You Lie

Now what?  

MORE 10/30/13

Good grief, this is getting embarrassing now.

Law of the Land

CNN is running a teary-eyed puff piece on a broken family in Florida, separated because some ICE jackboots came in and took daddy away and deported him back to Nicaragua because he was an illegal alien.   His wife was snatched away five years earlier.  Now the kids are afraid.  You can read the piece if you want, it's right here.

The more interesting part was the comments section.  Those are provided free of MSM-CNN spin, at least giving somewhat of an idea of how people react to the article.   What do people think?  Are they sympathetic to the rule of law of the scared children?  Well, here's a screen shot of the first round of replies I came across after reading the story...  they pretty much speak for themselves...

John Boehner and friends may perhaps want to keep such sentiments in mind, going forward. 

Well Hillary, What Difference Does it Make?

Here's the best Secretary of State since Jefferson speaking in Buffalo, NY, and getting the GOP treatment:

During a speech at the University at Buffalo, Clinton first ignored the man’s shouts as she spoke of Buffalo as a model for problem-solving through cooperation. “Because we can’t move from crisis to crisis, we have to be willing to come together as citizens to focus on the kind of future we want,” she said.

As the shouts grew louder from an upper section of bleachers, she added, “which doesn’t include yelling. It includes sitting down and talking.” The 6,500 people in attendance reacted with a sustained standing ovation as the heckler was led out.

The future doesn't include yelling? Really?

Well, it shouldn't be surprising that the local CBS affiliate didn't bother to tell its readers what the heckler was heckling her about. It was Benghazi.   That would never happen if the roles were reversed, because in those stories the hecklers are speaking truth to power. Take the Code Pinkos who recently heckled Ted Cruz:

Sen. Ted Cruz struggled to finish his speech at the Values Voter Summit in Washington today as hecklers repeatedly interrupted his remarks. Protesters interrupted Cruz more than six times, some yelling questions about why Cruz does not support a pathway to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally.

Here's another:

One of the hecklers Cruz faced called on him to support a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

No commentary in either story about how Cruz "turned the tables" on his opponents by the way, as the CBS affiliate in Buffalo described Hillary's reply.  That will be standard fare going forward.

But try as they might the media will not be able to Whitewater whitewash Bengahzi.  She will eventually have to face it.  Fox News has been hammering the White House and State Department about new revelations lately about the Benghazi suspects having ties to AQ "core" (getting virtually no airplay on other networks allowing them to pigeon-hole Fox as making Benghazi a partisan play).

Here's the Fox State Department reporter grilling Marie Harf yesterday about why the Benghazi terror suspects are not on "Rewards for Justice".  Read along as the spokeslady at first tries to deny that RfJ is even associated with the State Department, refers him to the FBI several times (who will not comment on it) then chastises him for even daring to question whether they want the terrorists brought to justice. All these replies are obviously gamed out in rehearsals.

QUESTION: Marie, as you may or may not be aware, there’s new evidence linking two Benghazi suspects to senior al-Qaida leadership. Does the State Department have a reaction to that?

MS. HARF: I think for any of those questions, I’d refer you to the FBI. I know they’re the ones handling the investigation and that part of it, so --

QUESTION: Okay. Yesterday, Chairman Mike Rogers said that the Intelligence Committee has been – who is studying the attacks said that planning went on for weeks. Is there any reaction to that? To Benghazi.

MS. HARF: Oh. Again, I’d refer you – the FBI, I know, is looking into all of this right now.

QUESTION: Does the State Department own the Reward for Justice program?

MS. HARF: Own it in what way? Run it? I believe so, yeah.

QUESTION: Why is it --

MS. HARF: But let me double-check on that, though.

QUESTION: Okay. Why is it --

MS. HARF: Where is this question going? I’m not sure.

QUESTION: I’ll tell you. Why does the State Department refuse to put any of the Benghazi suspects on the Reward for Justice program?

MS. HARF: Let me go back to our folks and see how – (A) if it’s actually run out of here – I believe it is, but let me double-check – and (B) what the process is for putting people on that list. I just don’t know the answer.

QUESTION: Okay. It is --

MS. HARF: But I’m happy to look into it for you.

QUESTION: Okay, because it is – your email address is on the bottom of the Reward for Justice program.

MS. HARF: Well, then, it’s probably – I’m probably right that it’s ours, Lucas.

The reporter comes back several times and tries to get her to answer, probably a tactic designed to rattle the fresh-faced Ms Harf, a fresh face probably put there to make it seem less hostile when she eventually doesn't answer any questions.  She finally shows a little crack in the armor:

QUESTION: However, I just wanted to ask you, what signal does it send the world when, on those Reward for Justice programs, we rank the – our adversaries according to their importance – their kill, capture, their importance. But when the suspects of the Benghazi attacks are not on the list, what message does that send?

MS. HARF: Again, Lucas, I said this isn’t – this doesn’t represent the entirety of the way we look at the terrorist threat out there. We have designations. We have the Reward for Justice program. I have stood up here and said we are committed to bringing the Benghazi terrorists to justice, period. I don’t know what crystal – more of a crystal clear message I can send to them than that, and I’m happy to say it every day until we do.

