912 Patriots of Lower Bucks - Your Daily Updates ALL in ONE Place!
May 10, 2013
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A top U.S. diplomat will testify Wednesday that as fighting raged in Benghazi, Libya, in the early morning hours of September 12, 2012, military officials in the region told a second rescue team preparing to deploy from Tripoli to Benghazi not to make the trip.
In an interview with the House Oversight and Reform Committee last month, Greg Hicks, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Libya during the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, recalled his conversations with Libyan government officials and U.S. military leaders as he tried to get support to U.S. diplomatic and intelligence officials under attack in Benghazi. Hicks says he received a call from the Prime Minister of Libya shortly after 3am informing him that Ambassador Chris Stevens had been killed. Hicks became the top US diplomat in Libya after Stevens died.
In the hours that followed, Hicks says, the Libyan military agreed to fly a C-130 from Tripoli to Benghazi in the early morning hours of September 12 - a flight that was to include a second team of Special Operations soldiers - dispatched from the Libyan capital to join a team sent earlier to Benghazi. But as those reinforcements were leaving for the flight, they were told to stand down. Hicks received the news in an early morning phone call from a top military commander in the region.
"So Lieutenant Colonel Gibson, who is the SOCAFRICA commander, his team, you know, they were on their way to the vehicles to go to the airport to get on the C-130 when he got a phone call from SOCAFRICA which said, 'you can't go now, you don't have authority to go now,'' Hicks recalled. "And so they missed the flight."
Pushed to clarify whether they second rescue missed flight because they were told not to take it, Hicks responded: "They were told not to board the flight, so they missed it."
Hicks says he was talking to officials in Washington all night but because the C-130 would be taking off from Mitiga International Airport, on the other side of Tripoli, he didn't have time to push anyone in the United States to reverse the decision. "The flight was leaving. And, you know, if they missed -- you know, if the vehicles didn't leave when they leave, they would miss the flight time at the airport."
Hicks remembers Gibson saying: "I have never been so embarrassed in my life that a State Department officer has bigger balls than somebody in the military."
The team would have likely arrived after the fighting in Benghazi had ended, but those who made the decision not to send them had no way of knowing that when they ordered them to remain in Tripoli.
Hicks will also tell the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Wednesday that military officials twice declined to send air support to Benghazi because the U.S. military didn't have "tanker assets" to support the trip from Aviano, Italy.
'Bible Belt' County Schools Promote Terrorism Against Jews?
The Holocaust did not happen in a vacuum. Germans and world leaders turned blind eyes to the growing anti-Semitism in Germany while Adolf Hitler incrementally executed his evil agenda. Despite annual reminders to "never forget," schools across the United States, and specifically in the State of Tennessee, are once again oblivious to the anti-Semitic rhetoric that has infiltrated our schools.
One such community is Williamson County, Tennessee that sits in the "belt-buckle" of the Bible belt and is one of the 10 most influential conservative counties in the country. One must ask, how could this have happened in a region of the United States that is heavily populated by Evangelical Christians, including Christian educators?
In November 2012, a Williamson County parent was concerned over the content in her son's geography textbook for his AP Human Geography class. The passage in question is taken from "The Cultural Landscape Curriculum - An Introduction to Human Geography," under the subject heading, "Why Has Terrorism Increased?"
The author states:
Distinguishing terrorism from other acts of political violence can be difficult. For example, "If a Palestinian suicide bomber kills several dozen Israeli teenagers in a Jerusalem restaurant, is that an act of terrorism or wartime retaliation against Israeli government policies and army actions?" Competing arguments are made: Israel's sympathizers denounce the act as a terrorist threat to the country's existence, whereas advocates of the Palestinian cause argue that long-standing injustices and Israeli army attacks on ordinary Palestinian civilians provoked the act.
Pennsylvania Responds to National Education Standards
Thank you for helping to stop Pennsylvania's implementation of national education standards known as Common Core. Things are moving quickly and gaining speed across the Commonwealth. Just this week, Truth in American Education moved Pennsylvania into their "Rejection Pending" category and revised their map to show us as a state that is "Fighting Back" and that is solely due to your efforts in contacting your legislators.
UNITEPA is hosting Emmett McGroarty of the American Principles Project and Dr. Peg Luksik of Founded on Truth to discuss Common Core at both the national and state levels.
If you are in the Lancaster area and would like to attend this meeting in person see details here, otherwise, click here to register to watch the event online. Once you register, an email will be sent to you two days prior to and again three hours prior to the actual broadcast with this Ustream channel link. Click here for more specific details.
New MUST READING to get you up-to-speed on the details concerning Common Core by Peg Luksik "Assessing the Common Core". It is a bit long, but provides the details you need to get a deeper understanding of this dangerous imposition of the top-down, one-size-fits-all regulations.
Please check out this excellent article written by our friend and western Pennsylvania native Matt Shipley who also served as Assistant Platoon Commander at SEAL Team EIGHT. Read: "Rotten to the Common Core"
Please continue to promote the Pennsylvanians Against Common Core on-line petition and Facebook page. We would like to be able to attend the May 15 Senate hearing with a petition with more than 10,000 signatures and we need your help in reaching out to your friends and contacts to make that happen.
State Hearings: Pay-offs, Politics and Propaganda
HOUSE HEARING ANNOUNCED On Tuesday, May 14, the PA House Education Committee will hold a hearing on their Big Government "solution" to educational standards known as Common Core. Unfortunately, the hearing will lack fairness and balance with Education Secretary Tomalis, an advocate of the one-size-fits-all Common Core, being the only speaker.
So one may ask: why have a hearing if only a pro Common Core advocate is allowed to speak? It certainly sounds like the only reasons for a House hearing are to placate those Pennsylvanians who are against Common Core and to be able to later claim that they indeed held a hearing.
If you are as outraged by this action by the House Education Committee as the leadership of Pennsylvanians Against Common Core are, please contact members of the Education Committee and demand that an impartial, balanced hearing be held that includes knowledgeable opponents to expose the many failures and inadequacies of Common Core. The first phone call and email should be directed to House Education Committee Chair Paul Clymer at 717-783-154 or 215-257-0279 pclymer@pahousegop.com and then go here to find phone numbers and emails of the remaining members of the Committee. Please also consider contacting House Majority Leader Mike Turzai who apparently sees nothing wrong with another Big Government solution to what should be a local issue at 717-772-2470 and mturzai@pahousegop.com
BALANCED SENATE HEARING TO BE HELD On Wednesday, May 15, the PA Senate Education Committee will hold a hearing on Common Core. Unlike the House hearing, this hearing will be fair and balanced. The Senate public hearing on the Common Core Standards will be held in Harrisburg at 1 PM. The hearing will be held in Hearing Room 1, in the North Office Building to the right of the Capital Building.
Pennsylvanians Against Common Core greatly appreciates that Senate Education Committee Chairman Mike Folmer has planned a truly balanced hearing and has allowed opponents to Common Core to arrange to bring in three outstanding and well known proponents of local control. Neal McCluskey from CATO Institute, Joy Pullmann from Heartland Institute along with Cheryl Boise from Commonwealth Education Organization will be testifying against the standards.
Compromised Testimony Testifying at the Senate hearing in favor of the Common Core are David Patti from the PA Business Council (PBC) and Joan Benso of PA Partnerships for Children. It should be noted that both groups and speakers have been compromised by accepting huge amounts of money from the Gates Foundation in order to promote Common Core.
The PBC received a $257,391 grant in Aug. 2012 to "educate Pennsylvania opinion leaders, policymakers, the media, and the public on Common Core State Standards and the Common State Assessment." While the PAPC received -$595,859 in 2011 to promote college readiness from Gates and then received another $100,000 in 2010.
If you are not aware, the Gates Foundation is far and away the largest supporter of Common Core, having given away $104 million to promote Common Core across the country to groups like PBC and PAPC. This amount does not include their funding of the two supposedly neutral "state-led" groups that designed Common Core, the National Governor's Association ($30,679,116) and the Council of Chief State School Officers ($71,302,833) to develop the Common Core" as part of the push into implementation.
Questions to be Answered Since there will be no opposition speaking at the House hearing and the Senate Hearing will only allow questions from Committee members, we suggest the following questions of the proponents:
1. What are the costs of implementation and who did the analysis? 2. Will implementation costs of Common Core be included in the next fiscal year budget? 3. Why does this have to be done right now and imposed on every district instead of testing these unproven methods on a smaller sample? 4. Why are we doing this without proof it works? 5. How are we guaranteed that Teachers do not go from "teaching to the PSSA test" to "teaching to the Common Core Standards test"? 6. You said this was initiated by Pennsylvanians. Who? a. What was their expertise and where are they now? b. Do they stand to benefit financially? 7. If this will supposedly improve students' education but you can't point to anywhere where it has been done and worked, why not start with the bottom 5% of failing schools in PA? 8. Who wrote the standards? 9. Who paid for Common Core development? 10. You say that curriculum and testing are not involved in Common Core. Do not the standards drive curriculum and testing?
Please continue to promote the Pennsylvanians Against Common Core on-line petition and Facebook page. We would like to be able to attend the May 15 Senate hearing with a petition with more than 10,000 signatures and we need your help in reaching out to your friends and contacts to make that happen.
ATTENTION! ATTENTION! ATTENTION!
Meeting place for May 10 meeting has changed to PJ Ryans. This is an important meeting to wrap up plans and get going on our agenda for the coming months. Details below.
At the April meeting you did a great job of putting some good ideas out there on priorities and issues.
Some of the top issues that made our list were Voter Fraud, Common Core (education issues), Second Amendment, Right to Work, Agenda 21/smart meters, and 2014 Elections.
In May, let's finish the job. We'll finalize our issues and set up working groups to get things moving.
It is our belief and the belief of many members that we need to become a more action oriented group. We can discuss ways that we can move in that direction. One of these is our continuing and successful Legislative Visit Program headed up by Camille Heppard and Sonny Hofmann.
Bring your ideas and energy!
In June we plan to try a new meeting place that we think will work well IF we can iron out details. It is convenient and has on-site parking. You may bring food and drink as long as you clean up after yourselves. The Sr. Center does not serve food although there is a kitchen that we can pay to use. Maybe we'll do a Pot Luck dinner a couple of times a year.
Please stay tuned for additional information as there are still a few details that must be taken care of.
PLEASE PLAN TO COME! SEE YOU THERE.
VFP STEERING COMMITTEE
NOTE UPDATED TIME 2nd Amendment Preservation & Gun Control Protest Rally Saturday May 11 at 1 PM.
This PEACEFUL rally will start promptly at 1 pm on the Pennsylvania side of "Trenton Makes" Bridge. Please show up by 12:45pm. As previously noted, the rally will feature prominent speakers such as:
Larry Pratt- Gun Owners of America
Charles Heller- Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership
Tracy Scarpulla- Author of CNN opinion about family responsibility and firearms
Sgt. Robert Mansfield- Decorated Iraq War Veteran and Patriot
Chief Mark Kessler- Frackville PA and Constitutional Security Force
Guest appearance by "The Bearded Flag Guys"
Once our program at the bridge is concluded, PLEASE remain as we will PEACEFULLY protest and be present as the anti-2nd Amendment/ anti-liberty crowd marches over from New Jersey to their event at the nearby Morrisville Willamson Park. We will PEACEFULLY go over to the anti-2nd Amendment Rally in Willamson Park. Please note the following about the event at Williamson Park:
Firearms are prohibited by Township ordinance. No concealed or open carry at Willamson Park
The anti-guners were very insensitive in holding their event at the same time and place as a major little league event at Williamson Park. It is unfortunate the kids will be distracted in general by their event, and hearing the hysteria and distortions from their speakers and participants.
In contrast, our side should be respectful of the kids and the little league event. We will have positive pro-2nd Amendment/ Pro-family signs for you to use. Or you can bring your own positive message sign.
We want to avoid yelling, any combative interaction or creating a scene. The anti-2nd Amendment group will be making enough of a scene with their disruptive presence in front of the little leaguers.
There will be law enforcement present. Go out of your way to thank them for their service and emphasize we are on the same side as them.
Directions & Map Our rally will be held at Bridge Street and Park Ave, on the bank of the Delaware River. Parking is some distance from our rally point, so make allowance for time to park the car and walk to the rally point.
PRESS RELEASE: ANTI-GUN COALITION PUTS BUCKS COUNTY KIDS LAST
Concerned Gun Owners of Bucks County (CGOBC) is disappointed that Anti-Gun groups have chosen to continue with their rally in Williamson Park on Saturday resulting in cancellation of Little League games. CGOBC had publicly called on the Coalition for Peace Action to put kids and families first and either cancel or delay their Saturday protest in Willamson Park.
Instead, the Coaltion has selfishly put themselves first and the kids last when given the choice. Reverend Robert Moore was quoted in Philly.com " "We've gone through a lot of effort to get this all in place. Our part-time Pennsylvania organizer has put in many, many hours, and we jumped through a lot of hoops to get all this in place. I just don't think that's at all right or fair."
Evidently what's fair for the kids and the community doesn't matter to Reverend Moore and his supporters. The Coalition demonstrates their self centered disregard by continuing to use the public ball field areas and refusing the stand down for the sake of the kids.
Pro 2nd Amendment (2A) Groups had reviewed the area well over a month ago and decided that holding a rally on Saturday next to a baseball field was not the right option for the kids. Instead we chose an area blocks away by the Delaware River out of sight and sound from the kids and the ball park. We met with local police and officials to assure our plans would be orderly and respectful.
Hopefully residents of Bucks County and Pennsylvania will turn their back on this inconsiderate anti-gun event. Speakers like former Governor Ed Rendell should do the right thing and back out in protest of the Coalition's decision to put kids last.
CGOBC again calls on the Coalition for Peace Action to do the right thing - reschedule their event to allow the kids and families to have their day without the interruption of a divisive political rally in their park. It's the right thing to do
Here is our chance to be heard!
Cable provider Comcast is actively supporting Obama's radical leftist agenda to fundamentally transform America.
The news programs at NBC and MSNBC, run by Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, reflect total agreement with the Obama agenda. These "news" organizations even adopted the Obama re-election campaigns "Forward" slogan. Is this what Comcast subscribers and American voters need?
Brian Roberts has close ties to Obama - he was selected to serve on the President's Jobs and Competitiveness Council, he hosted an intimate reception for the President at his vacation home in Martha's Vineyard during last year's election campaign, and he openly supports ObamaCare.
On May 15, Let's show up and protest Comcast at their annual shareholder's meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. If you've been waiting to tell MSNBC boss Brian Roberts that the government doesn't own your kids, like they claimed in a recent commercial, now is your chance! RSVP here to lend your voice.
