Russian Hacking? We've Seen This Movie Before...

The news today is that Barack Obama, with a fortnight left in office, has positioned U.S. special forces in Lithuania at the Russian border in a signal to Vladimir Putin that things like "hacking" our elections will not be tolerated.  Seems legit, right?

Except we've seen this movie before.  The difference is,  last time we weren't saber rattling with a nuclear power, and the administration didn't have a shelf life shorter than a ripe banana.  This is extremely dangerous and reckless behavior.   

Remember Benghazi?  This Russian hacking meme, and the responses to it, are just like what happened after Benghazi.  Back then, the ploy involved an anti-Muslim YouTube video instead of Russian meddling, but the goal was the same: divert attention to cover-up an ugly reality.  

There are always some "tells" with these tactics:  

• Instantaneous determination of the culprit.
• Unanimous talking-point buy-in from all Democrat operatives.
• Over-the-top denunciations of routine behavior.
• Convenient deferrals to the "intelligence community".  (Which, of course, has been thoroughly politicized in the Obama era.)
• Disproportionate and decisive remedial action taken.
• Inability to provide any proof.  
• Claims that proof exists, but exposing proof would jeopardize secret national security sources and methods.

Like Benghazi, there was an instantaneous determination of complicity after WikiLeaks began releasing DNC and John Podesta emails.  It took the Obama administration several years to finally figure out that Major Hassan, screaming "Alahu Akbar" while murdering U.S. military personnel, was actually committing an act of terror.  Yet somehow the administration knew instantly Russia, and specifically Vladimir Putin, was to blame for the emails.  The same administration that couldn't competently launch an Obamacare website with an unlimited budget and years to prepare, knew instantly and with absolute certainty that the easily disguised tracks of a phishing scam led directly to Vladimir Putin.  Does this add up?    

So unanimous was the adherence to this meme, that it became a standing joke whenever a Democrat operative was interviewed during the campaign.  The interviewer would ask a question about some innocuous topic, something like, "So, how's the food on the campaign trail?", and the op would figure out a way to squeeze in a reference to Russians meddling in our election! Anyone paying attention could tell this was a meme being pushed for political expediency...just like the Benghazi YouTube diversion.

Remember after Benghazi how every Democrat operative referred to the YouTube video as "reprehensible",  and then would go on to distance the U.S. government from having anything to do with it?  That was classic straw-man stuff, as no one ever claimed the U.S. government had anything to do with the video in the first place.  With this Russian "hack",  operatives have been using superlatives for how evil and against international norms this alleged hack has been.  Oh really? Not long ago, WikiLeaks disclosed the U.S. government was actually listening to Angela Merkel's cell phone! Now that deserved some superlatives.  And during the last election in Israel, Obama spent a pile of U.S. taxpayer money in an attempt to overthrow Bibi Netanyahu.  All of it wasted, of course. Yet somehow we are to believe Putin is doing something reprehensible?  Putin actually invaded a country recently, and Obama's response?  Nothing.  Remember Anna Chapman?  She was a real Russian spy with an entire spy ring living in the U.S. who got caught in 2010.  Obama's response? Nothing - except she was asked to leave.  Now someone figures-out Podesta's "ultra-secure" password is actually... "password", and Obama is expelling people and sending troops?  Does this make logical sense? 

The intelligence community was somehow coerced into mentioning the YouTube video as a possible irritant for the murders in Benghazi.  We now know that line was Bravo Sierra.  Similarly, the same intelligence community is now pedaling the line about Putin and the Ruskies.  Just as credible, and just as political as last time.  And in both cases, there were dupes in both parties who sincerely bought into the ploy.  

To make the Benghazi ploy look legit, Obama actually did imprison the hapless guy who made the YouTube video.   If only we had a first amendment or something to protect videomakers from being imprisoned for speech!  Oh wait...  Now we are invading countries and expelling diplomats to make the same diversional ploy look legit.  And to sabotage the incoming administration.  

