Just made it out of LA before the Obama-supporting SEIU labor union decided to thank all the Obama supporters in Los Angeles by shutting down LAX on Thanksgiving, the busiest day of the year for air travel.
I know it shouldn't, but the sight of all those Obama voters having their holiday ruined by Obama's union thugs gives me a little secret "thrill up my leg." That is what you wanted, that is what you got, and we are just getting warmed up! Next up, the fire fighters, the cops, the bus drivers, the prison guards . . . Come to California if you want a good glimpse of what the Obamistas have in mind for the rest of the country.
Welcome to Britain 1971! The same mentality that almost succeeded in turning the UK into a hollowed out offshore slum of Europe is now loose and ruling in America. Not sure if we will have a Maggie Thatcher to rescue us.
And it gets worse.
The Benghazi gate might be shutting. Perhaps some fascinating and relevant stuff is being revealed in the classified hearings, but from what I am hearing, the Obamistas are sidetracking the investigation, stalling, citing spurious national security reasons, and just letting the air go out of the balloon. More or less the same tactics they have used successfully in derailing the Fast and Furious scandal, with added plus in the Benghazi mess they have a salacious angle missing from the F&F scandal.
Obama's America is not a happy place.
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Travel and Reprise
I am heading back to Miami for a few days to see what's going on with my house and my kids in college there. I will take the IPad with me, but am absolutely horrible at blogging with it. I'll try. I want to write something about Benghazi and my sinking feeling that Obama has gotten away with it.
Anyhow, just to show you that I am not always wrong, I run a piece here that I wrote in May of 2011, some eighteen months ago, in which I laid out the key difficulty that would face the GOP in the November 2012 elections--note the last paragraph in particular.
Here it is,
Spent a considerable time this weekend reading about the very serious crisis of the Euro. Different analysts grade the severity slightly differently, but all seem in agreement that the Euro, as we know it, is doomed. The most dire scenarios see the whole EMU (Economic Monetary Union) blowing apart, while the most optimistic see Greece, Portugal, perhaps one or two other "Southern" economies separated from the Euro (the numbers, and who exactly gets kicked off the island depend on whom you read), and the currency is reserved for the core "Northern" economies.
This reading then led me to a great deal of reading about the almost equally serious crisis affecting our own dollar. Then, I read about the crisis affecting the British pound. It was an intense amount of very depressing reading: I really need to get out more.
None of the sophisticated and highly technical analyses I read, however, picked up on the real source of the crises facing the major currencies, and, in fact, our core economic well-being. It all comes down to a very simple and basic fact. The western nations have developed societies where those who pay for government services, in general, are not the ones benefitting from the services. In the United States, for example, we have the top one percent of earners paying 38-41% of all Federal income tax. We have nearly half of Americans who pay no income tax, and another large percentage 15-20% who pay minimal income tax (and lets not even get into "Earned Income Tax Credits".) We essentially have a society where some 25% of the income earners pay close to 90% of all Federal income taxes. That 25% does not consume anywhere near 90% of the services provided by the Feds.
You can argue until you're blue in the face that this imbalance is "fair" because those who make more SHOULD pay more. Whether, however, you are "right" or "wrong," in socio-political terms this imbalance has set up a clash between those who pay and those who do not. To varying degrees, it is this clash we see played out in the US and Europe. In Spain, for example, huge crowds of "protestors" take to the streets demanding, well, demanding more from the state. This in a country with an unemployment rate of over 21%, and some of the most generous public benefits anywhere on earth, benefits that do not make it worthwhile to work. So who pays in Spain? Not the protestors, that's for sure. The payers are the ever-shrinking number of Spanish tax-paying wealth producers and, of course, the Germans. Greece, too, has been wracked by massive demonstrations, and even violent and lethal riots, by tens-of-thousands of Greeks objecting to any austerity measures. In other words, the demands are don't pay back the Germans, and let us continue to have a standard of living we have not earned, just because that's what we want and have gotten used to having.
I don't mean to pick on Spain or Greece; we have the same situation developing in the US. Americans are now fully into a political battle waged along new class lines. This is not the old battle of "haves" versus "have nots." This is a battle between "payers" and "pay nots," in other words, between taxpayers and voters.
I listened over the weekend to a parade of Democrats coming on the talk shows, one after another, calling for tax increases on the "wealthy." Some of these calls would push our top rate to some 62%. The Democratic formula is simple. You take the money from the 40% of the people who pay income taxes, and you buy the votes of the 60% who do not--and if there's a gap you borrow from the Chinese and the Japanese. This formula for political success and economic disaster was driven home to me when I was visiting a college campus many months ago. Nearly all the students were voting Democrat. They were full of outrage over some proposed cuts to local government services. None of these students pays income or property tax, few were from the community where they were now voting, and after their college years would move on. The bill would be paid by the local taxpayers; the goods, however, would be consumed by people who were not taxpayers.
