New administration defense on #Benghazi: “We’re not evil, just idiots.”

“Oops! Our bad.”

You know it’s bad when pleading stupidity is the best you can come up with.

Via Sharyl Attkisson at CBS:

Obama administration officials who were in key positions on Sept. 11, 2012 acknowledge that a range of mistakes were made the night of the attacks on the U.S. missions in Benghazi, and in messaging to Congress and the public in the aftermath.

The officials spoke to CBS News in a series of interviews and communications under the condition of anonymity so that they could be more frank in their assessments. They do not all agree on the list of mistakes and it’s important to note that they universally claim that any errors or missteps did not cost lives and reflect “incompetence rather than malice or cover up.” Nonetheless, in the eight months since the attacks, this is the most sweeping and detailed discussion by key players of what might have been done differently.

“We’re portrayed by Republicans as either being lying or idiots,” said one Obama administration official who was part of the Benghazi response. “It’s actually closer to us being idiots.”

My first observation is that “lying” and “idiots” are not mutually exclusive terms. In fact I suspect the former came about trying to cover for the latter.

The article addresses several questions, among them: Why wasn’t the Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST) activated? Why was the Counterterrorism Security Group, described as…

an interagency task force (…) to be convened when emergency terrorist events are suspected. According to a public military document, it’s part of a plan to “synchronize the efforts of all the government agencies that have a role to play in the Global War on Terrorism.” 

…not convened? Where was the “in extremis” (emergency rescue) force?

The answers are, well, “special.” Things along the lines of (paraphrasing) “we didn’t think that was their mission” (FEST); they had been made “lower level” (CSG) and senior people were dealing with it; and “they were off on a training mission (because we didn’t notice the significance of the 9/11 anniversary) and they couldn’t be recalled in time.” Like I said, pleading incompetence.

Read the whole thing, it’s worth your time. You’ll notice that not really touched on is the issue of security for Benghazi prior to the attack on the consulate. I suppose they got tired of saying “We’re idiots” over and over.

Like I said above, one can be both a liar and incompetent at the same time, when the lying is used to cover the incompetence, particularly Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s; she had screwed up our Libya policy big-time, and the commander in chief needed his beauty sleep to be ready for his big fundraiser in Vegas the next day. These underlings weren’t just furiously trading emails and holding meetings to fight a blame war between State and the CIA, they were figuring out how best to cover their bosses’ arses and not damage his reelection campaign and her 2016 run.

And, in the process, lying to the American people, Congress, and the families of the victims.

There is “malicious”, and there is “idiot.”

And then there are “malicious idiots.”

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#IRS scandal: Democrats make clear where they stand on the 1st Amendment

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced a resolution condemning the Internal Revenue Service for trampling the Constitutional rights of Americans. (For example) It didn’t get very far:

Today, Senate Democrats placed a hold on Sen. Rand Paul’s recent resolution that condemns the targeting of Tea Party groups by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and calls for an investigation into this practice.

“This resolution is not about Republican vs. Democrat or conservative vs. liberal. It is about arrogant and unrestrained government vs. the rule of law. The First Amendment cannot and should not be renegotiated depending on which party holds power,” Sen. Paul said. ”Each senator took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, yet Senate Democrats chose to block my resolution and thus refused to condemn the IRS for trampling on our First Amendment rights. I am incredibly disappointed in Washington’s party politics and I am determined to hold the IRS accountable for these unjust acts.”

I’m not sure why anyone would find this surprising: as the party of arrogant, unrestrained government, the leaders of which think the Constitution is obsolete, well, of course they would shoot this resolution down.

It threatens their very reason for existence, after all.

via Stephen Green.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#IRS scandal: Granting tax-exempt status to pro-life groups *if* they agree not to protest Planned Parenthood

But they’re absolutely, totally, without a doubt non-political. And don’t you dare say otherwise, wingnut!

IRS officials refused to grant tax exempt status two pro-life organizations because of their position on the abortion issue, according to a non-profit law firm, which said that one group was pressured not to protest a pro-choice organization that endorsed President Obama during the last election.

“In one case, the IRS withheld approval of an application for tax exempt status for Coalition for Life of Iowa. In a phone call to Coalition for Life of Iowa leaders on June 6, 2009, the IRS agent ‘Ms. Richards’ told the group to send a letter to the IRS with the entire board’s signatures stating that, under perjury of the law, they do not picket/protest or organize groups to picket or protest outside of Planned Parenthood,” the Thomas More Society announced today. “Once the IRS received this letter, their application would be approved.”

Planned Parenthood endorsed Obama in 2008 and 2012.

The article also mentions a Texas pro-life group that had its free speech rights roughed up, too.

With new revelations of IRS abuse coming out seemingly hourly, this would be almost comical if it weren’t for the serious constitutional, legal, and political implications.  Granting tax-exempt status only if they promise not to exercise their First Amendment rights?? Can these morons in IRS really have been so blind as to not see what a bright red line they were crossing? (Or did they think it was an “Obama red line,” and therefore meaningless?)

And let’s not even start with why the press wasn’t asking about these rumors in 2010-2012… 

via Kevin Eder.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

New #IRS scandal? Agency sued over stealing 60 million medical records — Updated

Remember, the Internal Revenue Service is charged with being the enforcement arm of Obamacare.

We’re in the best of hands:

The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges.

According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data.

“This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power by several Internal Revenue Service agents,” the complaint reads. “No search warrant authorized the seizure of these records; no subpoena authorized the seizure of these records; none of the 10,000,000 Americans were under any kind of known criminal or civil investigation and their medical records had no relevance whatsoever to the IRS search. IT personnel at the scene, a HIPPA facility warning on the building and the IT portion of the searched premises, and the company executives each warned the IRS agents of these privileged records,” it continued.