Notice she never answered the principal question--why aren't those suspects on the list.  She claimed there was a process and she would get back, but that's clearly a BS answer.  They likely don't want hose terrorists on the list because it would bring attention to the story and perhaps even result in finding someone, bringing more attention to the story.  They probably have a desire to treat the story like her husband treated the Khobar Towers bombing-- yell "bring them to justice!" on day one followed by burying the case for the rest of his term (the terrorists were finally convicted during the Bush administration to almost zero fanfare).  That may not be only for politics sake depending on what was actually occurring in Benghazi.

According to James Rosen there may be some interest in the Benghazi story from other networks, presumably CBS (perhaps Sharyl Attkisson?). He told O'Reilly that 60 Minutes may do a feature on it as soon as this Sunday, of course, it's unclear whether it would be a hit piece or a clever explanation piece designed to run cover for Hillary just like they did for her and her husband back in 1992. We will see.

HERE IT IS..  10/25/13

CBS previews their Sunday 60 Minutes segment on Benghazi.   Not with Sharyl Attkisson, but their veteran security reporter Lara Logan.  Should be interesting. 

Working on 404care, 24/7

That's the message from the White House--they are working to fix the faulty 404care site "24/7".  This has been repeated over and over.   So the question is, who?  Who is working on this site in three shifts?  Does the government now own the software, meaning government employees are doing it, or is it still a contractor providing this 24/7 repair service?

It should be the contractor, since the government had no business ever accepting such a piece of junk system without first confirming that it worked.  So did they?  Are the taxpayers now having to pay extra for the contractor to fix this what should have never been accepted?  Sounds like they are calling in new contractors (experts) because Obama says he's pissed (and that's enough).

So are these new hired guns being hired under no-bid contracts via competitive bidding? Byron York claims the implementation money has already been spent.  So again, are taxpayers being saddled with fixing something already paid for which should have never passed IOC (Initial Operating Capability) or final acceptance?   We await the HHS Czarina's testimony.  Whenever that may come.    

Tea Party Against the World

As the dust settles from "Shutdown 2013, Rumble in DC" many mainstream media reporters are busy trying to contain the tingles going up their legs over the resultant civil war/soul-searching in the defeated (but there are no winners here) GOP.  Here's the reliable liberal Karen Tumulty of the WaPo using a Gore-Global Warming tactic to explain the situation..

That the government shutdown was a political disaster for the party that engineered it is widely acknowledged, except by the most ardent tea partyers.

And that near-unanimity presents an opportunity for the establishment to strike back — and maybe regain some control from the insurgent wing.

Why the reference to Gore, you say? Allow me to rephrase her comments thusly:

That the government shutdown denying man-made global warming was a political disaster for the party that engineered it is widely acknowledged, except by the most ardent tea partyers. climate change deniers.

And that near-unanimity presents an opportunity for the establishment science-based moderates to strike back — and maybe regain some control from the insurgent wing whacko bird anti-science religious nuts.

In other words, it's settled science that the Tea Party is a pack of dangerous crazies threatening the Democratic Party.  But they are so crazy the sane wise men of their own party must stop them to save the planet and maintain world peace.  Only crazy deniers would disagree with these obvious facts.  Gore would be impressed. 

That's a lot, but the rest of the article is also a must-read. Here's a choice quote from former Republican Senator Trent Lott in regards to how the leadership should handle this clear and present danger:

“You roll them,”

Roll them? Does he mean knock them over the head as they are leaving the Capitol Building or more figuratively, as in embarrassing them by having the lead establishment Republican broker a deal with Harry Reid that not only diminishes them but also includes earmarks as a final nasty middle finger message?  Lott explains:

“I do think we need stronger leadership, and there’s got to be some pushback on these guys who think they came here with all the solutions.”

Mercy, didn't these upstart rookies know that Lott and friends have all the solutions?  The fact that the country is 17 trillion in debt and saddled with a socialist president who has enacted government-control over health care is simply a bump in the road!  The coming awesome grand final solution that will lead to endless prosperity is coming some day soon.  But today is not the day, stupid punks!   Or an alternative explanation--sorry you know-it-all idealists but there are no solutions here in DC, only money to be made.    

Which is precisely why the article is worth perusing.  Lott calls the TP legislators the 'guys who came here thinking they had all the answers'.  Does he understand how clueless that sounds?   It's as if they are violating temple rules and don't understand the sausage making process that got the country into such great shape.  And good Lord, they are jeopardizing the lucrative retirement assets of scores of distinguished lawmakers to boot!  They've got kids to put through college! 

It might be useful to understand that Mr. Lott is featured in the book "This Town", which details how he went from a principled conservative who bashed lobbyists to a big time lobbyist in retirement.  In other words, this fight isn't so much about the future of America as it is the future of business as usual in Washington, DC.

Which is why Cruz' non-filibuster filibuster and the shutdown were worth it.  AMERICAN VOTERS sent these Tea Party upstart trouble-maker terrorists to Washington.  These clowns need to understand that fact.  If Lott, McCain and others have a problem with it they should address the voters, not the representatives doing what the voters wanted.   Maybe send out some direct mail to Tea Party districts and lecture the rubes on exactly how things are done. Straight talk, as someone likes to say.  Perhaps there really isn't a way to change things and reverse course from DC, but perhaps the voters need to know such a thing.

