Today, the House Oversight Committee passed a resolution affirming that when IRS Tax-Exempt official Lois Lerner made nine assertions of fact back on May 22nd, she necessarily waived her fifth amendment rights, which she subsequently attempted to invoke. Here is a copy of the resolution that was ultimately passed along party lines.
On a vote of 22-17, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today approved a resolution determining that IRS official Lois Lerner waived her 5th amendment rights when at a May 22, 2013 hearing she offered testimony and answered questions.
“Today’s vote brings us closer to hearing Ms. Lerner’s important testimony about the targeting of conservatives,” said Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif. “The Committee remains focused on hearing Ms. Lerner’s full and truthful testimony.”
Now that we are a step closer to Lerner having to come back to testify in front of the Oversight Committee, perhaps she can be asked about her decision to sign off on the 501(c)(3) application of Barack Obama's half-brother, Malik. Not only did Lerner approve the application in record time but she also illegally back-dated it 38 months, which is a crime.
Here is Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) today, making the case for passage of the aforementioned resolution. As usual, Gowdy shows the adolescents how it's done:
Here is the excerpt from Lerner's testimony on May 22nd, during which Gowdy first called her out for "telling her side of the story" and then invoking her fifth amendment rights. If not for Gowdy's alertness on May 22nd, the resolution that was passed today may never have been drafted:
Earlier this month, IRS Official Lois Lerner invoked her fifth amendment right in front of the House Oversight Committee. Today, at another Oversight Committee hearing, the second IRS Official did so. His name is Gregory Roseman and he is the Deputy Director, Enterprise Networks and Tier Systems Support.
Roseman appears to have had a 'cozy' relationship with the president of a company called Strong Castle, which allegedly received preferential treatment from the IRS, via Roseman. Here is Chairman Darrell Issa's exchange with Roseman, during with the latter initially started to say he chose to 'waive' his fifth amendment right before his counsel caught him.
Now let's go to Committee member, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who never fails to disappoint. In this video, he starts out by pressing Beth Tucker, Deputy Commissioner for Operations Support, about why Roseman was not fired after texting allegedly despicable 'homophobic slurs' in his official capacity with the IRS. Tucker had more than just a little trouble answering Gowdy's questions.
The congressman from South Carolina then turned his attention to Strong Castle President and CEO, Braulio Castillo.
Trey Gowdy is in the wrong job; he should be Attorney General.
First of all, regardless of your feelings about the actions of NSA leaker Edward Snowden, he's not very bright; he believed Obama's campaign promises in 2008. Anyone who couldn't see that Obama was wrong for America even back then, with all of the associations he had (Frank Marshall Davis, Tony Rezko, Rashid Khalidi, Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, Valerie Jarrett, George Soros, etc.), was simply denying reality and wasn't being truthful with himself.
Snowden seems to be someone looking for quite a bit of attention. He revealed his identity when most would prefer to remain anonymous and now he's conducting Q and A sessions via chat rooms to further explain his motives.
That's where we learn that Snowden appears to be an angry, disenfranchised leftist, embittered by Obama's empty promises.
NSA leaker Edward Snowden on Monday criticized President Barack Obama for empty promises in a wide-ranging online interview, saying that the president’s alleged failings influenced his decision to release the secret information on government surveillance.
“Obama’s campaign promises and election gave me faith that he would lead us toward fixing the problems he outlined in his quest for votes. Many Americans felt similarly. Unfortunately, shortly after assuming power, he closed the door on investigating systemic violations of law, deepened and expanded several abusive programs, and refused to spend the political capital to end the kind of human rights violations like we see in Guantanamo, where men still sit without charge,” Snowden said in a response to a question from a commenter on The Guardian’s website.
Ever since this NSA leak was made public, I've seen two very separate - and perhaps equally significant - issues. One is - based on all of the other Obama scandals (particularly IRS-gate,AP Reporter-gate,James Rosen-gate, and now Sharyl Atkisson-gate) - the issue of what the federal government is doing relative to information / data on law-abiding citizens. The credibility gap in this regard is cavernous with this administration; White House Press Secretary Jay Carney is reduced to lying his face off at practically every daily briefing.
The other issue has to do with the legality of Snowden's behavior. Many have seen fit to conflate the other Obama scandals with what Snowden has revealed and deemed him a patriot. I must admit, I'm coming around to Cliff Kincaid's position relative to Snowden's behavior being treasonous, not patriotic. That Snowden has such a bleeding heart for Islamic jihadists in Cuba says quite a bit.
Kincaid looks at both Snowden and the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald, the writer who published Snowden's leaks. Greenwald is a far leftist who, like Snowden, doesn't have a clue about the Islamic threat to America.
The fingerprints of America’s enemies and adversaries are all over the disclosures about the NSA’s terrorist surveillance program. It is significant that NSA contract employee Edward Snowden would flee to Hong Kong—controlled by China—and that he would select Glenn Greenwald, a far-left columnist, as his mouthpiece.
Greenwald, an open homosexual now living with his “husband” in Brazil, came to our attention in 2009 when he proudly received an award named after I.F. Stone, a leftist journalist exposed as a Soviet agent.