In both Benghazi and the email hack there is a conspicuous lack of proof to support the diversions. And none is forthcoming in either case.  Obama promised a swift response after Benghazi, and then said,  "The perpetrators will be brought to justice!".  Remember how every major network was able to interview the perps within weeks, but it took the Obama military, with a budget in the trillions, years to get one alleged attacker and bring him stateside?  His trial is conveniently scheduled for 2017, long after the election of 2016.  He would certainly know if the attack was really a film critique, and I'm sure he was offered a great deal to publicly finger the video on 60 Minutes.  Of course, any serious observer would know that the compound in Benghazi was attacked on multiple occasions long before the offending YouTube video was ever put online!

In the case of Benghazi, one poor schmuck actually spent a year in prison to divert attention from a terrorist attack and get Obama re-elected.  Now it is a diversion to delegitimize and sabotage the incoming President who threatens to undo eight years of Obama's totalitarian liberalism.  This time the ploy has turned sinister and dangerous.  I sure hope Donald Trump can gracefully dance around all the landmines Barack Obama is putting in his path, because if not, real people could get blown up.

(UPDATE: The company that found the alleged Russian hack, and on which the entire intelligence community assessment rests, is a Google linked company with strong ties to the Hillary Clinton campaign.  CrowdStrike was funded by a division of Google, and Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Googles parent, was a staff member and advisor to the Clinton campaign.)  

    

Hillary's Greatest Crimes

The video below exposes Hillary Clinton's greatest crimes:  First, lying to the families of those killed by her incompetence in Benghazi, and second, jailing a filmmaker in violation of the Constitution to cover-up the lies.  I challenge anyone who watches this video to explain how Donald Trump's transgressions amount to anything close.

But, we've been told that the election is over, voters have made-up their minds, and Hillary Clinton will be the next President.  One reason this may be true is that the media is protecting their candidate at all costs.  Take some of the most damaging clips in this video;  many of them are no-longer available on the original network sites.  It's like they've been wiped clean with BleachBit.  In some cases, I had to rely on clips recorded by third-parties to complete this video.

So you can forget about the media reporting any negative news about Hillary Clinton for the next three weeks.  It's just not going to happen.  That means it's up to you.  The only way a video like this will enter the national conscience is if you make it viral.  Spread it. Share it.  Embed it.  Email it.

Here is the YouTube link:  https://youtu.be/Prw0GZYpdKU    
 

Democrat Fascism & Hollywood Hypocrisy

You would think people who make films would be staunch defenders of free speech.  You would be wrong.  

Hollywood, and the arts community in general, support the Democrat party with near exclusivity. Yet, it is under Democrats that the heavy hand of government interferes most with the work of people exercising their right of free speech.  Richard Nixon may have contemplated using the IRS to go after his enemies, but he never did it, and could not have gotten away with it.  Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama not only do it, but no one holds them accountable - not the media, not the public, not Hollywood, and not academia.   

Below is a list of filmmakers who have been jailed, persecuted, audited, and harassed under Democrat rule for political purposes, or simply for disagreeing.  

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula was put in prison for a year as punishment for making the YouTube video famously blamed by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya.  Hillary Clinton promised the grieving families of those killed that she would imprison Mr. Nakoula.  She did.  Not only do we have a first amendment right to free speech, and therefore should not be jailing filmmakers, but it turned out the Benghazi attack had nothing to do with a YouTube video.   And Hillary Clinton knew it.  Secretary Clinton emailed her daughter, Chelsea, that the attacks were al Qaeda-like terrorist operations.  Another email, to the Libyan President,  confirmed that this was her official understanding of the events in Benghazi.  Yet publicly, and even to the families of those who died, she blamed Mr. Nakoula.  

This leads to only one conclusion: Hillary Clinton jailed a filmmaker for a year to cover for her failure to provide the necessary security in Benghazi, to add legitimacy to her lie about the attack being about a video, to maintain the fiction that she and Obama had defeated terrorism, and to deceive the American people before an election.     

Dinesh D'Souza: Mr. D'Souza admitted he gave more money than was legally allowed to a college friend who was running for office.  He gave $20,000 while the legal limit was $5,400 for a couple. More importantly though, he made a couple of anti-Obama films in 2012 and 2013.  As a result of the ostensible campaign finance violation, he was confined for eight months, put on five months probation, and forced to undergo psychological counseling.

Mr. D'Souza was the first person in the history of campaign finance law ever to be confined for an offense such as this.   