MORE  10/18/13

Here's another Beltway 'Republican' eating one of her own...

Cruz and Co. were more useful than Democrats could have hoped for as Obamacare limped out of the starting gate. One can bet that the greater the “glitches,” the bigger the megaphone for Cruz, the useful genius. The only hope for Republicans going forward is that Cruz resists the allure of his own voice.

There you go--Kathleen Parker de facto telling the voters of Texas they are stupid and their Senator should not speak anymore, all for using a different tactic in the fight to lower the debt and take on Obamacare and the rest of the coming statist juggernaut.   When considered alongside Jennifer Rubin and David Brooks, they have certainly become more useful than Democrats could have hoped.

Stop Listening!

From our Leader today..

..all of us need to stop focusing on the lobbyists and bloggers and the talking heads on radio, and the professional activists who profit off conflict..

At least he's not blaming Uncle Jim anymore.   But wait, did he suggest bloggers are bad and should not be focused on?  Say it ain't so!

Seriously, does anyone take this stuff seriously anymore?

Remember, we were promised that all bills out of Congress would be held up 72 hours after passage so the peeps could get a look at them before signing.  We were promised an end to earmarks.  We were promised a new tone and the end of business as usual.   We've received pretty much none of that yet.  And even in this latest showdown we were told by the president and Harry Reid that they would accept nothing less than a "clean" CR and Debt Ceiling increase or no deal.   Now everyone sees the earmarks and special favors in the bill, of which there will be no explanation.  Business as usual. 

The purpose of the shutdown was to take a chink out of Obamacare and in that respect it failed.  But it was also to send a message--not only to the president and Senate Democrats but to the establishment Republicans who sneeringly want to maintain business as usual and who look down their noses at the average Americans who support the Tea Party because they are worried about their future.  In that context it was a success because now the public knows exactly where everyone stands and what their representatives are really made of, something empty words after the fact cannot change. 

Winning

Was it worth it?  Yes.  Rolling over is never a strategy.  There was going to be a showdown over debt anyway so an impasse was certain.  But it's hard to fight against the President, Senate, most of the media, Hollywood and international bodies, especially if your own army is divided. 

Handicapping the players, well Dirty Harry Reid acted predictably, figuring he could stonewall the divided GOP caucus and force them to cave, and he played that role brilliantly.  If the president was involved it was hard to tell where, but his non-involvement was a chosen strategy.  Whatever it takes in the craven march to our Euro-socialist future.  Boehner actually showed more resolve than I figured he would but in the end his hands were tied.  He wasn't going to blow everything up to please the likes of Sean Hannity.  Live to fight another day.    

But people like John McCain deserve to be addressed directly:  Sir--just shut the fork up about any financial matters from here forward please.  You screwed it up in 2008 and here you are again blabbing with blinders on.  If you feel the need to jab your fellow Republicans in the back do it to your bathroom mirror.  If you feel the need to talk publicly, stick to talking about terrorists.  Your political enemies do not want to be friends with you, k?  They want to skewer you with hot pokers and leave you naked and cuckolded in the street holding a sign saying 'racist'.  OK, my friend?  Thanks.  

As to the overall fight and what it means, I can't say it any better than the White House Dossier guy...

I realize that sounds quite delusional to many people, particularly here in Washington. But it makes total, absolute sense.

The muttering class Inside the Beltway is very pleased with itself: The doomed Tea Party strategy is foundering on the shoals of idiocy, just like they said it would. The Republican “brand” has been downgraded yet again. America is looks foolish abroad: “The world has reacted mostly with disbelief that a superpower could fall into such dysfunction,” wrote the New York Times today. Reasonable people will soon be back in charge so they can do reasonable things in a reasonable way without all these Tea Party lunatics stirring up trouble.

Let me tell all of you something: THIS COUNTRY IS ALREADY IN A STATE OF TOTAL DYSFUNCTION, AND HAS BEEN FOR YEARS.

A state of dysfunction, mind you, brought to you by the “reasonable” people who have been striking deals for years that have created $17 trillion in debt and a possibly irreversible degree of Socialism that is lobotomizing our tradition of independent thinking and creativity, crippling free enterprise, and carving the soul out of the moral, God-fearing ethic that has made this nation the greatest on earth.

The shaky status-quo moderates who helped get America to this point will not be remembered well in the course of history.

So Much for Interrogation

As the Republican Party teeters on the verge of collapse and the dawn of a third party awaits, the administration has seemingly fumbled the football on the one yard line with respect to the AQ terrorist caught in Libya:

Al-Libi was whisked off the streets of Tripoli on Oct. 5 and held aboard the USS San Antonio, where he was locked in the brig and questioned without Miranda rights, U.S. officials said. Because of what U.S. officials have described as a serious medical condition — his family says it is severe hepatitis — he was taken within a week to New York, where he has been under indictment since 1998.

Something interesting is going on here. Notice the WaPo's article on this--one of the first out--and how they described the medical condition's factor in moving him from interrogation to Miranda Rights:

U.S. officials said a chronic preexisting medical condition had prevented them from keeping Ruqai detained any longer aboard the USS San Antonio, where he was taken after he was captured outside his home in Tripoli on Oct. 5. His wife told CNN that Ruqai has hepatitis C, which damages the liver.

