Video: Is Juan Williams closer to switching sides?

Juan Williams is a bit of a conundrum; he makes ridiculous left-wing arguments that make you want to scream but he somehow maintains a characteristic of likability and gets along quite well with those whom he disagrees with. At some point, one would think he would wake up and free himself from the grips of left-wing ideology. Perhaps the best case in point was when he was fired by NPR for expressing an opinion about how he felt with sharing a plane with passengers that consisted of men in Muslim garb.

Fox News didn't fire him; it embraced him.

That leads to this very interesting interview between Williams and Ginni Thomas (wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas). As I watched Williams in this interview, I found myself asking one simple question:

How is it that you can have this perspective and yet still be liberal?

For some reason, Juan has identified and acknowledged the groupthink dynamic in the liberal media while not seeing the corresponding flaws in all of liberalism's premises. He doesn't seem to understand that the reason groupthink exists is because liberalism can't exist without it.

One interesting takeaway from the interview happens at the beginning when Williams makes an Archie Bunker reference, admitting that he used to believe that character represented conservatives. As an example of Williams not connecting one more dot, the man who created Archie Bunker's character (Norman Lear) is a hardcore liberal, which makes Bunker a caricature (not just a character) of the right, created with left-wing bias and preconceptions.

It would seem that Williams isn't far from an awakening. Then again, I thought the same thing after he was fired by NPR.

Via Daily Caller:

Is John Boehner stonewalling... on Benghazi?

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.

ATF blows off Letter demanding answers about botched Milwaukee sting operation

The maddening double standard relative to the Obama administration's push for control, coupled with its silence when it comes to the off-the-chart recklessness of its own ATF just continues unabated, in large part because no one of real consequence is calling them on it. If you remember the story about the ATF's keystone cops exercise in Milwaukee a few months ago, one of the several deadly circus acts involved a machine gun being stolen from an ATF vehicle.

Various congressmen - including Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) - has been attempting to get answers. Unlike the administration's non-stop verbal exploitation of Sandy Hook, answers about the ATF operation in Milwaukee (Fast and Furious too, for that matter) are nowhere to be found.

Via Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (h/t Sipsey Street):

Several members of Congress, from both parties, have demanded answers from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives regarding a series of foul-ups in an undercover ATF sting in Milwaukee, exposed in a Journal Sentinel investigation.

So far they have not heard much. In a letter, the congressional members set a deadline for response for Thursday, Feb. 14. A check with several of the congressional offices indicated no response was provided, other than for the agency to acknowledge the letter was received and they are working on it.

The ATF is conducting a "top to bottom" review of the operation, an agency spokesman said last week. ATF did not respond to a call for comment Thursday.

Here is a link to that letter, which required a response by February 14th.

One day before that deadline, Sensenbrenner published an op-ed that said, in part (commentary on what I have bolded and underlined to follow):

Beyond "Fast and Furious" and the recent Milwaukee sting, ATF has had a rocky history. In 2006, ATF Director Carl Truscott resigned due to lavish spending, ethical violations, and questionable treatment of employees. The ATF needs an accountable, Senate-confirmed head just like the other law enforcement agencies under the Department of Justice.

The Obama Administration wants to pass new gun laws and give new responsibilities to the ATF, but the agency has been inept at enforcing the laws that we already have. The agency should have rigorous oversight of their operations, but the recent reports indicate the opposite is true. I look forward to hearing back from the ATF. We need to get answers on the botched Milwaukee operation with the goal of preventing other debacles in the future.

Identifying Fast and Furious as being part of a 'rocky history' is quite pathetic. Fast and Furious was a murderous operation intended to create the climate for gun control in the same way that Sandy Hook has been exploited by the administration.

The second part there is particularly weak on Sensenbrenner's part. Instead of talking about ATF's ineptitude with respect to enforcing existing gun laws, the congressman should be pointing out the blood on its hands as a result of Fast and Furious while contrasting the administration's gun control push based on the actions of a lone gunman in Connecticut.

No wonder the ATF doesn't feel like it has to answer Sensenbrenner. He doesn't seem too interested in going to the mat with them.