You know, we may just be a lowly state, and they may be a mighty federal agency, but it would take only a few angry superior court judges to make life miserable for the regional IRS office…

Meanwhile, what are we up to? Five scandals in the last two weeks? Six? Am I bid seven?

via Drew M.

UPDATE: Lawyer Gabriel Malor is “calling BS” on the Healthcare IT News story, describing the suit as “vague” and “lurid.” See his tweets beginning at 3/15/13 at 10:12 AM.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#Benghazi headdesk moment: Why the review board stopped questioning Clinton

“Don’t ask questions”

Via PJM. This is one of those statements that makes you think “No, you didn’t just say that, did you?”

He did:

“Now, with hindsight, don’t you [Amb. Thomas Pickering, co-chair of the Accountability Review Board] think it would have been important to ask her about that conversation and other decisions she made that night? Because she [Secretary Clinton] was intimately involved,” [Wolf] Blitzer asked.

“We did. We did. We interviewed the senior staff members…”

“But why not her?” Blitzer pressed.

Pickering replied that they “felt that everything that we saw was fully and competently taken care of.”

“We didn’t have a reason in any way at all to suggest there was anything that she might have known that was not already relayed to us. It was straightforward. We thought they did an excellent job the night of. There were many different pieces of testimony we put together with respect to that,” he continued.

When asked if the ARB was trying to protect Clinton, Pickering said, “Well, the criticism may be the criticism. We will have to live with that, but the truth is that we didn’t feel there was a need to do that on the basis of all the evidence we had accumulated to date.”

“And knowing what you know now, was that the right decision?” Blitzer continued.

“Yes, of course it was the right decision.”

“To avoid any serious questioning with the secretary of state?”

“Well, if we had started down that line, where would it have ended?” Pickering asked.

Oh, gee, Ambassador, I don’t know. How about with “the Truth?” Clinton was on a 2 AM (Libyan time) phone call with DCM Hicks, by that time the highest American official in Libya because the Ambassador was missing in a besieged consulate and later found dead. He made no mention of a “demonstration” or a video. Every bit of evidence from our people on the ground –relayed to Clinton directly– and from intelligence that night indicated this was a terrorist attack. Maybe you could have asked her just where in the process of revising the talking points a dozen times the idea of a video being the cause of it all entered the picture?

And if that wasn’t in your purview, how about why repeated requests for additional security (or even just to keep the security they had) were denied? Why was the inter-departmental FEST counter-terrorism team never activated that night, despite repeated requests from the Deputy Assistant Secretary in charge to be included?

That’s why you ask the questions: You may not know where they’ll end, but, when you get there, you’ll have the accountability your board was supposed to establish.

Unless, in your dictionary, “accountability” means “whitewash.”

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#IRS scandal: But, of course. They targeted Jewish groups, too.

Jewish groups that are favorable toward Israel. We all know how close the President is to Israel, now don’t we?

This just gets better and better.

Via Politico:

The same Internal Revenue Service office that singled out Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny also challenged Israel-related organizations, at least one of which filed suit over the agency’s handling of its application for tax-exempt status.

The trouble for the Israel-focused groups seems to have had different origins than that experienced by conservative groups, but at times the effort seems to have been equally ham-handed.

(…)

Z Street filed a lawsuit against the IRS in 2010 alleging that one of its attorneys were told its application for tax exemption was delayed and sent to a “special unit…to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies.”

“Special unit” probably refers to the same group vetting 501(c)(3) applications that’s been at the center of controversy the last few days. Seems they’re “looking into” anyone critical of Obama, his policies, or the direction of the nation.

But, really, “special unit” and “investigating Jewish groups” are thoughts you never want associated with your administration.

Ever.

More from The Jewish Press.

via Cuffé and J Hammer

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#IRS scandal: White House counsel knew last April

Via Rick Moran at PJM, Politico is reporting that the White House counsel, the president’s legal adviser, knew about the IRS targeting conservative groups three weeks ago:

The White House counsel’s office was informed in April of an inspector general’s review of the Internal Revenue Service, press secretary Jay Carney said Monday.

Carney told reporters that the counsel’s office was told of the examination into the targeting of conservative groups during the week of April 22, but not given details about the review’s findings. President Obama, Carney said, was not told about the review and learned of it only after news reports emerged Friday, just what Obama said earlier Monday.

Uh huh. Right. The Treasury IG hands the president’s lawyer bombshell revelations, and yet that lawyer never tells his client? “Uh… Hi, sir! Nice morning, isn’t it? Huh? Wha…? No, nothing going on today, sir! Nothing at all!”

Care to buy some swampland in Arizona?

I’m with Moran:

I do not believe that Barack Obama first learned of the IRS’s targeting of conservatives “from news reports” on Friday. That doesn’t pass the smell test, especially since a close aide was told of the program three weeks ago. Are we to believe that the president’s own counsel didn’t immediately go to the Oval Office after learning of this and tell Obama “We’ve got a big  problem, sir”? And the fact that the White House is now in full-blown circle-the wagons damage-control mode would suggest that their primary goal is to keep the president a thousand miles away from anything having to do with this scandal.

Good luck with that, guys. Just remember — it’s always the cover-up that gets ya.

Just ask any White House occupant circa 1974.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#IRS scandal: Officials in Washington, California targeted Tea Party groups

Hey, remember when IRS official Lois Lerner said that only a wayward local office in Cincinnati was improperly investigating conservative groups?

Yeah, well… about that:

Internal Revenue Service officials in Washington and at least two other offices were involved in the targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, making clear the effort reached well beyond the branch in Cincinnati that was initially blamed, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

IRS officials at the agency’s Washington headquarters sent queries to conservative groups asking about their donors and other aspects of their operations, while officials in the El Monte and Laguna Niguel offices in California sent similar questionnaires to tea party-affiliated groups.

IRS employees in Cincinnati also told conservatives seeking the status of “social welfare” groups that a task force in Washington was overseeing their applications, according to interviews with the activists.