After first giving Greenwald and his then-secret source tons of favorable publicity and softball coverage, the media seem to be having second thoughts, with CNN asking about Snowden, “Is this guy a hero or a traitor?” Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, told the channel that Snowden is “a defector” from the U.S.
Former CIA officer Robert Baer told CNN that Edward Snowden may be a Chinese agent under the control of the Chinese regime. Referring to the fact that Snowden has fled to Hong Kong, Baer said the region is “controlled by Chinese intelligence” and that “I’ve talked to a bunch of people in Washington today in official positions and they are looking at this as a potential Chinese espionage case.”
Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian columnist who used Snowden as his source, is no fan of the United States. He specializes in articles protesting tough treatment of terrorists bent on destroying the U.S. and Israel. In an exchange with Bill Maher, a fellow left-winger, Greenwald even disputed the view that Islam is uniquely violent and threatening.
One thing is clear; Snowden broke the law. There are ways for "whistleblowers" to be protected if they follow the proper channels. Snowden did not do this; that is a fact. Indications are that the NSA leaker did what he did out of anger from Obama's left-wing, not out of patriotism.
The IRS Scandal broke one month ago. The FBI allegedly launched an investigation immediately. Yet, today, during a House Judiciary Committee hearing, Director Robert Mueller knew nothing about the investigation; he couldn't even name the lead case agent.
In the film, "The DeadZone" an aspiring, yet wicked politician named Greg Stillson (played by Martin Sheen) is running for a seat in the US Senate when he learns of an editorial that is going to appear in the local paper and will do great damage to his chances of winning. Stillson's goons enlist the help of a harlot to seduce the married writer, which she does successfully when photographs are taken of their encounter and shown to the editorial's author. After Stillson tells the writer to "stay out of the campaign business" in return for him staying "out of the publishing business", the writer wrestles with his conscience and asks, "What if I don't make a deal, Stillson?" As Sheen's character prepares to leave the writer's office, he says, "Oh, you'll make a deal. Otherwise, I'll have Sonny here take you (expletive) head off." - The Case FOR Islamophobia, p. 390
That the Obama administration had the goods on CIA Director David Petraeus and used what it knew to destroy him when he didn't play ball is as close to a self-evident truth as you can get. Perhaps that wasn't just about meting out punishment to a disloyal subordinate. It may have also served as a shot across the bow to others who desperately want to keep their skeletons locked up, regardless of what they are.
As the details about the NSA surveillance program started coming out, Attorney General Eric Holder was asked by Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) if Holder could assure that "no phones inside the Capitol were monitored, of members of Congress".
Holder would not answer the question. As a result, every member of Congress who had Petraeus-like secrets began taking inventory of what the administration might know. This is a perfectly logical conclusion, not simple speculation:
Do you think the majority of Congress (both Republicans and Democrats) have secrets they want kept secret? Do you think that Holder's answer indicated that the administration has information about those secrets? Do you think Congressmen and Senators were able to infer that possibility, based on Holder's answer, Petraeus' treatment, and the scope of the NSA surveillance program?
You betcha.
Consider Barack Obama's operation manual - Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. It is a book he long ago grokked. There are two rules that would seem to apply here:
Rule #4:
Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. “You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”
Rule #8: Keep the pressure on. Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period for your purpose. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this that will cause the opposition to react to your advantage.”
To illustrate usage of Rule #4, we have the virtually empirical evidence that Petraeus was destroyed ("killed") by being made to live by his own book of rules. A four-star General / CIA Director having extra-marital affairs is something he would likely do anything to prevent from coming out. In the case of Petraeus, it appears he either wasn't willing to stretch the lie about Benghazi any further, consequences be damned OR he called the administration's bluff and guessed wrong. This reality is not lost on members of Congress, especially in light of Holder's response to Kirk.
As for Rule #8, if Edward Snowden intended to harm the administration, he may have strengthened it. First, if there was a scandal that was really beginning to do damage, it was the IRS scandal. Attention has been re-directed to the NSA surveillance programs. It may just be that these revelations are not only not harming Obama but giving him the leverage to covertly coerce a majority of individuals in the branch of government that is supposed to keep him in check.
How else can we explain that while the administration is seemingly drowning in a sea of scandals, Obama's immigration agenda is sailing through Congress? Why would Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) totally and completely abandon the constituency without which he never would have gotten elected? Why would Rubio stand with the likes of Schumer, Durbin, and Menenedez... on anything, let alone on such a divisive wedge issue? As I've said before, photo-ops are forever:
Now it's learned that after the NSA surveillance program was leaked, Rubio twists the knife in the backs of conservatives just days later by going on Univision and telling the audience - in Spanish - that legalization comes first, then border security. This is anathema to the radio ads featuring Rubio's voice that have been played during Rush Limbaugh's commercial breaks. Saying one thing in English and another in Arabic Spanish is what Al-Jazeera does; it shouldn't be what a conservative U.S. Senator should do.
What is utterly amazing is that scandal-ridden administrations are supposed to see their agendas dry up, not sped up.