Here's what liberal Harvard legal scholar Alan Dershowitz said about his conviction and sentence:  

“The idea of charging him with a felony for this doesn’t sound like a proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion.... I can’t help but think that [D'Souza's] politics have something to do with it.... It smacks of selective prosecution.” He went on to say such alleged campaign violations are common in politics.

Dinesh D'Souza has a new film called "Hillary's America" that is doing quite well and may land him in jail again.

David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt:  These two were behind the Planned Parenthood undercover videos made by The Center for Medical Progress.  Barack Obama himself made a point to single them out.  As part of their cover they used fake IDs that somehow became a pretense for felony charges, a raid on Daleiden's home, and seizures of his property.

“To storm into a private citizen’s home with a search warrant is outrageously out of proportion for the type of crime alleged,” said Matt Heffron a former federal prosecutor who is now Daleiden’s legal adviser. “It’s a discredit to law enforcement, an oppressive abuse of government power.”

Recently, all charges in Texas were dropped against Daleiden.  But the damage was done, his funding depleted, CMP has been sidelined, and the harassment succeeded.  Charges in California have yet to be resolved.

Joel Gilbert:  Mr. Gilbert made an anti-Obama film called "Dreams From My Real Father".  It drew the ire of Democrats on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) who voted unanimously to punish Mr. Gilbert.  When Republicans stood firm and pointed out that liberal filmmakers such as Michael Moore were not similarly harassed, the punishment was eventually blocked.  Were it not for the split FEC, Mr. Gilbert would have been sanctioned simply for making a movie critical of Barack Obama.

James O'Keefe, Joseph Basel, Robert Flanagan, and Stan Dai: These people were part of James O'Keefe's undercover video organization, Project Veritas, the organization that single-handedly took down one of Obama's favorite community organizer activist groups, ACORN. They went on to investigate Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu and ran afoul of the FBI while trying to make a film about her. They eventually settled for misdemeanor charges and accepted probation, fines, and community service.

O'keefe has also been harassed by Obama's DHS for making films about the open Mexican border, and was just blocked by Twitter for releasing videos critical of Democrats and Hillary Clinton.

Logan Clements: Mr. Clements made a movie called "Sick and Sicker...", an unflattering portrayal of Obamacare.  For his disloyalty he was handed his first ever IRS audit.   

Breitbart News:  Breitbart News also earned their first IRS audit.   Breitbart is a multi-media internet megaphone that is foursquare opposed to Clinton and Obama's policies.  In this election cycle they are all-in with Donald Trump.  (Also, see David Bossie below who contributes occasionally to Breitbart.) 

Glenn Beck, Pat Grey, and Scott Baker:  Glenn Beck and his Blaze Network don't just make videos, they have an entire broadcast network, publish books, run a website, and do talk radio,  all of which oppose Clinton and Obama policies.  So yeah, these guys all got their first IRS audits .  But that's not all.  Glenn Beck's top sponsor, GoldLine, was targeted by Democrats, specifically congressman Anthony Weiner, husband of Hillary's right hand person Huma Abedin, and a known political hit-man for Democrats and Obama.  Weiner resigned his House seat in scandal, but his (ex?) wife will play a major role in a possible Clinton administration.

David Bossie and James Bopp:  These men were behind the Citizens United SCOTUS case. David Bossie runs CU and James Bopp was the lawyer who defended the first amendment. The case centered around CU's right to make and show a film, in this case an unflattering portrait of Hillary Clinton. They won the case at the SCUTUS, but ran afoul of Obama and the entire Left who believe the first amendment only applies to Michael Moore and The New York Times. Hence, in front of the entire world, during a state of the union address, Barack Obama publicly berated the justices who upheld the first amendment rights of filmmakers, thus sending a message to justices, filmmakers, and supporters of people who make films: oppose me and I will use the Bully Pulpit to bully you.

No list like this would be complete without mentioning Obama's number one target in the media and film world - Fox News.  Fox has been singled-out and harassed personally by Barack Obama on numerous occasions.  These attacks send a clear and chilling message to sponsors:  Advertise on Fox and you will be the target of restrictive regulations, IRS audits, and federal harassment.

By some definitions, this is the very essence of fascism.  Perhaps someone in Hollywood should make a movie?  I won't hold my breath...    

