Bob Woodward: Obama's Sequester 'Madness' - Business Insider
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Thursday, February 28, 2013
Monday, February 25, 2013
Obama's Gangster Government Operates Above the Law | RealClearPolitics
Obama's Gangster Government Operates Above the Law | RealClearPolitics
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/02/14/obamas_gangster_government_operates_above_the_law__117015.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/02/14/obamas_gangster_government_operates_above_the_law__117015.html
Obama's Gangster Government Operates Above the Law
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Presidents'
State of the Union addresses are delivered in the chamber of the House
of Representatives in the Capitol. The classical majesty of this
building where laws are made symbolizes the idea that we live under the
rule of law.
Unfortunately, the 44th president is running an administration that too often seems to ignore the rule of law.
"We can't wait," Barack Obama took to saying after the Republicans
captured a majority in the House and refused to pass laws he wanted. He
would act to get what he wanted regardless of law.
One example: his recess appointments in January 2012 of three members of the National Labor Relations Board and the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled unanimously that the NLRB recess appointments were unconstitutional.
The decision, written by Judge David Sentelle, noted that the Constitution speaks of "the recess," not "a recess," and reasoned that it could only be referring to the recess between annual sessions of Congress.
Obama, like many presidents before him, interpreted the phrase as referring to any recess during which Congress is not in session. But he went one step further.
When Harry Reid became Senate majority leader in 2007, he started holding pro forma meetings of the Senate every three days and stating that the Senate was not in recess. George W. Bush, who had made recess appointments before, stopped doing so.
Bush took the view that, since the Constitution says that each branch of Congress makes its own rules, the Senate was in session if the Senate said so. Obama took the view that he would decide whether the Senate was in session. Who cares what the Constitution says?
As Sentelle pointed out, Obama's view would entitle the president to make a recess appointment any time the Senate broke for lunch. "This cannot be the law," the judge wrote.
Critics of his decision argue that under it the recess appointment power would be vanishingly small. But under Obama's view, the Senate's power to advise and consent could effectively vanish.
The Framers contemplated that the Congress would take long recesses (as for many years it did) and that it could take months for senators to return to Washington to act on appointments.
It's plausible that the Framers would have considered recess appointments unnecessary in an era of jet travel. It's not plausible that they would have approved of getting rid of the Senate's power to vote on appointments altogether.
Meanwhile, decisions of the NLRB and the CFPB are in legal limbo, pending a Supreme Court decision. Hundreds of thousands of people and are affected and millions of dollars are at stake. There is a price for not observing the rule of law.
There are other examples. For several years, the Obama administration has refused to obey a law requiring the president's budget to be submitted on a certain date. As Budget Director, Treasury nominee Jack Lew refused to obey the law requiring him to issue a report in response to the trustees' report on Medicare.
During the 2012 campaign, the Pentagon told defense contractors not to inform employees that they may be laid off if the sequester took effect as required by the WARN Act.
They were even told that the government would pay any fines for not complying. What law authorizes that?
Similarly, Health and Human Services has stated that the federal government can fund health insurance exchanges run by the feds for states that refuse to create their own exchanges. But nowhere does the Democrats' hastily crafted Obamacare legislation say that.
In spring 2009, we got our first glimmers of this modus operandi. In arranging the Chrysler bankruptcy, administration officials brushed aside the rights of secured creditors in order to pay off the United Auto Workers.
University of Pennsylvania law professor David Skeel pointed out that this violated the standard rules of bankruptcy law established, interestingly, during the New Deal.
"We have just seen an episode of gangster government," I wrote at the time. "It is likely to be a continuing series."
It looks like that's one prediction I got right. This president, like all his predecessors since Woodrow Wilson started delivering these speeches in person, looks magnificent in the temple where laws are made. But he doesn't seem to consider himself bound by them.
Unfortunately, the 44th president is running an administration that too often seems to ignore the rule of law.
One example: his recess appointments in January 2012 of three members of the National Labor Relations Board and the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled unanimously that the NLRB recess appointments were unconstitutional.
The decision, written by Judge David Sentelle, noted that the Constitution speaks of "the recess," not "a recess," and reasoned that it could only be referring to the recess between annual sessions of Congress.
Obama, like many presidents before him, interpreted the phrase as referring to any recess during which Congress is not in session. But he went one step further.
When Harry Reid became Senate majority leader in 2007, he started holding pro forma meetings of the Senate every three days and stating that the Senate was not in recess. George W. Bush, who had made recess appointments before, stopped doing so.
Bush took the view that, since the Constitution says that each branch of Congress makes its own rules, the Senate was in session if the Senate said so. Obama took the view that he would decide whether the Senate was in session. Who cares what the Constitution says?
As Sentelle pointed out, Obama's view would entitle the president to make a recess appointment any time the Senate broke for lunch. "This cannot be the law," the judge wrote.