The FBI-led High Value Detainee Interrogation Group had been questioning Ruqai aboard the USS San Antonio. He had answered some questions, but the questioning was cut short when Ruqai began refusing food and water, according to law enforcement officials.

Bold to point out that a person who is "refusing food and water" is normally said to be on a hunger strike, since otherwise they will die.  Refusing food doesn't normally lead to productive interrogations after a few days time. 

The media is being very careful not to jump to that obvious conclusion, witness the New York Times and what appears to be a press release from Jay Carney suggesting that al-Liby's refusal to eat might not have actually been a hunger strike.   Of course the result is the same--get caught, have a medical condition, refuse to eat, get moved to the criminal court system with no more interrogation.  And according to the WaPo they hardly got anything out of him before he stopped eating:

The FBI-led High Value Detainee Interrogation Group had been questioning Ruqai aboard the USS San Antonio. He had answered some questions, but the questioning was cut short when Ruqai began refusing food and water

Now he's Mirandized and lawyered up and doesn't have to speak to anyone anymore, which can't be good considering his legacy status in AQ and reports he was trying to put together an affiliate in North African Arab Springistan.

It's obvious from the spotty and careful press coverage they don't want people to conclude that the CinC boxed himself in on this terrorism stuff by making a big production of how wrong and horrible Bush was and how he would never stoop to the same tactics.  Up to now he's been using the 'kill list' to simply bump off AQ figures who popped up, which prevented this kind of messy problem.

But that was before the election. Now when they find someone who might be useful the terrorist knows going in that 1) they will only use the Army Field Manual in the interrogation, 2) Obama doesn't want anyone else at GTMO because he vowed to close it and has not, 3) force-feeding through tubes is not very popular on the evening news, even with terrorists, and 4) Obama has come out against 'torture', therefore the last thing he'd want is to be force-feeding someone in a secret Navy brig or God forbid have them drop dead.

So where is our advantage?  The Constitution is protected, you say.  But the laws of war allow someone deemed to be engaged in armed conflict to be picked up and detained until the end of hostilities. Obama has this power, which he partially used when directing Delta Force to make the capture, which was based on the AUMF.  Now al-Liby has apparently forced himself from the War on Terror realm into the civilian terrorists-are-no-different-than-car-thieves realm--after less than 10 days.  And if he's found not guilty in court he'll be free as a bird--no backup GTMO for him.  Hopefully the president explains this to the American people. 

Waving A Flag...

Apparently according to some media outlets there was either a KKK or Neo-Nazi rally at the Mall in Washington this past Sunday..

Someone actually thought it was a good idea to bring a Confederate flag to protests at the White House, ones attended by Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz. Shockingly the flag's presence is backfiring for conservatives who hoped today's protests would be the big momentum turn in their favor.

Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Mike Lee, flanked by former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin, headlined protests at the World War II Memorial on the National Mall Sunday morning... blah blah etc etc

Yes, yes, it's unfortunate that one guy with a battle flag gives the media a reason to focus on their presumed Confederate roots of the Tea Bagger movement instead of focusing on a legitimate act of civil disobedience from some veterans. 

But hey, free speech can get messy at times.   Take for example the La Raza/SEIU illegal alien rally at the same National Mall last week. There were people there also waving flags that didn't feature stars and stripes..

So where was the saturation coverage of those flag wavers? People (probably some illegal aliens) were rallying on the National Mall, just a few hundred yards from the closed World War II Memorial, waving Mexican flags, and the media can only find a few political show arrests?   Shocking.

If this doesn't show the importance of independent media sources and cell phone cameras, nothing does. Even still, if it doesn't get national coverage it doesn't inflict damage to narrative, so it's almost as if it never occurred.

Transparency Update

Press watchers were amused by Friday's Jay Carney briefing, wherein the bespectacled filibusterer tried to freeze out Fox's Ed Henry (emphasis added)...

Henry tried again on the next question, and when Carney ignored him again, Henry smiled, got up, and walked out. While Fox News hasn’t always gotten a question at presidential press conferences, this was the first time in memory that a Fox News reporter wasn’t called on at a daily briefing.

Mediaite's Tommy Christopher also noted that Carney froze out most of the front row during the president's impromptu briefing on Wednesday, not allowing any questions from the TV journalists while choosing a questioner from the Huffington Post. 

Those paying attention are not surprised; ABC's Jon Karl, CBS's Major Garrett and NBC's Chuck Todd had been asking some decent questions of Carney all week, inflicting minor damage on his talking points, along with an occasional tough question by CNN.  Chuck Todd is an especially effective reporter when he wants to be, one of the few in the room who can shut down Carney's filibustering answers and get some actual meat.  A lot of the mainstream reporters will ask tough initial questions, listen to the long spin cycle answer, and accept the spin, not asking follow-ups.  They probably figure they can say "hey, I asked a tough question, I'm not a hack".  They are still hacks if they don't follow.  Todd follows more than anyone aside from Henry.   