We can debate the deficit and entitlement programs all we want. The basic problem is this split between taxpayers and voters. We are going to see that played out big time in the 2012 elections. The Republicans will have a hard sell convincing the voters to cut the benefits they receive from the taxpayers. The Democrats will have a much easier time having the voters give themselves more of the taxpayers money.
Anyhow, just to show you that I am not always wrong, I run a piece here that I wrote in May of 2011, some eighteen months ago, in which I laid out the key difficulty that would face the GOP in the November 2012 elections--note the last paragraph in particular.
Here it is,
Modern Democracy: The Battle Between the Taxpayers and the Voters
Spent a considerable time this weekend reading about the very serious crisis of the Euro. Different analysts grade the severity slightly differently, but all seem in agreement that the Euro, as we know it, is doomed. The most dire scenarios see the whole EMU (Economic Monetary Union) blowing apart, while the most optimistic see Greece, Portugal, perhaps one or two other "Southern" economies separated from the Euro (the numbers, and who exactly gets kicked off the island depend on whom you read), and the currency is reserved for the core "Northern" economies.
This reading then led me to a great deal of reading about the almost equally serious crisis affecting our own dollar. Then, I read about the crisis affecting the British pound. It was an intense amount of very depressing reading: I really need to get out more.
None of the sophisticated and highly technical analyses I read, however, picked up on the real source of the crises facing the major currencies, and, in fact, our core economic well-being. It all comes down to a very simple and basic fact. The western nations have developed societies where those who pay for government services, in general, are not the ones benefitting from the services. In the United States, for example, we have the top one percent of earners paying 38-41% of all Federal income tax. We have nearly half of Americans who pay no income tax, and another large percentage 15-20% who pay minimal income tax (and lets not even get into "Earned Income Tax Credits".) We essentially have a society where some 25% of the income earners pay close to 90% of all Federal income taxes. That 25% does not consume anywhere near 90% of the services provided by the Feds.
You can argue until you're blue in the face that this imbalance is "fair" because those who make more SHOULD pay more. Whether, however, you are "right" or "wrong," in socio-political terms this imbalance has set up a clash between those who pay and those who do not. To varying degrees, it is this clash we see played out in the US and Europe. In Spain, for example, huge crowds of "protestors" take to the streets demanding, well, demanding more from the state. This in a country with an unemployment rate of over 21%, and some of the most generous public benefits anywhere on earth, benefits that do not make it worthwhile to work. So who pays in Spain? Not the protestors, that's for sure. The payers are the ever-shrinking number of Spanish tax-paying wealth producers and, of course, the Germans. Greece, too, has been wracked by massive demonstrations, and even violent and lethal riots, by tens-of-thousands of Greeks objecting to any austerity measures. In other words, the demands are don't pay back the Germans, and let us continue to have a standard of living we have not earned, just because that's what we want and have gotten used to having.
I don't mean to pick on Spain or Greece; we have the same situation developing in the US. Americans are now fully into a political battle waged along new class lines. This is not the old battle of "haves" versus "have nots." This is a battle between "payers" and "pay nots," in other words, between taxpayers and voters.
I listened over the weekend to a parade of Democrats coming on the talk shows, one after another, calling for tax increases on the "wealthy." Some of these calls would push our top rate to some 62%. The Democratic formula is simple. You take the money from the 40% of the people who pay income taxes, and you buy the votes of the 60% who do not--and if there's a gap you borrow from the Chinese and the Japanese. This formula for political success and economic disaster was driven home to me when I was visiting a college campus many months ago. Nearly all the students were voting Democrat. They were full of outrage over some proposed cuts to local government services. None of these students pays income or property tax, few were from the community where they were now voting, and after their college years would move on. The bill would be paid by the local taxpayers; the goods, however, would be consumed by people who were not taxpayers.
We can debate the deficit and entitlement programs all we want. The basic problem is this split between taxpayers and voters. We are going to see that played out big time in the 2012 elections. The Republicans will have a hard sell convincing the voters to cut the benefits they receive from the taxpayers. The Democrats will have a much easier time having the voters give themselves more of the taxpayers money.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Zombies and the Twinkie Defense
Back when I was a useful member of society, I had a real job. I don't refer to my 34 years in the Foreign Service, but to the work that paid my way through school. I was reminded of this while reading about the closing of Hostess Brands, makers, of course, of Hostess Cupcakes--my food of choice while in elementary school and college--Twinkies, and a slew of other classics from the days when we knew that sugar was healthy.