All Lies Matter, But Not All Are Equal

As I have stipulated many times, Donald Trump is full of shit.  In his own book, "The Art Of The Deal", he talks about the use of hyperbole (bullshit) and its limits.

"You can't con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don't deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on."

Many times during this race Trump has thrown in "a little hyperbole".

But let's compare that to Hillary Clinton.  Her lies are infinitely more significant.  She has lied in her capacity as a First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State, about really important things like people being killed, national security, classified information, corruption, selling state access, and on and on and on.

Hillary Clinton demonstrated her jaw dropping capacity for absolutely inexcusable lies just this past Sunday while talking to Chris Wallace.  Watch the side by side comparison of Hillary talking to Wallace vs. her taped comments the day the Benghazi coffins arrived in the U.S.:



Remember, Hillary also promised to lock-up the filmmaker, which she actually did!  Nakoula Basseley Nakoula was imprisoned for a year.


    

Barack [REDACTED] Obama's Filmmaker Enemies List

The House Benghazi report was released today, and it proves among other things that blaming the attack on a film was an Obama and Clinton lie.  To help legitimize the lie they went so far as to arrest the filmmaker, convict him on dubious tangential charges, and jail him for a year.  

Nakoula Baselley Nakoula, an Egyptian born Christian, was the ultimate political prisoner.    He was imprisoned to distract from the failure of Obama and Clinton to protect and defend their people in Libya, and to divert attention from the increasing risk of Islamic terrorism which they claimed to have defeated.   The diversion worked and they got reelected.     

But Baselley is just one of many filmmakers harassed by Barack [REDACTED] Obama and his surrogates.  Here is a list of some of the others:  

Joel Gilbert, Dinesh D'Souza, David Daleiden, Sandra Merritt, James O'Keefe, Joseph Basel, Robert Flanagan, Stan Dai, Logan Clements, Breitbart News, Glenn Beck, Pat Gray, Scott Baker, David Bossie, James Bopp, and Fox News. 

Remember those are just the filmmakers.  Others who write books, blogs, screenplays, articles, do comedy, make music, do talkshows, or run businesses have also been audited by the IRS, raided by various government agencies, or targeted by leftist surrogates under the Obama regime.

Here are the basic details of the harassed filmmakers listed above:

Joel Gilbert:  Mr. Gilbert made an anti-Obama film called "Dreams From My Real Father".  It drew the ire of Democrats on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) who voted unanimously to punish Mr. Gilbert.  When Republicans pointed out that liberal filmmakers like Michael Moore were not similarly harassed by GOP FEC members, the move was eventually blocked. Were it not for the split FEC, Mr. Gilbert would have been punished for making a movie critical of Obama.

Dinesh D'Souza: Mr. D'Souza admitted giving more money than was allowed by federal law to a friend who was running for office.  More importantly though, he made a couple of anti-Obama films in 2012 and 2013.  As a result of the ostensible campaign finance violation he was confined for eight months, put on five months probation, and forced to undergo psychological counseling.   Here's what liberal Harvard legal scholar Alan Dershowitz said about his conviction and sentence:  

“The idea of charging him with a felony for this doesn’t sound like a proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion.... I can’t help but think that [D'Souza's] politics have something to do with it.... It smacks of selective prosecution.” He went on to say such alleged campaign violations are common in politics.

David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt:  These two were behind the Planned Parenthood undercover videos made by The Center for Medical Progress.  Barack [REDACTED] Obama himself made a point to single them out.  As part of their cover they used fake IDs, and that somehow became a pretense for felony charges, a raid on Daleidon's home, and seizures of his property.

“To storm into a private citizen’s home with a search warrant is outrageously out of proportion for the type of crime alleged,” said Matt Heffron a former federal prosecutor who is now Daleiden’s legal adviser. “It’s a discredit to law enforcement, an oppressive abuse of government power.”

James O'Keefe, Joseph Basel, Robert Flanagan, and Stan Dai: These people were part of James O'Keefe's undercover video organization, Project Veritas, the organization that single-handedly took down one of Obama's favorite community organizer activist groups, ACORN. They went on to investigate Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu and ran afoul of the FBI while trying make a film about her ignoring her constituents during the Obamacare run-up. They eventually settled for misdemeanor charges and accepted probation, fines, and community service.  O'keefe has also been harassed by Obama's DHS for making a movie about the open southern border.