Consider the 'gang of 8' on the House side. A normally conservative congressman - Rep. John Carter (R-TX) decided it was good optics to tour the country with Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), a congressman so liberal that he made the list of 70 who are actually registered with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) caucus. We had his spokesman on the radio show and the rationale goes that if you get the far left (Gutierrez) and the far right (Carter) to work together, you'll find a happy medium. That's insane. It's like arguing that putting dirt in your water will make it taste better.
Again, though, why is a scandal-ridden administration seeing "conservatives" pushing its agenda?
While we're on the subject of the House of Representatives, how about its Speaker? Within just a few short days of the NSA surveillance scandal being brought to light, John Boehner has announced that he expects to have a House Bill on immigration.
From POLITICO, via Hot Air (check the comments to see how conservatives feel about Boehner's position):
After months of coy talk from Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), any sign of planning for legislation is a positive development for reform proponents.
Why would the "coy talk" all of a sudden stop as soon as Holder indicates he may have the goods on any member of Congress who hasn't been able to "live up to his own book of rules"? Again, why is a scandal-ridden administration seeing a Congress continue to push the administration's agenda?
Check out the Senate vote for cloture. At 82-15, it wasn't even close. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) voted to end debate, waving the need for a 60-vote majority before voting on the bill.
Despite the outrage of Tea Party conservatives who have been targeted by the IRS, a majority of Senate Republicans have decided to operate on a now demonstrably false premise which says that Obama was fairly re-elected and that consequently, his agenda should be followed. At the heart of the IRS scandal is strong evidence that voters were disenfranchised. Yet, despite this burgeoning reality, these Republicans are choosing to spend their time and energy doing what their constituents desperately don't want them to do - push forward comprehensive immigration reform (amnesty) at a time when we have every reason to believe that the IRS suppressed these votes.
New developments in the IRS Scandal. Lois Lerner's name is not the only name of an IRS employee on the document that awarded the Barack H. Obama Foundation tax-exempt status. Who's the other name?
Also, is it true that President Obama's brother works for an organization that was founded by an individual who was closely connected to the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing as well as to Osama bin Laden?
We now have empirical evidence that Christian, Jewish, and Conservative groups were targeted (profiled) by the Barack Obama administration's IRS. We also know that the IRS is a civilian law enforcement agency. The head of that agency - Douglas Shulman - visited the Obama White House 157 times during the Obama administration, 118 times after the IRS began profiling conservative groups.
As guest host on the Rush Limbaugh show this week, Douglas Urbanski informed listeners that his IRS sources have confided in him that they expect the agency to begin targeting individuals.
In light of these realities, take a look at these two videos again. Barack Obama in July of 2008:
Weather Underground infiltrator Larry Grathwohl in 1982. Listen to him explain the goals of Bill Ayers, friend of President Obama:
News reporter Ben Swann at WXIX Fox 19 in Cincinnati is one of the best in the business at his level. He's a dogged reporter who doesn't take the path of least resistance. Well, he's done it again. In fact, if the IRS had it to do over agin, it probably wouldn't have selected Cincinnati as the city to house its tax-exempt office.
This is true journalism from a local reporter. Note how Swann presents the organizational chart and explains that Lerner visited the head of the Cincinnati - Cindy Thomas - office multiple times. In fact, Thomas apparently visited the office more than did the woman between those two on the organizational chart - Holly Paz - did.
Pulitzer-worthy, indeed.
Then again, getting a Pulitzer these days is often a badge of shame.
Once again, a man first elected to Congress in 2010, on a wave of Tea Party support (ironic in that IRS treatment of Tea Party groups is at the heart of this scandal), is once again setting the standard for his Congressional colleagues. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) didn't just walk away from today's House Oversight Committee Hearing into the IRS Scandal having best represented the anger of the American people when it comes to the scandal.
He also may have been instrumental in changing the course of future events when it comes to the testimony of IRS official Lois Lerner who, today asserted her fifth amendment rights only after issuing an opening statement that included her proclamations of innocence. Committee Chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) dismissed Lerner when it became apparent that she would not testify. Gowdy spoke up and was quite angry with Issa's decision.
Gowdy was applauded by those in attendance but Lerner was still dismissed:
Now, it appears that Issa will be recalling Lerner, based on her giving an opening statement. If Lerner is recalled, Gowdy will have been instrumental in pushing for it.
Some time after Lerner was dismissed, Gowdy, who was one of the last committee members to get his chance to talk to witnesses, set his sights on former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, who had already taken a beating from both Democrats and Republicans.
When Malik Obama, President Obama’s half-brother, and Sarah Obama, the president’s step-grandmother raised money in the United States, they claimed it was for charity work in Kogelo, Kenya. It was later discovered that not only did the IRS illegally grant one of them (Malik) tax-deductible status retroactively, but in so doing, it supported an operation rife with polygamy and terror recruitment.
The Barack H. Obama Foundation (BHOF) and Mama Sarah Obama Foundation (MSOF), are two entities claiming to be non-profit charities yet solicit funds from the United States. The money they claim is to build homes for widows, orphans and HIV/AIDS victims that are nowhere to be found. The only evidence where monies were spent involves a compound, which housed Malik’s 12 wives with a restaurant including a mosque with a madrassa.