When: May 15 starting at 8:00 AM Eastern
Where: The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts Perelman Theater 300 S. Broad Street Philadelphia, PA 19102
We will leave from the Doylestown Parking lot at 6am
If we get enough interest we will get a bus. Please respond to thekitchentablepatriots@gmail.com
BUCKS COUNTY TEENAGE REPUBLICANS
DICK MORRIS
LIVE IN DOYLESTOWN
THURSDAY, MAY 16TH, 7:00PM 115 N BROAD STREET $20.00 GET YOUR TICKETS NOW WWW.BCTARS.COM
Join freedom-loving activists in protesting the liberal agenda of Comcast outside of the Kimmel Center in Center City Philadelphia during the Comcast Shareholder Meeting!
May 15th 8:00 - 10:00 am
Protest outside of the Kimmel Center! Bring your signs and your voices! Let Comcast know you are not going to stay silent about their liberal agenda!
Comcast employees contributed nearly $80,000 directly to Obama for America and roughly $200,000 to the Obama Victory Fund, a joint account benefitting both the Obama campaign and Democratic National Committee, through the first half of 2011. President Obama has recently spent time with top Comcast executives, attending an intimate fundraiser at the home of Comcast executive vice president David Cohen in Philadelphia in June and a private "social reception" at the Martha's Vineyard estate of Comcast CEO Brian Roberts earlier this week.
Shalom ZOA Members, Friends and Supporters of Israel,
Philadelphia is having a parade to celebrate the 65th anniversary of Israel's re-establishment on May 19 and ZOA will be one of the groups taking part.
March with ZOA through the streets of Philadelphia. Display your Israel pride and ZOA pride. We will have special T-shirts for the occasion.
The parade will wend its way through the heart of Center City from the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to the Pennsylvania Convention Center, stepping off at 11 a.m.
This is a great opportunity for young and old - and all of those in between - to come out to celebrate Israel.
If you've always wanted to take part in a parade but never had an opportunity, this is your chance! Let's show Philadelphia that support for Israel is stronger than ever!
The annual Israel Independence Day Festival will take place after the parade inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center at 11th and Arch Sts. ZOA will have a booth at the festival, and we will need volunteers to help us.
Please RSVP about participating in the parade either by email or phone - 610-660-9466.
If you are able to volunteer during the festival from noon to 5 p.m. (for all or part of the afternoon) please let us know as well.
Thank you.
See you on May 19!
$25 OFF Bus if you register before April 22 $25 OFF Participation if you register before April 22
On Thursday, May 30, the organization Friends of Israel will celebrate its 75th anniversary of helping Jews and the Jewish State of Israel with a gala in Voorhees, N.J. We hope you will attend their reasonably priced dinner as a show of support and unity.
As you will note, this Christian Zionist group began its mission 10 years before Israel was re-established. They were originally known as "The Friends of Israel Refugee Relief Committee." To this day they continue to be advocates for Israel throughout the world and lead an annual mission to Israel. Though this group is international in scope, it is based in South Jersey.
Friends of Israel leadership have attended our Philadelphia ZOA Gala each year and last year we honored its immediate past executive director, William Sutter, and his wife, Annette. We see Bill (who is still quite active) and his successor, Jim Showers, at nearly every pro-Israel event in the region. They truly are, as their name indicates, "friends of Israel."
Tickets are just $45. The event takes place at The Mansion on Main Street, on May 30, beginning at 5:30 p.m.........
Kosher meals are available
Please call me at our Office for all of the details at 610-660-9466. I hope you will be able to attend.
Thank you,
Steve
THE UNION LEAGUE PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE and
PHILADELPHIA FREEDOM CENTER
present
Michele
Bachmann
United States House of Representative for Minnesota
Friday, June 7, 2013 at 11:30 AM (EDT) at the Union League of Philadelphia.
WITH TRADITONAL VALUES, STRONG CONVICTIONS & FAITH IN OUR CONSTITUTION, HEAR MICHELLE BACHMANN'S VISION FOR OUR NATION.
In 2006, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann became the first Republican woman to be elected to represent Minnesota in the U.S. House of Representatives. As a self-proclaimed "Constitutional Conservative" she is committed to fixing Washington's broken ways by advocating for America's adherence to the Constitution. As a believer in the traditional values upon which this country was founded, Bachmann consistently defends America's religious liberties and the importance of family as the first unit of government. As the federal government continues to grow under the current administration, Bachmann was honored to establish the Tea Party Caucus in July 2010. She is proud to stand with the Tea Party to call for lower taxes, renewed focus on the Constitution and smaller government.
Reception: 11:30 am * Luncheon/Speaking Engagement: Noon
Price: $50.00 inclusive
For additional information please call 484-380-2549 or log on to www.phillyfreedom.org.
Announcing the 2013 National Conference
& Legislative Briefing!
June 19 - 21 we will convene at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC for our fourth annual National Conference & Legislative Briefing.
And here's some really great news: This year's registration fee is only $229! Register by April 15th and you'll receive our "Early Bird" rate of just $189!
We also offer again this year special benefits for Patriot Eagle and Patriot sponsors.
We have some exciting new wrinkles planned for this year's event, and our list of confirmed speakers already includes:
Steven Emerson - Journalist, author, and the Executive Editor of the Investigative Project on Terrorism. A. M. Rosenthal, late-managing editor of The New York Times, described Emerson as "one of the nation's best national security correspondents."
John Guandolo - Former FBI agent and one of America's leading authorities on the Muslim Brotherhood and its inner workings in America. Guandolo spoke at our conference in 2011 and received rave reviews from conference attendees!
Ezra Levant - Canadian lawyer, author, newspaper columnist with Sun Media, and former publisher of the Western Standard. Hauled before a Canadian "human rights commission" because he published the Danish cartoons that satirized Muhammad, Levant's personal account of a politically correct government inquisition is something you won't want to miss!
The National Conference & Legislative Briefing will begin on Wed. evening, June 19th, and conclude on Friday, June 21st at noon, with additional optional training sessions Friday afternoon.
It will again feature our very popular Capitol Hill Awards Luncheon and our signature gala banquet-and of course, our Legislative Briefing, where Members of Congress will brief you on various issues and answer your questions.
So make your plans now to join us in our nation's capital for what promises to be our best National Conference & Legislative Briefing ever!
More details to come!
As Israelis celebrate their 65th Independence Day this year, we should all take time out to reflect on the miracle of Israel's independence. We must also ask ourselves the question, "What can I do to ensure that this miracle of Israel survives and thrives?"
We announced earlier this week that we'll be headed to New Orleans the first weekend in August for this year's RedState Gathering. As a member of our RedState family, we'd like to extend exclusive Early Bird registration and pricing to you (just use the promo code EARLYBIRD on the registration page).
The 2013 RedState Gathering will be held August 2-3 at the Westin Canal Place in New Orleans, LA. We'll have two full days of speakers and activities and you can expect a good mix of elected officials and potential candidates for the 2014 cycle (we'll keep you informed as additions are made).
The Gathering has always been a unique event, in that all speakers, even the most in-demand and influential, pay their own way and make their own travel arrangements. This helps keep our costs low, a savings we are happy to pass along to our conference attendees. Additionally, we strive to get you up close to the speakers, ask them to take your questions, and we take care of nearly all your meals during the conference. Bottom line: fewer frills, more thrills and access.
We are thrilled to once again be joined by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who will be hosting a reception for all attendees and appear at the Gathering podium as a keynote speaker. A huge hit in 2012, we're looking forward to Gov. Jindal playing an even larger role this year as he welcomes us to his home state.
Now, more than ever, true conservative activists must come together to exchange ideas and strategize for the future. That's what this year's Gathering is all about. We hope you'll join us.
P.S. Don't delay! You'll receive 20% off if you register today - just use the promo code EARLYBIRD. Click here.
From a trusted friend:
As some of you may know, I am associated with Coventry Christian Schools as a parent of a graduate (2010) and as member of the Board of Trustees. Last October we spent a wonderful evening honoring Mark Niehls at our revitalized Founder's Dinner and celebrated our shared heritage in the remarkable community that is Coventry Christian Schools. Our vision for future Founder's Dinners is to inspire and inform not only our alumni and current CCS families but to inspire and inform the Tri-County Area and even our region by hosting speakers and artists who can uniquely assist us in celebrating the heritage, core values, and mission of CCS while also lifting our vision for an even greater future built upon the foundation of our past. The caliber of our speakers and guest artists should provide us with wonderful opportunities to share our CCS story with new partners in Christian education. Proceeds from the dinner will be applied to our annual Coventry Kids Fund for CCS scholarships.
This year we are proud to announce that our distinguished guest and speaker is Dr. Benjamin Carson, and our dinner's theme is "Faith of Our Fathers: The Role of Faith in American Schools." Please join us as we welcome Dr. Carson to the Tri-County Area and celebrate the great things God is doing at CCS!
Dr. Carson is a highly regarded neurosurgeon and motivational speaker who has addressed various audiences across the country. He is one of the most honored and recognized physicians in the world and holds more than 60 honorary doctorate degrees along with hundreds of awards and citations. He is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. He is the author of five books and is the founder of the Carson Scholars Fund. The 2009 award-winning movie entitled Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Carson, premiered on TNT and is based on his memoir. Dr. Carson is an authentic disciple of Christ, has been married to his wife Candy for more than 37 years, and is the father of three sons.
The 2013 Founder's Dinner, which will once again be a part of our Homecoming festivities, will be held at the historic Sunnybrook Ballroom in Pottstown on Sunday, October 13th, 2013. Doors will open at 4:30pm, followed by dinner at 5:15. Dress will be business/professional. Tickets will be priced at $100 until May 15th, then will be $125, so reserve your tickets for the reduced price.
Due to Dr. Carson's international reputation and recent prominence in the media, including his recent speech at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, we fully anticipate that this event will sell out quickly once advertised to the public. Tickets go on sale to the public April 15. If you are interested in attending, tickets can be purchased online. I will send the link out to those who wish to go on April 15
th
. While online reservations are preferred because they facilitate efficient event planning, you may also complete a paper order form, which I can forward to you as well.
All of us at Coventry Christian Schools, look forward to sharing this very special evening with you and acquainting you with the school and its mission!
Blessings,
Christine Gordon
Sponsorships are available as well and are as follows:
Gold Sponsor $3,000
Two tickets at Speaker's Table
Two tickets at Headmaster's Table
Listed as sponsor on school website through 12 months post event
Listed as sponsor on pre-event print marketing
Mentioned by name at event
Full Page ad in Dinner Program
Silver Sponsor $1,500
Two tickets at Speaker's Table
Listed as sponsor on school website through 12 months post event
Half page ad in Dinner Program
Bronze Sponsor $500
Two tickets at Headmaster's Chairman's or Founder's Table
Listed as sponsor on school website through 12 months post event
·Quarter page ad in Dinner Program
Heritage Foundation weighs in on Common Core
By Rachel Sheffield April 11, 2013: Policy Analyst, The Heritage Foundation (courtesy of Citizens' Alliance of Pennsylvania)This coming school year, Pennsylvania public schools will begin implementing the Common Core education standards. Like many other states, Common Core standards are quickly making their way into the classroom. While proponents of the standards continue to champion their predicted benefits, there is significant cause for concern.First, the standards represent a massive federal overreach. The Obama Administration jumped on board from the get go, promoting national education standards, via policy and federal taxpayer dollars, as part of their education agenda. Billions of federal dollars have gone towards and are continuing to fund, the promotion and implementation of these standards nationwide. The federal government's involvement with the standards should be alarming. Pushing state and local leaders away from classroom curriculum is not only a breach in federalism but gives parents, teachers, and communities less say over what children learn in school. Education experts have also raised alarm over the quality of the standards. Sandra Stotsky, Professor of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, has particularly expressed concern over the English Language Arts. Common Core's ELA standards reduce emphasis on literature by promoting the study of "informational texts." Stotsky says
, "A diminished emphasis on literature in the secondary grades makes it unlikely that American students will study a meaningful range of culturally and historically significant literary works before graduation. It also prevents students from acquiring a rich understanding and use of the English language. Perhaps of greatest concern, it may lead to a decreased capacity for analytical thinking."
Common Core goes SOCIAL MEDIA!!! Please share with everyone you know and help us make this a huge success. MARK YOUR CALENDAR!!! Not a TWITTER person.....grab a kid and have some fun.
Parent-Led Reform (@ParentLedReform) will host a Twitter Rally on April 16, 2013 which will start will go from 12:00p-2:00p (EST). We will discuss how the Common Core State Standards effect your family, community and schools? We invite you to participate.
There will be an expert panel and several organizations that will discuss#StopCommonCore. So far I know the panel will consist of:
I'll update with a live link for the Twitter Rally (or you can just follow the hashtag #StopCommonCore) and as the expert panel is finalized.
Update: Be sure to RSVP with the Facebook event invite, this will help keep you up to date with pertinent info.
The whole story on Common Core
Read the sourced and footnoted response to the National Review Online and get all the facts you need to know about Common Core HERE. Compiled by American Principles project and Glenn's research team.
Common Core is the new set of federal education standards being pushed by the Obama administration and several leftist organizations but it's even seeing some support from some conservatives.
defending Common Core, and Glenn gave the definitive response on radio today."Common Core is something that we didn't really get for quite some time and again it's something we've learned from the 9/12 project and concerned parents all around the country that have been bringing this to our attention. When we started in on this work, we thought it was pretty bad. The more we do, the worse it becomes," Glenn said.
Below are some of the points made by the National Review Online in defense of Common Core, followed by Glenn's response.
Today on radio, Glenn gave the definitive response. See that and get all the sources to back it up HERE.
Students in some Albany High School English classes were asked to participate in the unthinkable this week as part of a persuasive writing assignment. The objective? Prove why Jews are evil and convince the teacher of their loyalty to the Third Reich in five paragraphs or less. See the actual lessonHERE.
A concerned parent tipped off TheBlaze to the disturbing fact that NY public schools are teaching the U.N.'s Socialist-leaning Universal Human Rights. We also discovered that the schools are delivering this indoctrination using videos made by the Church of Scientology. Learn what our investigation revealedHERE.
TheBlaze has been at the forefront in uncovering the disturbing details of the nationalized curriculum standard known as Common Core. One of the most troubling aspects of this federal program is that government bureaucrats are currently mining sensitive and highly personal information on children through Common Core's tracking system. Watch the powerful segments from The Glenn Beck Program HERE.
What information is being collected on your kids through Common Core?