Logan Clements: Mr. Clements made a movie called "Sick and Sicker...", an unflattering portrayal of Obamacare.  For his disloyalty he was handed his first ever IRS audit.  Coincidence?  You judge.  

Breitbart News:  OK, this could also be coincidence, but Breitbart News is a multi-media powerhouse that is foursquare opposed to Obama's policies.   They also coincidently earned their first IRS audit.  (Also, see David Bossie below who writes for Breitbart.) 

Glenn Beck, Pat Grey, and Scott Baker: Ditto above.  Glenn Beck and his Blaze Network don't just make videos.  They have an entire broadcast network, publish books, run a website, and do talk radio. All of it opposes Barack [REDACTED] Obama's policies.  So yeah, these guys all got their first audits by the IRS.  But that's not all.  Beck's top sponsor was targeted by Democrats and specifically by congressman Anthony Weiner, husband of Hillary's right hand person, Huma Abedin, and a known political hit-man for Democrats and Obama.  Weiner resigned his House seat in scandal, but his wife will play a major role in a possible Clinton administration.

David Bossie and James Bopp:  These men were behind the famous Citizens United SCOTUS case. David Bossie runs CU and James Bopp was the lawyer who defended the first amendment. The case centered around their right to make a film, in this case an unflattering portrait of Hillary Clinton. They won the case at the SCUTUS but ran afoul of Obama and the entire left who believe the first amendment only applies to Michael Moore and The New York Times. Hence, in front of the entire world, during a state of the union address, Barack [REDACTED] Obama publicly berated the justices who upheld the first amendment rights of filmmakers, thus sending a message to justices, filmmakers, and supporters of people who make films: oppose me and I will use the Bully Pulpit to bully you.

No list like this would be complete without mentioning Obama's number one target in the media and film world - Fox News.  Fox has been singled-out and harassed personally by Barack [REDACTED] Obama on numerous occasions.  These attacks sent a clear and chilling message to sponsors.  Ask yourself this: would you advertise on Fox News if you knew restrictive regulations, IRS audits, and federal harassment were disproportionately doled out to Obama's enemies?   Ironically, Fox just broke a record high for viewer ratings.

Are all these just coincidences?  You decide.

UPDATE:  If the subject of Obama's enemies lists interests you, read this piece by Mark Hyman in the American Spectator, Obama's Enemies List, written one month after he took office.  And this follow up, Obama's Enemies List Grows.  Oh, and this one too, Obama's Real Enemies List.      

   

Faux News Exposed!

According to Barack Obama, Fox News is Faux News.  They can't be trusted.  They make stuff up. He mocks them, ridicules them, and uses his DOJ to harass their reporters.  He has been a harsher critic of Fox News than of ISIS.

This weekend we learned that there actually is a ton of faux news out there, but it's not coming from Fox.  It's coming from the Obama administration, and they are proud of it!  Just when we thought the Obama presidency couldn't be more like bad fiction, we learned that the guy running Obama's foreign policy is actually an aspiring novelist who regularly feeds fiction to the gullible and overwhelmingly liberal press.  (If that sounds like hyperbole to you, you may not know that there is not a single Republican covering this President.)  Can't make this stuff up, folks.

Remember that lame story about Benghazi being about a video?  Remember that lame story about the Iran deal being about nuclear weapons?  Turns out these were false narratives spun out of whole cloth from Obama's propaganda shop.  We learned about this only after Obama's foreign policy novelist bragged about it in a NY Times Magazine piece that ran Sunday, May 8th.  He refers to himself as a "ventriloquist"  feeding lines to the Washington press corps.  (The "p" is silent for you  MSNBC, NPR, and NYTimesers)  They lap up the fictitious narratives and repeat it out to the masses as in an "echo chamber".  (Everything in quotes, for those of you "27 year olds... who know literally nothing", is actually from the mouth of Obama's novelist.)   

As if that wasn't enough of an affront to both the credibility of Barack Obama and his stenographers in the media, we also learned that Facebook is suppressing conservative news stories and promoting liberal ones.  The guy in charge of this operation at Facebook is an Obama/Clinton donor.  Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, who run the whole enchilada, make no secret of their leftist politics, yet they sanctimoniously claim Facebook as a paragon of transparency and fairness.   (Gee, I wonder if this post will be trending on FB anytime soon?)