While building mosques is legally considered charity, evidence shows that the entire funding came directly from entities and individuals from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain. There is nothing of charitable nature to show for all the funds Malik raises from the United States. To date, there is no evidence for any accomplishments towards building homes for orphans, widows and AIDS victims in Kogelo or anywhere else in Kenya.
The land, from the visible signs on the property, identifies the donor as “Alislah Society, Bahrain” and “Munadhamat Al-Dawa Alislamiya” (Islamic Da’wa Organization) Mission of Kenya (here). The photos were captured from de-linked web-pages that hadn't been deleted. The mosque building, it turns out, was fully donated by two individuals - “Dr. Muhammad Al-Maneea” from “Saudi Arabia” and “Ali M. Zaghmout” from Qatar (see here,here, and here.)
So what is Islamic Da’wa Organization?
The Middle east media sheds much light never mentioned by western media until now regarding the activism of Malik Obama, the bulk of which documents some troubling realities: Malik’s only active role in charities is within his position as Executive Secretary for the Islamic Da’wa Organization itself, centered in Khartoum, Sudan and according to the home page of Malik’s Kenyan section, we learn its purpose:
“Muslims in Kenya suffer from the great challenge of the tyranny of the church which is known for its aggression…”
All of Malik’s non-profit work seems to involve attending events only in his capacity as executive secretary for Islamic Da’wa Organization. In these reports, Malik is shown actively working with some of the most notorious Wahhabists known in the region, to include Omar al-Bashir, the President of Sudan who also happens to be wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity. At one event where Bashir collaborated with Malik, the Sudanese leader was even spewing virulent rhetoric against the United States.
Al-Riyadh Saudi news reported Malik even meeting with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) “to get to know the work of this global charity, and discuss aspects of cooperation with them”. WAMY is known to have aided Al-Qaeda’s Usama Bin Laden by allegedly funding militants in the Philippines and has also welcomed speakers such as Khaled Mash'al Hamas terrorist leader. WAMY's funds have reportedly wound up in the hands of Hamas terrorists on several occasions.
Even president Obama’s uncle—Sayid Hussein Obama—works for Sarah and is quite active in the notorious Muslim World League (MWL) as reported by Saudi media. MWL has extensive ties to terrorism and numerous connections with al Qaeda operatives. Like Sayid, Malik also works closely with Omar al-Bashir of Sudan. On March 4, 2009 the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Bashir for 7 counts of crimes against humanity. Malik Obama (aka Roy Abongo) is also a U.S. resident and has lived in Washington D.C. since 1985 while traveling back and forth to Kenya.
Sarah’s charity (MSOF) is a similar case; she essentially operates as a non-profit by using California Community Foundation (CCF) in Los Angeles, itself a 501(c)(3) which transfers the funds from the U.S. to Kenya.
In all the countless articles on both Malik and Sarah’s work, there is not a single accomplishment regarding helping HIV/AIDS victims, since aiding these is actually contrary to Wahhabist doctrine. The bulk of the Sarah’s benevolence fund has her fund-raising agent, Musa Ismail Obama (president Obama’s first cousin), explaining how the funds goes toward scholarships destined for Saudi Arabia’s most virulent Wahhabi Sharia centers—the Islamic University in Medina, Umm Al-Qura University in Makkah (founded by Wahhab himself) and Imam Muhammad bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh.
When Al-Jazeera asked, “Do all these scholarships involve studying Arabic and Sharia?” Musa explained, “Some of those do not involve Sharia, like medicine or engineering.” Al-Jazeera then asks, “…but the majority involves what?” Musa answers: “Uuuhhh…. The majority of course is Sharia schools,” adding, “because my connection to the institutions is with Sharia schools.”
Malik is also a philanderer and polygamist who was recorded explaining how he had the mother and brother of one under-age girl named Sheila Anyango, 35 years his junior, sign away the girl to him and can even be seen on video.
Wives testify that Malik had at least 12 wives in total living in the Barack H. Obama Foundation’s compound and that he continually lures underage young girls who attend his mosque. Based on Kenyan standards under-age marriage is illegal and testimonies of alleged wife-beating with at least two cases involving minors. Malik dismisses the wife-beating allegations as being “a matter of interpretation”. By “interpretation” what Malik is referring to is that Sharia permits certain amount of spousal beating and that western interpretation prohibits abuse in all forms.
The physical abuse of women has also been approved by Mama Sarah, who lives nearby. She said the following to a U.K. Guardian reporter last August:
“The wives that are disobedient, they should be beaten.”
Employees working for his charity complain of serious abuses, including breaking minimum wage laws. “He pays his staff at the Obama Foundation less than £5 a week,” nearly half of the standard weekly minimum wage allowed in Kenya (£9.8).
Monies from the U.S. raised by the Obamas in Kenya, go primarily toward aiding Malik’s polygamy compound, running a restaurant, and sending Muslims to madrassas. When he was Secretary of State, Colin Powell testified in 2004, before the House Appropriations Committee that madrassas were breeding grounds for “fundamentalists and terrorists…” On October 16, 2003, in a memo to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other top Pentagon officials, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld posed similar issues regarding the role of madrassas as a breeding ground for terrorism.