I held two off-campus jobs while an undergrad at UCLA. The first with a small struggling pillow, cushion, and quilt manufacturer barely hanging on in the face, even then, of California's over regulated business environment, high costs, cheap imports, and a relentless unionization drive by the then International Lady Garments Workers Union (ILGWU). I got hired initially to work in the warehouse loading and unloading trucks, and then, when my boss discovered that I spoke fluent Spanish, to serve as a translator between management and the firm's mostly Mexican and Central American employees. The company faced constant efforts by ILGWU to unionize the workforce. The main ILGWU organizer was a self-confessed "former" member of the Communist Party of the USA, a charming, very smart, Spanish-speaking Jewish New Yorker who had worked for years in Chile prior to Allende's overthrow. He would hang around outside the parking lot, talking to the workers as they came and left. Two company guards made sure he did not enter company premises. The ILGWU eventually got a ruling from the courts or the Labor Department that allowed him access to the parking lot where he talked to the employees during lunch and other breaks. In my 18 or so months there, we saw some fist fights and shoving matches; lots of colorful descriptions of various mothers' moral character and employment; vandalizing of cars and trucks; pro- and anti-union threatening phone calls; and the regular presence of cops and immigration agents. The situation grew increasingly tense.
One day representatives from the Department of Labor showed up to supervise a vote on whether to unionize the plant. Management told us that because of the flood of cheap imports it could not pay the wages the union demanded; if the vote went union, the factory would go dark. The ILGWU man said management sought to scare us, and to pay no heed. The vote, as expected, went overwhelmingly pro-union; only two votes cast (one of them mine) against unionizing. Two or three months later, the plant closed, and moved to Mexico--probably employing relatives of the workers who had voted to go with the union. The day management announced to us that the plant would close, the union rep showed up, blamed management and said the ILGWU would fight for us. Never heard from the union again.
Out of work, I found another job with Disneyland working the night shift from 11 pm to 7:30 am. The work was on the grim side: lots of crawling around in the dark, cleaning and fixing things, dealing with a highly anti-semitic American Indian foreman (yes, indeed), and once falling into the water while trying to scrub some green crud off a mechanical elephant in the jungle ride. Disneyland, at least then, had the ultimate in corrupt arrangements with the Teamsters Union which represented the workforce at "The Happiest Place on Earth." Disney would hire a number of college students at sub-union wages, in exchange, we got no union benefits, but STILL HAD TO PAY union dues. Talk about adding insult to injury. With the union dues, and deductions for Social Security, and state and federal income taxes, my check could barely cover my rent and gasoline. I ate a lot of Hostess Cupcakes for lunch and dinner . . . do I know how to segue or what?
Hostess Brands announced on November 16 that because it could not reach a deal with one of its unions, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM), the company will close,
The BCTGM also made a statement,
We are seeing the consequences of the Obama war on "the rich" and the turning over of the economy to the zombies bound and determined to ruin it. We are hearing, in effect, the new Twinkies defense.
Zombies and Twinkies: the epitaph of America.
I held two off-campus jobs while an undergrad at UCLA. The first with a small struggling pillow, cushion, and quilt manufacturer barely hanging on in the face, even then, of California's over regulated business environment, high costs, cheap imports, and a relentless unionization drive by the then International Lady Garments Workers Union (ILGWU). I got hired initially to work in the warehouse loading and unloading trucks, and then, when my boss discovered that I spoke fluent Spanish, to serve as a translator between management and the firm's mostly Mexican and Central American employees. The company faced constant efforts by ILGWU to unionize the workforce. The main ILGWU organizer was a self-confessed "former" member of the Communist Party of the USA, a charming, very smart, Spanish-speaking Jewish New Yorker who had worked for years in Chile prior to Allende's overthrow. He would hang around outside the parking lot, talking to the workers as they came and left. Two company guards made sure he did not enter company premises. The ILGWU eventually got a ruling from the courts or the Labor Department that allowed him access to the parking lot where he talked to the employees during lunch and other breaks. In my 18 or so months there, we saw some fist fights and shoving matches; lots of colorful descriptions of various mothers' moral character and employment; vandalizing of cars and trucks; pro- and anti-union threatening phone calls; and the regular presence of cops and immigration agents. The situation grew increasingly tense.
One day representatives from the Department of Labor showed up to supervise a vote on whether to unionize the plant. Management told us that because of the flood of cheap imports it could not pay the wages the union demanded; if the vote went union, the factory would go dark. The ILGWU man said management sought to scare us, and to pay no heed. The vote, as expected, went overwhelmingly pro-union; only two votes cast (one of them mine) against unionizing. Two or three months later, the plant closed, and moved to Mexico--probably employing relatives of the workers who had voted to go with the union. The day management announced to us that the plant would close, the union rep showed up, blamed management and said the ILGWU would fight for us. Never heard from the union again.