Lois G. Lerner, who oversees tax-exempt groups for the IRS, told reporters on Friday the “absolutely inappropriate” actions were undertaken by “front-line people” working in Cincinnati to target groups with “tea party,” “patriot” or “9/12” in their names.

In one instance, however, Ron Bell, an IRS employee, informed an attorney representing a conservative group focused on voter fraud that the application was under review in Washington. On several other occasions, IRS officials in D.C. and California sent detailed questionaires to conservative groups asking more than a dozen questions about their voter outreach and other activities, according to the documents.

“For the IRS to say it was some low-level group in Cincinnati is simply false,” said Cleta Mitchell, a partner in the law firm Foley & Lardner LLP who sought to communicate with IRS headquarters about the delay in granting tax-exempt status to True the Vote.

“True the Vote” is an organization dedicated to election integrity and fight vote fraud. What a shock it was hassled during… an election year.

So, we’ve gone from “front-line people” to the agency’s General Counsel, one step below the Commissioner, who, um… testified there was no such thing going on.

Except there was, and it wasn’t just local and it wasn’t just “front-line people.”

Between this, Benghazi, the DoJ-AP scandal, and the budding Sebelius/HHS solicitations scandal, this week has already turned bad for Team Hopenchange.

Can’t wait to see what comes out between now and Friday. 

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Shocker: Lying weasel Jay Carney caught lying like a weasel about #Benghazi

US Consulate, Benghazi

And I think the shocking thing is that it’s the MSM exposing him (emphases added):

When it became clear last fall that the CIA’s now discredited Benghazi talking points were flawed, the White House said repeatedly the documents were put together almost entirely by the intelligence community, but White House documents reviewed by Congress suggest a different story.

ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.

White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department. The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.

That would appear to directly contradict* what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking points in November.

“Those talking points originated from the intelligence community. They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened,” Carney told reporters at the White House press briefing on November 28, 2012. “The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”

*(MSM-speak for “Jay Carney is a lying weasel.”)

We already know from The Weekly Standard that State and a failed fiction writer now working as an Obama national-security aide were heavily involved in “editing” the initial CIA talking points. This ABC report shows how many iterations they went through before the bowdlerized version was handed to Ambassador Rice for her role as designated mouthpiece the following Sunday. Then, when the talking points were shown to be a fiction, Carney went before the public to lie about their origins. The only question is was he knowingly lying, or was he played for a sap?

But, annoying as it is to have yet another example of the administration’s dishonesty over Benghazi (1) come out, the real story in my opinion here isn’t that a press secretary lied to cover his boss and his top aides. No, the real story here is that the MSM is finally getting interested in Benghazi, finally “uncovering” all these shocking revelations only after Obama has been safely reelected.

They’ve done their job, you see. They pushed Obama over the finish line twice, so now they can go back to pretending they’re objective journalists. There’s no need to “play Pravda” anymore, at least in this case. Now they can break news of things they could easily have discovered back in September, October, and November, except that it might have hurt Obama’s reelection chances.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad they’re finally doing their jobs. Benghazi is a huge scandal and the story has to be told. But don’t expect me to praise them for “holding the powerful accountable,” when their self-serving cynicism (2) is so dazzling.

RELATED: The Right Sphere reaches back in time to remind us that Carney’s boss was telling the same lies on a national stage just before the election.

Footnote:
(1) Remember, the administration knew what happened that night from their people on the ground. The jihadis themselves knew what happened; it was their operation. The only people being deceived here were us.
(2) There are a few exceptions, of course, but the corruption of the MSM as an institution is spread far and wide.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

The mystery of Obama and #Benghazi

US Consulate, Benghazi

In my last post, I focused on Hillary Clinton’s craven behavior, driven by her lust for the Oval Office. But, as I point out, that doesn’t let Obama off the hook. He is the President, he is the Commander in Chief, and yet when American diplomats were attacked that night, he apparently went to bed.

Andrew Malcolm has a great column at IBD blasting Obama. Here’s an excerpt, but read the whole thing:

Obama has had himself photographed firmly atop other national security events like the whacking of Osama bin Laden. The Democrat held a brief Rose Garden photo op on Benghazi the next morning before rushing off to fundraisers in Las Vegas. We know he and Clinton both blamed the offensive video for weeks after they knew that line was phony.

What we don’t know is where the hell was the commander-in-chief all-night while two former SEALs, a communications specialist and the first U.S. ambassador in three decades were being murdered on-duty six time zones away.

We do know that then Secy. of Defense Leon Panetta claims Obama instructed him in the early evening of 9/11 to do everything necessary to protect Americans and embassies abroad.

We also know now that “everything” wasn’t really anything at all.

But I’m sure he got a good night’s sleep.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#Benghazi: Hearings show Hillary Clinton really is “Lady Macbeth.”

“Banquo’s blood”

I’ve joked since the Clintons first came on the national scene that Hillary was a modern-day “Lady Macbeth,” willing to do anything and put up with anything to get power and keep it. Think about it: why else would someone suffer repeated public humiliations from a serial-philanderer husband, one widely reputed to be a rapist? Because she wants power, and needed Bill to have a shot at her ultimate goal — becoming president, herself.

That was the reason for her Senate “career.” Not to serve and represent the people of New York (where, in fact, she was a carpetbagger), but to give her a national stage from which she could launch a presidential bid in 2004 or 2008, widely expected to be an anointing… until a certain young, male, charismatic senator came along and snatched the crown –her crown!– from her. And there she was again, left making a deal with a powerful man to keep open the road to her dreams. I have no proof, of course, just a gut feeling based on watching Hillary over the course of 20 years, but I think the deal went something like this: In return for ending her primary battle against Obama and delivering her supporters’ votes, she received a plum cabinet post with global exposure and the unofficial title of “heir apparent.” (Really, no one other than Joe takes Joe’s own ambitions seriously.) The deal struck, all was set. Just a few more years and her heart’s desire would be hers.

