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"Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We
cannot be too careful to exclude its influence."
--Alexander Hamilton, Pacificus, No. 6, 1793
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"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must
be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."
--James Madison
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Benghazi Massacre
Will Prove to be Far Graver Matter Than Watergate
The stunning resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus, days before he
was to testify on the CIA role in the Benghazi massacre, raises many more
questions than his resignation letter answers.
“I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair,”
wrote Petraeus. “Such behavior is unacceptable … as the leader of an
organization such as ours.” The problem: Petraeus’ “unacceptable behavior,”
adultery with a married mother of two, Paula Broadwell, that exposed the famous
general to blackmail, began soon after he became director in 2011.
Was his security detail at the CIA and were his closest associates
oblivious to the fact that the director was a ripe target for blackmail, since
any revelation of the affair could destroy his career?
People at the CIA had to know they had a security risk at the top of
their agency. Did no one at the CIA do anything? Surely, as soon as Petraeus'
affair became known, FBI Director Robert Mueller would have been told and would
have alerted Attorney General Eric Holder, who would have alerted the
president. For a matter of such gravity, this is normal
procedure. Yet, The New York Times says the FBI and the Justice Department kept
the White House in the dark. Is that believable? Could it be that Obama and the
National Security Council were kept ignorant of a grave security risk and a
potentially explosive scandal that the Tampa FBI field office knew all
about? There are four basic questions:
1. Why were repeated warnings from Benghazi about
terrorist activity in the area ignored and more security not provided, despite
urgent pleas from Stevens and others at the consulate?
2. Why was the U.S. military unable to come to the
rescue of our people begging for help, when the battle in Benghazi lasted on
and off for seven hours?
3. Who, if anyone, gave an order for forces to
"stand down" and not go to the rescue of the consulate compound or
the safe house? A week before Petraeus' resignation, the CIA issued a flat
denial that any order to stand down ever came from anyone in the agency.
4.
When the CIA knew
it was a terrorist attack, why did Jay Carney on Sept. 13, David Petraeus to
Congress on Sept. 14, UN Amb. Susan Rice on Sept 16 on five TV shows, and Obama
before the UN two weeks after 9/11 all keep pushing what the CIA knew was a
false and phony story: That it had all come out of a spontaneous protest of an
anti-Islamic video made by some clown in California?
President
Nixon's Attorneys General John Mitchell and Richard Kleindienst and his top
aides Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman were all subpoenaed by the Watergate
Committee and made to testify under oath about a bungled bugging at the DNC. The
Benghazi massacre is a far graver matter, and the country deserves answers. The
country deserves the truth.
~~~~~~
Charles
Krauthammer: Petraeus sex scandal links to Benghazi CIA motive to lie
Broadwell's disclosure has fueled speculation regarding the timing of
Petraeus' resignation although the CIA immediately dismissed Broadwell's claims
as 'baseless," and "uninformed." Krauthammer wasn't willing to
accept the denials without further clarity; and, he hopes mainstream media
won't either. He reiterated, "This is a sex scandal that mainstream media
has now embraced; but, it leads to the story they have ignored." Krauthammer
posed two demanding questions:
- How do you explain the testimony that Petraeus gave when it contradicted what the station CIA Chief, the station chief in Libya had told them?
- How do you explain the fact that Petraeus' testimony also contradicted Panetta's briefing, and what everybody at the time was saying?
Krauthammer is
indirectly implying that the disgraced general was trying to conceal the
revelation Libyan prisoners were being detained in a secret prison. In January of 2009, with much approval and
fanfare, President Obama signed executive orders directing the CIA to close
what remained of a Bush network of secret prisons and ordered the closing of the
Guantánamo detention camp within a year. Despite tremendous pressure, Obama
failed to close Guantánamo; perhaps he also failed to shut down secret jails.
~~~~~~
Americans Beware of the Extremes!
White House
‘secede’ petitions reach 675,000 signatures, 50-state participation by David Martosko
Less than a week after a New Orleans suburbanite petitioned
the White House to allow Louisiana to secede from the United States,
petitions from seven states have collected enough signatures to trigger a
promised review from the Obama administration. By 6:00 a.m. EST Wednesday,
more than 675,000 digital signatures appeared on 69 separate secession petitions
covering all 50 states, according to a Daily Caller analysis of requests lodged
with the White House’s “We
the People” online petition system. A petition from Vermont, where talk of
secession is a regular feature of political life, was the final entry.
Retaliatory
Petitions To Deport Anyone Wanting to Secede -
A recent rush of petitions to the White House’s website from anti-Barack
Obama partisans hoping their states will secede from the U.S. has produced its
first backlash: online petitions asking the Obama administration to exile
anyone who signed them. Two such petitions launched Nov. 12 in the White
House’s “We the People” section. “Mr. President,” reads one, “please sign an
executive order such that each American citizen who signed a petition from any
state to secede from the USA shall have their citizenship stripped and be
peacefully deported.” “Deport Everyone That Signed A Petition To Withdraw
Their State From The United States Of America,” reads the other.