TheBlaze TV subscribers can watch past episodes covering Common Core and CSCOPE. The March 14th episode focused on Common Core and the March 7th episode focused on CSCOPE. Not a subscriber? Sign up HERE.
Glenn has spent a lot of time over the past few weeks exposing some of the education initiatives in states across the country that are indoctrinating kids into the radical progressive agenda. Today, Glenn discussed an issue tied into Common Core that many people aren't aware of: data mining.
"We cover many important stories and topics on this program, but I don't think any could be more important than what we are covering tonight: the progressive takeover of America's schools,"
OK....when they look at you like you have a tin foil hat on your head......take some of this information with you. It is 126 pages. I have not read through the entire document (YET) but what I have read is enough to blow off the top of your head. I have highlighted some stuff. KIPP (Charter Schools) has a CHARACTER REPORT CARD on Page 39. So for now start on page 39 and work your way through to page 45. Remember FERPA laws were changed last year and I am sure not one parent is aware that permission to share information about our children no longer requires parental consent. Obama just slipped all these new changes in and I don't believe any parents were ever asked their opinions about these changes. And where was our Republican Congress when this happened???
AGENDA 21 is: The complete control and inventory of every human activity. After your friends read some of this information ask them if they still believe A21 is not real. Chapter 36 of A21 document is devoted to education.
Our government forgets there are still people alive that can think and see through their garbage.
Print this document and get a highlighter...........then start visiting your neighbors, school boards, elected officials and start screaming. GET COMMON CORE AND THE GOVERNMENT out of our class rooms. I think it is time to start a MASS movement for Home Schooling. I know Home Schooling will not be spared. This should be a movement to bring education back to the local level and DESTROY the Federal Department of Education. If our kids are not in school it will create an uprising at all levels. We should not settle for shutting down Common Core because they will masquerade it....they are already doing this in VA. VA supposedly never signed on to Common Core but GUESS WHAT........they ARE implementing Common Core and disguising it from the citizens in VA....of course they aren't doing a good job of hiding it and people in VA are catching on. Our schools have been in the process of a government take over (in earnest) for more than 20 years. If we don't shut down the Department of Education it will never stop. We have to cause a citizen uprising!!
Here is the U.S. Department of Education - Office of Educational Technology document:
"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests"- Patrick Henry
To fix "THE SYSYEM" We must become "THE SYSTEM" - k. bracken "The change we seek has always required great struggle and great sacrifice." - Barack Hussein Obama "The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master." - Ayn Rand
America needs a history lesson
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The critically-acclaimed film, The Third Jihad - Radical Islam's Vision for America educates about the nature of radical Islamic ideology. Law enforcement agencies across the country have used the film in their counter-terror training.
Understanding the threats of terror is the first step in preventing deadly attacks.
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"This fantastic documentary is both entertaining and educational" - Dove Foundation
Rev. C.L. Bryant's documentary Runaway Slave has been a runaway hit! The film recently won the Crystal Dove Seal, and has been making waves across the country.
Runaway Slave is the story of C.L. Bryant, a former NAACP Chapter president who realized that the Democrat Party and progressive movement was hurting Africa-Americans and keeping them stuck on the government dole. Rev. Bryant discusses the impact of progressivism on the African-American community and how freedom works with a host of leaders including Dr. Alveda King, Herman Cain, Allen West, Dr. Thomas Sowell, and many others.
The Crystal Dove Seal award is given to films that are family-friendly and provide wholesome, educational content. Runaway Slave is an important movie for all audiences, and it has a message that should be heard if we want to achieve a society where character is king.
Congratulations to Rev. C.L. Bryant and the Runaway Slave team on their achievement!
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, filed an amendment on a new immigration bill that would eliminate a path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants already here.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a newly elected Republican with a penchant for making headlines, filed an amendment that would bar undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States from ever earning citizenship.
There are an estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally, and a bipartisan immigration reform measure would create a pathway to citizenship over the course of 13 years by requiring those people to pay penalties and back taxes, as well as learn English. Conservatives opposed to reform decry the path as amnesty, but Democrats say they will not support reform that does not cope with the immigrants already living in the U.S.
Cruz also filed amendments that he says would "strengthen border security measures; reform the high-skilled temporary worker program; modernize, streamline and expand legal immigration; and prohibit federal, state or local entitlement benefits for those here illegally."
HARRISBURG - Perennial fixtures on the legislative calendar, bills to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation have gone nowhere in the last decade.
This time, the tables may be turning. Companion bills in the House and Senate have attracted a record number of cosponsors, among them the General Assembly's first two openly gay lawmakers, while a new poll shows solid majority support across the state for such a ban.
The bills, introduced Tuesday with 102 cosponsors including both Republicans and Democrats, would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or expression in employment, housing, credit, and public accommodations.
State Rep. Dan Frankel (D., Allegheny) said the ban was needed to end "the last vestige of legal discrimination in Pennsylvania - discrimination based on an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity or expression." Laws already ban discrimination based on race, religion, or gender.
As if to remind people that Pennsylvania's social conservatives are alive and well, Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R., Butler) - in whose committee the antidiscrimination bill would be considered - reintroduced a bill of his own Tuesday: a constitutional "marriage protection" amendment.
"The definition of marriage as 'the union of one man and one woman,' defended and upheld by this legislation, is the traditional definition of marriage that has been recognized and accepted throughout history and the world for centuries," said Metcalfe, who sponsored a similar bill that passed the House in 2006. "Neither homosexual special interests gathered under the immoral umbrella of the ACLU, nor the Obama administration's Department of Justice or any activist court should decide this critical issue for our commonwealth."
1.Senate Judiciary Committee Seals the Fate of the Gang Immigration Bill
The Senate Judiciary Committee began its markup of the gang of 8 immigration deform bill (s.744).The striking thing about the markup is that any casual observer would think we were living in 1965 or 1986, when there was either relatively low legal immigration or no failed amnesty to look back upon.To most of the senators sitting around the table, the border is more secure than ever (despite the sharp rise in crossings), our record levels of immigration don't exist, and there is no reason to implement the enforcement before the legalization.
The first vote was on the Schumer manager's amendment, which is a substitute making technical changes to the bill.This ostensibly is the bill.Yet 4 Republicans - Jeff Flake, Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn, and Orrin Hatch - joined all the Democrats in supporting it.I'm not sure why someone who ultimately opposes this bill would vote for that.Would they have voted for the defacto Obamacare bill in the form of a substitute?Either way, I overheard Chuck Schumer celebrating the votes of Hatch and Cornyn, noting that it was "a good sign."If Cornyn and Hatch believe that not to be true, they ought to clarify their position. . . . please click here for the rest of the post →
2.Benghazi hearings in the Mirror Universe
It's amazing to watch the media bury yesterday's explosive testimony on Benghazi.Just imagine for a moment that today is the day after a veteran career diplomat - the top man on the ground in Libya after the murder of the ambassador - testified that a Republican administration told him not to cooperate with Democrat congressional investigators, shook him up with a menacing phone call from the top political "fixer" for a Secretary of State widely viewed as a leading 2016 presidential candidate, demoted him under cloudy circumstances so they could portray him as "disgruntled"... and then spent eight months loudly boasting of their enthusiastic, transparent cooperation with Congress.Imagine the media coverage - from the glowing profile of Gregory Hicks as a new whistleblower demigod in the pantheon of good-government heroes, to the hows of outrage that noble truth-seeking Congressmen were thwarted by the machinations of a shadowy White House bent on preserving its electoral viability, no matter the cost to public transparency or national security. . . . please click here for the rest of the post →
3.Texas is Open for Business
Yesterday, Barack Obama headed to Texas where he'll be greeted by Governor Rick Perry. The President's going to see just how awesome Texas is. Seriously. The rest of us should be jealous.
Texas was just named the best place to do business by CEO Magazine, several other groups have listed Texas as the most favorable state for jobs, Raytheon just abandoned California for Texas. It's got booming bioscience, technology, and manufacturing sectors. People who have been saying "it's the oil" have to look again. It no longer is just the oil and gas. . . . please click here for the rest of the post →
Is Benghazi Obama's Watergate? Lauri B. Regan A Shakespearean tragedy that will make Watergate look like child's play may very well be unfolding. The Obama machine may finally be in over its head. More
Mistaking Cause and Effect in Syria Shoshana Bryen As long as the Arab war against Israel war goes on, Israel is entitled -- required -- to defend its people. And if that complicates life for the United States, so be it. More
What the Hearings Mean Jonathon Moseley The House Benghazi hearings revealed a lot more than the Obama administration -- and Hillary Clinton -- would like. More
BDS and the Intellectuals Eileen F. Toplansky Anti-Semitism, as exrpessed through the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, has been the latest symptom of the degeneracy of the Western intelligentsia. More
Putin Condemned Kim Zigfeld Has Russia reached the fork in the road leading to either totalitarianism or collapse? More
The Question of Evil and Hannah Arendt Michael Curtis Will a new film on the noted Jewish philosopher reignite the controversy over her views of war criminal Adolf Eichmann? More
Will CBS News disgrace itself over Sharyl Attkisson's honest reporting? May 9, 2013 Sharyl Attkisson has distinguished herself with skeptical inquiry into Obama administration stories on Fast and Furious and Benghazigate, and perhaps as a result is reportedly in trouble with her bosses at CBS News More
On Wednesday, three Benghazi whistleblowers appeared before the House Oversight Committee to shed some light on the deadly terrorist attack that claimed the lives of four Americans last September 11. Several stunning revelations were made throughout the hearing. Five that stood out to us are revealedHERE.
During Wednesday's Benghazi hearings, Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) had what could be the weirdest exchange with Greg Hicks, former Deputy Chief of Mission in Libya. The conversation began with the California representative questioning Hicks� claim that he was asked not to give any personal interviews to Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz. See the strange turn in the testimonyHERE.
How did the mainstream media cover Wednesday's Benghazi hearing? Well, kind of like it has since the attack occurred � lightly. TheBlaze conducted a review of various outlets� coverage on Wednesday night at around 8 p.m. CT and took screengrabs of several front pages and accumulated some video.HERE.
Washington Insider Comes Out of the Shadows With Shocking Announcement
He has been the secret man behind some of the biggest movements and most successful companies in America today. But for over a decade he has made a point to stay behind the scenes� That is until now� Today, something so big has begun to happen in America that he's decided to come out of retirement and reveal his true identity for the first time on this scale. And in this controversial video he will tell you about the coming event that is going to change your life.
Parents of fallen service members spoke at a press conference on Thursday morning. At that event, they accused the U.S. government of complicity in the deaths of their sons. The families highlighted a number of grievances, including the notion that military brass invited a Muslim cleric to their children�s funeral in 2011 � an imam who they claim �disparaged in Arabic the memory of these servicemen.� See this developing storyHERE.
Wednesday's episode of TheBlaze TV's newsmagazine show "For The Record" revealed just how much the sex trafficking industry has seeped into America. To see two shocking clips from the special program and find out how you can watch the entire episode, clickHERE.
Making history, a higher percentage of America�n blacks voted than whites at higher rates than whites in 2012, lifting Democrat Barack Obama to victory amid voter apathy, particularly among young people, new census data shows. Despite increasing population, the number of white voters declined for the first time since 1996. Get the full statistical breakdown of this historic moment in our history HERE.
The Kiss Cam, is a clever little gimmick used to bridge the down times at sporting events (time outs, inning changes, halftime, etc). More often than not, couples respond with a quick kiss, a peck on the cheek, sometimes even a proposal. But when a non-kiss happens, the video can prove to be very entertaining. The attached clip shows a non-kiss and an over-the-top reaction from the woman involved. But is it real? We have our suspicions. Watch the video and cast your vote on the clipHERE.
Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie is a medical doctor and mother of five. Dr. Christie writes: As a Hispanic woman, I find the racial statistics of abortion deeply unsettling. Among white women, there were 138 abortions for every 1,000 births. Among black women, the number rises to a dizzying 501 abortions. Hispanic women account for 25% of all US abortions, though Hispanics make up just 16% of the population. Read the rest of the doctor's stirring analysis on TheBlaze Contributor's pageHERE.
Today we�ve got a special video that gives you a peek into what it�s like to fly an F-16 along with the U.S. Air Force�s 36th Fighter Squadron Flying Fiends. Put on your helmet, fasten your harness, and then clickHERE.
Carlos Miller, the man behind the Photography Is Not a Crime blog, has had some content on his various devices deleted by law enforcement. Carlos now has a message for those who have had pictures or video deleted by cops or accidentally by themselves: �It doesn�t completely disappear.� Learn how you can bring those lost images and clips back to lifeHERE.
A former top U.S. diplomat in Libya said he was effectively "demoted" after questioning United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice's explanation that the deadly Benghazi attack was the result of a protest over a video.
The most insane aspects of the Frank Amendment were abolished by the USA Patriot Act after it was revealed that all but 3 of the 19 hijackers of September 11, 2001 had entered the US with legal visas.
In the weeks after 9/11, photographs circulated within the Muslim world of the N.Y. skyline, its normally dominant WTC replaced with photo-shopped mosques, identifiable by their prominent domes and minarets.
What is known is that neither the State Department led by then-Secretary of State Clinton, nor the White House did anything to protect the Libyan embassy, consulate, and ambassador prior to or during the attack.
On Monday, May 13th, 2013 the London Center for Policy Research will inaugurate its activities with a dinner honoring Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter.
Did you know that if everyone who visited our FSM website this year donated just $1, we would easily exceed our annual budget?
Your gift will be an investment in freedom.
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, The Family Security Foundation relies upon the thoughtfulness and (tax-deductible!) generosity of visitors like you.
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." ~ Ronald Reagan
To lead the nation always under threat from North Korea, backbone is required. As the president of South Korea has demonstrated over her past two days in Washington, she is a vital figure at this time in history.
Park Geun-hye has been referred to as the "Iron Lady of Korea." It is a fitting moniker since it honors not only her, but also Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Two principled leaders, reaching out to others but willing to risk criticism to achieve a bold vision for their country. As Lady Thatcher observed, "Consensus is the absence of leadership."
The U.S. and South Korea have stood together for 60 years. Repeatedly during her visit, Park affirmed the continuing need for the alliance that has kept peace on the Korean Peninsula for decades. Although Pyongyang may have toned down its threats of the past two months, the military threat remains. North Korea's million-man army remains poised near the demilitarized zone, and the regime continues expanding its nuclear and missile arsenal.
The allied effort responding to the North Korean invasion in 1950 provided the shield that saved South Korea and enabled it to develop into a vibrant democracy embracing free-market principles. Today, despite its relatively small population of 50 million people, South Korea is America's seventh largest trading partner. The economic partnership was further strengthened last year with the passage of the Korea-U.S. (KORUS) Free Trade Agreement.