Then came Benghazi, the truth of which had to be covered up, lest it expose her incompetence and ruin her last chance to be president.

But the ghosts of the men who died that night would not stay quiet, and questions of “why” ate at the consciences of three good Americans who would no longer suffer the truth be kept silent, and so came forward yesterday to tell the nation what they knew and saw and did.

And their testimony condemns Hillary Clinton.

Most damning was the testimony of Gregory Hicks, the Deputy Chief of Mission in Libya at the time of the attack, who became our top diplomat there when Ambassador Stephens was killed. Among other things, he attested under oath to the following:

• That there was no demonstration in Benghazi. In two conversations with the Ambassador, demonstrations were never mentioned. In fact, Stephens’ last words to Hicks were “We’re under attack!” The embassy knew that night from Ansar al-Sharia’s Twitter feed that they were taking responsibility for the attack.
• That the YouTube video Clinton and the Obama administration desperately tried to blame for the disaster meant nothing in Libya.
• That he himself briefed Clinton herself over the phone at 2 AM Libyan time (8 PM EST), giving her a full update on the situation. Again, no mention of a video, no mention of a demonstration.

And yet, two hours later, Clinton was blaming the video. Days later, standing over the coffins of the four killed in Benghazi, she told the father of one that they would “get the guy” who made that video.  CIA analysis was scrubbed at State Department behest to remove references to terrorism. Our UN ambassador went on five different talk shows the following Sunday, five days later, and blamed the video. The President of the United States, himself, stood before the United Nations General Assembly and proclaimed the video to be the culprit.

Yet Hillary knew the truth the night it all happened. And she lied. She lied not only to the nation, not only to Congress, but to the father of Ty Woods, one of the retired Navy SEALs who died that night while trying to save American lives.

While she was trying to save her political career.

I’m not excusing anyone in the upper reaches of the administration. Not Susan Rice, not Leon Panetta, not Jay Carney, and certainly not Barack Obama. They all had to have known; they all had their own arses to cover, or those of their patrons. (See for example Bryan Preston’s theory.)

But it was Hillary Clinton who knew from the start, and hers were the policies that lead to inadequate security in Benghazi. Those were her personnel in Libya, and hers was the responsibility.

But “The Deal” had been made in 2008, and it had to be preserved. Thus a desperate lie about a video was born and a pathetic little videographer was made the scapegoat, and the First Amendment was crushed.

All to keep clear Hillary Clinton’s path to the throne she knew should be hers:

The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood,
Stop up th’access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry ‘Hold, hold!’
–Lady Macbeth, “Macbeth,” Act I, scene v

What a pathetic, disgusting creature she is.

Afterthought: This isn’t over. Unanswered are questions about what other actors that night did then and in the days after, especially the President. Also, while Mr. Hicks testified that a stand-down order did come to the second relief team, he does not know who was on the phone with the Lieutenant Colonel in charge. The “chain” of that order needs to be made clear. Clinton herself should be hauled before the committee again, as should Susan Rice, Leon Panetta, and Cheryl Mills, Hillary’s chief of staff and “fixer” at the time. And anyone else in that circle who was in a position to know. Somewhere in that rats’ nest is a new John Dean, waiting to talk.

RELATED:

Roger L. Simon compares Hillary to the Medicis.

“Seven Things We Learned From The Benghazi Whistle-Blower Hearings.” Must reading.

A good ABC News article on the Benghazi hearing.

Eli Lake on “They knew it was terrorism.”

One of the Benghazi whistle-blowers was demoted for asking too many questions.

Why was State’s FEST team not deployed?

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Confirmed: #Benghazi consulate denied military help, administration cover up collapsing

“No authority”

Via Sharyl Attkisson/CBS News, this is just disgusting:

The deputy of slain U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens has told congressional investigators that a team of Special Forces prepared to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi during the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks was forbidden from doing so by U.S. Special Operations Command South Africa.

The account from Gregory Hicks is in stark contrast to assertions from the Obama administration, which insisted that nobody was ever told to stand down and that all available resources were utilized. Hicks gave private testimony to congressional investigators last month in advance of his upcoming appearance at a congressional hearing Wednesday.

According to excerpts released Monday, Hicks told investigators that SOCAFRICA commander Lt. Col. Gibson and his team were on their way to board a C-130 from Tripoli for Benghazi prior to an attack on a second U.S. compound “when [Col. Gibson] got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, ‘you can’t go now, you don’t have the authority to go now.’ And so they missed the flight … They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it.”

No assistance arrived from the U.S. military outside of Libya during the hours that Americans were under attack or trapped inside compounds by hostile forces armed with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and AK-47 rifles.

The fact that a relief team was available in Libya and was ready to go is important, if one bears in mind the question of cross-border authority. That means presidential authorization wasn’t necessary: the Special Ops guys were ready to board the plane and, as Hicks states later in the article in a transcript of his testimony to congressional investigators, the Libyan government wanted us to intervene:

Q: So what would have been the risk of — do you think it would have been risky for us to send someone, do you think it would have been counterproductive for us to send a fighter pilot plane over Benghazi without that permission?

A: We would have certainly wanted to obtain that permission. I believe we would have gotten it if we had asked. I believe that the Libyans were hoping that we were going to come bail them out of this mess. And, you know, they were as surprised as we were that American — the military forces that did arrive only arrived on the evening of September 12. Yeah.

Remember, Hicks was the Deputy Chief of Mission, our “Number Two” at the embassy after the Ambassador. With Ambassador Stevens dead, he was in charge. He was in a position to know the Libyan government very well and, by his words, it looks like the Libyans would have been happy to green-light almost anything we wanted to do.