So it's not surprising Carney would want to protect the president from honest, probing questions in such a tough political situation where public opinion is so critically important.  The vast majority of the general public gets their news via snippets and doesn't have time to fill in the blanks of what major media reporters leave out.  The Press Office was clearly trying to control the narrative going into the weekend, and they did. 

As to Henry, he can be a little clownish but he still asks tougher questions than most on most days. Lately he had been pestering Carney about when the president first knew of the SNAFU with military death benefits, to which Carney still hasn't answered.   Since few reporters ever play tag team with Fox questions (picking up where Fox was cut off when they get their turn to ask questions) Carney knows that if he can successfully silence Henry the story won't get out.  The rest of the reporters have to know this as well. Which means they are complicit. 

The funny thing is the White House people seem to really believe they are still the most transparent administration in history.  They view Fox as an enemy, not a news organization; witness Carney trying to paint Henry as a participant of "Crossfire" instead of a legitimate reporter.  Yes, they are craven.   But the bigger outrage should be coming from the major TV network reporters for being frozen out of a press conference at such a pivotal moment.  Of course, they said nothing.

Democrats Finally Negotiating

Obama appears to be negotiating.   And wow, that's just what Boehner asked the Democrats to do on September 30th--go to conference.  Both the president and Reid refused, demanding a clean CR and debt ceiling increase before they would even consider talking. 

Never mind their flip-flop on an initial refusal to take up any piecemeal bills before a clean bill was offered, which was shattered by Obama signing the fix for hero soldiers compensation, which he initially said he didn't need to do because the Fisher House had covered it (in an apparent no-bid contract with the Pentagon).  

So if they are now negotiating--on anything--it means they could have saved a lot of trouble and prevented shutting down the government had they just swallowed their pride and politics and done so before October 1.  How is this not a win for the GOP?

WELL... 10/12/13

The president has rejected the House's offer.  Members of the House have now apparently punted to the Senate to fix things, which is a basic reversal of the above construct...

“No deal as far as we’re concerned,” Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said as he quickly left the meeting. Rep. Raul Labrador also blew past cameras, telling reporters “it’s now all up to Senate.”

“The president is freezing out America and we’ll do everything we can to make the point that we wanted to negotiate and he took no offer,” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., added. “It doesn’t appear as though the president wants anything except more tax revenue, more tax increases yet again.”

It's likely the Democrats realized they could not be seen negotiating with Boehner on anything because it could be portrayed as a cave from their initial demands of a clean bill only, which is what basically shut down the government.  They would then be responsible, as in "why didn't you negotiate earlier"? 

So the Senate will now have to solve this, which is in no way a 'win' for the GOP.  And if the Tea Party caucus won't play ball with whatever the Senate comes up with we are back to square one and the Democrats can fully blame them for everything. 

Obama wins Nobel Prize Again

Well, they technically gave it to the OPCW, a group that goes around destroying chemical weapons.  But that's like giving it to the IAEA or the UN or even the United States military.  Which would of course be ridiculous.

No the award was given to Obama because Putin pulled his ass out of the fire and drummed up a phony deal for Assad to get rid of his chem-weapons to avert a military strike that wasn't going to happen. Clearly they couldn't give it to Putin or Assad and besides, they believe Obama created the peace.

If you're not convinced just watch the State Department's daily briefing today, where the spokeswoman spent the first few minutes reading a prepared statement congratulating them, including the following:

The award of the Nobel Peace Prize today to the OPCW no doubt reflects the critical role that they are playing in the Syrian CW crisis. As people know, in March of this year, the OPCW was called upon by the UN Secretary General to support a UN investigation into allegations of CW use in Syria.

A UN team staffed by OPCW chemical weapons experts investigated the August 21st attack and confirmed utilizing OPCW-designated laboratories that sarin was used to kill over a thousand Syrians.

Obama is awesome!   Of course they couldn't give it to Malala because that would be a direct smack in the face of the Taliban and Islamic barbarians worldwide, which would have brought unwanted attention to their war against human rights and women's rights and something like that might produce a fatwa. So giving it to Obama was the safe play.

Obama Renders Foreign Terrorist to Secret Interrogation Chamber

The capture of Anas al-Libi was heralded over the weekend as a good "get" (it is!) but few talked about the obvious political problems inherent in such an operation (few being the same media talking heads who grilled Bush about such things).    

For instance, it appears a Delta Force team, with assistance from CIA and FBI (we are not sure which boots were actually on the ground in Libya), snatched this guy off the streets where he was apparently living free and easy like Al Bundy.   The administration is being tight-lipped other than heralding an eventual transfer to a cell in Manhattan where he will get appropriate (non Bush) justice, ignoring all inconvenient details in between because, national security.

There are still rumors and leaks though, and some suggest al-Libi is on a Navy ship somewhere in the Med discussing his life with a HIG team.  No word on when he will be Mirandized and sent to New York, but as some have said it probably won't be as long as that guy Warsame, who was also captured in Africa several years ago and then spent a considerable amount of time on a ship in the Red Sea discussing things (strictly following the Army Field Manual, of course).  To their credit the Firedogs were biotching about this, showing that some liberals practice intellectual honesty.   OK, the Paulnuts are consistent as well. 