This is her first visit to Washington as president. At the Korean War Memorial, she expressed on behalf of her nation "our profound gratitude to America's veterans. Their blood, sweat and tears helped safeguard freedom and democracy."
President Park commented how moved she was by the words etched in granite at the memorial: "Our nation honors her sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met." At a dinner celebrating the alliance, Park honored U.S. veterans, speaking eloquently of how "freedom is not free...peace is not free."
That hard-fought freedom bears fruit-not only for South Koreans, but also for the world. Park highlighted how her nation, once a recipient of foreign aid, is now a major donor to the aid of others. Once the beneficiary of support by armed forces of other nations, South Korea now lends its support to other nations in defense of their freedom. Park articulated her vision where her country would lead an initiative for peace and cooperation in Northeast Asia, overcoming historic differences by working toward common objectives.
The U.S.-South Korea military, political, and economic relationships are currently the strongest they have ever been. Indeed, there may be no better example of the benefits to the United States of looking beyond its borders and defending friends who share common values.
The United States has a strong partner in President Park Geun-hye and South Korea. We should honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice during the Korean War by maintaining America's unequivocal support for a trusted ally and friend with shared values of freedom and democracy.
Daily Email - May 9, 2013 Top StoryMedia Cross the Line Against Glenn Beck By Cliff Kincaid | May 8, 2013 "Beck Crosses the Line Again" was the headline over a Jonathan Tobin Commentary article about Glenn Beck's attack on Michael Bloomberg at the NRA convention. Tobin insisted that Beck "spoke in front of a large backdrop that photo-shopped Bloomberg's face into what appears to be a famous photo of Adolf Hitler." Commentary describes itself as [...] From the AIM Blogs No Liberal Left Behind for MSNBC.com Relaunch By Don Irvine | May 8, 2013 Guest ColumnClinton's Republican Guard By Andrew McCarthy | May 9, 2013 With each new revelation, what has always been obvious becomes more pronounced: the State Department's self-proclaimed final word on the Benghazi Massacre, the risibly named "Accountability Review Board" investigation, is a fraud. Yet, like the rest of the Obama administration's obstructive wagon-circling, the ARB's report continues serving its intended purpose: to thwart efforts to hold administration [...] AIM Newswire More Taxes for Struggling Economy? Senate passes Internet Tax
Bryan Preston's assessment of the House Benghazi hearings is worth reading in its entirety, but he summarizes the big headlines quite well:
1. There were multiple stand-down orders, not just one. Special Operations forces were told, twice, by their chain of command not to board aircraft to Benghazi to rescue the Americans then under attack. The U.S. deputy diplomat, Greg Hicks, testified that the military commander, Lt. Col. Gibson, had his team ready to go twice. They were on the runway about to board a flight to Benghazi in the middle of the attack. They were ordered to stand down and remain in Tripoli to receive wounded who would be coming out of Benghazi. One of the orders came in the middle of the attack, the other came toward the end after Hicks' team had traveled from Tripoli to Benghazi. The fact that Hicks' team was able get to Benghazi before the end of the assault strongly suggests that the Special Operations team could have made a real difference.
At the same time, the State Department's commander on the scene, Hicks, ordered his personnel into Benghazi and went there himself. Hicks testified that Gibson never told him who issued the stand-down orders. He commented that Gibson told him that the military stand-down was a shock: "This is the first time in my career that a diplomat has more balls than someone in the military."
Hicks also testified that the US government never even requested military overflight to support the Americans in Benghazi. The US had an unarmed drone overhead and could have gotten permission to fly fighters over the scene, at least, but never asked.
2. Ambassador Stevens' reason for going to Benghazi has been cleared up. Hicks testified that Ambassador Stevens traveled to Benghazi to fulfill one of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's wishes. Despite the fact that security was worsening in Benghazi for months leading up to the 9-11 attack, Clinton wanted to make the post there permanent. Her State Department had denied repeated requests from the US team in Libya to upgrade security there, but she wanted to use the permanent post as a symbol of goodwill. Stevens was committed to that goal and told Clinton he would "make it happen." He was in Benghazi on 9-11 furthering Clinton's goal. She had denied requests to beef up security at Benghazi and then blamed his death on a YouTube movie. Hicks' testimony raises the question of Clinton's competence and grasp on reality, strongly suggesting that she put political perceptions ahead of the facts on the ground in Benghazi.
3. Clinton was briefed at 2 am on the night of the attack, was never told that a movie had anything to do with the attack by those on the ground in Libya, yet blamed the movie anyway. Hicks also testified that he was shocked when Ambassador Susan Rice blamed a YouTube movie for inspiring the 9-11 attack. He testified that he had briefed Secretary Clinton directly via phone at 2 a.m. and told her that Benghazi was a terrorist attack. He never mentioned a YouTube, which he never once believed had anything to do with the attack. But Clinton shocked him by blaming the movie on Sept 12. She would blame it, again, while standing before the coffins of the slain Americans, on Sept. 14. During the attack, Clinton told Hicks that no help would be on the way to relieve the Americans under sustained assault.
4. Whistleblowers were intimidated into silence. Hicks testified to a pattern of behavior that leads to the reasonable conclusion that many officials within the State Department wanted him to remain silent after the Benghazi attack. He said that on the night of the attack he was personally commended both by Secretary Clinton and President Barack Obama. But he later questioned why Ambassador Rice blamed the YouTube movie, and from that point on his superior, Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Beth Jones, questioned his "management style" and told him directly that no one in State should want him on their team in the field again. He was eventually demoted to a desk job after having been deputy to Ambassador Stevens, and remains in that post. Hick also testified that the Accountability Review Board, convened by Clinton last fall allegedly to determine the facts of the attack, never had stenographers in the room during his tw0-hour interview. Nordstrom concurred. Thompson was not even allowed to testify to the ARB despite having direct knowledge of the attacks due to his position on the US Foreign Emergency Response Team. Thompson testified that the FEST was designed to go from zero to wheels up very quickly but was not deployed at all. He wanted to tell his story to the ARB, but was not allowed to. Hicks also testified that for the first time in his career, the State Department assigned a lawyer/minder to attend witness interviews with the ARB. He also testified that Jones told him not to be personally interviewed by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, the Republican House member who was investigating the attack on behalf of the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee. It all adds up to a pattern of witness control and intimidation.
5. "The YouTube movie was a non-event in Libya." Hicks directly testified that the YouTube movie, for which a man remains in jail, was not in any way relevant to the attack in Benghazi. Why Obama, Clinton, Rice et al blamed that movie for the attack remains an unanswered question. Hicks said that no American on the ground in Libya that night believed the movie was to blame. He also testified that there was no protest prior to the attack. When the attack began, he was in Tripoli. He texted Stevens, who was in Benghazi, to advise him of the riot in Cairo at the US embassy. In that riot, jihadists had stormed the walls and replaced the American flag with the black flag of Islam. Stevens had not been aware of the Cairo situation at all, but shortly after Hicks texted him about it, Stevens called and told Hicks that the Benghazi consulate was under attack. He never mentioned a protest.
Hicks also testified that blaming the movie had strongly adverse real-world effects. According to him, it humiliated Libya's president, who had correctly stated that Benghazi was a terrorist attack. Blaming the movie, Hicks said, did "immeasurable damage" to our relations with Libya and delayed the FBI investigation. On Sept. 12, Ambassador Susan Rice told the first of her many untruths, claiming in an email that the FBI investigation into the attack was already underway. It would not actually get underway for 17 days after the attack, by which time the scene of the attack had been compromised and contaminated.
We still do not know who decided to change the original CIA talking points and blame the movie, but the finger is pointing directly at Hillary Clinton. She was briefed by Hicks during the attack, the movie was never mentioned, but in her first public statement on September 12, she blamed the movie. Her subordinate, Ambassador Susan Rice, also blamed the movie the following weekend. The fact that Obama himself blamed the movie repeatedly, though, strongly suggests that he took part in the decision as well.
Daveed Gartenstein Ross of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies: "I defended the administration during the election from some attacks I saw as unfair. Well, today's testimony deeply disturbed me. It is impossible at this point to argue that only the Republicans are 'playing politics' with Benghazi. 1) Claims the witnesses' cooperation in investigation was impeded. 2) Claims the Rice talking points hurt relations with Libya. 3) Explanation of why the Rice talking point[s] were obviously implausible to those on the scene."
The Mainstream Media Can't Stop Inconvenient Stories, It Can Only Hope to Contain Them
I think there's a lot to this theory offered by Ace:
Why is it so important for the liberals to push out the only reporter who covered Benghazi?
"Ghettoization." If the "neutral media" -- actually liberal as hell -- can present a unified party line on stories, always supporting one another and never showing a crack in the wall, they can sneer at stories they don't like by saying "Only Fox claims that."
This becomes unhelpful to the liberals for the same reason it's helpful to conservatives. Conservatives always say "Wow, now it's on CBS!" We call that vindication -- that it's gotten out of the ghetto to the liberal media. That even the liberal media was forced to cover that.
But for those in the liberal media who consider the airwaves Their Air -- a valuable property they own and can exploit as any property-owner can, for their own benefit, to their own taste -- this is a problem for exactly the same reasons. Just as we claim victory when we say "Now it's on CBS!," so too do liberals feel failure when a true story that hurts liberals escapes from the conservative news/talk radio ghetto and shows up on Their Air.
And so, while they can't push Sharyl Attkisson out of the profession, they can give up a major reporter to Fox, which reduces the damage she can do.
After all, if she reports over there, "It's just a Fox story." The liberal media remains pristine and unified in its Ideological Wall of Silence.
Way back when, when I had a lot more time on my hands (pre-parenthood), I freelanced more frequently and appeared in non-conservative publications, such as the pages of the Philadelphia Inquirer. I liked appearing in the New York Daily News, but haven't had a really good idea to offer in recent months. I suppose CNN and MSNBC appearances count as stepping out of the conservative ghetto, but those are usually on panels, as the designated right-of-center talking head.
There are a few distinctly non-conservative voices in the mainstream press who are willing to ask tough questions of the administration or question the dominant media narrative. I would praise them, but that would probably just get them in trouble.
Why Conservatives Are Growing Cynical About the Concept of the 'Common Good'
Pete Wehner wonders if conservatives have forgotten, or lost interest, in the value of community:
It strikes me that this ancient insight-of how we do not live in isolation, that we are part of a continuum-has been a bit neglected by American conservatives in recent years. The emphasis one hears these days has to do almost solely with liberty, which of course is vital. But there is also the trap of hyper-individualism. What's missing, I think, is an appropriate appreciation-or at least a public appreciation-for community, social solidarity, and the common good; for the obligations and attachments we have to each other and the role institutions play in forming those attachments.
It's not exactly clear to me why conservatives have neglected these matters. It may be the result of a counter-reaction to President Obama's expansion of the size, scope, and reach of the federal government, combined with a growing libertarian impulse within conservatism. Whatever the explanation, conservatives are making an error-a political error, a philosophical error, a human error-in ignoring (at least in our public language) this understanding of the richness and fullness of life.
Conservatism has never been simply about being left alone. It is not exclusively about self-reliance, individual drive and "rugged individualism," as important as these things are. We need to be careful about portraying life in a constricted way, since our characters and personalities and sensibilities are shaped by so many other factors and forces and people all along the way.
Permit me to offer a theory or two . . .
We've always been a diverse country, but I suspect that a lot of conservatives click on the television or web or look at the morning paper or magazine and see a country they just don't recognize anymore.
The sense of alienation isn't racial, but it is cultural. How many conservatives look out upon large swaths of their fellow countrymen and feel as if they're dealing with someone from another planet, someone whose thinking, values, worldview, and priorities are so alien, they simply can't understand them?
Our political differences and culture wars are a big part of it. But I think it goes even further. How many times can a conservative encounter the low-information voters who don't know who the vice president is, or watch the folks on the street get stumped by basic questions in Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" segments, and not lose some faith in the American people as a whole?
For starters, I really have only the vaguest idea who Jodi Arias is. According to cable-news producers, this trial is a really, really, really big deal.
I remember reading the joke, "Far in the future, aliens will come and find the relics of our modern civilization and conclude that Kim Kardashian was our queen." I really don't understand why I'm supposed to care about this woman, and I don't understand why it seems that I'm constantly being told things about her.
I suppose someone could argue that my interest in football or superhero movies or Star Wars is similarly frivolous. But a functioning constitutional republic relies on an informed public to hold its government accountable, and it feels like large swaths of our public have checked out of this whole process, finding all duties of citizenship to be a drag.
Any Americans who worked their butt off through college and did the entry-level, low-pay jobs at the beginning of their working lives look at the Occupy Movement and wonder how the heck someone can begin adulthood with such a ludicrous sense of entitlement. Anybody who's interacted with the government looks at a takeover of the health-care system as a nationwide slow-motion train wreck happening before our eyes. We saw more of it yesterday: Anybody who watched the Benghazi hearing is left slack-jawed, marveling at the raw cynicism at work at the highest levels of our government.
It's very hard to be motivated to help "the common good" when you sense that a good portion of the folks you're being asked to help are exercising bad judgment, unwilling to work hard, unwilling to make similar sacrifices, unwilling to take responsibility for themselves, and so on.
ADDENDUM: NRO is launching a petition for accountability on Benghazi. Check it out here.
NRO Digest - May 9, 2013
Today on National Review Online . . .
ANDREW STILES: Hearings revealed that more investigation of Benghazi is necessary. The Benghazi Battle.
MICHAEL RUBIN: Intelligence politicization, a la Benghazi, has a long history. Twisting Intelligence.
ROBERT GEORGE & RAMESH PONNURU: When states fail to protect infants' right to life, Congress has a duty to intervene. Congress and the Gosnell Trial.
Pentagon Began Relationship with Anti-Religious Extremist in 2009
This column by ACRU Senior Legal Analyst Ken Klukowski was published May 7, 2013 on Breitbart.com.
The Obama-Hagel Pentagon is trying to minimize Breitbart News' blockbuster story last week of top brass meeting with anti-Christian extremist Mikey Weinstein, who we reported calls Christians "monsters" imposing a "rapacious reign of theocratic terror" and says sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ in the military is an act of "sedition and treason" that must be punished.
The Pentagon sent out an email suggesting the Apr. 23 meeting with Weinstein in the Pentagon was a one-time event, saying only, "Weinstein requested, and was granted, a meeting at the Pentagon [on] April 23, with the Air Force Judge Advocate General and others, to include the Deputy Chief of Chaplains, to express his concerns of religious issues in the military."
