Now That CNN Has Defected From The 'Rage Brought On By A Youtube Video A Few Dozen People Watched' Coalition...

On November 9 of last year, I posted a Glenn Beck video wherein Beck he states that the real story behind Benghazi is that the CIA (or rogue elements of CIA) were running guns to Syrian rebels. The original post was entitled "To Be Taken With A Grain of Salt But Certainly More Fact-Based Than The Romney Smears"

Then, as now (and as long as I breathe) I was embittered by the ignoble and dishonest means in which Obama defeated Romney. In short, he did what he always does. He lied and he lied maliciously. Then as now, I believe we should take the high road of honesty but we had to be more negative. Negative falsehoods won the country for Obama and his band of compulsive liars. We should be negative but truthful.

But I digress. I probably would not have posted the vid prior to the election because Beck is not revealing his sources and his claims seemed far-fetched. However, as I have previously noted, Beck's claims were more worthy of daylight than the blatant falsehoods Obama spread against Mitt Romney. So in light of CNN's recent revelations (talk about a shock wave but then again the election is long gone) I decided to repost the Beck video.

As is often the case, the video disappeared from Youtube. Happens all the time. This might be a slightly longer version than the original.
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Beck's assertions remind me of the JFK assassination in that the theories cancel each other out. You cam have Cubans OR the Mafia but you cannot have Cubans AND the Mafia. The president was either derelict of duty or perhaps he just has a soft spot for Muslim terrorists and thus provided the stand down order. However, if the president was up to his neck in gun running, it would seem that he would have done whatever needed to be done to aggressively subdue the attack.

I believed that the president, for whatever reason, could not be bothered with a distraction so trivial and as a result of his indifference, four Americans died. Wasn't this evening in Benghazi referred to as a 'bump in the road?' Thus, I was dismissive of Glenn Beck's gun running accusation.

Then came January and Rand Paul grills Secretary of State Clinton. I was watching the hearing live and my jaw dropped when Paul asked Hillary about Benghazi being a staging area for gun running. Watch this video.



Hillary seems to be taken aback by the direct questioning. She then answers in what might seem to be a non-perjurious manner. But ultimately she denied any knowledge of gun running. Rand Paul took some heat for roughing up his social superior and for getting his questions from the blogosphere. Once more, the blogosphere (and Glenn Beck) are way ahead of the curve.

After  Paul's grilling I anxiously awaited for Benghazi to unravel. I thought by now Congress would have some answers. I heard all sorts of rumors about the Republicans slowing down the investigation to time its conclusion closer to the 2014 election. We were all growing impatient.

Now CNN has broken a CIA covert operations story. Part of me wants to cheer but the better part is saying "what's their angle?" Are they trying to Benghazi off the table once before the 2014 elections? Are they going to scapegoat rogue agents who defied our noble leaders? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

We are approaching the one year anniversary of the massacre. Maybe, just maybe, CNN or Congress or Glenn Beck will connect the dots for us. I can dream, can't I?

Issa scolds Werfel as he announces subpoenas for evidence

Clearly Congressman Darrell Issa has run out of patience with Danny Werfel. I have never seen him this angry. I like the point he makes for all to hear that the lawyers at Office of General Counsel have no right to redact documents as they are the subject of the investigation. This exchange is classic and I'm surprised it's not all over the web.

Newspapers Complain Court Docket in Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Case Missing Entries

What is going on with the Boston Marathon Bombing case? Why all the mystery? Ibragim Todashev who was supposedly a friend of the brothers Tsarnaev was shot to death while being questioned by the FBI. First he was alleged to have attacked the agents with a knife, then it was a sword, then it was a stick. The FBI pumped 6 rounds into his body and then "one to go" through the head. As of late the only news released on the killing is that the FBI has refused to allow the Florida medical examiner to release the autopsy. Funny huh?
Not quite as funny as the federal court in Boston apparently trying to pull off some sort of cover up. GateHouse Media Inc., the parent company of several Massachusetts-based community newspapers wrote a letter to the federal district court objecting that the public docket maintained in the criminal case against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is missing entries.

Wide swaths of court records have been omitted in their entirety from the docket listings,” the letter states. “The incomplete public docket sheet maintained in this case ... does not accurately reflect the materials on file with the Court. As a result, the Newspapers’ constitutionally protected newsgathering and reporting efforts have been frustrated.