Out of work, I found another job with Disneyland working the night shift from 11 pm to 7:30 am. The work was on the grim side: lots of crawling around in the dark, cleaning and fixing things, dealing with a highly anti-semitic American Indian foreman (yes, indeed), and once falling into the water while trying to scrub some green crud off a mechanical elephant in the jungle ride. Disneyland, at least then, had the ultimate in corrupt arrangements with the Teamsters Union which represented the workforce at "The Happiest Place on Earth." Disney would hire a number of college students at sub-union wages, in exchange, we got no union benefits, but STILL HAD TO PAY union dues. Talk about adding insult to injury. With the union dues, and deductions for Social Security, and state and federal income taxes, my check could barely cover my rent and gasoline. I ate a lot of Hostess Cupcakes for lunch and dinner . . . do I know how to segue or what?
Hostess Brands announced on November 16 that because it could not reach a deal with one of its unions, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM), the company will close,
“We deeply regret the necessity of today’s decision, but we do not have the financial resources to weather an extended nationwide strike,” said Gregory F. Rayburn, chief executive officer. “Hostess Brands will move promptly to lay off most of its 18,500-member workforce and focus on selling its assets to the highest bidders.”
In addition to dozens of baking and distribution facilities around the country, Hostess Brands will sell its popular brands, including Hostess®, Drakes® and Dolly Madison®, which make iconic cake products such as Twinkies®, CupCakes, Ding Dongs®, Ho Ho’s®, Sno Balls® and Donettes®. Bread brands to be sold include Wonder®, Nature’s Pride ®, Merita®, Home Pride®, Butternut®, and Beefsteak®, among others.
The wind down means the closure of 33 bakeries, 565 distribution centers, approximately 5,500 delivery routes and 570 bakery outlet stores throughout the United States.This, of course, is a disaster for thousands of workers, executives, and investors, and for many communities. It goes back to a theme I have laid out before about the increasing economic illiteracy in the country, and the fact that so many prominent people are far removed from the real economy. To highlight that we only need to read the statement by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka who blamed the closing on,
“What’s happening with Hostess Brands is a microcosm of what’s wrong with America, as Bain-style Wall Street vultures make themselves rich by making America poor . . . . Crony capitalism and consistently poor management drove Hostess into the ground, but its workers are paying the price.”Trumka, in effect, blames Mitt Romney for Hostess closing down. He ignores, of course, that the company had been in trouble for a couple of years and that venture capitalists, similar to Bain, had taken a chance and invested in it, and kept it running for those two years. Trumka, of course, will continue to draw his roughly $280,000/year salary.
The BCTGM also made a statement,
“Our members decided they were not going to take any more abuse from a company they have given so much to for so many years. They decided that they were not going to agree to another round of outrageous wage and benefit cuts and give up their pension only to see yet another management team fail and Wall Street vulture capitalists and 'restructuring specialists' walk away with untold millions of dollars.
“Throughout this long and difficult process, BCTGM members showed tremendous courage, solidarity and devotion to principle. They were well aware of the potential consequences of their actions but stood strong for dignity, justice and respect.”Trumka's rant and the BCTGM statement brought back memories of the words I heard years ago from the ILGWU man in that California parking lot. A lot of empty blather that won't pay the rent. I hope that the members enjoy their "dignity, justice, and respect" and, of course, the benefits that the taxpayers will now have to pay them.
We are seeing the consequences of the Obama war on "the rich" and the turning over of the economy to the zombies bound and determined to ruin it. We are hearing, in effect, the new Twinkies defense.
Zombies and Twinkies: the epitaph of America.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Living with the Zombie Apocalypse
My whole life I have loved science and science fiction especially those old 1950s and early 60s sci-fi flicks. For the most part, they took themselves and their audiences seriously, and assumed some scientific and political literacy among the general population. They were wonderfully paranoid and fed off our fears--legitimate ones, at that--of a nuclear holocaust or, at least, of a Commie take over.
My elementary school years, especially during the Cuban missile crisis, left me strong and fond memories of "duck and cover" exercises, and of wondering whether a school desk, even one solidly built in the USA, would suffice to ward off the effects of the latest Soviet H-bomb. After these exercises, many of us boys would gather and speculate on how the world would look after a nuclear exchange. Each of us had a different vision in accord with the latest sci-fi picture seen. Some saw the end as a variation of "On the Beach," and pondered how they would get to Australia. Others devised a scenario more akin to "The World, the Flesh, and the Devil"--wondering who would get Inger Stevens--or to one of the many grim ends portrayed in "Twilight Zone" or "Outer Limits" episodes. Those with more gore-laden imaginations envisioned a world of zombies, vampires, or mutants on the loose, as, for example, in Vincent Price's very dark rendition of "Last Man on Earth."
