for volunteer groups stating they they are helpful in deterring drugs and other illegal activities.  Indeed, the influence of military tactics into homeland security measures have been something popping up more and more lately.

Monday, May 6, 2013

Huckabee: Benghazi will drive Obama from office. We can only hope.

 

Verne Strickland / USA DOT COM / May 6, 2013


Mike Huckabee is pictured. | Reuters
The former Arkansas governor called the affair 'more serious than Watergate.' | Reuters
Mike Huckabee on Monday predicted that President Barack Obama won’t finish out his second term in light of the “cover-up” of the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the former Arkansas governor called the affair “more serious than Watergate.”
“I believe that before it’s all over, this president will not fill out his full term. I know that puts me on a limb,” the former Arkansas governor said on “The Mike Huckabee Show.” “But this is not minor. It wasn’t minor when Richard Nixon lied to the American people and worked with those in his administration to cover-up what really happened in Watergate. But, I remind you — as bad as Watergate was, because it broke the trust between the president and the people, no one died. This is more serious because four Americans did in fact die.”
Huckabee, however, said his predication about Obama “will not happen” if the Democrats seize control of the House and retain control of the Senate next year.
“If they’re able to get control of the House and maintain the Senate, this will not happen because they won’t let it happen,” Huckabee said.
“And they won’t let it happen not because they’re protecting just the president, they’re trying to protect their entire political party. If they try to protect the president and their party, and do so at the expense of the truth, their president and their party will go down. Now, here’s what I’m going to suggest will happen — as the information and facts begin to come out, it will become so obvious that there was a concerted and very, very deliberate attempt to mislead this country and its people to lie to Congress, as well as to you.”
And as the truth about the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi emerges, Huckabee said, “they will have lost the right to govern.”
“The highest levels of people in the United States government all the way up to the president knew that what they did tell us was not true,” he said. “And they continued to tell it throughout an election season and beyond, and they’ve tried to change the subject. And when the facts come out, they will not be able to stand. They will have lost the right to govern.”
What happened with Benghazi is not a “political issue” — “this goes all the way to the heart of the integrity of the United States government,” Huckabee said.
“When a president lies to the American people and is part of a cover-up, he cannot continue to govern,” Huckabee said. “And as the facts come out, I think we’re going to see something startling. And before it’s over, I don’t think this president will finish his term unless somehow they can delay it in Congress past the next three and a half years.”

Kermit Gosnell Attorney Furious About Fox News Murder Trial Special


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Verne Strickland USA DOT COM May 6, 2013

 

Fox News has performed an invaluable public service by airing its remarkable no-holds-barred special detailing the unfathomable cruelty and barbarism of Kermit Gosnell. Even if it did not affect jurors, who were instructed not to watch it, it has surely had a deep and resounding impact in the court of public opinion. I watched it twice. I felt I owed this to his pitiful victims. 

 

by Steven Ertelt | Philadelphia, PA | LifeNews.com | 5/6/13 10:48 AM

 The defense attorney for abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell is furious about the Fox News special that aired Friday and Sunday nights exposing the gruesome abortions and infanticides that took  place at his abortion clinic.
Philly Abortion Physician Dr. Kermit Gosnell,69,Charged With 8 Counts ...Jack McMahon claims the special was designed to sway members of the jury, even though jurors have been instructed to not watch or read any media coverage of Gosnell and the murder trial.
As local Philadelphia reporter J.D. Mullane reported on Twitter this morning:
and
  Leading pro-life advocates pushed the Fox News special “See No Evil – The Kermit Gosnell Murders” heavily over the last week. CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!

Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life said it is up to the pro-life movement to expose Gosnell to the nation, with the mainstream media largely punting coverage of his trial.
“Our nation is becoming like Nazi Germany,” he said. “The effort to defend Kermit Gosnell, on trial for murder, is a clear sign of this. The evidence against “Doctor” Gosnell is clear.  Not only did he kill a 41-year-old woman, he brought multiple babies into this world and then callously, maliciously and without remorse took a pair of scissors and mercilessly severed their spines and killed them!”

“Kermit Gosnell’s defense attorney is saying there wasn’t enough evidence that these babies were alive after birth.  He got some of the seven charges dropped for the murder of these babies!  As if that takes away the horror of what he did,” he says. “There were in fact many more than the seven.  But a court trial proceeds based on the evidence.  So now the focus will be on the rest of the seven babies and the woman who was killed. The defense will do everything possible to acquit Gosnell altogether.”

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Major Dave Runs On: "One God, One Nation, One Party, One Platform"

A Message from "Major Dave":

I am running for Vice-Chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party to help expand on the victories we achieved at the polls last November. While we are all preparing for additional gains in the coming fall local elections and for the 2014 national election cycle, we cannot take our recent gains for granted and have to do everything we can to preserve those victories.
 
I have selected for a campaign slogan “One God, One Nation, One Party, One Platform”.  I think that accurately describes what truly defines one as a Republican.  That is the basis for unity within the party, not becoming a United Nations-like body where anyone with an opinion gets a seat at the table, because we’ve all seen just how divisive and difficult that body is. The platform defines our “brand” in the marketplace of ideals, and the voter needs to know with great clarity and confidence that what we stand for will not float along on the fickle winds of popular opinion.
 
We have already shown what we can achieve by working together.  It is an awesome foundation for achieving even greater success. I ask for your vote at the State Convention so that I, like you, can bring my talents, passion and skills to bear on keeping our party as the standard-bearer of traditional conservatism.   

I also ask for your donations and support because a campaign like this is very costly for a job that does not come with a paycheck.  You volunteer your time and talents and I am no different.  I hope you will invest a little bit in the future of our party by clicking the “Donate” button and being as generous as you can!  Do it with confidence in knowing that I will do everything I can to remain worthy of that confidence!  Thank you!


Major Dave

For other information and donations instructions go here: 
www.electmajordave.com.


Verne Strickland: Dave Goetze (aka "Major Dave") has proven his mettle to me in his quest to become Vice Chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party. He is a thinker, a worker, a unifier, a Christian, a patriot, a conservative. And there he will stand. I like his message, his sense of honor, duty, and responsibility, and his proven commitment to service. I endorse him in his run for this important post, and urge all GOP faithful to get to know him and support him.