But someone in no uncertain terms told that relief team to stand down. Just who gave that order and why the administration lied about it are questions the House Oversight Committee should focus on this upcoming Wednesday.

There are other questions regarding available military aid that night: Hick asserts that, had we flown a couple of fighter jets over Benghazi, we would have scared the jihadis off:

“I believe if we had been able to scramble a fighter or aircraft or two over Benghazi as quickly as possible after the attack commenced, I believe there would not have been a mortar attack on the annex in the morning because I believe the Libyans would have split. They would have been scared to death that we would have gotten a laser on them and killed them,” Hicks testified. Two Americans died in the morning mortar attack.

Attkisson points out that the Souda Bay Naval Air Station in Crete is only an hour away, while an earlier CBS article reported on available aid at Sigonella, Sicily, also an hour or so away. Yet, in an article at The Daily Beast, Eli Lake reports that Hicks says he was told the nearest fighter cover was at Aviano, Italy, too far away to help. That latter backs up then-Defense Secretary Panetta’s assertion to a Senate committee that no air assets would have been available quickly enough. But… no fighter assets at two nearby airbases, when we have a consulate that’s sitting in the middle of a jihadi recruiting ground? Forgive me if I’m skeptical, but, when I read in the same article…

[Joint Chiefs Chairman General Martin] Dempsey said he could not have gotten troops on the ground within 13 to 15 hours.

Panetta was firm throughout his testimony that there were no “undue delays” in decision making and there was no denial of support from Washington or from the military combatant commanders when the attack happened.

…and compare it to the testimony of the Deputy Chief of Mission who was there on the ground screaming for help with a team of Special Forces ready and anxious to go, well, forgive me if I think we’re being shoveled a load of horse manure.

In fact it’s plain to everyone, even Bob Schieffer (h/t The Jawa Report), that this administration has been lying through its teeth since the day this attack took place. They deliberately altered talking points (1) based on orders from “on high,” blaming a video no one had ever seen and vilifying the poor schmuck videographer, denying the attack had anything to do with al Qaeda, and then, when it couldn’t be denied any longer, hiding behind a whitewash of an “accountability report” that is itself now being investigated.

All this coverup and all these lies, and, near as anyone can figure out, it was all meant to protect Obama’s reelection and Hillary Clinton’s chances to succeed him.

Somewhere Richard Nixon nods in understanding.

Wednesday should be fascinating.

RELATED: The Weekly Standard with more on the stand-down order. Background on Gregory Hicks. The complete Benghazi timeline in spreadsheet format. Another whistle-blower reveals Secretary Clinton’s efforts to go around her department’s own counterterrorism bureau the night of Benghazi. Who the heck is Ben Rhodes, and why is a failed fiction writer making US national security decisions? (h/t Rick Moran)

Footnote:
(1) If you read nothing else, read that article. It’s devastating.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#Benghazi whistle-blower names revealed

They called for help.

And these are people in position to know what happened:

Appearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will be three career State Department officials: Gregory N. Hicks, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya at the time of the Benghazi terrorist attacks and, upon the killing of Ambassador Stevens in those attacks, the highest-ranking American diplomat in the country; Mark I. Thompson, a former U.S. Marine and presently the Deputy Coordinator for Operations in the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau; and Eric Nordstrom, a Diplomatic Security officer who was formerly the regional security officer (RSO) in Libya, the top security officer in the country, in the months leading up to the Benghazi attacks.

More on Mr. Hicks:

Hicks is a veteran Foreign Service officer whose overseas postings have also included Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen. According to Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), another member of the committee, Hicks was in Tripoli at 9:40 p.m. local time on September 11 when he received one of Stevens’s earliest phone calls amid the crisis. “We’re under attack! We’re under attack!” the ambassador reportedly shouted into his cell phone at Hicks. According to Chaffetz, who subsequently debriefed Hicks, the deputy “immediately called into Washington to trigger all the mechanisms” for an inter-agency response. “The real-life trauma that [Hicks] went through,” Chaffetz recalled to Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, “I mean, I really felt it in his voice. It was hard to listen to. He’s gone through a lot, but he did a great job.”

Read the rest. These hearings on Wednesday are going to be very interesting.

via JCinQC

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

State Dept. Inspector General investigating State Dept. Board that investigated #Benghazi

They’d like answers, too.

But, don’t worry. According to a State Department spokesman, this is just part of a standard review of “the process.”

Yeah, sure it is.

The State Department’s Office of Inspector General is investigating the special internal panel that probed the Benghazi terror attack for the State Department, Fox News has confirmed.

The IG’s office is said by well-placed sources to be seeking to determine whether the Accountability Review Board, or ARB — led by former U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen — failed to interview key witnesses who had asked to provide their accounts of the Benghazi attacks to the panel.

The IG’s office notified the department of the “special review” on March 28, according to Doug Welty, the congressional and public affairs officer of the IG’s office.

This disclosure marks a significant turn in the ongoing Benghazi case, as it calls into question the reliability of the blue-ribbon panel that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton convened to review the entire matter. Until the report was concluded, she and all other senior Obama administration officials regularly refused to answer questions about what happened in Benghazi.

But State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell disputed the characterization of the review, saying it is “simply false” to assert the panel is being investigated.

And that smoke you see is not indicative of a fire.

That’s why whistle-blowers who wanted to testify before the ARB are lawyering up in advance of next Wednesday’s House hearings — just “normal process:”

In an interview for the Fox News program “Geraldo” taped Thursday afternoon and set to air this weekend, Joe diGenova, a former U.S. attorney, told host Geraldo Rivera that he is legally representing a career State Department officer whom the board failed to interview. DiGenova called the ARB a “cover-up.”

DiGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing, a former Justice Department official who represents another State Department whistle-blower in the Benghazi case, said their respective clients will testify next Wednesday at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee being chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

The review board’s report was rightly regarded at the time as a whitewash, making scapegoats of senior officials well-below Hillary Clinton’s level and attempting to appease the public with severe punishments laughable wrist-slaps.