~~~~~~
Gore to Obama: Act
Boldly to Solve Climate Crisis By
Bill Hoffmann
Former Vice President
Al Gore says President Barack Obama should use the clout behind his sizeable
second-term victory to enact strong legislation on climate control. "I think all who look at these circumstances should agree that
President Obama does have a mandate, should he choose to use it, to act boldly
to solve the climate crisis, to begin solving it," Gore told the British
daily newspaper The Guardian. "He has the mandate. He has the
opportunity, and he has the inherent ability to provide the leadership needed.
I really hope that he will, and I will respectfully ask him to do exactly
that." But, Gore added, it is also up to the public to keep pushing for decisive
action on climate issues. "Many elected officials have been frightened
of the reaction should they even talk about the climate crisis much less
propose the obvious solution we need to put a price on carbon," he told
The Guardian. "It is just as plain as day. But the only way to give
these elected officials more backbone is to ensure that they hear more from
their constituents who are deeply and rightly concerned that they are not doing
anything to stop this accelerating destruction of the global climate
balance." He’s pushing for a tax on carbon.
~~~~~~
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Hotmail: How Did
Gen. Allen Run Afghanistan’s War, Plus Send 20,000+ Pages of Emails to a
“Social Liaison” by Gary North
General John Allen
has been running America’s war in Afghanistan. He is a 4-star general. He is a
Marine. But when it comes to time-management, he is the supreme allied
commander. Here is a man who did some real squeezing, so to speak. In his
dealing with a “social Liaison” in Florida, he squeezed in enough time to
either read or compose 20,000 emails. It may have been 30,000. In just two
years. I write a lot of emails. But, let me tell you, my hat goes off to
Gen. Allen. He has put me to shame. I mean, how does a man who is in charge of
the longest war in American history have time to compose or read 20,000 emails?
Or maybe 30,000? And as for that liaison officer, she must have been busy, too.
I don’t know why the media have focused on that lady’s seeming lack of official
duties, not to mention her wardrobe. I think what she has done is incomparable.
I mean, being a wife and mother and a liaison officer all at once, plus
read/compose 20,000 to 30,000 emails, is no easy task. I hope Congress holds
hearings on this. I hope Congress will look at Gen. Allen’s daily schedule.
Congress has a real avatar here. How did he find time to win the war in
Afghanistan?
~~~~~~
$3,700
a Year Tax Increase Will Hit You Next Year
Are you ready for
the AMT? That’s the Alternative Minimum Tax. The biggie in the “fiscal
cliff” is this one. It will it close to 27 million families. They are unaware
of it. They have not budgeted for it.
Have you? If
Congress decides to revoke it before January 1, the IRS will have to re-program
its computers. Americans will not get their tax refunds early. They will have
to wait for extra two months. Yet they count on these refunds. The AMT will eat
up next year’s tax refund — and then some. Surprise!
~~~~~~
Could the Fiscal
Cliff Be a Good Thing? By Howard
Richman, Raymond Richman, and Jesse Richman
The entire
discussion of the “fiscal cliff” has things a bit backward. People talk
of “going off” the fiscal cliff — and the natural image is of the disaster that
awaits one who tumbles from the edge of a precipice. Instead, perhaps we
should say “running into” the fiscal cliff — the cliff being a force that stops
a tumble. The term “fiscal cliff” refers to the combination of two major policy
changes due to go into effect in January 2013:
- The sequester. Because the (not-so-)Super Committee succumbed to partisan paralysis and couldn’t come up with anything better, the sequester will begin making automatic spending cuts across domestic discretionary (50 billion per year) and defense (50 billion per year) programs.
- The Bush and Obama tax cuts expire. The Bush tax cuts increased the deduction for children, cut marginal tax rates, and cut dividend and capital gains tax rates. The Obama tax cut reduced the amount workers pay for Social Security without reducing benefits. In addition, a Medicare “doc fix,” which increased reimbursements for hospitals, is due to expire.
Running into a
cliff isn’t fun. It would raise nearly everyone’s taxes. It would
cut spending on most of the programs everyone uses. It would temporarily
raise unemployment rates. But the fiscal cliff would back us away from a
true disaster scenario, and it would slow the growth of the government debt. Moreover,
the fiscal cliff is an enormous opportunity for House Republicans. If
they simply allow it to occur, they win big politically in the
negotiations. They will get credit for fiscal responsibility, while the
Obama administration will get the blame for the tax increases and will lose the
leeway to offer new giveaways to its constituencies.