Hagel's Pentagon Defends Unconstitutional Policy against Soldiers Sharing Faith
This column by ACRU Senior Legal Analyst Ken Klukowski was published May 3, 2013 on Breitbart.com.
Pentagon personnel responded to Breitbart News' report about court-martialing service members who share their faith in the military, which the Pentagon confirmed on May 1, and the Air Force on May 2 separately confirmed a second time.
Now the Pentagon claims the opposite. But these new statements instead only compound the problem, as the Pentagon's new definitions for terms squarely contradict what the dictionary says those terms mean. All this has taken place as the first flag officer in the military has stepped forward to defy the unconstitutional policy.
Pentagon Taps Anti-Christian Extremist for Religious Tolerance Policy
This column by ACRU Senior Legal Analyst Ken Klukowski was published April 28, 2013 on Breitbart.com.
"Today, we face incredibly well-funded gangs of fundamentalist Christian monsters who terrorize their fellow Americans by forcing their weaponized and twisted version of Christianity upon their helpless subordinates in our nation's armed forces."
Those words were recently written by Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), in a column he wrote for the Huffington Post. Weinstein will be a consultant to the Pentagon to develop new policies on religious tolerance, including a policy for court-martialing military chaplains who share the Christian Gospel during spiritual counseling of American troops.
Overreaching Internet Sales Tax Is Obama's Calculated Deception Of Gullible Voters
This column by ACRU General Counsel and Senior Fellow for the Carleson Center for Public Policy (CCPP) Peter Ferrara was published May 2, 2013 on Forbes.com.
During the 2008 campaign, when candidate Obama was seeking our votes, he pledged in Dover, New Hampshire on Sept. 12, 2008:
"I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."
During a nationally televised Vice-Presidential debate in St. Louis on Oct. 3, 2008, candidate Biden repeated the pledge:
"No one making less than $250,000 under Barack Obama's plan will see one single penny of their tax raised whether it's their capital gains tax, their income tax, investment tax, any tax."
This column by ACRU Senior Fellow Robert Knight was published May 6, 2013 on The Washington Times website.
America is awash in doublespeak.
Words such as "marriage," "conservatism," "bigotry," "tolerance" and "brave" no longer have universal meaning, and this is no accident.
When confusion replaces clarity, the devil breaks out the champagne. It's so much easier to push people toward the abyss when the stop signs are edited to say "whatever."
This column by ACRU Policy Board Member and Professor of Economics Dr. Walter E. Williams was published May 1, 2013 on Townhall.com.
The liberal world vision and reality are often at variance, for example, with equal pay for equal work. I've often watched "Lockup," a show that features California supermax prisons, including Pelican Bay and Corcoran. Often, a recalcitrant prisoner must be extracted from his cell through brute force. I've never seen female guards remove a prisoner. If they are part of the process at all, it's to videotape the extraction for legal purposes. It's my bet that female guards receive the same salaries as male guards while not having to risk injury. Along the same lines, women on aircraft carriers earn as much as their male counterparts, but I have yet to see women hefting a hernia bar to attach a 500- or 1,000-pound bomb to a fighter jet wing. All of this suggests that liberals are for equal pay for unequal work. Or could it be sex discrimination whereby equally qualified women are denied the opportunity to extract beastly inmates from their cells and load heavy bombs on fighter planes?
Voter Fraud Lawsuits Filed in Two Mississippi Counties
This column by Kerry Picket was published May 1, 2013 on Breitbart.com.
Two Mississippi counties are facing lawsuits filed by the American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) that seek injunctions to compel election officials in Jefferson Davis and Walthall Counties to clean up their voter rolls. The two cases could have a nationwide ripple effect if the plaintiffs prevail.
"We hope to get an affirmative ruling from this court, and then proceed to other counties that have irregularities," said ACRU Chairman Susan A. Carleson. "The goal is to ensure the integrity of the voting process, without which we cannot continue as a self-governing nation."
Justice Department Failure: Suit Filed Over DOJ Refusal to Clean Up Voter Rolls
This column by Senior Legal Fellow for The Heritage Foundation Hans A. von Spakovsky was published April 30, 2013 on the PJ Media website.
The American Civil Rights Union wants local election officials to clean up voter rolls in Mississippi. Last Friday, the group filed suit against two counties that have more registered voters than the Census says they have voting-eligible citizens.
The ACRU is stepping into the breach left by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department. Under Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez (now nominated to head the U.S. Department of Labor), the division has refused to enforce Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act, also known as the Motor Voter law. Section 8 requires states to remove ineligible voters from their registration lists.
Rush: Benghazi Cover-up Turns Paranoids Into Prophets By Bill Hoffmann NewsMax.com Rush Limbaugh weighed in on Wednesday's dramatic Benghazi hearing before Congress, calling the alleged continuing cover-up, "troubling as ever."
Talk About Your Permanent Record Following You For Life ...
National Databases: Collecting Student-Specific Data Unnecessary and Orwellian By William A. Estrada, Esq. RightSideNews.com This database has the ability to track students, their educational progress, and a vast degree of personal information about every student.
Abortionist: Unborn Baby Like 'Meat In Crockpot' LifeNews.com/World Net Daily The pro-life group Live Action has released a fourth video in a series of undercover videos catching late-term abortion practitioners and abortion clinics misleading women and showing indifference to the destruction of human life.
Things The Sequester Didn't Cut: A Prototype Of Ciggie Snitching Drawers
Feds Spend $402,721 On Underwear That Senses Cigarette Smoke By Elizabeth Harrington CNSNews.com The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded more than $400,000 to a research project involving underwear that can detect when a person smokes cigarettes.
Yesterday's Benghazi hearing was extraordinary, but you wouldn't know it if you depended on Big Media. Major networks like CNN and MSNBC did not cover yesterday's whistle-blower testimony on the Benghazi scandal. Instead they chose to follow Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, who were held captive in an Ohio home for ten years, as they returned to their families.
In contrast, Fox News covered the vast majority of Benghazi hearing. Also today's Washington Post had a relatively balanced story, noting that the witnesses "provided a riveting, emotional account of last year's fatal attack" and "accused senior government officials of withholding embarrassing facts."
Are Obama and Hillary in real trouble? It's too early to know for sure. The fact that some of the witnesses appeared to contradict Hillary Clinton's testimony does not by itself prove that Hillary committed perjury. You have to prove that she intentionally lied using sources other than someone else's statements.
That said, I continue to believe the Benghazi scandal has legs and that more disclosures are forthcoming. At a press conference today House Speaker John Boehner called on the Obama White House to release more information on Benghazi. Referring specifically to an email to the Libyan ambassador, Boehner said:
"I hope you all tuned in to yesterday's hearing on the tragedy in Benghazi. We learned that on September 12 -- the day after the attacks and four days before Susan Rice's TV appearances -- a senior State Department official emailed her superiors to relay that ... she had told the Libyan Ambassador that the attack was conducted by Islamic terrorists.
"The State Department would not allow our committees to keep copies of this email when it was reviewed. And I would call on the president to order the State Department to release this email so that the American people can see it."
During an interview this morning, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) said, "Having sat on the Intelligence Committee and seen the review of emails that went back and forth as they developed the list, there is a glaring problem there that will eventually come out." Stay tuned!
What's More Important: Dead Babies Or Gay Athletes?
There is a saying in journalism, "If it bleeds, it leads." In other words, high profile crimes make headlines. Unless, of course, the news threatens left-wing dogma like the "freedom of choice." In that case, Big Media dutifully ignore the story as though it never happened.
For example, one Washington Post reporter brushed off the trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell as a "local crime story" presumably with no public policy implications. Right -- just like the Trayvon Martin shooting or the Newtown shootings were "local crime stories" with no policy implications.
Fortunately for the media, just as the pressure to cover Gosnell was gaining momentum, along came the kind of story the media love: a professional basketball player, Jason Collins, announced that he prefers sleeping with men.
According to CNSNews, nearly 2,400 news stories were run about Jason Collins in the week following his admission that he is a homosexual, compared to just 115 news stories about Gosnell during the first eight days of his trial -- a difference of 1,970%.
Clearly, in Big Media's view, it is far more important for you to know that a basketball player sleeps with men, and that the president is proud of him, than it is to know about the babies whose spinal cords were "snipped" in the name of choice.
The media's bias could not be more obvious. It is a perfect example of how Big Media fully cooperates with the left to push its radical, destructive agenda. And that agenda has tremendous implications for public policy as it seeks to drive men and women of faith out of the public square, forcing them into the proverbial closet.
Read more about this issue in my latest guest editorial in USA Today.
Democrats Duck Gosnell Debate
Kudos to Senator Mike Lee (R-UT). The liberal media may not want to talk about Kermit Gosnell, but Senator Lee is forcing Senate Democrats to confront the reality of their abortion-on-demand agenda.
Lee introduced a resolution demanding an investigation and legislation to "correct abusive, unsanitary and illegal abortion practices." His resolution now has 21 co-sponsors.
When he tried to bring up his resolution, Senate Democrats objected. Lee said, "It is difficult to imagine why anyone would object... The resolution is simply an affirmation that we as a country -- a moral and compassionate society -- have an interest in acting to save the lives of innocent women and children, and to prevent these kinds of heinous acts from happening to anyone again."
Senator Lee is right. This is a debate the country should have, and I encourage him to bring up his resolution again and again and again, each time exposing the pro-abortion extremism of Senate Democrats.
Democrats' Misplaced Priorities
What are the issues Democrats have been pushing since the beginning of the new year? Gun control and immigration reform. After having spent the first four months of the year working almost exclusively on gun control and coming up empty handed, Senate Democrats turned immediately to immigration reform.
Today the Senate Judiciary Committee began hearings on the "Gang of 8" comprehensive immigration reform bill. Vice President Joe Biden said yesterday that the amnesty legislation must pass by the end of the summer. After immigration reform, Democrats plan to do what? You guess it -- gun control again.
But what do the American people want? A Gallup poll released this week asked Americans to identify the issues they wanted Congress and the president to make top priorities. On Gallup's list of 12 issues, where do you think the American people ranked gun control and immigration reform?
Not surprisingly, job creation and economic growth tied as the most important priorities. Next was making government more efficient, tied with improving education, followed by fixing Social Security and Medicare, reducing the cost of health care and reducing the deficit.
Gun control and immigration reform were dead last on the list -- 11th and 12th places, respectively. The issues the American people care least about are the very issues that Barack Obama and his left-wing Senate allies are pushing non-stop.
One of the biggest reasons Democrats got shellacked in the 2010 election was that they pushed a radical agenda -- Obamacare, cap and trade energy taxes, etc. -- at the expense of the economy. They are doing it again!
Obama, no doubt hoping to head off another shellacking in 2014, is heading to Texas today, vowing to refocus on the economy. But we have heard that before. I wonder if he is taking his golf clubs with him?
Yesterday's Benghazi hearing provided important information about the cover-up that occurred following the attack, and the leading role of Hillary Clinton in that cover-up.
We already knew that the talking points Susan Rice used on five Sunday talk shows had been changed to provide false information about the Benghazi attack. Gregory Hicks, the State Department's number two man in Libya when the attack began, confirmed yesterday that there was no "protest" in Benghazi and that the video Rice blamed for the attack was a "non-event in Libya."
We also knew that it was Clinton's State Department that pushed back against the talking points produced by the intelligence community, and insisted that the event be cast as a protest sparked by the (non-event) video. Hicks testified that no one at the State Department bothered to ask him whether there was a protest or whether the video played any role.
Plainly, the State Department wasn't interested in facts. It was interested only in spinning Benghazi into something other than terrorism. Why? Because if this was terrorism, questions would be raised about State's failure to respond to requests that security in Libya be beefed-up in light of the growing threat in and around Benghazi.
Hicks also testified that he spoke personally with Hillary Clinton on the night of the attack and told her what was happening. Although he wasn't questioned carefully about that conversation, it's clear that Hicks did not tell Clinton that this was a protest or that the video played a role. Hicks clearly believed neither of these propositions.
Hicks' most revealing testimony pertained to attempts to discourage him from speaking up about the Clinton cover-up, and the retaliation he experienced for doing so. Intimidation and retaliation are hallmarks of the worst kind of cover-up.
Hicks testified that he was shocked by Susan Rice's bogus account of the Benghazi attack and its cause. When he therefore asked Assistant Secretary of State Beth Jones about Rice's statements, Jones made it clear that she didn't want to talk about the matter and didn't want Hicks to pursue it.
After that, according to Hicks, Jones began mistreating him. She "counseled" Hicks, whose 20-plus career at State apparently is exemplary, about his "management style." Eventually, the criticism culminated in a "blistering" attack by Jones. When the question of Hicks' return to Libya arose - yes, he initially wanted to return to Libya - Jones questioned why the new ambassador would want him. This despite commendation Hicks had received from both Clinton and Obama before he was perceived as a whistleblower.
According to Hicks, State Department lawyers told him not to talk to congressional investigators. When Rep. Chaffetz traveled to Libya to talk with Hicks, a State Department lawyer was to attend the meeting. However, our bungling State Department failed to send along a lawyer with a proper security clearance. Thus, its lawyer was excluded.
It was after the Chaffetz visit that Assistant Secretary Jones' mistreatment of Hicks reached its crescendo. In addition, Cheryl Mills, Hillary Clinton's special assistant, gave a Hicks a talking-to.
Scott noted this morning that Mills is an old Clinton hand. "Adept in the arts of cover-up and scandal management," Scott wrote, "she harks back to Monica and impeachment."
As Hicks testified, it's not a good thing when Cheryl Mills gives you a talking-to. And given her status as Hillary's consigliere, there can be no doubt that when Mills talks to you, she does so directly on behalf of Hillary.
In sum, the perpetuation of the cover-up was a Hillary Clinton operation, pure and simple.
Finally, Hicks' testimony explains that, in addition to obscuring the truth from the American people, Clinton's cover-up had adverse consequences on the ground in Libya. The phony "protest in response to a video" narrative contradicted the statement of Libya's president, who courageously called the attack terrorism.
Hicks says that Rice's false statements angered the Libyan president. Consequently, his government failed to cooperate with U.S. efforts to secure the "crime scene" and bring in the FBI. It was two and a half weeks before the FBI could get in.
The Benghazi cover-up may not have been worse than "the crime" - namely the State Department's scaling down of security when it should have been increased. But the cover-up is bad enough.
The presentation of knowingly false statements that overrode an honest intelligence assessment; retaliation against a highly respected career official for questioning the false statements; and adverse real world consequences in Libya. That's bad enough even for government work.
And, like the "crime" itself, the cover-up is down to Hillary Clinton.