Jim Geraghty is right that this could be deadly to Hillary’s 2016 prospects, but there’s something else to bear in mind: if the question of “cross-border authority” discussed yesterday is is true, then what the whistle-blowers have to say –and perhaps wanted to say to the ARB– may well implicate the President’s actions or non-actions that night. It’s not hard at all to imagine pressure from both the White House and Clinton’s office on the ARB to “find some responsible flunkies, fast” because there were two arses that needed covering — Clinton’s and Obama’s.

Question: IF all this turns out to be true and IF it looks like “Hillary 2016″ is about to go down like the Hindenburg, will she rat-out her former boss? It’s not as if there is any love lost between the Clintonistas and the Obama camp.

RELATED: Wait, al Qaeda operatives were at the Benghazi attack? You mean they were working for the video maker, too?

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#Benghazi: Obama denied aid to attacked consulate – confirmed?

“No help”

Last November, in a post about the Benghazi consulate massacre and the question of military relief, I wrote about the question of “cross-border authority” — that is, who has the power to order our military to enter another country without their permission, per force an act of war. Quoting an article at PJM by Matt Bracken, we learned that only the President -Barack Obama- has that authority. Here’s the relevant information, again:

Once the alarm is sent – in this case, from the consulate in Benghazi — dozens of HQs are notified and are in the planning loop in real time, including AFRICOM and EURCOM, both located in Germany. Without waiting for specific orders from Washington, they begin planning and executing rescue operations, including moving personnel, ships, and aircraft forward toward the location of the crisis. However, there is one thing they can’t do without explicit orders from the president: cross an international border on a hostile mission.

That is the clear “red line” in this type of a crisis situation.

No administration wants to stumble into a war because a jet jockey in hot pursuit (or a mixed-up SEAL squad in a rubber boat) strays into hostile territory. Because of this, only the president can give the order for our military to cross a nation’s border without that nation’s permission. For the Osama bin Laden mission, President Obama granted CBA for our forces to enter Pakistani airspace.

On the other side of the CBA coin: in order to prevent a military rescue in Benghazi, all the POTUS has to do is not grant cross-border authority. If he does not, the entire rescue mission (already in progress) must stop in its tracks.

Emphases added.

Today in an article at Fox News, Adam Housely reports that, because of a “communication breakdown” between the White House, State, and the Department of Defense, the military never received permission to enter Libya:

On the night of the Benghazi terror attack, special operations put out multiple calls for all available military and other assets to be moved into position to help — but the State Department and White House never gave the military permission to cross into Libya, sources told Fox News.

The disconnect was one example of what sources described as a communication breakdown that left those on the ground without outside help.

“When you are on the ground, you depend on each other — we’re gonna get through this situation. But when you look up and then nothing outside of the stratosphere is coming to help you or rescue you, that’s a bad feeling,” one source said.

Multiple sources spoke to Fox News about what they described as a lack of action in Benghazi on Sept. 11 last year, when four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed.

Read the whole thing. It describes a lack of contingency planning, largely centered on Hillary Clinton’s State Department, and surely they (and she) bear a lot of blame for the lack of proper security at Benghazi and the failure to recognize the dangers in that part of Libya. Four Americans died because of it. The Diplomad, a former Foreign Service Officer with direct experience of Clinton, has often described how she seemed utterly uninterested in the job, thus this failure seems all too plausible.

But, if Bracken is right, at the moment of crisis itself, responsibility for a rescue operation that night was not Clinton’s. Nor was it Defense Secretary Panetta’s, nor that of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, nor of anyone else… except President Barack Obama, who, like the dog in “Silver Blaze,” did nothing. The Fox article itself, relying on unnamed albeit multiple sources, looks almost like an effort to either shift the blame to someone no longer there, Clinton, or disperse blame by showing how everyone screwed up, so no one person is responsible.

And yet, when we read:

Sources said that shortly after the attack began around 9:40 p.m., special forces put out the calls for assets to be moved into position.

“What that does is that enacts … every asset, every element to respond and it becomes a global priority,” one source said. “I would tell you that was given and the only reason it was given is because of special operations pack.”

However, the source said, “Assets did not move.”

The key question regarding a rescue effort remains: Who had “cross-border authority” and, if it wasn’t given, why?

Unlike Bob Owens, I’m not ready to say that Obama himself denied a rescue operation is “confirmed,” particularly when sources are unnamed, but it’s awfully plausible if Bracken is right about the president’s sole authority to grant CBA, and if we imagine a diffident Obama, who loves to campaign but hates to govern, voting present by simply not making a decision.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) will be holding hearings next week at which whistle-blowers with direct information about what happened at Benghazi and with our reaction are expected to testify. Maybe then we’ll finally get an answer about why the most powerful military in human history couldn’t couldn’t come to the rescue.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#Benghazi: the President couldn’t be bothered to pick up the phone

One of your embassies is under attack, your ambassador and other Americans  are in grave danger, and forces you’ve sent to their aid are held up at the local airport in a turf dispute. So, what do you do? Do you pick up the phone and call the leader of the host country and ask him to expedite things so your soldiers can go save American lives? Do you remind him of the aid we rendered to his people in throwing off the late dictator, without which they likely would have lost? And, if he demurs, do you remind him of your predecessor’s famous words, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us?”

Oh, hell no:

President Obama didn’t make any phone calls the night of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the White House said in a letter to Congress released Thursday.

“During the entire attack, the president of the United States never picked up the phone to put the weight of his office in the mix,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, who had held up Mr. Obama’s defense secretary nominee to force the information to be released.

Mr. Graham said that if Mr. Obama had picked up the phone, at least two of the Americans killed in the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi might still be alive because he might have been able to push U.S. aid to get to the scene faster.