~~~~~~
Did Obama really
win? by Joseph Farah
The question must
be asked. I wish I didn’t have to be the one to ask it. But, since no one else
will, it falls to me. Did Barack Obama actually, legitimately, fairly and
legally win the election? My answer is an unequivocal no. It was not a free and fair election. In fact, if we as a nation don’t
acknowledge the reality of what I am saying, we may never have a free and
fair election again in the future of this once-great nation.
·
James O’Keefe and
Project Veritas spent months heroically proving the absolute willingness and
eagerness of Democratic operatives to commit voter fraud – especially by having
people cast multiple votes.
- Military ballots were systematically denied active-duty servicemen and women around the world. This would be a scandal if it happened once. But it has become the norm when Democrats are in charge of the Defense Department. It would be a scandal if it were due to incompetence. But it appears to be a deliberate effort to suppress the military vote. It would be a scandal if it were not a close election. But it was.
- Prior to the election, Democrats fought for open voting requiring no identification – particularly photo ID. Coincidentally, Obama won every state that didn’t fully require photo ID to vote. Democrats contended that voter ID laws suppress the vote. But they do not. They only suppress the illegal vote.
- Across Philadelphia, GOP poll inspectors were forcibly (and illegally) removed from polling locations. Coincidentally (or not), Obama received “astronomical” numbers in those very same regions, including locations where he received “over 99 percent” of the vote. Ward 4, which also had a poll watcher dressed in Obama attire, went massively for Obama. Obama received 99.5 percent of the vote, defeating Romney 9,955 to 55.
- Obama also won 99.8 percent of the vote in 44 Cleveland districts. In another Ohio county, Obama won with 108 percent of the voters registered.
- Obama received 10 million fewer votes than he did in 2008. Romney received 3 million fewer votes than McCain. Obama won in the four critical swing states by a grand total of 500,000 votes.
- Some 5 million independents changed their votes from Obama to Romney in 2012. So Romney started the day 2.5 million votes ahead of where McCain was in 2008, as Jack Wheeler points out. This means that 5.5 million Republican voters are not accounted for. Either they didn’t show up at the polls or their votes were not counted. Does anyone believe there was less enthusiasm by Republicans about this election than for the one in 2008?
I could go on and on, but you get the point.
In such a close election, these anomalies are unacceptable and again in the
future of this once-great nation.
~~~~~~
In 59 Philly Wards,
Romney Did Not Get Single Vote
Larry Sabato, a
political scientist at the University of Virginia who has studied African
American precincts, said he had occasionally seen 100 percent of the vote go
for the Democratic candidate. Chicago and Atlanta each had precincts that
registered no votes for Republican Sen. John McCain in 2008. "I'd be
surprised if there weren't a handful of precincts that didn't cast a vote for
Romney," he said. But the number of zero precincts in Philadelphia
deserves examination, Sabato added. "Not a single vote for Romney or
even an error? That's worth looking into," he said.
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Earth’s Magnetic
Field Is Decaying Steadily— with a Little Rhythm By D. Russell Humphreys
A new curve fit to
a new compilation of data shows with new clarity that from 1900 to 2010, the
main “dipole” part of the earth’s magnetic field decayed exponentially
(constant percent loss per year) with a small sine-wave variation. The time
constant of the exponential part is 1611 (± 10) years. The sinusoidal part has
a period of 66.1 (± 1.3) years and an amplitude of 0.29 (± 0.02) % of the main
part today. The fit is very good, with most points within 0.05% of the curve.
The distinctness of the exponential part gives new strength to the creationary
model of the field, that losses in the earth’s core today are steadily
decreasing the electric current producing the dipole field, thus supporting a
young earth. A simple electric circuit clarifies the decay model. The small
sine-wave part, apparently not noticed in the dipole moment data before now,
may be due to an east-west torsional oscillation between core and mantle. This
corresponds to an approximately 60-year cycle observed in the rate of earth’s
rotation. Get that?
~~~~~~
Busted: Obama’s
Fieldworks Illegally Funneled Money to Defeat Allen West
The progressive
left has made no secret of their hatred for Congressman Allen West. It will be
months until we fully understand the national coordination and vast resources
that were brought to Florida in an attempt to defeat him at all costs. One
group that shifted resources to his district is Fieldworks. Watch Here
~~~~~~
Paul Ryan: Obama
Has No Tax Mandate By JOHN R. PARKINSON
Despite a
devastating loss last week, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan
rejected Democratic claims of a mandate to raise tax rates on the wealthy. Asked whether President Obama has a
mandate on taxes, Ryan told ABC News' senior political correspondent Jonathan
Karl that the House Republican majority is proof that the president does not.
"I don't think so, because they also reelected the House Republicans. So
whether people intended or not, we've got divided government," Ryan,
R-Wis., said in his first national interview since last week's loss. "This
is a very close election, and unfortunately divided government didn't work very
well the last two years. We're going to have to make sure it works in the next
two years."