And just today, James Rosen, one of the few adults in the Washington press corps., and a Fox News reporter, discovered that eight minutes of his questioning of a State Department spokesperson in 2013, where she openly admits the State Department misleads the American people, was mysteriously edited out of the official video record. These are Soviet tactics, folks!  This is banana republic stuff!  Without all the delicious bananas, of course.  

In other words,  the only news bureau not taking dictation from Obama's propaganda shop is ironically the one they refer to as "Faux News".  

Again, can't make this stuff up.

Here's a summary of all this:

Dude, Benghazi Still Matters!

(Originally posted May 7, 2014)

According to the “Obama-Is-Awesome” crowd, Benghazi doesn’t matter.  It’s old news, the election’s over, Fox is the only network that cares, nothing can bring back those who died, it’s all about politics, what difference does it make, move on dot org, let’s focus on jobs, look, the Koch brothers, and go Hillary 2016! 

Dude, Benghazi still matters.  Some are calling the Ben Rhodes email a smoking gun.  Yes it is, but not just for what it says.  The Ben Rhodes email proves illegal activity on the part of the Obama Administration.  Remember, this email was part of a previous subpoena but was withheld by the administration.  A judge forced its release as part of another subpoena from a private lawsuit.  At this rate there could be hundreds of such documents. This renders all previous hearings and investigations null and void.  It is abundantly clear that there has been a twenty-month campaign by the Obama administration to stonewall and cover-up the truth.  Innocent parties don’t behave this way.  And it is illegal to ignore a subpoena.

The content of the withheld email along with recent testimony contradicts everything the administration has been telling us.  They were involved in pushing the YouTube video story.  They did edit the talking points.  They did know an al Qaeda affiliate called Ansar al-Sharia was responsible.  They knew there was no demonstration about a video in Benghazi.

Moreover, they have never revealed why requested security was denied and who was responsible.  They have never told us why Chris Stevens and the CIA were in Benghazi.  They have never explained Barack Obama’s whereabouts during the attack and involvement in the decision not to attempt a rescue.  They still have not brought justice to the murderers - no one has been captured or punished - despite several journalists being able to locate and interview the perpetrators.  A filmmaker was jailed for a full year as a result of this alleged deception.  $70,000 in taxpayer funds was spent on ads in Muslim countries to apologize for a YouTube video. 

The Presidential oath of office begins with the line “I do solemnly swear to faithfully execute the Office of The President…”  The definition of faithfully is “in a manner that is true to the facts…”  Just in recent history Richard Nixon lost his job because he did not act in a manner true to the facts.  Bill Clinton was impeached for the same offense.  No one died in either case.  Did Barack Obama know the truth about Benghazi and then lie to the American people to cover-up his incompetence in the face of a re-election campaign?  This matters, and Presidents have lost their jobs over it. 

The second line of the Presidential oath regards the obligation to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution…”  If the YouTube video was a deception to cover-up incompetence, then jailing a filmmaker to support the deception clearly violates the Constitution.  If the video was a deception, then the $70,000 spent on running ads in Muslim countries was a theft of taxpayer funds for purposes of winning an election. 

Hillary Clinton aspires to swearing the same oath as Barack Obama.  She swore a similar oath as Secretary of State. 

Dude, Benghazi still matters, and learning the truth is the right thing to do.

(UPDATE:  Since 5/7/14 thousands of illegally hidden emails have been discovered pertaining to this matter.  There are still thousands more illegally withheld as part of the stonewall put up by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.  What they are hiding is the subject of these hearings, and it should be.)    

Je Suis Nakoula Basseley Nakoula

Hey, I think it's great that so many are showing solidarity for free speech in the wake of the massacre at Charlie Hebdo by Islamic extremists. But, how many spoke out after Benghazi when those murders were blamed, not on the attackers, but on a guy who posted a video on YouTube? Obama made a speech at the UN and all but blamed Nakoula Basseley Nakoula in front of the world saying, "The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam". Then he had him arrested and put in jail for a year. No one said a word.

I spent $1.5T & 640 days, and all I got was this lousy terrorist!