The White House has said Mr. Obama was kept up to date on the attack by his staff, though after being alerted to the attack in a pre-scheduled afternoon meeting he never spoke again with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin E. Dempsey or then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mr. Panetta told Congress last week that he knew immediately the attacks were a terrorist assault, though the White House downplayed that notion in the first five days after the attack.

Emphasis added. Let’s make this clear: Obama knew early enough that he could have made a phone call to Tripoli. (Somehow, I think Libyan President El-Megrahi would have picked up the line.) We had a rapid reaction squad at the Benghazi airport, where it was delayed due to an argument between rival forces. Had Obama put the weight of his office behind a personal demand that those men be allowed to continue their mission, at least the people at the CIA annex, including the two SEALs who died defending it, might have been rescued. But evidently, no one in this chowderheaded national security team thought to suggest it to Obama, nor did the Commander in Chief think of it himself. Or he did, but didn’t think it was such a big deal.

Well, it was a big deal to the Americans whose blood stained the walls of our consulate:

“On hold.”

To say I’m disgusted would be an understatement. “Contempt” is the nicest way I can express my opinion for the man occupying the Oval Office.

Meanwhile, take a look again at the last quoted sentence. Panetta knew immediately it was a terrorist attack. That means Hillary Clinton knew. That means Susan Rice, our UN Ambassador knew. And that means Obama himself knew. And yet for days and weeks after the attack they continued to blame the maker of an obscure YouTube video hardly anyone had seen. Rice went on five Sunday talk shows to push that point. Clinton promised the father of the murdered Ambassador Stevens that they would get the maker of the video. And Obama himself repeatedly denounced the video in his address to the UN General Assembly.

And now –after the election– Panetta admits they knew the truth all along.

Senator Lindsey Graham has often frustrated me, but on Benghazi he’s been a bulldog. He has warned he will put a hold on the nominations of Senator Hagel for Defense Secretary and John Brennan for CIA Director until the administration answers the many questions left over from the Benghazi massacre, including who decided to alter the CIA talking points on the incident to make it look like a spontaneous demonstration over a video. Good, and I hope he can sustain it. The administration thinks they’ve skated on this, and the only way the truth will ever come out is to hold up major appointments.

As I’ve said before, the only people who did not know what really happened on September 11th, 2012, in Benghazi were the American people. Our government knew. The jihadis knew. The Libyan government knew. Everybody knew except us, because someone made the decision to hide it from us.

And if you recall that September comes before November, you’ll know the likely reason why this colossal screw up was covered up.

via Hot Air

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Media scrubs left-wing manifesto of fugitive cop-killer — Updated

You may have heard there’s a manhunt underway in California and Nevada for Christopher Dorner, a former LAPD officer who’s gone on a rampage that’s left at least three dead:

As authorities scoured Southern California for an ex-Los Angeles police officer suspected of shooting three officers, killing one, officials broadened the alert to include the entire state Thursday morning, and authorities in Nevada were warned.

The California Highway Patrol originally issued a “blue alert” for nine Southern California counties, warning that suspect Christoper Jordan Dorner, 33, was considered “armed and extremely dangerous,” early Thursday. Shortly after 9 a.m. that alert was broadened to the include the entire state.

A statewide “high alert” was sent out about 8:30 a.m. across Nevada for Dorner, authorities with the Nevada Highway Patrol said.

Arizona authorities were aware of the situation but had not issued any formal alerts, said Officer Carrick Cook with the state’s Department of Public Safety.

Local, state and federal authorities are involved in the search for Dorner, who threatened “unconventional and asymmetrical warfare” against police in an online manifesto. Dorner is also wanted in connection with a double homicide Sunday in Irvine, where the daughter of a retired LAPD captain and her fiance were killed.

The search intensified early Thursday after three police officers were shot in Riverside County and Dorner was identified as a possible suspect.

This is terrible news, and I hope they catch this mad dog before he kills anyone else. If he should be killed in the process, I’ll not mourn.

What’s scandalous, though, is the media’ scrubbing of a killer’s online “manifesto” leaving out significant portions that announce a left wing, pro-Obama, pro-gun control belief system. Multiple TV, radio, and newpaper outlets have suppressed this information. Ostensibly, it’s to protect other potential targets named in the manifesto, but the information about his agenda could be given out without releasing the names. But that wouldn’t serve The Narrative.

Read Sooper Mexican‘s post for the full story, but here’s an example:

Pro Gun Control:

Who in there right mind needs a [...] silencer!!! who needs a freaking SBR AR15? No one. No more Virginia Tech, Columbine HS, Wisconsin temple, Aurora theatre, Portland malls, Tucson rally, Newtown Sandy Hook. Whether by executive order or thru a bi-partisan congress an assault weapons ban needs to be re-instituted. Period!!!

Mia Farrow said it best. “Gun control is no longer debatable, it’s not a conversation, its a moral mandate.”

Sen. Feinstein, you are doing the right thing in leading the re-institution of a national AWB. Never again should any public official state that their prayers and thoughts are with the family.

Loves Obama:

You disrespect the office of the POTUS/Presidency and Commander in Chief. You call him Kenyan, mongroid, halfrican, muslim, and FBHO when in essence you are to address him as simply, President. The same as you did to President George W. Bush and all those in the highest ranking position of our land before him. Just as I always have. You question his birth certificate, his educational and professional accomplishments, and his judeo-christian beliefs. You make disparaging remarks about his dead parents. You never questioned the fact that his former opponent, the honorable Senator John McCain, was not born in the CONUS or that Bush had a C average in his undergrad. Electoral Candidates children (Romney) state they want to punch the president in the face during debates with no formal repercussions. No one even questioned the fact that the son just made a criminal threat toward the President. You call his wife a Wookie. Off the record, I love your new bangs, Mrs. Obama.