UPDATE: I should have noted Hicks' testimony about his demotion to a less desirable, less prestigious job - from the number two man at an important foreign post to a mundane desk job. The State Department denies retaliation and notes that Hicks retains the same grade and salary as before.
This is a frequent defense in retaliation cases. When I practiced law, I asserted it on behalf of clients accused of retaliation.
However, the better view is that retaliatory demotion can occur without loss of rank or pay. Employees will pause before exercising their legal rights or acting as a whistleblower if they fear employer responses that make their life at work less desirable, even if the responses carry no loss of pay or title. This, then, should be the starting point for determining what is and what is not retaliation.
Trivial acts that make life less pleasant (a frown, for example) shouldn't be considered actionable retaliation. But being assigned demonstrably less desirable, less prestigious work clearly should.
Mr. Hicks should have been able to question Beth Jones about the talking points and to speak candidly to Rep. Chaffetz without being assigned to a job beneath his position. Instead, the State Department appears to have punished him and made him an example for others who may contemplate "blowing the whistle." That's retaliation, and it's wrong.
Yesterday's Benghazi hearing tended to confirm my view that, looking back, the four Americans who died during the attack (which occurred in two distinct phases) were doomed due to the inadequate security provided by the State Department. In other words, there probably was nothing we could have done once the attack commenced that would have saved them.
However, the hearing also confirmed that the U.S. declined to take actions that, at the time they were options, should have been taken in order to maximize the possibility of saving lives.
The hearing highlighted three possible options, each of which was rejected. The first option was sending in fighter planes from Europe. Gregory Hicks, State's number two man in Libya, testified that when he asked about such assistance he was told it could be provided in two or three hours, but would not be forthcoming.
Evidence from earlier hearings, plus a sense of how things work in the real world, convinces me that the two-to-three hour estimates were highly unrealistic. The better view, I think, is that even if everything had worked perfectly, it's unlikely that planes from Southern Europe would have arrived in time to make a difference.
But we don't know this for sure, even now. And at the time of the attack, no one knew how long it would last or whether it would spread to Tripoli. Moreover, yesterday's testimony made clear just how impressed Libyan fighters are by U.S. air presence - after all, it played a big role in turning their rebellion into a success. Thus, I believe the planes should have been sent.
A second option was to send in the Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST), a rapid response unit designed for just the sort of situation that was unfolding in Libya. Mark Thompson, the acting deputy assistant secretary of state for counterterrorism, testified that he requested that a FEST team be deployed to Libya, but the request was denied. As I understand his testimony, Thompson was the Bureau of Counterterrorism Leader for the FEST Team at State. He was not given a reason for the decision to sideline FEST.
Had a team been deployed, it would not have reached Libya in time to help. But again, no one knew this when the attack began.
Finally, a Lieutenant Colonel Gibson was in Tripoli at the time of the attack. As the night went on and developments unfolded, he persuaded Gregory Hicks that he should deploy to Benghazi to join the beleaguered force that had already been sent there from Tripoli.
Gibson was to reach Benghazi on a flight transporting some Libyans. But at the last minute, he received orders to "stand down." According to Hicks, Gibson was furious and expressed dismay that the State Department had shown more "balls" than the Defense Department, from which the order to "stand down" came.
Gibson would not have arrived in Benghazi in time to help. And the Defense Department now says he was needed in Tripoli in case of an attack there.
The latter point reminds us that the security issues in Libya weren't confined to Benghazi. It therefore reinforces the case for sending the FEST team to Libya.
Yesterday's hearing raises questions about who made the various decisions to reject options for coming to the aid of our personnel in Benghazi. The bigger question, though, pertains to the role of President Obama.
Was he engaged at all during this crisis? Did he inquire about the options for responding? If so, what was he told and why did he concur in rejecting them? If not, why didn't he inquire?
Last night, I watched the replay of the House Oversight Committee hearing on Benghazi. The hearing enhanced my knowledge of key events before, during, and after the attack. This post focuses on events before the attack.
We already knew that the embassy in Libya had requested that the State Department beef up security, and that, instead, the number of people providing security had been slashed. And we already knew that the relevant directives were sent out under Hillary Clinton's name.
The Clinton defense has been that all directives from State went out under her name, per Department policy. But if Clinton elected to put her name on all directives, then all directives become her directives, whether or not she bothers to become involved in the underlying decision.
The hearing provided additional insight into the question of Clinton's involvement. Gregory Hicks, State's number two man in Libya when the attack began, testified that Ambassador Stevens told him he was going to Benghazi in part because Secretary Clinton wanted to make the temporary facility there into a permanent post.
Eric Nordstrom, who had been in charge of embassy security in Libya until a few months before the attack, also testified that Clinton had signaled her intention to make Benghazi into a permanent post. In addition, Clinton was planning a visit to Libya later in 2012. Clearly, then, Benghazi was on Clinton's radar.
Moreover, during 2012 there had been a series of attacks and threatening behavior against Western interests in Benghazi. These incidents had been reported to Washington and, if Clinton was operating her Department properly, would have come to the attention of the Secretary and/or her staff.
Given Clinton's plans to visit Libya and to make Benghazi a permanent post, she knew or certainly should have known about the deteriorating situation in Benghazi and the security concerns of her embassy. As Nordstrom testified, there is "a reasonable expectation that her staff would have briefed [Clinton]" on the request for addition personnel and resources.
Witnesses also testified that under Department rules, only the Secretary of State can authorize personnel to work at diplomatic outposts where security is deemed inadequate. According to the testimony yesterday, the security at the Benghazi facility was deemed inadequate.
Thus, only Clinton, as a non-delegable duty, could authorize State Department personnel to work at Benghazi. If she was ignorant about the situation in Benghazi, as her supporters implausibly claim, this was a dereliction of duty.
For these reasons, I consider Hillary Clinton hugely culpable for the fiasco at Benghazi. She also bears major responsibility for the subsequent cover-up, which I believe stemmed in part from the desire to mask her original culpability.
The cover-up will be the subject of the third post in this series.
When I wrote my much-misunderstood and mischaracterized feature on "Is Conservatism Brain-Dead?" in the Washington Post four years ago (wow-can it really be four years already?), no passage caused a more mixed reaction than my mixed judgment on Glenn Beck:
The case of Glenn Beck, Time magazine's "Mad Man," is more interesting. His on-air weepiness is unmanly, his flirtation with conspiracy theories a debilitating dead-end, and his judgments sometimes loopy (McCain worse than Obama?) or just plain counterproductive (such as his convoluted charge that Obama is a racist). Yet Beck's distinctiveness and his potential contribution to conservatism can be summed up with one name: R.J. Pestritto. . . The single largest defect of modern conservatism, in my mind, is its insufficient ability to challenge liberalism at the intellectual level, in particular over the meaning and nature of progress. In response to the left's belief in political solutions for everything, the right must do better than merely invoking "markets" and "liberty." Beck, for one, is revealing that despite the demands of filling hours of airtime every day, it is possible to engage in some real thought.
The article generated hundreds of comments at the Post, and an avalanche of emails, many of which divided in the following way: "How dare you criticize the great Glenn Beck! He's our hero and savior!" The other response was, "You must be out of your effing mind to defend Glenn Beck! He's a crazy man!" Looks like I found the double-yellow roadstripe on this topic.
I used to marvel at Beck when he was on Fox News at 5 pm. He's an obvious natural on TV, and he could do things on a TV set that no one else could pull off, some of it utterly riveting. But let's face it-he is crazy at times, and his judgment looks more than a bit shaky. Over at Commentary yesterday, Jonathan Tobin called out Beck for going way over the line in his speech at the NRA convention with a gaudy comparison of Michael Bloomberg to Hitler:
It wasn't enough for Beck to depict Bloomberg as a nanny state petty dictator. Instead, he spoke in front of a large backdrop that photo-shopped Bloomberg's face into what appears to be a famous photo of Adolf Hitler with his arm extended in the infamous Nazi salute. This is more than merely unacceptable political commentary. It is an offense that diminishes the horror of the Holocaust and casts a dark light on both Beck and those who thought his little joke was funny.
Beck's fans have attacked Tobin for being somehow a secret agent for Soros or something, and Tobin responds gamely today. I have no idea what the real story is behind Beck's departure from Fox News, but I think it is a mistake for our friends at Politichicks and elsewhere to blame the liberal media for Beck's troubles. He's brought them on himself. But still laughing all the way to the bank, I gather. Does he actually need anyone to come to his defense?
You may recall that back in the late 1980s, lots of certified smart people like James Fallows and Clyde Prestowitz were telling us that Japan was eating our lunch in terms of economic policy, because they had embraced the kind of government-led industrial policy that used to put a spring in Walter Mondale's step. It was confidently predicted that at the present rate, Japan might well overtake the United States as the world's largest economy by the year 2000. It makes a difference, Prestowitz thumped, whether the United States makes microchips or potato chips. I remember being skeptical at the time, and didn't have to wait long before Japan threw in all its chips and hit the wall.
China became Japan's successor for elite America's never-ending foreigner-envy, with the China-Is-Awesome caucus (Tom Friedman, chairman) telling us that despite the fact that China's turn toward markets and private investment in the late 1970s accounts for the largest rapid lift of hundreds of millions from poverty ever, somehow we should ascribe this to China's authoritarianism. (Really-this is Friedman's argument.) China, all the certified smart people tell us, is on its way to overtaking the U.S. as the world's largest economy sometime in the next couple of decades.
Count me as skeptical (as I've mentioned before here, here, here, and here) for the same reasons the Japan story was oversold: demographics (China is getting old in a hurry) and the asymmetries that always emerge eventually when the public sector dominates the market as it did in Japan, here in the U.S., and behind the scenes now in China. (Add in the "low-hanging fruit thesis" of cheap labor, etc.; many of these advantages are already eroding to hungrier neighbors like Vietnam.) It's just a matter of time.
China's catch-up spurt has a few more years to run in the Western hinterlands perhaps, but when the full story comes out we may find that nationwide growth has already fallen below 7pc.
Mr Li complained in a US diplomatic cable released on WikiLeaks that Chinese GDP statistics are "man-made", confiding to a US diplomat that he tracked electricity use, rail cargo, and bank loans to gauge growth. For a while, analysts use electricity data as a proxy for GDP but the commissars kept a step ahead by ordering power utilities to fiddle the figures.
The National Bureau of Statistics has since revealed that data collected by the regions overstates GDP by 10pc, though they have not acted on the insight. It is well-known why this goes on. The reward system of the Communist hierarchy has been geared to talking up growth, and officials gain kudos by lowering the stated "energy intensity" of their zone.
China's Development Research Council (DRC) expects growth to drop to 6pc by 2020. It could be much lower. The US Conference Board says it will average 3.7pc from 2019-2025 as the ageing crisis hits. Michael Pettis from Beijing University thinks it is likely to slow to 3pc to 4pc over the next decade, deeming this entirely desirable if it comes from taming the runaway state enterprises. . .
. . . China's 30-year miracle is nearing exhaustion. The low-hanging fruit of state-driven industrialisation and reliance on cheap exports has already been picked. Stagnation looms unless Beijing embraces the free market and relaxes its suffocating grip over the economy.
There's more, but this is enough. Stay tuned. And don't go long on Chinese banks or construction companies.
May 9, 2013 Stunning new revelations at House Benghazi hearing Brave men risk their careers to dispute the Obama administration narrative
Congressional hearings are frequently tedious affairs, often dominated by Members of Congress making speeches rather than posing questions of witnesses.
Not yesterday's House Benghazi hearing. See The New York Post story below (highlights added).
Stunning new revelations included:
Gregory Hicks, the Libya Deputy Mission Chief, testified that he called an acting assistant secretary to dispute Susan Rice's claim made on Sunday news shows, that the attack was prompted by a video. Hicks said he was told to drop that line of questioning.
Hicks further testified that, during the following month, his performance was criticized by superiors, including receiving a "blistering critique" of his management style. Hicks made it clear he felt he was being punished for refusing to go along with the administration narrative, and in fact was demoted.
Hicks also testified that Cheryl Mills, then Chief of Staff for Hillary Clinton, told him he could not speak to Rep. Jason Chaffetz, when Chaffetz traveled to Libya to investigate, without a State Department attorney present. Hicks called the attorney "the minder"-in other words, the person assigned to monitor what Hicks said.
Mark Thompson, an official with the State Department counterterrorism unit, testified that the Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST), was not allowed to respond to the attack. Thompson noted that FEST was specifically created to respond to just such attacks.
For those of you who didn't see the hearing, it's worth watching, especially questions posed by Rep. Chaffetz, Rep. Jim Jordan, and a testy exchange between Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and the three witnesses.
Here's perhaps the most important thing the American people need to keep in mind.
These three witnesses jeopardized their careers, and certainly made enemies, because of their courage to come forward and tell what they knew. "Whistleblowers" are not treated kindly in Washington.
Much of what they said directly contradicts the administration narrative of what happened and how the administration responded.
These three men had nothing to gain-politically or career-wise-by doing so. What motivation could they possibly have to lie?
Benghazi diplo rips W. House 'Stunned' at claims of protest
* By GERRY SHIELDS & GEOFF EARLE, Post Correspondents * Last Updated: 3:45 AM, May 9, 2013 * Posted: 1:12 AM, May 9, 2013
WASHINGTON - The US diplomat who was second in command in Libya during the fatal attack on the Benghazi consulate fought back tears yesterday when he told lawmakers about his colleagues' final moments - and said he was "stunned" by administration claims it was sparked by a spontaneous protest.
Gregory Hicks, the first person to testify to Congress who was on the ground in Libya during the fateful night of the Sept. 11, 2012 siege, told a House committee that he was incredulous just five days later when UN Ambassador Susan Rice said on Sunday talk shows that the assault was not a terrorist attack.
Reuters EMOTIONAL: Gregory Hicks, the second in command in Libya at the time of the Benghazi attack, addresses Congress yesterday.
"My jaw dropped," Hicks said. "I was embarrassed."
Hicks riveted the audience in a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing room as he recalled the night.
"Shortly after we arrived at the annex, the mortars came in," Hicks said. "The first was long. It landed actually among the Libyans that escorted our people. They took casualties for us that night."
"The next three landed on the roof, killing Glen [Doherty] and Tyrone [Woods]," Hicks said, referring to the security operators who died in the attack. "They didn't know whether any more mortars were going to come in, the accuracy was terribly precise."
A career State Department diplomat, Hicks also told the panel yesterday that he was warned by upper agency officials not to talk to a congressman investigating the consulate assault - fueling GOP charges that politics were behind the administration's response.