Since the November 6 elections, I have seen what the end will look like: a cross between "Things to Do in Denver when You're Dead," and any number of ultra-bleak walking dead or zombie apocalypse movies. As mentioned before, I am temporarily in southern California. If the old cliche proves true that California is the harbinger of things to come, the end draws nigh, and not because of a Soviet nuclear attack. This is a state devastated by lunatic pro-immigration, education, environmental, and fiscal policies. This is a self-inflicted mortal wound. What's doubly weird is that those who supported this act of collective suicide, given the chance, would do it again. It is amazing how many people leave California for other states but take with them the attitudes and voting patterns that brought disaster to their home state. They are moths to the bright flame of liberalism; they can't figure out why their wings keep catching fire.
Conversations with Obama voters in California leave me stunned. There can be few other persons more ignorant of basic economic facts and processes. They seem oblivious to the collapsing stock market, and the unemployment, poverty, inflation, and taxation tsunamis about to sweep over us all. Many are wealthy, but have gotten so in arenas several levels removed from the real economy: environmental or consumer advocates and lawyers, working for NGOs, consultants, entertainers, etc. They do not see themselves as part of the one percent, despite their $100,000 Fiskar Karmas, BMWs, Lexus, Jags, and the more modest $42,000 environmentally proper Prius. These people are loons; worse, they are the post-apocalyptic vampires and walking dead determined to drag the rest of us with them to their liberal hell.
This is much worse than imagined in my schoolyard lunchtime conversations fifty-plus years ago. I see no way back from this zombie apocalypse, and am frightened, very frightened--and my Kimber 1911 sits in a storage facility three thousand miles away . . . lots of zombies between it and me.
My elementary school years, especially during the Cuban missile crisis, left me strong and fond memories of "duck and cover" exercises, and of wondering whether a school desk, even one solidly built in the USA, would suffice to ward off the effects of the latest Soviet H-bomb. After these exercises, many of us boys would gather and speculate on how the world would look after a nuclear exchange. Each of us had a different vision in accord with the latest sci-fi picture seen. Some saw the end as a variation of "On the Beach," and pondered how they would get to Australia. Others devised a scenario more akin to "The World, the Flesh, and the Devil"--wondering who would get Inger Stevens--or to one of the many grim ends portrayed in "Twilight Zone" or "Outer Limits" episodes. Those with more gore-laden imaginations envisioned a world of zombies, vampires, or mutants on the loose, as, for example, in Vincent Price's very dark rendition of "Last Man on Earth."
Since the November 6 elections, I have seen what the end will look like: a cross between "Things to Do in Denver when You're Dead," and any number of ultra-bleak walking dead or zombie apocalypse movies. As mentioned before, I am temporarily in southern California. If the old cliche proves true that California is the harbinger of things to come, the end draws nigh, and not because of a Soviet nuclear attack. This is a state devastated by lunatic pro-immigration, education, environmental, and fiscal policies. This is a self-inflicted mortal wound. What's doubly weird is that those who supported this act of collective suicide, given the chance, would do it again. It is amazing how many people leave California for other states but take with them the attitudes and voting patterns that brought disaster to their home state. They are moths to the bright flame of liberalism; they can't figure out why their wings keep catching fire.
Conversations with Obama voters in California leave me stunned. There can be few other persons more ignorant of basic economic facts and processes. They seem oblivious to the collapsing stock market, and the unemployment, poverty, inflation, and taxation tsunamis about to sweep over us all. Many are wealthy, but have gotten so in arenas several levels removed from the real economy: environmental or consumer advocates and lawyers, working for NGOs, consultants, entertainers, etc. They do not see themselves as part of the one percent, despite their $100,000 Fiskar Karmas, BMWs, Lexus, Jags, and the more modest $42,000 environmentally proper Prius. These people are loons; worse, they are the post-apocalyptic vampires and walking dead determined to drag the rest of us with them to their liberal hell.
This is much worse than imagined in my schoolyard lunchtime conversations fifty-plus years ago. I see no way back from this zombie apocalypse, and am frightened, very frightened--and my Kimber 1911 sits in a storage facility three thousand miles away . . . lots of zombies between it and me.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
"The UN Ambassador had nothing to do with Benghazi" . . . uh, yeah, that's the point . . .
The press continues to follow the hare into Wonderland.
Did you watch that Presidential press conference today? I became so furious and depressed after watching it that I had to go for a long walk around the lake. We all know--well about 50% of us do--that Obama is as dishonest, arrogant, and downright deceitful as the Chicago political machine factory can make 'em. But the press, the press . . . they just get worse and worse and worse . . .
I can't go through the whole thing; I am too old for that, so let me focus on just one little item.