The guy is obviously a lunatic, just as was Jared Loughner, the man who shot Congresswoman Giffords. If we apply the same standards in Dorner’s case that the Left applied to Loughner’s, then it would make as much sense to say all the people he praises are as to blame for Dorner’s rampage as Sarah Palin was for the shooting of Giffords.

Which, of course, would be nuts to do, something we leave to progressives.

But, again, the real scandal here is the MSM’s apparent suppression of genuine news in what can only be described as agenda journalism: in this case, hiding anything that might harm or confuse the effort to a) press for needless new restrictions on the right to bear arms, and b) the narrative about dangerous right-wing extremists.

Thought experiment: If Dorner had been a populist conservative, a second amendment supporter, or an Obama-hater, would any of those ten pages cut from his manifesto been left out, other than the names of his targets?

No, I don’t think so, either.

Good work by Sooper Mexican for bringing this to public attention!

UPDATE: The LA Times is now hosting 18 pages of the 21 page document, including much of the ranting that had earlier been excised.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#GunControl : Photo of the Day

In honor of the Biden commission’s “report” and the President’s signing of 23 executive orders in front of his human shields a group of children:

You’ll find many more at the PJM Tatler.

By the way, these children couldn’t attend, nor were they even mentioned.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Benghazi Consulate Massacre: the deaths are real, the punishments were fake.

They didn’t escape so  lightly.

This is just outrageous. Four Americans died in Benghazi and the people held accountable for it in the official review whitewash, who supposedly were forced to resign, were instead just given a timeout:

The four officials supposedly out of jobs because of their blunders in the run-up to the deadly Benghazi terror attack remain on the State Department payroll — and will all be back to work soon, The Post has learned.

The highest-ranking official caught up in the scandal, Assistant Secretary of State Eric Boswell, has not “resigned” from government service, as officials said last week. He is just switching desks. And the other three are simply on administrative leave and are expected back.

The four were made out to be sacrificial lambs in the wake of a scathing report issued last week that found that the US compound in Benghazi, Libya, was left vulnerable to attack because of “grossly inadequate” security.

State Department leaders “didn’t come clean about Benghazi and now they’re not coming clean about these staff changes,” a source close to the situation told The Post., adding, the “public would be outraged over this.”

What a miserable farce. The entire Libya misadventure, from the initial, off-the-cuff decision of the president to loan out our Armed Forces in the service of a European agenda like some 18th-century monarch contracting out mercenaries to a royal cousin, down to the post-war security arrangement and rules of engagement — signed off on by Secretary Clinton herself! — was a pathetic, deadly joke.

And now, heaping insult upon injury, the people we were told were punished for the massacre at Benghazi turn out to not to have even received a slap on the wrist. No dismissals, no resignations, no demotions, no loss of pay — nothing but a “Wait a bit until the smoke clears, and then it’s back to normal.”

DiploPundit was right back on the 19th: this was a smokescreen to cover for political appointees. And you can bet it included Madame Secretary, herself.

The Diplomad, a now-retired Foreign Service Officer, thinks he has a pretty good idea what happened:

I will go out further on the limb. Once even the little dust created by the scandal has dissipated, the four bureaucrats asked to take the mini-spear for Chicago will–mark my words–get monetary awards. They will be written up for showing courage and fortitude under difficult circumstances. The senior people will evade all responsibility; ol’ whats-her-name will slip out of the building and leave her desk to John “Xmas in Cambodia” Kerry, the dead will be forgotten, the Islamist Morlocks will lick their fingers and get ready for another helping of Eloi.

Move along, there’s nothing to see here.

Nothing except a nauseatingly cynical game in which the real losers are the truth and the dead at Benghazi.

via Michelle Malkin

Postscript: In a related editorial, the Post closes with a truly brutal line:

“…the only State Department official who lost his job due to Benghazi was Ambassador Stevens.”

Indeed.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

#FastAndFurious Oh my. ATF agent’s personal firearm found at site of beauty queen’s killing

Updating this item. Two guns linked to the Obama administration’s gunwalking operation were found at the site of a gun battle in Mexico that took the life of model and beauty queen Susana Flores Maria Gamez. Only one of the weapons was purchased by a federal agent:

Mexican beauty queen Susana Flores Maria Gamez and four others died in the brutal gun battle between Sinaloa cartel members and the Mexican military in November. CBS News has learned that an FN Herstal pistol recovered near the crime scene in November was originally purchased by an Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) manager who was faulted by the Inspector General in Operation Fast and Furious: George Gillett. Gillett was the Asst. Special Agent in Charge of ATF Phoenix when Fast and Furious began.

The Herstal pistol is nicknamed a “cop-killer” because of its designation as a “weapon of choice” for Mexican drug cartels. CBS News has learned the Inspector General planned to question Gillett today after a hastily-opened inquiry to determine how this agent’s personal weapon got into the hands of suspected cartel members.

CBS News spoke to Gillett, who is still employed at ATF. Gillett acknowledged he once owned the weapon in question, but says he sold it in Phoenix sometime last year after advertising it on the Internet. He declined to provide the name of the man who bought it, but says he went “above and beyond” what was required by law to complete the firearms transaction. That included asking the purchaser to fill out a form giving personal information and stating that he was in the U.S. legally; and checking his driver’s license, which Gillett said was issued in the U.S.

According to Senator Grassley, however, the aforementioned Form 4473s contained multiple errors and falsifications, which, if true, may cost Agent Gillett up to five years in the penitentiary. And –irony alert– these are the same forms straw buyers for the cartels had to fill out and lie on.

So, in at least this case and with at least this weapon, was an ATF agent himself acting as a straw buyer? Or is he just dumber than a box of rocks? How many other transactions was Agent Gillett involved in, and how many straw purchases did he oversee as part of his work on Fast and Furious?

It seems Senator Grassley and Congressman Issa’s work isn’t done yet.

via Instapundit

RELATED: Earlier posts on Fast and Furious.

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)