Now, president Obama’s own relatives are funding them and no one seems to listen.
Stonewall: to block, stall, or resist intentionally
In the game of cricket, the term stonewall means to:
play a defensive game, as by persistently blocking the ball instead of batting it for distance and runs.
When it comes to getting the truth about the 9/11 attacks in Benghazi that left four Americans dead, the Obama administration has lied - for two weeks, the administration blamed the attacks on a video - and it has stonewalled in the face of countless unanswered questions. In fact, when it became apparent that there were so many breakdowns on so many levels, Republicans from both Houses of Congress requested that select committees be formed.
In the Senate, Republicans are in the minority and Harry Reid has predictably stonewalled these requests because select committees that are formed to investigate scandals that could reach the president's office are much more effective than existent committees. Select committees would be made up of A-listers from various committees that would leverage their own individual areas of expertise. Reid is not going to put that kind of heat on a Democratic president.
Neither is Boehner; the Speaker of the House - a Republican - is stonewalling as well.
Check out what Boehner said last November, via Kerry Picket at Breitbart:
Both Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), along with other Democrats, rebuffed the idea of a joint select committee to investigate the Benghazi attack.
“At this point, I think that the standing committees of the House, whether they be the (State Department) oversight committee or the intelligence committee, are working diligently on these issues,” Boehner said shortly after his Senate colleagues floated the idea in November.
Some may see a bicameral committee (one that consists of both Representatives and Senators) as the best option, the absence of Senators does not preclude a select House committee from being formed. In fact, Rep. Frank Wolf wrote to Boehner in November and asked for that very thing. Boehner stonewalled the request then and is doing so now.
Writes Picket:
Speaker Boehner did not heed Wolf’s call for a select committee in the last Congress. In late January, Wolf refiled the resolution to establish a House Select Committee to investigate the Benghazi attack. Boehner has yet to comment or act upon the resolution.
Breitbart News sent an inquiry to Speaker Boehner's office on Thursday afternoon that has gone unanswered.
When it comes to the details about what happened or didn't happen in Benghazi, the administration is preventing the truth from coming out. That is stonewalling. In Boehner's case, he is preventing the assembly of the best team possible to help reveal the truth. That too is stonewalling.
Are these two forms of stonewalling apples and oranges or are they distinctions without differences?
The answer is the latter. As the Speaker of the House - regardless of Party affiliation - Boehner should be spearheading any attempt to get to the truth about what happened on 9/11/12 in Benghazi. He is doing the opposite; he is doing what Harry Reid is doing.
John Boehner is stonewalling an investigation into Benghazi and when it comes to Boehner, this type of behavior is very predictable; he did the best he could to minimize the impact of the Fast and Furious investigation as well. That it went as far as it did is a testament to the likes of House Oversight Committee chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. They pushed in spite of Boehner, not with his assistance. That was very clear.
In fact, Boehner scheduled the House vote on whether to find Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for not relinquishing documents subpoenaed by the Oversight Committee, on the same day that the Supreme Court rendered its Obamacare decision. As if that wasn't bad enough, on the day of the contempt vote, Obama did what Nixon did in Watergate; he asserted Executive Privilege to prevent the release of those documents.
Boehner protected the President. Period.
Some have suggested that the reason for doing so had to do with not wanting to harm Romney's chances in the 2012 election. Yeah? How'd that work out? The answer should be obvious. Romney lost the election and Republicans, in general, had their clocks cleaned because they chose not to fight. Fast and Furious is the quintessential example of something that warranted a high profile fight, if for no other reason than justice for the victims and their families, regardless of the election. Nonetheless, Boehner chose not to fight and his party lost big.
Benghazi is not all that dissimilar from Fast and Furious. Both involve guns (it's looking increasingly like Benghazi even involved gun running); both involved dead Americans; both involve an administration that is stonewalling the truth; and both apparently involve a House Speaker that prefers to sweep the carnage under the rug.
Imagine a House Select Committee that included members from the following Committees:
Appropriations
Armed Services
Budget
Foreign Affairs
Homeland Security
Judiciary
Oversight
Intelligence
Such a Committee would be formed to investigate the truth about Benghazi from every angle. It would include members who've demonstrated incredible political courage in the Fast and Furious investigation, chaired by the man who was at the tip of that spear:
Chairman: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) Members:
Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ)
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL)
Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID)
Rep. Steve King (R-IA)
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI)
Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI)
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)
Rep. Peter King (R-NY)
Rep. Pat Meehan (R-PA)
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC)
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX)
Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX)
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX)
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT)
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA)
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)
There may be other Republicans worthy of consideration but the aforementioned list consists of those who have proven their mettle. As for Democrats, who cares? They'll be Obama's pawns. They can have whomever they like.
The Benghazi attack / coverup along with Fast and Furious are the Obama administration's two biggest scandals. Both involve dead Americans; one also involves hundreds of dead Mexicans. House Speaker John Boehner fought House Republicans at every turn when they wanted to get to the bottom of Fast and Furious. It was obvious to even the casual observer that Boehner wanted that story to go away.