The quote in this post's heading comes from the President responding in his usual tone of mock outrage to a suggestion that Senators McCain and Graham would oppose any effort to make Susan Rice the next Secretary of State. He acted all manly man protecting his womenfolk, "They should come after me" not her because she "had nothing to do with Benghazi." No follow up from any of those supine journos to that amazing statement? Nobody stood up and said, "Exactly, Mr. President, that's the point. Why was she sent out by the White House to discuss something she knew nothing about? Where was the National Security Advisor, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the CIA Director?"
When Rice took to the airwaves this little blog noted that,
Imagine if this had happened under a GOP administration.
Insanity.
Did you watch that Presidential press conference today? I became so furious and depressed after watching it that I had to go for a long walk around the lake. We all know--well about 50% of us do--that Obama is as dishonest, arrogant, and downright deceitful as the Chicago political machine factory can make 'em. But the press, the press . . . they just get worse and worse and worse . . .
I can't go through the whole thing; I am too old for that, so let me focus on just one little item.
The quote in this post's heading comes from the President responding in his usual tone of mock outrage to a suggestion that Senators McCain and Graham would oppose any effort to make Susan Rice the next Secretary of State. He acted all manly man protecting his womenfolk, "They should come after me" not her because she "had nothing to do with Benghazi." No follow up from any of those supine journos to that amazing statement? Nobody stood up and said, "Exactly, Mr. President, that's the point. Why was she sent out by the White House to discuss something she knew nothing about? Where was the National Security Advisor, the Secretaries of State and Defense, the CIA Director?"
When Rice took to the airwaves this little blog noted that,
Once the misadministration got its lies lined up, it unleashed the dreadful political hack Susan Rice on the media in a Sunday morning blitz of all the major news shows. Like the dutiful hack she is, Ambassador Rice, a person with no direct knowledge of events in Libya, mind-numblingly repeated the line that the attack was by "folks" outraged over a 14-minute anti-Islam video produced in California by an expatriate Egyptian Christian. She assured the complacent media throughout the day that there was no evidence of premeditation, of planning, of a terror operation, and, of course, relied on the ultimate and very sophisticated-sounding obfuscation that there was no "actionable intelligence." The violence in Benghazi and the murders of four Americans were all an unfortunate result of a "spontaneous" demonstration that got out of control.
She lied.
Imagine if this had happened under a GOP administration.
Insanity.
Chicago Decapitates the Military
This scandal gets evermore absurd.
As I noted yesterday the Chicago mob currently in charge of our executive branch is fully committed to the Whitewater Defense . . . and on steroids. They seem increasingly desperate to make sure that the media and all of us are overwhelmed with trivia, half-truths, and outrageous leaks to keep us too preoccupied, too confused, and ultimately too disgusted and bored to examine the Benghazi fiasco.
What the FBI is doing is simply outrageous. It has undertaken a massive "investigation" of trivial emailings between consenting adults, and allowed or encouraged selective leaks to slander USMC General John R. Allen. There is no evidence out, so far, that Allen did anything wrong. There is an old saying among students of warfare that "no battle plan survives first contact." We also should remember that initial press reports about fast-moving events generally have a 95% chance of having a margin of error of plus or minus 99%. Don't accept any of the current press reports on face value.
What is going on? We are being hit with a welter of irrelevant nonsense, and seeing our top military leadership tried by the media and publicly beheaded. I see a deliberate assault on the military by the leftists in charge of the National Command Authority. They have been out to sabotage the military from the start: the ending of "don't ask don't tell"; implying that the military are just a bunch of racist, sexist, xenophobes; unconscionable budget cuts; and now a guerrilla warfare aimed at the most respected military officers, including the use of blackmail. In addition, we are being told that one of the greatest enemies of the US military, the treasonous John Kerry, is being considered for the position of SecDef.
I will not go into all the press nonsense being put out, you all know it as well as I. Suffice it to say that this misadministration will eschew no tactic, no abuse of executive power (e.g, a full blown and very "leaky" FBI forensic investigation into complaints by a dubious and debt-laden socialite about receiving nasty anonymous emails), and no shabby use of the media to get its way. The Obama misadministration is bound and determined to do anything possible to prevent the truth about Benghazi from coming out.
What might be there in this Benghazi fiasco so important that this Chicago crowd is pulling out the stops to make sure the questions are not answered or even asked?
Focus like a laser on Benghazi. We must insist that the Congress not get sidetracked.
As I noted yesterday the Chicago mob currently in charge of our executive branch is fully committed to the Whitewater Defense . . . and on steroids. They seem increasingly desperate to make sure that the media and all of us are overwhelmed with trivia, half-truths, and outrageous leaks to keep us too preoccupied, too confused, and ultimately too disgusted and bored to examine the Benghazi fiasco.