Critics of his decision argue that under it the recess appointment power would be vanishingly small. But under Obama's view, the Senate's power to advise and consent could effectively vanish.
The Framers contemplated that the Congress would take long recesses (as for many years it did) and that it could take months for senators to return to Washington to act on appointments.
It's plausible that the Framers would have considered recess appointments unnecessary in an era of jet travel. It's not plausible that they would have approved of getting rid of the Senate's power to vote on appointments altogether.
Meanwhile, decisions of the NLRB and the CFPB are in legal limbo, pending a Supreme Court decision. Hundreds of thousands of people and are affected and millions of dollars are at stake. There is a price for not observing the rule of law.
There are other examples. For several years, the Obama administration has refused to obey a law requiring the president's budget to be submitted on a certain date. As Budget Director, Treasury nominee Jack Lew refused to obey the law requiring him to issue a report in response to the trustees' report on Medicare.
During the 2012 campaign, the Pentagon told defense contractors not to inform employees that they may be laid off if the sequester took effect as required by the WARN Act.
They were even told that the government would pay any fines for not complying. What law authorizes that?
Similarly, Health and Human Services has stated that the federal government can fund health insurance exchanges run by the feds for states that refuse to create their own exchanges. But nowhere does the Democrats' hastily crafted Obamacare legislation say that.
In spring 2009, we got our first glimmers of this modus operandi. In arranging the Chrysler bankruptcy, administration officials brushed aside the rights of secured creditors in order to pay off the United Auto Workers.
University of Pennsylvania law professor David Skeel pointed out that this violated the standard rules of bankruptcy law established, interestingly, during the New Deal.
"We have just seen an episode of gangster government," I wrote at the time. "It is likely to be a continuing series."
It looks like that's one prediction I got right. This president, like all his predecessors since Woodrow Wilson started delivering these speeches in person, looks magnificent in the temple where laws are made. But he doesn't seem to consider himself bound by them.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Truer Words....... Different group of aiders and abettors
In a recent interview, General Norman Schwartzkof was asked if he thought there was room for forgiveness toward the people who have harboured and abetted the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on America. His answer..."I believe that forgiving them is God's function. Our job is simply to arrange the meeting."
Friday, February 22, 2013
The Worst Five Years Since the Great Depression - Forbes
The Worst Five Years Since the Great Depression - Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/02/07/the-worst-five-years-since-the-great-depression/2/
The Census Bureau publishes the Gini Index, which is the official measure of income inequality. That index has climbed every year President Obama has been in office. It was flat during the 8 years under President Bush (which means inequality did not increase).
Inequality is increasing under Obama because the incomes of the top 20% of income earners are increasing, while the incomes for everyone else have been declining. That is right, Progressives, what all your huffing and puffing has achieved is the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer. That didn’t happen under Reagan, where the rich got richer, and the poor got richer. After 1983, the poverty rate declined every year under Reagan, and incomes grew for every income quintile.
Quite to the contrary, Census reports that in 2011 the average incomes of the top 20% of income earners rose, while incomes for the bottom 80%, declined. Under President Obama, as IBD reported on January 23, “average incomes among the poorest households fell nearly 8%, back to levels not seen since the 1980s.” Real median household income, reflecting the incomes of the middle class, has declined throughout Obama’s Presidency, totaling a loss by now of one month’s income a year. You see what I mean when I say that economic growth is far more beneficial for the middle class and the poor than redistrubution?
IBD adds, “[T]he only ones doing well in Obama’s economy have been the ‘shrinking few’ Obama complains about. Wall Street investors have benefitted from a rising stock market – with the Dow now at 5 year highs – and corporate chiefs have seen profits climb 58% since June, 2009.”
McCann concludes,
“Barack Obama and the Democrats have signaled they intend to do nothing to alter the course the nation is on; in fact they intend to accelerate it. Without any firm and viable political opposition, wealth and job creation will further deteriorate with the second term implementation of Obamacare, higher taxes, ever increasing government expenditures, and the mushrooming debt, continued erosion of the value of the dollar and its potential demise as the world’s reserve currency, as well as a Niagara Falls of new regulations. The American people…will be worse off in four years than they were at the end of 2012…and a majority of the citizenry will increasingly experience the malaise and suffering of those who lived through the 1930s….”
Congratulations, Progressives. You have proven the truth of Winston Churchill’s observations, “The great vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The great virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery,” and, “If you are not a socialist at 20, you have no heart. And if you are not a capitalist at 40, you have no brains.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/02/07/the-worst-five-years-since-the-great-depression/2/
The Worst Five Years Since the Great Depression
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As Investors Business Daily (IBD) responded on
January 23, “But that’s precisely what’s happened over the past four
years, as Obama’s economic policies left the majority of Americans
falling behind while the wealthy few got further ahead.”The Census Bureau publishes the Gini Index, which is the official measure of income inequality. That index has climbed every year President Obama has been in office. It was flat during the 8 years under President Bush (which means inequality did not increase).