Indeed.

Why The VA Is So Screwed Up, And Why It’s Obama’s Fault

Unless you get your news from NBC, CNN, ABC, New York Times, Comedy Central, CBS, Washington Post, LA Times, MSNBC, or al Jazeera, you probably know that the Veterans Administration has death panels and secret waiting lists which are killing veterans, or more accurately, letting them die rather than doing the hard expensive work of treating them, healing them, and prolonging their lives.  In other words, the VA is performing exactly as designed.  Come to think of it, the entire federal bureaucracy is performing exactly as designed.  The IRS, Fannie and Freddie, The State Department, Obamacare (HHS), The Obama Administration, and all the rest in this “mismanaged carnival of stupidity” (to repurpose Alec Baldwin’s words) are all performing exactly as designed.  What’s more, it’s all Obama’s fault. 

No, I’m not suggesting that President Barack Obama himself is making the day to day decisions at the VA, HHS, IRS, or any one of the alphabet soup exemplars of tragic dysfunction which we call government.  He is far too busy watching college hoops, fundraising, partying with Jay Z, golfing, and dishing one-liners from behind a teleprompter to be involved in running anything.  Running stuff is icky and hard.  Besides, Obama doesn’t ever want to risk having his fingerprints on any part of this travesty.  Yet despite his attempts to float above the mess, his signature is everywhere, for he is the modern ideological leader of totalitarian big government and has been it’s most ardent champion since coming on the national scene. 

Barack Obama is a perversion of King Midas:  everything he touches gets nationalized.   Got a problem with student loans?  Nationalize it.  Got a problem with health insurance?  Nationalize it.  Got a problem with housing?  Nationalize it.  (Don’t forget: as Senator, Barack Obama was known as the “Senator from Fannie and Freddie”.)  Got a problem with curriculum?  Nationalize it.  Got a problem with anything, the answer is always the same: nationalize it.  And when you nationalize it, you politicize it.  Hence, everything becomes political. 

You would think the VA is a healthcare system for veterans.  You would be wrong.  The VA is first and foremost a jobs program for political constituents that was originally set-up to treat veterans but now does so as an afterthought.  You might think Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were mortgage companies for the poor.  You would be wrong.  Fannie and Freddie are first and foremost political operations that originally were set-up to provide mortgages for the poor but now do so as an afterthought.  This goes for Obamacare, student loans, the IRS, and every other agency, policy, statute, and corner of the federal government under this President and those before him who shared his philosophy. 

The framers of our constitution knew this could happen.  They knew totalitarianism and all-powerful government would politicize everything and turn it into a horror show.  That’s why they gave us a “charter of negative liberties” which says “what the federal government can’t do to you…” (to borrow Barack Obama’s own derisive words.).  The constitution specifically limited federal power.  It was a check on totalitarianism and a wall against nationalizing and politicizing everything.  Well, it used to do that anyway.  Not so much anymore. 

No president in our history has openly denigrated the concept of limited government and done more to deliberately undermine it than this president.  Dead veterans, dead ambassadors, more than a doubling of dead soldiers in Afghanistan, death panels, a government weaponized for political purposes, and a mismanaged carnival of stupidity from top to bottom are the inevitable result. 

Dude, Benghazi Still Matters

According to the “Obama-Is-Awesome” crowd, Benghazi doesn’t matter.  It’s old news, the election’s over, Fox is the only network that cares, nothing can bring back those who died, it’s all about politics, what difference does it make, move on dot org, let’s focus on jobs, look, the Koch brothers, and go Hillary 2016! 

Dude, Benghazi still matters.  Some are calling the Ben Rhodes email a smoking gun.  Yes it is, but not just for what it says.  The Ben Rhodes email proves illegal activity on the part of the Obama Administration.  Remember, this email was part of a previous subpoena but was withheld by the administration.  A judge forced its release as part of another subpoena from a private lawsuit.  At this rate there could be hundreds of such documents. This renders all previous hearings and investigations null and void.  It is abundantly clear that there has been a twenty-month campaign by the Obama administration to stonewall and cover-up the truth.  Innocent parties don’t behave this way.  And it is illegal to ignore a subpoena.