What the FBI is doing is simply outrageous. It has undertaken a massive "investigation" of trivial emailings between consenting adults, and allowed or encouraged selective leaks to slander USMC General John R. Allen. There is no evidence out, so far, that Allen did anything wrong. There is an old saying among students of warfare that "no battle plan survives first contact." We also should remember that initial press reports about fast-moving events generally have a 95% chance of having a margin of error of plus or minus 99%. Don't accept any of the current press reports on face value.
What is going on? We are being hit with a welter of irrelevant nonsense, and seeing our top military leadership tried by the media and publicly beheaded. I see a deliberate assault on the military by the leftists in charge of the National Command Authority. They have been out to sabotage the military from the start: the ending of "don't ask don't tell"; implying that the military are just a bunch of racist, sexist, xenophobes; unconscionable budget cuts; and now a guerrilla warfare aimed at the most respected military officers, including the use of blackmail. In addition, we are being told that one of the greatest enemies of the US military, the treasonous John Kerry, is being considered for the position of SecDef.
I will not go into all the press nonsense being put out, you all know it as well as I. Suffice it to say that this misadministration will eschew no tactic, no abuse of executive power (e.g, a full blown and very "leaky" FBI forensic investigation into complaints by a dubious and debt-laden socialite about receiving nasty anonymous emails), and no shabby use of the media to get its way. The Obama misadministration is bound and determined to do anything possible to prevent the truth about Benghazi from coming out.
What might be there in this Benghazi fiasco so important that this Chicago crowd is pulling out the stops to make sure the questions are not answered or even asked?
Focus like a laser on Benghazi. We must insist that the Congress not get sidetracked.
Monday, November 12, 2012
Benghazi: Focus, Focus, Focus
I wrote previously that as the Benghazi fiasco, scandal, cover-up chugs along, we would see a war between "Foggy Bottom"(catch-all phrase for the career bureaucracy) and "Chicago" (catch-all phrase for Chicago). Foggy Bottom fights efforts to blame it for disaster with leaks: drip, drip, drip to the press, to Congress, to bloggers. Chicago fights with a variety of tactics, such as blackmail, personal destruction, corrupt media, and very importantly, with what I called before (here and here) the "Whitewater Defense."
The current uproar over l'affaire Petraeus forms part of the battle between Foggy Bottom and Chicago. In the vicious chess game between the two, the Chicago mob has employed the Whitewater Defense which worked so well for the Clintons. Remember the Whitewater scandal? It involved high-level corruption in Arkansas with then Governor Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary, who worked for the Rose law firm. Very simply put, Whitewater was a real estate development that needed zoning restrictions modified to go ahead. The Governor named the zoning board. The solution? The developers gave Hillary huge fees for all sorts of nonsensical work, she claimed to make large sums of money in areas where few do, e.g., cattle futures, and she represented the developers before the zoning board. Presto! The board rules in favor of the developers! Hillary served as the cut-out for bribes paid the Governor. The Whitewater defense involved making it sound so complicated, intricate, and technical that the lazy mainstream press, already inclined to give Clinton a pass, would deem it too complicated, too difficult to explain to readers--no easy way to sum it up. Lots of distractions and side issues. It worked so well that even the GOP deemed it too complicated to exploit, and the Clintons got away with it.
Enter Benghazi: Most likely a pretty straightforward story of Islamic terror and incompetence by State, CIA, and the Pentagon, and dereliction of duty by the White House. A true analysis of the Benghazi fiasco would lead to a questioning in the middle of an election campaign of the Obama misadministration's extravagant claims to have killed Al Qaeda; of its disastrous "Arab Spring" policy; and of its mad delusions about turning Libya into a social-democratic wonderland. Ergo the need to make the affair as complicated as possible. First, a torrent of lies and half-truths flung about by Susan Rice about a silly video clip and a flash mob gone bad. Then a steady effort to rewrite history almost as it happened; careful parsing of words; contradictory and nonsensical briefings by different arms of the intelligence community; and, of course, wrapping oneself in the flag, e.g., the Andrews ceremony, taking "offense" at any questioning of motives. Then make sure that the GOP candidate stays quiet about it; for that, nothing better than giving him "classified" briefings with the caveat "be careful what you say about this or you could screw up sensitive and ongoing operations. You don't want to be responsible for that, do you?" Then--Pennies from Heaven!--the ultimate distraction, right on cue, an unforeseen gift from Zeus, a massive hurricane! What paltry media attention had gone to Benghazi, now went to examining storm damage, and portraying Obama as savior of the storm tossed. Obama and Christie, arm-in-arm, surveying and consoling: a modern day Laurel and Hardy act sure to keep the media enthralled and waxing on about the glories of bipartisanship.