The letter further states;

“a presumptive First Amendment right to inspect and copy judicial documents.” That right “ensures that proceedings are fairly conducted, and allows the public to know that the system is working properly. These concerns take on heightened importance in a prominent case such as this,  where public education and the perception of fairness are critical.”

By nature I reject most conspiracies but when a crime is committed by a perp that was on Russia's BOLO list that the FBI ignored, when a material witness to the case is killed by the same FBI, when a mysterious Saudi student goes from being a "person of interest" in the bombing to friend of Michelle Obama and when a federal court can't keep its docket straight, it strains my credulity.

Meet Lindsey Graham's Primary Opponent, Nancy Mace

Meet Nancy Mace the first woman graduate of the Citadel. The South Carolina businesswoman who has written posts for the Daily Caller will face Lindsey Graham in the Republican primary. Mace is a Fort Bragg native who graduated from South Carolina’s military college in 1999, becoming the first woman graduate since the Citadel was founded in 1842. She later wrote a memoir of her experience at the school and runs a public relations firm in Charleston. If she is just half as good as Trey Gowdy or Nikki Haley she will do her state proud. Even if she just half as good she's better than Grahamnesty.

Why I Love The Blogosphere: Day By Day Account Of IRS Scandal

It is a full time job to monitor all the phony scandals emanating from DC. Staying on top of just one scandal is difficult in and of itself. But it can be done, as TaxProfBlog shows us.

I had not heard of TaxProfBlog until this morning. What a grea discovery. Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link. CBS could provide this sort of detailed coverage but they do not. ABC could provide this sort of detailed coverage but they do not. Fill in the blank could do this but they do not.

Part of the MSM's sloth could be attributed to ideology and some of it is just well, sloth. The blogospere is as much about hustle as resources or access. TaxProf is proof of that assertion.
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2013/08/the-irs.html

Benghazi Scandal About To Blow Wide Open

Good work CNN! The phony Benghazi scandal may be about to blow wide open. According to CNN there were dozens of CIA agents in the Annex during the raid. At least 7 were wounded. The CIA has gone to extreme lengths to keep whatever was happening a secret. It subjects some agents to monthly polygraphs. This raises two questions. What was the CIA doing? and who are they trying to keep the secrets from? The terrorists who attacked the consulate obviously knew why they were there so CIA agents are routinely polygraphed and intimidated so the American public will not know. We need a select Congressional committee to investigate this scandal and the IRS.

NRO Reporter Gets Three Obama Phones With Minimal Effort

This is an interesting article about a National Review Online reporter who receives three Obama Phones even though he probably is not eligible. We might be tempted to file this in the government inefficiency file but unfortunately, the facts are more sinister. The phone companies in question are Obama bundlers and we are seeing these crooks enriched for what used to be unlawful behavior.

Where are all the lefties who denounce corporate greed and corporate corruption of the political process. Got time for this one, Cenk? Didn't think so.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/354867/me-and-my-obamaphones-jillian-kay-melchior/page/0/1

The Symbolism Behind Detroit's Bankruptcy

I have never had much use for symbolism in literature. I regard most of it as sophistry propagated by professors and lit teachers with limited writing skills and boundless imaginations. I feel that if Hemingway had wanted to make a point he was literate enough to spell it out in plain English rather than drop literary bread crumbs to be followed for generations after his death until finally Professor of American Literature Zero Nobody at Arizona State University divines the message behind the hidden allegory and tells his inattentive class what Hemingway was trying to say.
When a movie critic writes of bankruptcy the results are predictable. Since the author has not faced the sad fact that bankruptcy is merely the logical result of expenditures exceeding revenues for a protracted period of time he is free to treat bankruptcy as something symbolic. In Why the Right Hates Detroit Andrew O'Hehir writes that the real reason behind the Detroit bankruptcy and the destruction of New Orleans was white America's distaste for jazz.

Is it pure coincidence that these two landmark cities, known around the world as fountainheads of the most vibrant and creative aspects of American culture, have become our two direst examples of urban failure and collapse? If so, it’s an awfully strange one. I’m tempted to propose a conspiracy theory: As centers of African-American cultural and political power and engines of a worldwide multiracial pop culture that was egalitarian, hedonistic and anti-authoritarian, these cities posed a psychic threat to the most reactionary and racist strains in American life. I mean the strain represented by Tom Buchanan in “The Great Gatsby” (imagine what he’d have to say about New Orleans jazz) or by the slightly more coded racism of Sean Hannity today. As payback for the worldwide revolution symbolized by hot jazz, Smokey Robinson dancin’ to keep from cryin’ and Eminem trading verses with Rihanna, New Orleans and Detroit had to be punished. Specifically, they had to be isolated, impoverished and almost literally destroyed, so they could be held up as examples of what happens when black people are allowed to govern themselves.