The main objective of the Democratic Party is to win back the House in 2014. Benghazi is playing out in this election cycle in much the same way that Fast and Furious did in the last one. It could be argued that Republicans lost in 2012 - in large part - because Boehner and other Republican leaders chose not to fight for the truth in the gun-walking scandal. If the Democrats win the House in 2014, it could very well be because Boehner and other Republican leaders chose not to fight for the truth about Benghazi.
The alleged fainting spell and subsequent concussion of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears a bit suspicious when factoring in all of her stonewalling and obfuscation to this point. It all started on September 16th, when U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice - instead of Hillary - appeared on five Sunday talk shows to give demonstrably false information about the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi. Rice said in an interview with NBC's Brian Williams that the reason Hillary 'declined to do it' was because the Secretary of State was too tired after a 'grueling week'.
On November 30th, when Hillary was asked why Rice appeared on those shows instead of her, the Secretary of State responded that she wouldn't answer a "hypothetical" about what could have happened.
No, she really said that (at the :37 mark):
Even MSNBC's resident RINO, Joe Scarborough could see right through this one. Start watching at the 2:40 mark when the Morning Joe Crew airs a snippet of Rice's interview with Williams but pay more attention to Scarborough's reaction afterward. He is convinced that the reason Hillary didn't do those shows was because of a political calculation, not because of fatigue.
Before moving on, time for another illustration of what Scarborough was talking about, via Jim Carrey, who represents Susan Rice in this metaphor:
Back to Hillary...
On October 2nd, the House Oversight Committee sent Hillary a letter asking for answers about why requests for security at the Benghazi consulate were ignored. Her response?
Ignore the letter.
On November 1st, the House Oversight Committee sent Hillary another letter, asking about documents that had come into the possession of the Committee which showed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and officials at the consulate were very concerned about their security on the day of the attack. Her response?
Ignore the letter.
In early November, it was reported that Hillary declined to appear before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the 15th of that month because she would be in Australia.
“She was asked to appear at House Foreign Affairs next week, and we have written back to the chairman to say that she’ll be on travel next week,” said department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. She did not answer a question about whether Clinton would be willing to fly back from Australia to address either the Foreign Affairs panel or the Senate and House closed-door intelligence committee hearings getting to the root of the Benghazi scandal.
On December 10th, it was reported that Hillary would be canceling her trip to the Middle East due to a stomach virus. Three days later, it was reported early in the day that she would be testifying in front of the Senate and House foreign relations committee on December 20th. Later in the day, it appeared that Clinton was backing away from testifying because the Accountability Review Board (ARB) had not completed its report and probably wouldn't by the 20th.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said today that the ARB is not complete, might not be complete by Dec. 20, and Clinton has not agreed to testify on Dec. 20.
“The Hill has talked about a planning date on the calendar. That presumes that the ARB is finished,” Nuland said. “That’s dependent on all of the work getting done between now and then… The ARB is continuing to do its work, to my knowledge it has not yet completed its work.”
Clinton has agreed to brief the House and Senate foreign relations committees on how she interprets the ARB report, whenever it surfaces.
In the wake of this equivocating, pressure was no doubt applied to the State Department by committee members. For one thing, they announced that Hillary would testify because the date was on the State Department's calendar. For another thing, committee members insisted that they have access to the ARB report despite Nuland's claims that all Hillary could agree to was to include Congress in her response to the ARB report. None of that includes how frustrated many committee members are by how long Clinton and the State Department have been stonewalling.
Then, on the morning of December 15th, Hillary faints as a consequence of her stomach virus and gets a concussion.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won't testify to Congress next week on Benghazi, after fainting and suffering a concussion Saturday and due to her ongoing stomach ailment.
"While suffering from a stomach virus, Secretary Clinton became dehydrated and fainted, sustaining a concussion," Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Philippe Reines said in a statement. "She has been recovering at home and will continue to be monitored regularly by her doctors. At their recommendation, she will continue to work from home next week, staying in regular contact with Department and other officials. She is looking forward to being back in the office soon."
Deputy Secretaries of State Bill Burns and Tom Nides will both testify in Clinton's place, according to the office of Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA).
Note how suddenly the readiness of the ARB report is no longer an issue. Bill Burns and Tom Nides are about to assume the same position that Susan Rice did on September 16th and isn't it interesting that they'll apparently be doing it whether the ARB report is completed or not.
One day before Clinton's fortuitous fall, Fox News' Chris Stirewalt wrote the following:
Clinton can hardly leave her post before a replacement is confirmed, so her goal is to keep the Benghazi business from damaging her valedictory weeks at Foggy Bottom.
It’s a tricky task, but as Rice learned and Obama has been taught again, Clinton is not someone to be underestimated.
Perhaps, but a concussion caused by passing out from a stomach virus days before she was set to testify?!
If Scarborough was right about why Hillary didn't appear on those Sunday shows, this latest bit of news is at minimum, very suspicious.
Before sending Rice out to do the talking, Hillary was apparently too tired to do it herself. Now, before sending Burns and Nides out to do the talking, she has a virus that caused her to fall on her head.
One thing should be very, very obvious. Hillary Clinton does not want to talk about Benghazi.