With the passing of the election, a new distraction: Sex and the General! The Petraeus sideshow gets underway. Once again, the media responds as predicted. Concentrating on the carefully orchestrated leaks about emails, sex under the desk, a lover scorned, etc. All of this clouding the real issues, and making it all so trivial, so complicated, so intricate, and so difficult to explain that nobody ever will. The Whitewater defense in all its glory.
The Petraeus scandal is a sideshow. Those of us who want to know what happened and why in Benghazi need to focus. Keep asking the basic questions. I have provided some of them and you can peruse the archive log for the many pieces on Benghazi.
Why was it Rice and not Clinton who appeared before the press? Who wrote the talking points for Ambassador Rice? What was the facility in Benghazi? If it was important, why wasn't it protected? Why was the Ambassador there on 9/11? What was the meeting with the Turkish official about? Were we "walking guns" to Syria's rebels? If so, is there any indication of Iranian or Syrian involvement in the attack? What did Secretary Clinton know and when? What did she do about it? What did Petraeus know and when? What did he do about it? What did Panetta know and when? What did he do about it? What did President Obama know and when? What did he tell the military, et al, to do? What did they do?
The current uproar over l'affaire Petraeus forms part of the battle between Foggy Bottom and Chicago. In the vicious chess game between the two, the Chicago mob has employed the Whitewater Defense which worked so well for the Clintons. Remember the Whitewater scandal? It involved high-level corruption in Arkansas with then Governor Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary, who worked for the Rose law firm. Very simply put, Whitewater was a real estate development that needed zoning restrictions modified to go ahead. The Governor named the zoning board. The solution? The developers gave Hillary huge fees for all sorts of nonsensical work, she claimed to make large sums of money in areas where few do, e.g., cattle futures, and she represented the developers before the zoning board. Presto! The board rules in favor of the developers! Hillary served as the cut-out for bribes paid the Governor. The Whitewater defense involved making it sound so complicated, intricate, and technical that the lazy mainstream press, already inclined to give Clinton a pass, would deem it too complicated, too difficult to explain to readers--no easy way to sum it up. Lots of distractions and side issues. It worked so well that even the GOP deemed it too complicated to exploit, and the Clintons got away with it.
Enter Benghazi: Most likely a pretty straightforward story of Islamic terror and incompetence by State, CIA, and the Pentagon, and dereliction of duty by the White House. A true analysis of the Benghazi fiasco would lead to a questioning in the middle of an election campaign of the Obama misadministration's extravagant claims to have killed Al Qaeda; of its disastrous "Arab Spring" policy; and of its mad delusions about turning Libya into a social-democratic wonderland. Ergo the need to make the affair as complicated as possible. First, a torrent of lies and half-truths flung about by Susan Rice about a silly video clip and a flash mob gone bad. Then a steady effort to rewrite history almost as it happened; careful parsing of words; contradictory and nonsensical briefings by different arms of the intelligence community; and, of course, wrapping oneself in the flag, e.g., the Andrews ceremony, taking "offense" at any questioning of motives. Then make sure that the GOP candidate stays quiet about it; for that, nothing better than giving him "classified" briefings with the caveat "be careful what you say about this or you could screw up sensitive and ongoing operations. You don't want to be responsible for that, do you?" Then--Pennies from Heaven!--the ultimate distraction, right on cue, an unforeseen gift from Zeus, a massive hurricane! What paltry media attention had gone to Benghazi, now went to examining storm damage, and portraying Obama as savior of the storm tossed. Obama and Christie, arm-in-arm, surveying and consoling: a modern day Laurel and Hardy act sure to keep the media enthralled and waxing on about the glories of bipartisanship.
With the passing of the election, a new distraction: Sex and the General! The Petraeus sideshow gets underway. Once again, the media responds as predicted. Concentrating on the carefully orchestrated leaks about emails, sex under the desk, a lover scorned, etc. All of this clouding the real issues, and making it all so trivial, so complicated, so intricate, and so difficult to explain that nobody ever will. The Whitewater defense in all its glory.
The Petraeus scandal is a sideshow. Those of us who want to know what happened and why in Benghazi need to focus. Keep asking the basic questions. I have provided some of them and you can peruse the archive log for the many pieces on Benghazi.
Why was it Rice and not Clinton who appeared before the press? Who wrote the talking points for Ambassador Rice? What was the facility in Benghazi? If it was important, why wasn't it protected? Why was the Ambassador there on 9/11? What was the meeting with the Turkish official about? Were we "walking guns" to Syria's rebels? If so, is there any indication of Iranian or Syrian involvement in the attack? What did Secretary Clinton know and when? What did she do about it? What did Petraeus know and when? What did he do about it? What did Panetta know and when? What did he do about it? What did President Obama know and when? What did he tell the military, et al, to do? What did they do?
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