The order came after he began questioning Obama administration claims that the incident was not a terrorist attack, he said. Hicks got a call from Beth Jones, an acting assistant secretary to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to stop questioning Washington's stance that the attack was spurred by a protest, he said.
"I asked her why the ambassador said there was a demonstration when the embassy reported there was an attack," Hicks said. "The sense I got is that I needed to stop my line of questioning."
Hicks received another call from Clinton's counselor and chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, angry that he met with Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). Mills asked for a full report.
"She was very upset with me," said Hicks, who said he was eventually demoted after the controversy.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) called Hicks' testimony evidence that Clinton was involved in trying to suppress information.
"This goes right to the person next to Secretary Clinton," Jordan said.
Former State Department spokesman Philippe Reines yesterday called the allegation untrue.
"Nobody was told to keep Chaffetz from speaking with anyone," Reines told NBC News. "That's completely at odds with the cooperative approach the department has taken with Congress."
Hicks was one of the last people Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who was killed, talked to in a call reporting the attack. Hicks somberly recalled learning about Stevens' death.
"It was the saddest phone call I've ever received in my life," Hicks said, pausing to hold back his emotions.
Hicks joined Mark Thompson, acting deputy assistant secretary of state for counterterrorism, in telling lawmakers that efforts to get military help to the consulate were rebuffed. Special forces in Tripoli wanting to help were furious, Hicks said.
Democrats ripped into the witnesses, accusing committee Republicans of conducting a "highly partisan" political attack on the Obama administration.
"There is no place or no time that the American military wouldn't be there to protect American lives if they possibly could get there," Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) said.
Eric Nordstrom, the third whistle-blower to testify, was the diplomatic security officer and former regional security office in Libya. He blamed the administration for ignoring calls for more security in the country.
"It matters to the American public for whom we served and most importantly, it matters to the friends and family of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Wood, who were murdered on Sept. 11," Nordstrom said.
Thursday, May 9
Susan Rice Honored With 'Great American' Award Night Before Benghazi Hearing
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice was honored Tuesday night with the 2013 Louis E. Martin Great American Award.
The annual award, presented by The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, is given to "an exemplar of change, progress and willingness to take one for the team if circumstances require. (I may have made that last part up.)
The Benghazi scandal is not over. It has only just begun. This is a time that private citizens can do a lot. They can inform themselves about the facts and issues of Benghazi as they come up and explain them to friends, family, and co-workers. You might even change a mind or two.
Drones have become an integral part of America's war efforts, and like many other technologies used by the military, a debate has begun over the civilian applications of the emerging technology on U.S. soil.
Video: Obama Czar Confronted On Population Control
May 09, 2013 01:42 pm
During a Q&A segment at a science and technology speech given by President Obama's Science Czar, John P. Holdren, he was asked about controversial statements made in his 1977 book, "Ecoscience". Related posts: White House Science Czar Advocated Worldwide Redistribution Of Wealth, But Declines To Comment On It John P. Holdren, director of the White [...]
May 09, 2013 01:33 pm There is a growing groundswell within American Republican and Tea Party ranks that impeachment proceedings should be initiated against President Obama on a whole list of violations of the Constitution and the War Powers Act. ~ Peter Paton Congressmen Allen West of Florida (R-Florida) and Darrell Issa (R- California) have consistently and loudly criticized the [...]
May 09, 2013 01:33 pm There is a growing groundswell within American Republican and Tea Party ranks that impeachment proceedings should be initiated against President Obama on a whole list of violations of the Constitution and the War Powers Act. ~ Peter Paton Congressmen Allen West of Florida (R-Florida) and Darrell Issa (R- California) have consistently and loudly criticized the [...]
Video: Marine Gets Senator To Admit Obama Lied About True Intentions
May 09, 2013 01:24 pm
Shock video: this brave marine elicits a startling confession from West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. Related posts: Marine Describes Death Threats For Slamming Senator Feinstein Corporal Joshua Boston's letter has gone viral...maybe too viral!! Watch... Careless Whispers Reveal Obama's True Intentions To Destroy America Last Monday, President Obama was overheard whispering to Russian President...
COVERUP: Benghazi Testimony Contradicts Obama And Clinton
May 09, 2013 01:22 pm Thanks to the record, the testimony, and the expert witnesses yesterday at the Benghazi hearings, we know with confidence that: * State department officials, including Ambassador Stevens, made numerous requests for increased security to protect our people in Benghazi. * Those requests went to individuals at the highest levels of our government. * Those requests [...]
Video: Dem Congressman At Benghazi Hearing: "Death Is A Part Of Life"
May 09, 2013 01:15 pm
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, tells Benghazi witnesses that "death is a part of life." I'm sure this statement has NOTHING to do with politics... Related posts: Key Dem Warns Against "Silly" Investigations Of Obama The gloves are coming off on the House committee that... Call For Special Committee [...]
May 09, 2013 01:12 pm If I've learned anything after 30 years on Capitol Hill, it's this: you can never trust what politicians say. We all know that actions speak louder than words, and nowhere is that more true than in government. The same applies to the budget battle going on in Congress. Everybody on the left and the right has been posturing [...]
Video: Dem Congressman Blames Budget Cuts For Benghazi
May 09, 2013 01:10 pm
Democratic congressman William Lacy Clay of Missouri blamed congressional budget cuts (that didn't happen yet) for the terror attack on Americans in Benghazi... Related posts: Chaffetz: State Dept Hiding Benghazi Survivors Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R- UT) says he has been "thwarted"... Call For Special Committee To Investigate Benghazi Attack Gains Steam Congressman Frank R. Wolf, [...]
Green Energy Triumph: $11 Million Spent Per Job Created
May 09, 2013 12:59 pm "Without much fanfare, the Department of Energy (DOE) recently updated the list of loan guarantee projects on its website," the Institute for Energy Research noticed on Wednesday. "Unlike in 2008, when Barack Obama pledged to create 5 million jobs over 10 years by directing taxpayer funds toward renewable energy projects, there were no press conferences [...]
Constitutional confusion? Seems to be the case with Texas Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. Related posts: Congresswoman: Tea Party Tied To The KKK Texas Democrat Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee seems to be as... Did Republicans Lose The Health Care Battle But Win The Health Care War? Thursday was a banner day for President Obama and [...]
Video: Americans Brainwashed By The Left On Gun Violence
May 09, 2013 12:52 pm
The fact that crime is going down while gun ownership is going up is no coincidence... Related posts: Pro-Obama Ad Features Brainwashed Children Singing The rabid Left has no limits to indecency... (lyrics below)... Congresswoman: Poor White Voters Brainwashed By 'Right-Wing' How on earth could this woman have been re-elected as...
Biden: Amnesty For 11 Million Illegals Would Be 'Granting Them The Dignity And Respect They Deserve'
May 09, 2013 12:51 pm (CNSNews.com) - Vice President Joe Biden said Wednesday that passing an immigration reform law that would give the estimated 11 million people in the country illegally a pathway to citizenship would be "granting them the dignity and respect they deserve." Speaking at the Conference on the Americas on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., Biden told attendees [...]
May 09, 2013 12:50 pm "Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to [...]
Video: MSNBC Panel Makes Rare Admission Of Liberal Bias
May 09, 2013 12:48 pm
An MSNBC panel led by Mika Brzezinski admitted that if a Republican had made similarly offensive remarks in this video, they would not get a pass by the media... Related posts: Mika Brzezinski: The Media Does Have A Liberal Bias MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski was a guest on Julie Menin's Give... MSNBC Panel Tells Race Jokes [...]
Gay Marriage "momentum" Expands To 2 Midwest States
May 09, 2013 12:42 pm ST. PAUL, Minn. - Just six months after Minnesota voters turned back an effort to ban gay weddings, lawmakers are poised to make the state the first in the Midwest to pass a law allowing them. The startling shift comes amid a rapid evolution of public opinion nationally in the debate over marriage. But with [...]
May 09, 2013 12:41 pm It's just too bad so many of our young people think history started with the death of Princess Di or the birth of the iPhone. I was painfully reminded of America's historical illiteracy and the failure of our educational system last week while golfing with a few strangers in Burbank, Calif. One of the young [...]
Several progressive groups are planning on boycotting the social media giant Facebook by pulling advertising from the site. I have three words for them: take your time!! Related posts: Facebook Caught Censoring Protests Against Obama Events This video was assembled to document that Facebook is actively... Target Of Nationwide Boycott Rebuffs Shakedown Attempt Shakedown attempt [...]
May 09, 2013 12:33 pm The past 2 decades have witnessed an alarming increase in the number of Americans diagnosed with mental illness. Is modern psychiatry reaping an immense profit by impulsively-perhaps even deliberately-conflating mental illness with a growing, public aversion to the demands of personal responsibility? In the summer of 2011, The New York Review of Books published two lengthy articles [...]
May 09, 2013 12:18 pm GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - A prominent Islamic scholar making a landmark visit to the Gaza Strip declared Thursday that Israel has no right to exist and voiced his support for rocket fire on Israel, giving a boost of legitimacy to the militant Islamist Hamas rulers of the Palestinian territory. Yusuf al-Qaradawi is the latest [...]
May 09, 2013 12:13 pm Since the 1820s, America's police have protected everyone, whether they were rich or poor. Of course, the wealthy got the best of what their police forces offered; but the poor got reasonable services as well. Nevertheless, police services are changing, and not in a way everyone will like. The NRA rejoinder "When seconds count, the [...]
"The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold on us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered." --Thomas Jefferson (1781)
In commencement remarks to graduates sparsely convened in the Ohio State University football stadium in Columbus last weekend,Barack Hussein Obama offered the following observations and advice:
"Unfortunately, you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works. They'll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can't be trusted. We don't think the government is the source of all our problems ... we understand that this democracy is ours. And as citizens, we understand that it's not about what America can do for us, it's about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government. And class of 2013, you have to be involved in that process."
Clearly, Obama's absurd and overtly partisan assertions were aimed at young constituents whom he hopes embody the future of hisSocialist Democratic Party. After all, an effective speechmaker knows his audience, and Obama knows that most of these youthful citizens are indoctrinated in government institutions since they were weaned.
Indeed, the socialist protagonist, Karl Marx, wrote, "The education of all children, from the moment that they can get along without a mother's care, shall be in state institutions at state expense." Marx's disciple, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, concurred: "Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted."
From the days of Woodrow Wilson to those of Barack Obama, and encompassing all the "progressives" in between, taxpayer-funded academic institutions have been the breeding ground for generations of socialists. For most leftists, the crucial years that cemented their worldview were the ones they spent in our nation's colleges and universities.
Given that some substantial number of the adoring, bright-eyed beneficiaries of Obama's rhetoric have no concept of Essential Liberty and its antithesis, tyranny, let me take apart the selected excerpt of Obama's oration and provide those graduates with an introductory lesson in Liberty.
After all, most of the class of 2013 will have plenty of time to contemplate this lesson, as more than half of college and university graduates entering the "Obamanomic" job market will be either underemployed or unemployed until the primacy of free enterprise is restored.
Obama claimed, "Unfortunately, you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works. They'll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner."
I'm not sure what incessant voices those might be -- certainly not those of our Founders -- because a growing number of college graduates can't name but a few if any. And they're certainly not the voices of a majority of government schoolteachers and professors, who are little more thanuseful idiots in the service of socialism.
Obama might be talking about the handful of courageous young American Patriots on campuses across the nation -- those who stand in the face of peer and professorial ridicule in order to speak in defense of Liberty. Or maybe he's referring to that rarest of creatures, the conservative professor whose lone voice extols the virtues of Liberty amid the academic statism desert.
Or perhaps the voices Obama alludes to are those of the current generation of grassroots Patriots, who gave rise to the Tea Party movement a couple of years back. They fortunately "gummed up the works" in the 2010 midterm elections when they sent more than 70 Democrats packing and replaced them with grassroots conservatives to retake the House of Representatives. That provided a gauntlet to Obama's socialist agenda, one that notably crushed the crown jewel of that agenda last month -- his so-called "assault weapons" ban (known in our humble shop as thedefensive weapons ban.)
Obama continued, "You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can't be trusted."
He can't even get equality right, as under his policies the rich get richer and everyone else gets poorer.
General: Benghazi makes Watergate 'look like kindergarten'
A former top Air Force general is calling the administration's handling of the Benghazi attacks and the subsequent lying and coverup a "dereliction of duty that this nation has never seen before."
That's not all ... he's laying out consequences that "will go right into the Oval Office."
How Obama used taxpayer funds in Benghazi cover-up
When Obama wants to go golfing, you pay.
When he wants to take the family to Hawaii, or the first lady wants to go to Paris, or the first daughters want to go to Mexico for spring break, you pay.
And when Obama is in a major pickle because he failed to anticipate a terror attack in Benghazi and -- worse -- failed to respond to it and needs to sell a cover story ... you guessed it, you pay.
Talk about having your movie voted 2 thumbs down ...
As yesterday's congressional hearings on Benghazi have shown, the poor fellow who made the anti-Islam movie blamed by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for the fatal attack on the U.S. ambassador got scapegoated to cover up other people's mistakes.
Beware of Liberals who come in Evangelicals' clothing
Dear Fellow Conservative,
Every few months since at least 2006, The New York Times takes time out from brow-beating Evangelicals to praise them for supporting amnesty for illegal aliens. Most of the "Evangelicals" the Times cites are liberal frauds, far from "unlikely allies" in amnesty, as alleged. It is a specialty of the left to pose as something they're not in order to create the impression of a zeitgeist. The only one I haven't seen quoted yet is the ACLU's minister, Barry Lynn.
The Times keeps touting Evangelicals for Amnesty as evidence of a "shift," a "change of heart" and a "secret weapon." Breaking the same news story every two months since 2006 isn't a shift; it's propaganda.
The past 2 decades have witnessed an alarming increase in the number of Americans diagnosed with mental illness. Is modern psychiatry reaping an immense profit by impulsively-perhaps even deliberately-conflating mental illness with a growing, public aversion to the demands of personal responsibility?
In the summer of 2011, The New York Review of Books published two lengthy articles by Marcia Angell, MD-Senior Lecturer in Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and former Editor in Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine. In these articles, Angell reviewed three books which take a critical look at psychiatry and its relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, and also examined the DSM-IV-TR (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision).
The numbers are in and former governor (I'll leave the phrase "disgraced former governor" to the sour grapes Democrat media) Mark Sanford beat comedian Steven Colbert's sister. Since she lost there is no need to identify her as anything else because that is what she started as and that is what she remains. Congressman-elect Mark Sanford got 54% and even though Steven Colbert's sister's name was on two lines and South Carolina allows aggregate vote counting she got 45%. One of the lines Steven Colbert's sister was on was the Working Family Party's. This is a Communist/George Soros bought and paid for bunch that has been run out of many districts across the country.