The parallels between Operation Fast and Furious and the 9/11/12 attack in Benghazi continue to mount. The latest example comes courtesy of Kerry Picket. She is reporting that Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who serves on the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, says the State Department is not allowing him to talk to any of the survivors of the Benghazi attack.
Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R- UT) told Breitbart News on Wednesday that he has been “thwarted” by the State Department from seeing any Americans who survived the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi. Many people forget that there were Americans who survived the Benghazi attack, some of whom were badly injured and are still recovering.
“My understanding is that we still have some people in the hospital. I’d like to visit with them and wish them nothing but the best but the State Department has seen it unfit for me to know who those people are—or even how many there are,” Rep. Chaffetz said. I don’t know who they are. I don’t know where they live. I don’t know what state they’re from. I don’t even know how many there are. It doesn’t seem right to me.
So, how is this reminiscent of how the Fast and Furious investigation was handled?
Consider the names Kevin O'Reilly and William Newell. When the DOJ / ATF - led Operation Fast and Furious was at its peak, there were communications between Newell and O'Reilly, who at the time was Director of North American Affairs with the National Security Council (the White House). If one ATF employee could be placed at the center of Fast and Furious, Newell might be that guy.
Here is a very compelling exchange between Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Newell from July 26, 2011 in which Gowdy confronts the former SAC about an email between O'Reilly and Newell. Shortly after this exchange, O'Reilly was transferred to Iraq to work as a State Department employee:
Obviously, after O'Reilly's name was brought into the Fast and Furious scandal, Oversight Committee chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) wanted to talk to him. Here is an exchange between Issa and Fox News Channel's Bret Baier a couple of months after the July 26th hearing:
More than one year later, O'Reilly returned from Iraq to work at the State Department.
Obama administration employee Kevin O’Reilly -- who congressional investigators called “the link connecting the White House to the [Fast and Furious] scandal” -- is back in the United States now after abruptly leaving his White House job to work in Iraq in 2011 after emails concerning him and Fast and Furious had surfaced.
O'Reilly left the United States in August 2011, shortly after his knowledge of the gun-walking program was publicized during a congressional hearing on July 26.
O’Reilly has so far refused to cooperate with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which recently threatened to subpoena him. He also refused to cooperate with the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General, which investigated the program and recently released its findings.
Both the House committee and the Inspector General's office sought to interview O'Reilly about Fast and Furious but the White House refused to grant him permission to be interviewed.
Another curious bit of timing involved the release of the DOJ's Inspector General report just weeks before O'Reilly's return from Iraq, meaning that O'Reilly left for Iraq shortly after he became a person of interest for the Oversight Committee and returned shortly after the DOJ IG issued its final report. Despite this, the White House said that was all coincidence:
In August 2011 -- after the e-mails were first discussed at a July 26 congressional hearing -- O’Reilly was named as the senior director of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Programs in Iraq, a State Department position.
The State Department official told CNSNews.com that O’Reilly’s reassignment to Iraq from the White House “was a standard foreign service career rotation that had been planned for months in advance of his detail to the NSS.” The State Department could not confirm O’Reilly’s new title at the State Department.
So, what do Kevin O'Reilly and the survivors of the 9/11/12 attack in Benghazi have in common? All are State Department employees (presumptively); all were somehow connected to operations that involved the murder of American officials; and all are being prevented from speaking to Congressional committees who want and deserve answers.
(of a proposition) highly conjectural; not well supported by available evidence.
When it comes to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's appearances on five separate talk shows to give the demonstrably false White House talking points, it's not hypothetical; it's fact. It's also factual to say that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not do those interviews. Since we're talking about two factual events of the past, asking a question about why Rice did appear on those talk shows instead of Hillary is not about engaging in a hypothetical.
It's about wanting to know why one decision was made instead of an alternate decision.
Yet, when Hillary was asked why Rice and not her, she actually avoided the question by saying she wouldn't engage in a hypothetical.
Pay attention at the :37 mark for this gem that might just make her husband Bill blush.
"I'm not going to answer any hypothetical questions about what could have happened but didn't happen." - Hillary Clinton on why Susan Rice did the talk shows instead of her.
If she was referring to a point in the future, that's one thing but she's referring to what did and did not happen in the past as 'hypothetical'.
Perhaps another reason why Hillary buttoned her lips on this subject is that the answer has to do with racism. After all, she reportedly prefers John Kerry to Susan Rice for Secretary of State.
Just when you thought the Benghazi-gate scandal couldn't get any more bizarre, a Tampa Bay shock jock named Bubba the Love Sponge makes an appearance. I'm not sure what's more surprising, that or the fact that CIA Director David Petraeus and General John Allen viewed him as enough of a threat to warrant reaching out to State Department socialite Jill Kelley to reach Tampa's mayor in order to prevent the Love Sponge from following through on a pledge to "deep fat fry" a Qur'an.
Does Bubba the Love Sponge Clem have anything to say about the fact that Tampa's mayor called him a "complete moron" in an email to Tampa socialite Jill Kelley?
Does he ever.
"For Bob Buckhorn to call me a moron? I mean, are you kidding me? Let's talk about moron status," the shock jock told the Tampa Bay Times.
So why did Tampa's mayor call the Love Sponge a moron?