This guy Anas is a bigger fish though, fetching a cool 5 million on the Rewards for Justice list, so it will be harder to hide the process this time, which probably means he'll be in the Big Apple soon.  No word on whether anyone is claiming the 5 mil reward. 

The administration seems to blush when asked whether al-Libi was 'rendered'--they are saying it was a military operation and he's being held and interrogated under the AUMF under US law and laws of war, so it wasn't like a Bushitler extraordinary rendition because, Obama.  And how dare anyone even ask the question! 

That's odd in contrast to the way they handle questions about Benghazi.  The State Department and White House will refer everyone to the Department of Justice/FBI for any details on how justice is being pursued, as if Ansar al-Sharia is a faction of the New Black Panthers.  When asking questions to the FBI reporters are greeted with no details because, ongoing criminal investigation. 

So with four dead Americans and a bonafide terrorist attack they keep everything rooted in the FBI; for a suspected terrorist who might not even have been operating these past few years they send in Delta Force and use the AUMF to justify stowing him away on a ship before Mirandizing him and sending him to the klink with his assigned public defender.  Because transparency.

And don't try to figure out what happens when al-Libi claims he was 'tortured' on the Navy ship or secret black site, wherever he is, before being transferred back to the FBI in New York. The answer to that question is Bush.    

Meanwhile, aside from this embarrassment, which was clearly Boehner's fault, the administration made a curious move today, designating the Muhammad Jamal group in Egypt a recognized terrorist group. Anyone associated with the EIJ should have been deemed terrorists long ago.  Not mentioned was their possible involvement in the Benghazi attack, something Thomas Joscelyn mentions here.  Hmm, maybe the administration is about to unleash those FBI agents and roll out some justice against someone other than the Mohammed filmmaker.   Just don't ask any questions about it because shut up.   

 

Convenient Transparency

No, it's not a revelation that the "most transparent administration in history" is only transparent when it helps them.  It's displayed weekly, but sometimes it's a little more subtle.  Take Jay Carney, for example. 

One might think the most transparent administration in history would want their number one press spokesman out front during a crisis, answering away.  But that's not always the case.  When the Syria WMD story began to explode in late August the time it blew over during the week of September 11th,  Jay Carney made only a handful of appearances in front of cameras.

To be exact, between August 28th and September 10th, as the Syria crap was hitting the fan, he only made one appearance, and that was alongside national security staffer Tony Blinken on the 9th.  That was the same day the Syrians and Putin pulled the president's rear out of the fire.

During the same time period--a total of ten possible briefing days--there was only one televised briefing, which was performed by backup spokesman Josh Earnest on Thursday August 29th.  Friday August 30th was the day Obama claimed he did the walk-around on the White House yard with his Chief of Staff and decided to throw the bombing decision over a congressional vote. Saturday August 31st was when he announced the decision.  Thereafter followed five straight days where no press briefings were given.

Contrast that to recent events with the CR and debt ceiling.  Carney has suddenly found his groove and is out there every day spewing talking points.   He's done the last six in a row and eight out of nine back through September 25th.  The Ted Cruz filibuster ended on the 24th.  Very transparent.  

News about real Terrorists

No, not the extremists Obama and Reid have been blabbering about for weeks, real terrorists.  Our real enemy.  The CIA and FBI have apparently captured Anas al-Liby, who's been a permanent fixture on the Rewards for Justice site since the 90s.

Al-Liby was captured in broad daylight in Tripoli, indicating just how stable and secure that country is after Obama liberated it.  No GTMO for him, he will of course be flown back to New York for a civilian trial.  No word on whether the "HIG" team has or will interrogate him.  

Here's a blurb..

Abu Anas, 49, was born in Tripoli and is believed to have joined Bin Laden’s organization as early as the early 1990s, when it was based in Sudan. He later moved to Britain, where he had been granted political asylum. United States prosecutors in New York charged him in a 2000 indictment with helping to conduct “visual and photographic surveillance” of the United States Embassy in Nairobi in 1993 and again in 1995.

In the indictment, prosecutors said Abu Anas had discussed with another senior Qaeda figure the idea of attacking an American target in retaliation for the United States peacekeeping operation in Somalia.

He was a wanted fish and it's good we finally got him, although he wasn't a top level fish (he was among a list of 41 wanted terrorists worth 5 million for capture).  Oddly, CNN ran a story on him on September 27, claiming that he had been seen on the streets of Tripoli yet he seemed oblivious to the possibility he might get nabbed.  CNN seems to get wind of all kinds of terrorists in Libya before anyone else, although this one wasn't associated with Benghazi.  As to when he was nabbed, the Times story does not say but the CBS report claims it was today.

The bigger takeaway is Libya itself.   If indeed he was grabbed today then this dude was just walking around in the capital for weeks after being fingered by the western media, apparently oblivious to the threat. So who's running that show now anyway?   The media dropped their reporting on Libya as soon as Gaddafi was gone, and only sporadically report about the violence in Iraq after Obama ended the war.  The same will happen when we leave Afghanistan next year.  Obama has now redefined the terrorist enemy as John Boehner and the Tea Party, meanwhile the real war on terror rages on. 