There are several factors in Congressman-elect Sanford's victory worth focusing on.
C-SPAN has jumped on board the 2016 bandwagon already and created their "Road to the White House" series looking at the next Presidential Election. The first series featured Vice President Biden and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
My beloved, late grandmother always told me, "A person is known by the company they keep." My mother used to say, "Water always seeks its own level." With those truisms in mind, (in the interest of space) let's look at just a couple of the people Obama surrounded himself with to be advisors.
There is Valerie Jarrett who was ushered out of Chicago out of concern that she would be forced to testify under oath (not that lying under oath was ever problematic for her ilk) pursuant to her involvement in the Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich scandal. She is an Iranian-born communist and communist sympathizer who is married to the son of a journalist who wrote for the Chicago Defender which is heavily communist influenced. He kept avowed communist Van Jones around as long as possible. He has Eric Holder an avowed communist sympathizer and open hate-monger based on color of skin. There is, Cass Sunstein another openly avowed supporter of Neo-Leninism. There is the Alinskyite radical Mark Lloyd. There is evidence that supports Ron Bloom being a Socialist. Kevin Jennings (Obama's pick to be the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Czar) is a member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) and an admitted homosexual pedophile. Donald Berwick is the radical Communist who was put in charge of medical care. There is, of course, Anita Dunn who, if my memory serves me right, it was her firm that was paid millions of dollars to prevent Obama's records from ever being seen.
And there is, of course, Planned Parenthood; there is his apparent unwavering support for Muslim terrorists; and there is his long and storied relationships with Frank Marshal Davis, Bill Ayers, and Jeremiah Wright.
Recently a group of concerned residents met in Ocean Grove, NJ to begin planning for the formation of the Black Robe Regiment of New Jersey. We were a mixture of clergy and laity from several counties in the state who seem to embrace a like precious faith and are willing do what it takes to preserve what we believe to be our "inalienable rights." We come from different backgrounds, denominations and nationalities. Our goal is to incorporate in the state and do what we can to encourage the pastors, priests and laity of our congregations to speak on the issues that are important to our faith, families and freedoms.
One of our members suggested that we concentrate on defending our freedoms and try to stay away from some of the issues that can divert us from our mission statement that is presently being developed. He didn't want us to get bogged down on issues that could divide us and instead, focus on "freedoms" we all have in common.
His suggestion is well received and got me thinking about the question of "freedom" and what that means to most of us. I asked, "Doesn't the baby in the womb have the freedom to be born into this world as God has designed?" I thought later, "Don't we, as parents, have the freedom to have our children educated the way we feel is best for them?" One might add, "Don't we have the freedom to oppose homosexuality and homosexual marriage that we feel is destroying the very foundation of civilization?"
On Tuesday, Congress took a definite step in the right direction toward addressing the serious problem of overcriminalization by announcing the creation of a bipartisan House Committee on the Judiciary Over-Criminalization Task Force of 2013. The task force, which will be chaired by Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), will consist of five Democrats and five Republicans.
Sixteen-year-old Kiera Wilmot, described by her principal as "a good kid," had good grades and had never been in trouble at school-let alone with the law. Now she is facing felony charges for a "science experiment gone wrong."
The Definitive Book on Why andHow to Reform Criminal LawAvailable Now
ABOUT OVERCRIMINALIZATION
The Heritage Foundation and a coalition of public interest legal groups are committed to reversing the troubling trend of overcriminalization, which is defined by three attributes:
1. Federalizing crime that properly belongs under state and local jurisdiction;
2. Imposing criminal penalties upon persons who acted without criminal intent (mens rea);
3. Applying criminal sanctions to conduct that historically has not been considered wrongful.
This Legislative Update includes bills our researchers have identified that add or expand federal criminal offenses or penalties, but it generally does NOT include bills involving drugs, firearms, or crimes of violence.
The Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is the nation's most broadly supported public policy organization. Heritage created the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies in 2001 to educate government officials, the media and the public about the Constitution, legal principles and how they affect public policy.
May 9, 2013
Congress Investigates: Obama Wanted to Gut Work Requirements in 2009
"From the first year the Obama Administration took power, it was trying to find any legal and policy justification to permit the weakening of welfare reforms that demand work in exchange for government benefits," said Hatch in a press release on Tuesday. "They used states' desire for flexibility as a stalking horse to justify this massive executive branch power grab."
Last July, Obama's Department of Health and Human Services released an official policy directive effectively gutting work requirements from the successful welfare reform of 1996. The Administration claimed it was simply responding to states' requests for flexibility to implement innovations.
However, the memo released Tuesday shows that the White House was actively looking to waive the work requirements much earlier-and that the Administration "sought authority to waive much more than just work requirements."
The five-page memo, with the author's name redacted, attempts to legally justify waiving welfare work requirements.But Obama has no such legal authority.Heritage expert Andrew Grossmanwrites:
Under the guise of providing states greater "flexibility" in operating their welfare programs, the Obama Administration now claims the authority to weaken or waive the work requirements that are at the heart of welfare reform. But Congress intended that those requirements be absolutely mandatory in all instances and specifically withheld any authority to weaken or waive them.
Waiving the work requirements that are at the center of the 1996 welfare reform is...a violation of the President's constitutional obligation to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed."
Waivers are not innovation, but they do go against the letter and intent of one of the most successful social reforms in recent U.S. history. After work requirements were put into place, welfare rolls dropped by half, poverty among female-headed homes with children declined by 30 percent, and child poverty rates among African-Americans dipped to their lowest levels in history.Temporary Assistance to Needy Families rolls remain 57 percent below pre-reform levels despite the 2007 recession.
"The welfare work requirement was part of the overwhelmingly successful 1996 welfare reforms that led to more work and earnings and less poverty and dependence," said Camp. "It is clear that from the outset of his presidency, President Obama and his advisors searched for ways to increase benefits and disconnect them from work."
Instead of destroying the successful bipartisan work requirements of 1996, President Obama and Congress should seek ways to transform the current 80 means-tested welfare programs into vehicles of opportunity, not dependence.
Total federal and state welfare spending has increased more than 16-fold since 1964. Even since the 1996 welfare reform replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, spending has increased by 76 percent and by more than 20 percent since 2008.
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Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is the nation's most broadly supported public policy organization. Heritage established the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society in 2004 to educate government officials, the media and the public about the role religion, family, and civil society play in sustaining freedom and the common good.
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There Will Be "Bumps" and "Glitches" in Obamacare
In light of negative comments made by Congressional Democrats, President Obama discussed the implementation of Obamacare at a press conference last week, explaining that "even if we do everything perfectly, there'll still be, you know, glitches and bumps, and there'll be stories that can be written that says, oh, look, this thing's, you know, not working the way it's supposed to, and this happened and that happened." But Obamacare has been experiencing more than a few "bumps" and "glitches."
For starters, it has been over three years since Obamacare's enactment and public opinion of the law still remains negative. A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 40 percent of respondents still had an unfavorable view of the law, 35 percent reported a favorable view, and 24 percent reported they had no opinion on the law.
Moreover, with just six months until open enrollment for the exchanges begins, the poll found that "about half the public says they do not have enough information about the health reform law to understand how it will impact their own family, a share that rises among the uninsured and low-income households"-the two groups the law is most likely to benefit.
In addition, another story about the harmful effects of Obamacare's employer mandate is in the news. The employer mandate forces all employers with 50 or more full-time employees to offer government-approved health coverage or pay a penalty. To avoid the cost of coverage and the penalty, many employers are increasingly shifting their full-time workers to part time. As NPR reports, Rob Wilson, president of the temp agency Employco said it is impacting his business too, "Instead of saying, 'I want one person for 40 hours a week,' [employers are saying], 'I'll take two people for 20 hours or 25 hours a week.'"
6 MillionAMERICANS WILL PAY THE INDIVIDUAL MANDATE TAX BY 2016 Americans are paying the price for the President's bad health care law. Learn More >>
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NEWS: Missouri Nullifies ALL Federal Gun Control
Strong veto-proof majorities in both Houses.
Last last night, the Missouri State House voted to send Governor Jay Nixon what could arguably be the strongest defense against federal gun control measures in American history. The vote was 116-38.
HB436, introduced by Representative Doug Funderburk in February, was initially passed by the House in April by a vote of 115-42. Last week, the State Senate approved the bill with an amendment which did not change any of its nullification aspects. The vote there was 26-6. The bill then needed one final vote in the house which happened just before 10pm local time this evening.
In Canada, the annual March for life has once again generated a steep increase in participation from the previous year. This bodes well for the future of pro-life in Canada. Participants report a level of enthusiasm and commitment so strong that it seemed at times there was electricity in the air. The EWTN live broadcasting of the event (including interviews with LSN's John-Henry Westen and Patrick Craine) gave huge new publicity to the March and its goals. It allowed millions to directly benefit from seeing and hearing the march events as they occurred and listen to the many speakers and interviewed leaders..
One of the victims, Michelle Knight, says Castro impregnated her five times, which ended each time in miscarriages resulting from Castro's starvation and beatings.
The activists were protesting a column by Cardinal Dolan comparing those coming to communion in a state of sin to children at dinner who fail to wash their hands.
With Warawa's successful bid today for recognition to speak in the House, the whole of Parliament, both inside and outside, was permeated with the pro-life message.
Despite threats of thunderstorms, the weather was sunny and beautiful at the 16th National March for Life in another record-breaking year for the federal legislature's largest annual rally.
Amnesty International, International Planned Parenthood Federation, and a group of United Nations "experts," are joining other organizations to demand an abortion for an anonymous woman pseudonymously named "Beatriz"
Jocelyn was born of rape of the worst kind. And yet, her mother loves her. And now she has a chance at a good life. As long as there is life, there is hope.
The Facebook founder and 12 fellow tech-industry millionaires and billionaires have launched a new organization to promote the passage of "comprehensive immigration reform" in the United States.
The infamous enemy of the people, Oleg Atbashian, has another subversive story in the American Thinker:
According to voter registration records, Ariel Castro, the Cleveland kidnapper, is a registered Democrat. Why is this important? Whenever a crime or a scandal captures national attention, the pattern in the mainstream media is to either identify the culprit as a Republican or hold silence - in which case we can rest assured that the culprit is a Democrat.
Will Tyranny Ever Come to America? By Ben Shapiro Government, in Obama's view, is the great guarantor of rights. Never mind that government - yes, government in America - has routinely stripped its citizens of rights.
Ever since the Newtown massacre, gun controllists have been relentless in using children as props to further their agenda. Their goal, of course, is to convince Americans that you must choose between your love of children and your love of the Constitution. We think this audience is smarter and more creative than any ad firm. So let's harness that power and come up with some ad concepts that promote gun rights and the Second Amendment. MORE
Media fail: Networks love Jodi Arias, don't care about Benghazi
The best tweet all week came from a listener who said Jodi Arias, the woman found guilty of murder, wished she would have killed a U.S. Ambassador or unborn baby because then no one would be talking about her. As it turns out, she killed her boyfriend and now the networks can't seem to stop covering the story. The coverage of Benghazi has been abysmal - how bad? Glenn explains on radio today.
This would win every Emmy on any other platform
Last night, TheBlaze TV aired a stunning new episode of For The Record featuring two in-depth stories. The first covered the persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt post-Mubarak and featured guests who bought into the Obama administration's lie that the Arab Spring was a good thing -- WATCH. The second story highlights human trafficking that is happening right here in the United States of America and features individuals who were forced into sex slavery -- WATCH. Watch the full episode on demand HERE.
Columbia students cool with cop-killer terrorist professors
When The O'Reilly Factor's Jesse Watters visited Columbia University, not many students on campus seemed aware that the school had recently hired a convicted cop-killer, but more shocking was the fact that most of them didn't seem to care. Now former Weather Underground radical Kathy Boudin is a revered figure influencing young lives. What do students think about it? Find out HERE.
These are the most trusted people in America?
Reader's Digest teamed with a polling firm to publish a list of public figures who are the must trusted people in America. The list ends up reading like a who's who in the Obama administration along with a bunch of famous actors. Is this really the best Americans can come up with? Glenn reacts on radio today.
Obama's stumping in...Texas? Glenn chats with Gov Perry
President Obama is making what some would view as a surprise visit to Texas to tout job creation. Why in the world would Obama go to a state that basically proves his economic theories don't work? Glenn spoke with Texas Governor Rick Perry on the phone today. WATCH
Chris Matthews' Benghazi Coverage: The MSNBC host's attempt at covering a real news story is overridden by his inability to say words properly. WATCH
"That is flatly untrue." Sen. Jeff Flake denies reports that he is pro-gun control
Jeff Flake's office reached out after Glenn read a report that said Flake could be flip flopping on gun control and flatly denied the report. They released a statement and Glenn read it on the air - "There seems to be some confusion in the blogosphere particularly that Senator Flake would be willing to reverse his vote on Manchin/Toomey in exchange for no Internet Sales Tax. This is flatly untrue." Check out Glenn's radio response HERE.
It's the man, not the gun
The mainstream media wants you to believe that gun crime originates with the gun. It doesn't. Debunk the progressive myths, the talking points, and arguments with #1 New York Times bestseller CONTROL. Backed by hundreds of sources, Glenn's latest book gives everyone who cares about the Second Amendment the indisputable facts they need to reclaim the debate, defeat the fear, and take back their natural rights. Get your copy HERE.
Want to share CONTROL with your friends? Take advantage of this exclusive box set offer of CONTROL that includes an copy autographed by Glenn! Get one while they last!
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The Holocaust did not happen in a vacuum. Germans and world leaders turned blind eyes to the growing anti-Semitism in Germany while Adolf Hitler incrementally executed his evil agenda. Despite annual reminders to "never forget," schools across the United States, and specifically in the State of Tennessee, are once again oblivious to the anti-Semitic rhetoric that has infiltrated our schools.
Thank you for helping to stop Pennsylvania's implementation of national education standards known as Common Core. Things are moving quickly and gaining speed across the Commonwealth. Just this week, 
HOUSE HEARING ANNOUNCED
Compromised Testimony
OK....when they look at you like you have a tin foil hat on your head......take some of this information with you. It is 126 pages. I have not read through the entire document (YET) but what I have read is enough to blow off the top of your head. I have highlighted some stuff. KIPP (Charter Schools) has a CHARACTER REPORT CARD on Page 39. So for now start on page 39 and work your way through to page 45. Remember 
The infamous enemy of the people, Oleg Atbashian, has another subversive story in the 
We want YOU to join the world's largest ad agency