Kelley emailed Buckhorn earlier this year, saying then-CIA director David Petraeus and Gen. John Allen were emailing her about a plan Clem had to "deep fat fry" a copy of the Koran. She said Allen was worried that the radio stunt could put troops in harm's way and was going to call her from Afghanistan to discuss a next step.
In an email response to Kelley, Buckhorn wrote, "This Bubba the Love Sponge is a complete moron."
Clem said the people who got him to stop the Koran burning were his lawyer and the heads of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office and the Tampa Police Department. But he said Kelley "probably did get intel to have me stop it, and that's the problem itself."
A Bubba's Army truck circled the Bayshore Boulevard block of the Kelley home for about a half-hour Friday, pumping a parody to the tune of Falco's Rock Me Amadeus about Petraeus.
Ladies and gentlemen, Bubba the Love Sponge is now officially part of Benghazi-gate but the much larger issue is that four star Generals like Petraeus and Allen are more concerned with what a small town Gainesville pastor and a Tampa Bay radio personality do with Qur'ans than what radicals who follow the Qur'an plan to do to us.
Before checking out the video, have a look at the Love Sponge van as it circled Jill Kelley's home while blaring the Rock Me Amadeus parody:
any payment extorted by intimidation, as by threats of injurious revelations or accusations.
If then CIA Director David Petraeus was instructed to give false testimony to Congress in the days after the 9/11/12 Benghazi attack in exchange for his extramarital affair to remain under wraps, that would be a form of blackmail. The payment would be his compliance / false testimony. We now know that Petraeus did in fact give false testimony on 9/13/12.
The attack that killed four Americans in the Libyan consulate began as a spontaneous protest against the film “The Innocence of Muslims,” but Islamic militants who may have links to Al Qaeda used the opportunity to launch an attack, CIA Director David Petreaus told the House Intelligence Committee today according to one lawmaker who attended a closed-door briefing.
The question then becomes: Did Petraeus knowingly give false testimony?
According to the October 26th speech by his alleged mistress, Paula Broadwell, Petraeus knew what was happening "within 24 hours" of the attack. If that can be confirmed, then we can rightfully conclude that Petraeus DID knowingly give false testimony to the House Intelligence Committee.
This leads to a very simple question: Why did he do it?
With hindsight, a few important things have come to light:
The Obama administration wanted to push a narrative that said the attack in Benghazi was caused by a reaction to the anti-Muhammad video, as evidenced by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's five appearances on five different Sunday shows in which she parroted that narrative.
The FBI knew of the affair as far back as last spring.
The amazing thing here is that because these officials had this information and didn't act on it, Petraeus was indeed susceptible to blackmail, not by external forces but by internal ones - the Obama administration itself.
Here is Charles Krauthammer speaking to this very thing on November 13th:
Or how about Lt. Col. Ralph Peters from November 9th:
As has been made clear since news broke of an extramarital affair between CIA Director David Petraeus and his biographer Paula Broadwell, the reason it is significant is because it exposed him to blackmail. Since his resignation, we have been told by pundits and reporters that while the Petraeus affair was unfortunate, it ultimately posed no threat to national security.
Retired Gen. James "Spider" Marks, for whom Broadwell once worked and who knows Petraeus, said he doubts security protocols were breached despite what seems an unlikely indiscretion on the part of Petraeus.
"There's almost zero percent chance that national security was compromised or at risk," he said Monday.
...the affair between former general and ex-CIA director David Petraeus and his biographer, Paula Broadwell, may not have any greater national security implications than the celebrated affair of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor during the filming of “Cleopatra.”
Matthew Miller at the POLITICO, which is essentially a White House ventriloquist dummy, insists that the FBI followed the rulebook in its handling of the matter:
In this case, it appears the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation handled the matter entirely in keeping with those rules and precedents. And, importantly, they passed the most crucial test faced whenever the department investigates a senior member of the existing administration: They conducted the entire investigation without playing favorites and without a hint of political interference.
For the sake of argument, let's assume Miller is right and that the handling of the Petraeus matter by DOJ and FBI was flawless. He doesn't account for one very disturbing possibility.
Paula Broadwell, the alleged mistress of former CIA Director David Petraeus, lives in Charlotte, NC. Yet, for some reason, her Driver's License was found in a Washington, D.C. park.
The woman revealed to have been carrying on an affair with former CIA Director David Petraeus lost her driver's license in a Washington, D.C., park recently, sources tell U.S. News.
A Maryland National Capital Park Police spokesman confirmed that a jogger found a North Carolina license in Rock Creek Park belonging to Paula Broadwell. Park Police planned to hold it for 90 days, per policy, and then send it back to the North Carolina Department of Transportation.
The Park Police also alerted the FBI, says Bill Kellogg, a spokesman for the Park Police. The FBI did not initially return calls for comment on the report.
Broadwell's attorney, Robert F. Muse, confirmed that Broadwell, a North Carolina resident, lost her driver's license in the park.
Of course, if there is nothing to the fact that Broadwell was in Washington, D.C. recently, there should be no problem with telling us all why.
On the other hand, if there is a problem with telling us why, we won't be told.