The content of the withheld email along with recent testimony contradicts everything the administration has been telling us.  They were involved in pushing the YouTube video story.  They did edit the talking points.  They did know an al Qaeda affiliate called Ansar al-Sharia was responsible.  They knew there was no demonstration about a video in Benghazi.

Moreover, they have never revealed why requested security was denied and who was responsible.  They have never told us why Chris Stevens and the CIA were in Benghazi.  They have never explained Barack Obama’s whereabouts during the attack and involvement in the decision not to attempt a rescue.  They still have not brought justice to the murderers - no one has been captured or punished - despite several journalists being able to locate and interview the perpetrators.  A filmmaker was jailed for a full year as a result of this alleged deception.  $70,000 in taxpayer funds was spent on ads in Muslim countries to apologize for a YouTube video. 

The Presidential oath of office begins with the line “I do solemnly swear to faithfully execute the Office of The President…”  The definition of faithfully is “in a manner that is true to the facts…”  Just in recent history Richard Nixon lost his job because he did not act in a manner true to the facts.  Bill Clinton was impeached for the same offense.  No one died in either case.  Did Barack Obama know the truth about Benghazi and then lie to the American people to cover-up his incompetence in the face of a re-election campaign?  This matters, and Presidents have lost their jobs over it. 

The second line of the Presidential oath regards the obligation to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution…”  If the YouTube video was a deception to cover-up incompetence, then jailing a filmmaker to support the deception clearly violates the Constitution.  If the video was a deception, then the $70,000 spent on running ads in Muslim countries was a theft of taxpayer funds for purposes of winning an election. 

Hillary Clinton aspires to swearing the same oath as Barack Obama.  She swore a similar oath as Secretary of State. 

Dude, Benghazi still matters, and learning the truth is the right thing to do.  

About Those International Norms...

Barack Obama says military intervention is justified in Syria in order to enforce “international norms”.  He then argues it is in the US’ direct interest to enforce these norms in order to send the right message to other bad guys.  Finally he says the US’ credibility is on the line because it is important that we “mean what we say”.  I agree with all of these arguments, however Barack Obama does not. 

For the moment let's pretend that all the hypocritical things Barack Obama said before he became President were the innocent musings of an amateur.  Things like:  he would never go to war unless the US was attacked or one was imminent, he would never go to war without the world by our side, he would negotiate with any dictator before starting a war, he would never go to war without congress, Iraq was a "war of choice" and he would never take military action by choice, etc., etc., etc.  Let's separate all that from the context of Syrian intervention and just look at the pure merits of the current arguments.  They still make no sense coming from this commander in chief. 

All we need to do is look back less than a year.  Recall, the Libya operation was based on similar arguments about "international norms" and "meaning what we say":  here was another bad dictator, another case to prevent horrific casualties, another promise it would be a “matter of days”, another “responsibility to protect”.  So off we went, without congress of course, to maintain a UN no-fly zone over Libya.  (Only that was a ruse.  In reality, it was regime change, and that’s what we eventually got after 8 months.)  If that’s where it ended, we could say “mission accomplished”, albeit late and under false pretense.  But that’s not where it ended. 

Any positive message which might have come from following through on our promise to enforce international norms in Libya, and showing that we mean what we say, was squandered in whole on September 11^th 2012 in Benghazi.

Is not the murder of an Ambassador against international norms?  Didn’t Obama say he’d “find those responsible and hold them accountable”?  Isn’t it vital to hold them accountable to send a message to others who would do us harm?  Isn’t it important to mean what we say?  We have the murderers on video for God's sake, yet there has been no attempt to bring them to justice!       

It's not like they are hard to find.  CNN had no trouble locating the leader of the attack and interviewed him for hours in a café in Benghazi!!!  What message did Obama send by failing to respond to Benghazi, other than jailing a Christian videomaker, critical of Islam, who had nothing to do with the attack?  What message did this send to Assad, Iran, and the other bad guys? 

Barack Obama’s arguments make no sense in the context of his actions in just the last year.  Forget his mind-blowing hypocrisy before that.  It would be a travesty of historical proportions to grant this commander in chief authority to shoot missiles into Syria.  The only thing he is qualified to shoot... is hoops.  

Obama is Awesome!

Obama is still awesome, despite a few pesky scandals.  (feel free to share!)

Bully Pulpit