As to the al-Shishkebob raid in Somalia, the SEALS might have gotten a ring leader, although the military is keeping very quiet about it so far. Interesting timing--they just released some unseen footage of the Blackhawk Down raid in Mogadishu yesterday.  Getting one guy might be satisfying but we sent lots of assets into Somalia back in 2008 in concert with Kenya and Ethiopia ground forces--now both those countries have suffered reprisal attacks.

MORE  10/6/13

Here's our apparent co-president John Kerry explaining the justice process, which apparently involves some hope-filled unicorns:

..."continue to try to bring people to justice in an appropriate way with hopes that ultimately these kinds of activities against everybody in the world will stop."

So much for AQ being decimated. And appropriate as in what? Rendition? Because it sure seems like this was a rendition. Here's CNN:

The Libyan interim government called the U.S. capture a kidnapping and has requested an explanation from Washington about the raid, the country's state news agency reported Sunday. Libya emphasized its citizens should be tried in Libya if they are facing charges, LANA reported.

That could be posturing--there was a lot of posturing by foreign governments back when Bush did rendition after 9/11, when it was evil.  Now it's cool again, as it was in the 90s when Clinton did it.  Here's a political perspective from a congressman:

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), a senior member of the House intelligence committee, called Ruqai’s capture “a major blow against the remnants of al-Qaida’s core.” The lawmaker said Ruqai was “thought to be in Libya to help set up new cells and recruit new members.”

Will they please stop with this 'AQ core' nonsense? AQ is AQ. They say AQ Core to get them off the hook from having to deal with AQ affiliates in Iraq and Iran and those fighting with the rebels in Syria. It's stupid and political.

Still wondering about interrogation. Here's the NY Times:

American officials said they would be questioning Abu Anas for several weeks. But they did not dispute that New York, where an indictment is pending against him, was most likely his ultimate destination. 

OK, but here's a comment from the Fox News piece:

Sources told Fox News that Libi will be read his rights by an elite FBI unit that was sent out for that purpose. US officials say that the Justice Department plans to prosecute him in a U.S. court.

Since the FBI was on scene does that mean he's been read his rights already?  They must not suspect anything imminent. Or maybe they do, but they want to be "appropriate". 

Congressional Update

Here's some news about Congress...

Is anyone in charge on Capitol Hill? October's two-week-long melodrama over shutting down the government was not an isolated instance.

Recently Congress voted for a $749 billion package of tax cuts, and only a few months later was locked in debate over a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. The House voted in favor of Ronald Reagan's plan to almost double the number of nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal, and not long after voted in favor of the nuclear freeze.

Only once in the past six years has Congress finished the budget appropriations before the beginning of the fiscal year; many spending bills have not been completed until months after the spending they supposedly control has begun. Long periods of legislative stalling are followed by spasms in which bills are passed with wild abandon, and these often contain "unprinted amendments" whose contents congressmen have never had an opportunity to read.

Many provisions of "tax leasing" became law that way, as, in 1981, did the phone number of a woman named Rita. Rita's number had been scribbled in the margin of the only copy of an amendment being voted on, and the following day it was duly transcribed into the printed copy of the bill.

"The system is a mess, and what's amazing is how many members of Congress are fully aware that the system is a mess," says Alan Dixon, a senator from Illinois.

In case you missed some of the names, that was actually a synopsis of the Congress from a 1984 article in the Atlantic.  One of several government shutdowns was looming, carnage in the budget fights between Democrat Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan.  Notice the tone of the reportage--Congress needs 'adult supervision'.  Not much has changed, so maybe it's not really getting worse after all.  

Side Tracks

Is this Jimmy Page's best rendition of this song?  It's hard to see how he could have played it better. 

Some Damn Game Indeed

Actually it is, for both sides---a game of high stakes chicken. 

If the GOP caves they fracture the party and pretty much turn Obama into a King for the next few years.   There will be end-zone dances to make the bin Laden takedown look like a local pot bust.

If the Democrats cave they have to admit that Obamacare isn't quite the bees' knees as per earlier advertisements, but of course since their ultimate goal is single payer they wouldn't suffer that much because Obamacare is largely designed to give all Americans an entitlement to health care.  Once everyone has that they can scrap the unworkable insurance system and give everyone their entitlement.  That 1/6th of the economy becomes completely controlled by Uncle Sam. 

Think of it this way, the shutdown drama is about killing our two party system in the efforts to move America into a European socialism paradigm, perhaps for us never to return.  There will still be opposition, you say?  Just take a look at a European 'conservative'. So yes, this is a seminal moment indeed.

And they know the stakes.  The sweat on the brows is beginning to show; Boehner is getting mad, frustrated because they are deliberately refusing to do what governments are supposed to do--negotiate.   What Obama is doing with Muslim terrorists at the moment.  

Check that, Reid WILL negotiate but he's got a gun to the head of Boehner to get him there.  The Republicans must admit and accept defeat, then negotiate.  Meanwhile the great Uniter, the man who gave the Tuscon speech condemning partisan divisiveness, is actually saying the GOP has a gun to the head of America while calling them extremists.  The use of such rhetoric, ignoring the possibility of being called a hypocrite, displays the stakes.   Of course the media won't call him a hypocrite because they knew the Tuscon speech was actually a lecture to the Tea Party and Sarah Palin.  Yes, these people are craven.