~~~~~~
Only 51% Think Deal
To Avoid ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Likely by January 1st
President Obama
will hold a press conference today to push his deficit-cutting plan as
lawmakers in Washington battle over ways to prevent the massive tax hikes and
spending cuts scheduled for January 1. Given the partisan bickering, a
bare majority of voters thinks a deal to avoid going over the so-called “fiscal
cliff” is likely to emerge before then. The latest Rasmussen Reports national
telephone survey finds that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters now believe it is likely
that Congress and the president will agree on a plan to stop the tax increases
and spending cuts before the first of the year.
~~~~~~
Nice
Losers Thomas Sowell
Mitt Romney now
joins the long list of the kinds of presidential candidates favored by the
Republican establishment-- nice, moderate losers, people with no coherently
articulated vision, despite how many ad hoc talking points they may have. The
list of Republican presidential candidates like this goes back at least as far
as 1948, when Thomas E. Dewey ran against President Harry Truman. Dewey spoke
in lofty generalities while Truman spoke in hard-hitting specifics. Since
then, there have been many re-runs of this same scenario, featuring losing
Republican presidential candidates John McCain, Bob Dole, Gerald Ford and, when
he ran for reelection, George H.W. Bush. Bush 41 first succeeded when he
ran for election as if he were another Ronald Reagan ("Read my lips, no
new taxes"), but then lost when he ran for reelection as himself--
"kinder and gentler," disdainful of "the vision thing" and
looking at his watch during a debate, when he should have been
counter-attacking against the foolish things being said.
This year, Barack
Obama had the hard-hitting specifics-- such as ending "tax cuts for the
rich" who should pay "their fair share," government
"investing" in "the industries of the future" and the like.
He had a coherent vision, however warped. Most of Obama's arguments
were rotten, if you bothered to put them under scrutiny. But someone once
said that it is amazing how long the rotten can hold together, if you don't
handle it roughly.
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Words of Wisdom--columnist
Mark Steyn
"[T]he key
point about Barack Obama is not that he's a secret Muslim Kenyan Commie or
whatever. Whether he was born in Honolulu or Mombasa or Stockholm or up on
Planet Zongo, what matters ... is that in his general worldview he is entirely
typical and perfectly representative of tens upon tens of millions
of Americans. Tuesday's majority confirmed that. They don't need a
'conspiracy': They agree with him. That's the problem."
~~~~~~
Insight
"The
more people chant about their freedom and how free they are, the more loudly I
hear their chains rattling."
--English novelist George Orwell (1903-1950)
"One of the methods used by statists to
destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry
hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that
freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary." --philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
"Every
nation has the government it deserves." --Savoyard philosopher Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821)
~~~~~~
Disaster
Ignorance - Walter Williams
Gov. Christie told merchants that
price gouging during a state of emergency is illegal because “during
emergencies, New Jerseyans should look out for each other -- not seek to take
advantage of each other.” Christie warned: “The state Division of Consumer Affairs
will look closely at any and all complaints about alleged price gouging. Anyone
found to have violated the law will face significant penalties.” It’s not just
Christie who has threatened to prosecute sellers for raising prices. New York
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has launched an investigation into
post-storm price increases after receiving consumer complaints about higher
prices for everything from gasoline to hotel rooms. Disasters produce ignorance in another way. Peter Morici is a
professor at the University of Maryland and a former chief economist at the
U.S. International Trade Commission. He
argues that Hurricane Sandy may prove to be an economic boon, writing:
“Disasters can give the ailing construction sector a boost, and unleash smart
reinvestment that actually improves stricken areas and the lives of those that
survive intact. Ultimately, Americans, as they always seem to do, will emerge
stronger in the wake of disaster and rebuild better -- making a brighter future
in the face of tragedy.” Professor Morici is not alone in this vision.
Nathan Gardels, editor of New Perspectives Quarterly, wrote an article titled "The Silver Lining of Japan's
Quake," arguing the economic “benefits” of that disaster. Even Nobel laureates are not immune from
this vision. After the 2001 terrorist attack, economist Paul Krugman wrote in his New York Times
column titled "Reckonings; After the Horror" that as "ghastly as
it may seem to say this, the terror attack -- like the original day of infamy,
which brought an end to the Great Depression -- could even do some economic
good." He explained that rebuilding
the destruction would stimulate the economy through business investment and job
creation.
Let’s set one thing straight: Destruction does not create wealth. The billions
of dollars that will be earned by people in the building industry and their
suppliers will surely create jobs and income for those people. But rebuilding
diverts resources from other possible uses. Natural or man-made disasters
always destroy wealth. Were that not the case, mankind could achieve unimaginable
wealth through wars, arson, riots and other calamities.
~~~~~~~~~~
"Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country.
He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in
life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he
should rehearse the history of his own country."
--Noah Webster, On the Education of Youth in
America, 1788
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