Watch out Memphis and St. Louis you're next.
My point is any hack writer can write a morality play. Especially when he affords himself this caveat.

Both tragedies were shaped by larger economic forces and historical trends that lay (or at least appeared to lie) beyond the control of individual politicians or policy makers.

Both were beyond the control of individual politicians or policy makers? The politicians who presided over the collapse of Detroit are not to blame but everyone else is? After all;

Speaking broadly, those in city government there inherited an unsustainable situation in a downward-trending economy, pursued their own short-term objectives and only made things worse.)

Inherited an unsustainable situation? Just like Obama inherited all of his troubles from George Bush? And the pursuit of their short term goals lasted for two generation before the inherited mess got the better of them?
This guy is a fiction writer without a plausible plot.

Weiner Comm Director Speaks Candidly

It was explained to me when I was much younger that politicians used communications directors to articulate a candidate's or office holder's convictions and sentiments in succinct, diplomatic, and polite prose as politicians are often given to verbosity, inanity, and profanity. A communications director is a politician's chief diplomat and intermediary to the media. He or she knows how to talk to people. Here's Anthony Weiner's communications director, Barbara Morgan, commenting on a former intern with the Weiner campaign, Olivia Nuzzi.

“Fucking slutbag. Nice fucking glamour shot on the cover of the Daily News. Man, see if you ever get a job in this town again.”

Had Weiner spoken on the subject he may have said something offensive or inappropriate but Morgan wasn't done yet.

“And then like she had the fucking balls to like trash me in the paper. And be like, ‘His communications director was last the press secretary of the Department of Education in New Jersey,” Morgan said. “You know what? Fuck you, you little cunt. I’m not joking, I am going to sue her.”

What a master of the vernacular!
I wonder how Morgan would respond to Weiner's old friend Sydney Leathers' comment to Howard Sterns that Weiner was “a little too busy jacking off to do anything for the city.”

Ibragim Todashev is still dead

I hate to keep harping on this subject but here is this corpse that no one is willing to talk about. Ibragim Todashev has been dead since May 22. No new details have emerged since a few days after Todashev was shot dead with 6 wounds to the torso and a seventh through the crown of his head. The FBI has ordered the Florida medical examiner not to release the results of its autopsy and the FBI continues to stonewall behind the facade of "an ongoing investigation." The story has disappeared from print save an occasional article in the Boston newspapers.
Americans would like to think the best about those who enforce their laws but confidence in the Obama Justice Department is hard to find. It could be that eventually Eric Holder will reckon that the shooting was brought about by Florida's stand your ground law that compelled federal agents to almost empty a magazine on a rather diminutive combatant. Todashev's fighting weight was 154 pounds which would put him about 20 pounds lighter than Trayvon Martin but he was a competitive martial arts fighter. So what? He jumped on top of the three officers and pounded their heads into the concrete?
The ACLU despairing of getting justice from the Obama DOJ, has asked, to no avail, the attorney generals of Florida and Massachusetts to get involved in the case. Naturally Massachusetts' Attorney General Martha Coakley has no interest, Todashev being white and male. Florida officials have maintained all along that they have no standing to investigate but that didn't stop sexy Pam Bondi from attempting to railroad George Zimmerman once his case attracted national attention. Someone is shot to death in her state but she doesn't have jurisdiction? If she were so inclined she could sic Angela Corey on Eric Holder and the FBI.
In the ongoing Whitey Bulger trial in Boston the FBI has been shown to be quite corruptible. Corruption reached not just one or two agents but practically the entire Boston field office. The area where the FBI really excels is investigating itself. According to a New York Times investigation, the FBI has cleared itself in nearly every agency-involved shooting of the past 20 years. Was the Todashev killing an execution? What did Todashev know, if anything, about the strange, youthful Saudi national who went from being a bombing suspect to a friend of Michelle Obama? Something about the Todashev shooting is very wrong but I suspect it will become just another one of the "phony scandals" that bedevil this administration.