At the same time his press spokesman, one of the biggest clowns ever allowed to filibuster the White House podium, claims there's 'no venom' between the administration and the Tea Party.  He says this with a straight face when his every other word describes them as extremists/terrorists/hostage takers/suiciders. 

RINOs/moderates can fault Cruz or Boehner for getting things to this point, but it was coming anyway.  It had to.  Yesterday a women went crazy and tried to ram barriers into our most precious institutions.  Today a man apparently set himself on fire on the National Mall.  America is more divided than ever, perhaps as divided as the Civil War days.  The police dress like soldiers and are buying small tanks and MRAPs.  And we have no national leadership.  This is not going to end well.    

Yes, Things are Deteriorating

The longer this goes on, the more Democrats will start showing the exit holes. Take this interview question by CNN's Dana Bash to Harry Reid...



PJ Media and others are focusing on Reid's comment "why would we want to do that", which is a bonehead remark indeed.  But what interests me is what he does at the end of the clip..

"..to have someone of your intelligence suggest such a thing, (unintelligible) is just irresponsible."

That's a Third World goon tactic--don't like the press's question, intimidate the press.  How DARE she ask a logical and sensible question, especially considering Reid has already passed a separate bill to pay the active duty military, which the president signed.  No doubt hidden in such a thuggish reply is the veiled threat to not grant more access until CNN mends its ways.  And yet he lectures people about being irresponsible.

Oh,. and talking about goon tactics, this is pretty unbelievable if it wasn't so believable.

After about an hour, about 20 protesters arrived on the scene chanting “Boehner, get us back to work” and claiming they were federal employees furloughed because of the shutdown. In the video below these protesters were marching towards the press gaggle and I was asking them to show their federal IDs to prove they were in fact federal workers. No one wore their federal ID and none would provide it to prove their claim.

Then, remarkably, a guy carrying a sign passed by wearing a McDonald’s employee shirt, which I noted. I then began asking them how much they had been paid to protest, at which point the guy wearing the McDonald’s shirt came back and admitted he had been paid $15.

As if threatening to arrest WWII veterans coming to DC to view their own monument wasn't clueless enough, now someone is sending groups down there to protest.  PJ Reporter Pat Poole probably jumped the gun on them being SEIU, and they may not even be paid either (the McDonalds worker he questioned didn't appear to have good command of English and might have just replied '15 dollars' as in "I want 15 dollars an hour", a continuation of the recent nationwide protest for higher wages at fast food jernts).

But paid or not, the point is that somebody is sending them down to military monuments for a political show.  The Vets ain't gonna like that, anymore than they liked Michele Bachmann running down there and trying to score political points.

But she's trivial compared to having an administration use WWII vets to extract political victories.  In other words, we'll open the monuments when our political rivals do as we tell them.  It's clear these people will stoop to anything to win.   This war for them is bigger than the Global War on Terror, which is why they throw around terms like terrorist, extremist and suicide bomber so cavalierly.  

And for that reason things are bound to get uglier over the next few days should Boehner manage to hold it together a little longer.  He simply cannot allowed to be bullied into not negotiating over the only thing he has to negotiate over.  Reid and Carney keep telling the media they want nothing in return for passing a clean CR bill, no negotiation; which is BS, wanting no negotiations IS something. It means they win.

Which neuters the party going forward, allowing Obama the upper hand on any future socialistic bills he has in mind, almost as if Pelosi herself were Speaker.   But there's a but! One thing to watch for over the next week should Boehner hold things together will be immigration.  Will they coyly try to roll some kind of amnesty bill into a big package to raise the debt ceiling, maybe in return for a one year delay to the individual mandate and a few spending cuts?  Would the Tea Party agree in order to end the shutdown?  We will see.

The Games Begin

It's all about fault now.  Here we have the Democrats, who refuse to negotiate on anything, harping about Tea Party this, Tea Party that, extremists suicide bombers hostage takers (meaning they only bargain with real terrorists these days).

The amazing thing is that they are so confident on the media's bias and the public's indifferent stupidity they just plow ahead with the nonsense, convinced a great win is around the corner after they teach these teabaggers a lesson.  And they've no doubt been coached to say this stuff by the best Democratic strategists money and power can buy, many of whom went through the Clinton shutdown.

But in explaining this today the WaPo revealed something.   Everyone has heard the old saying about lies--repeat the same one over and over and eventually people will come to believe it.  The Democrats and media are lying about how the previous shutdown impacted the GOP, trying to parlay it into this one, but rarely does a political operative openly admit it (emphasis added):

Republican leaders are all too aware of how they came to be seen as the losers during the last government shutdown, in the winter of 1995 and 1996. At the time, the Clinton administration argued that House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) and his Republican caucus were too extreme.

“We just repeated that over and over again until it sunk in,” said Democratic strategist Mike McCurry, who was White House press secretary at the time.

The WaPo also posted a chart of government shutdowns and their duration. Here it is:

As can be seen, there have been plenty of funding lapses.  They don't occur by mistake, they occur over policy differences.  But if the current crop of Republicans are bomb-strapping terrorist extremists for standing up for their position now leading to a shutdown, what were the House Democrats during the Carter administration?   Was Tip O'Neill an extremist?