Inequality is increasing under Obama because the incomes of the top 20% of income earners are increasing, while the incomes for everyone else have been declining. That is right, Progressives, what all your huffing and puffing has achieved is the rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer. That didn’t happen under Reagan, where the rich got richer, and the poor got richer. After 1983, the poverty rate declined every year under Reagan, and incomes grew for every income quintile.
Quite to the contrary, Census reports that in 2011 the average incomes of the top 20% of income earners rose, while incomes for the bottom 80%, declined. Under President Obama, as IBD reported on January 23, “average incomes among the poorest households fell nearly 8%, back to levels not seen since the 1980s.” Real median household income, reflecting the incomes of the middle class, has declined throughout Obama’s Presidency, totaling a loss by now of one month’s income a year. You see what I mean when I say that economic growth is far more beneficial for the middle class and the poor than redistrubution?
IBD adds, “[T]he only ones doing well in Obama’s economy have been the ‘shrinking few’ Obama complains about. Wall Street investors have benefitted from a rising stock market – with the Dow now at 5 year highs – and corporate chiefs have seen profits climb 58% since June, 2009.”
McCann concludes,
“Barack Obama and the Democrats have signaled they intend to do nothing to alter the course the nation is on; in fact they intend to accelerate it. Without any firm and viable political opposition, wealth and job creation will further deteriorate with the second term implementation of Obamacare, higher taxes, ever increasing government expenditures, and the mushrooming debt, continued erosion of the value of the dollar and its potential demise as the world’s reserve currency, as well as a Niagara Falls of new regulations. The American people…will be worse off in four years than they were at the end of 2012…and a majority of the citizenry will increasingly experience the malaise and suffering of those who lived through the 1930s….”
Congratulations, Progressives. You have proven the truth of Winston Churchill’s observations, “The great vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The great virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery,” and, “If you are not a socialist at 20, you have no heart. And if you are not a capitalist at 40, you have no brains.”
Got No Shame Lyrics - Brother Cane
Got No Shame Lyrics - Brother Cane
Lyrics | Brother Cane lyrics - Got No Shame lyrics
Pools of pain, surrounding me in, shades of green
Rats and snakes they always try to get the best of me
But they won't.
Never know when the time is right to take the reins
Down the road they'll come to find out anyway
But it's too late you know
You just like pretendin' that they're everything they're not
I don't like it, I don't need it
I don't want it cause baby I'm thru believin' it and I
Got no shame. Well I got no one to blame. All the same
Gonna taste the wine cause it's right there in front of me
Walk the streets, a carryin' a, heavy load, Hounds of love are comin' so I take a left turn back down the right road
Sister sweet she told me 'bout it, Just can't seem to live without it
Black cat open my eyes forever baby, don't you waste your time
I found shelter, Helter skelter, Back inside me, You won't find me
Got no shame, Well I got no one to blame
Got no shame, All the stakes are high like no blue sky
It's all the same, But you will ne-ver feel it
(SOLO)
You know you just like pretendin' that they're everything they're not
I don't like it, I don't need it, I won't take it at a-l-l!
Got no shame, Well I got no one to blame
Got no shame all the stakes are high like no blue sky baby honey
Got no shame. Well I got no one to blame. All the same.
Gonna taste the wine cause it's right there in front of me.
You won't find me, never get inside of me
Lyrics | Brother Cane lyrics - Got No Shame lyrics
Pools of pain, surrounding me in, shades of green
Rats and snakes they always try to get the best of me
But they won't.
Never know when the time is right to take the reins
Down the road they'll come to find out anyway
But it's too late you know
You just like pretendin' that they're everything they're not
I don't like it, I don't need it
I don't want it cause baby I'm thru believin' it and I
Got no shame. Well I got no one to blame. All the same
Gonna taste the wine cause it's right there in front of me
Walk the streets, a carryin' a, heavy load, Hounds of love are comin' so I take a left turn back down the right road
Sister sweet she told me 'bout it, Just can't seem to live without it
Black cat open my eyes forever baby, don't you waste your time
I found shelter, Helter skelter, Back inside me, You won't find me
Got no shame, Well I got no one to blame
Got no shame, All the stakes are high like no blue sky
It's all the same, But you will ne-ver feel it
(SOLO)
You know you just like pretendin' that they're everything they're not
I don't like it, I don't need it, I won't take it at a-l-l!
Got no shame, Well I got no one to blame
Got no shame all the stakes are high like no blue sky baby honey
Got no shame. Well I got no one to blame. All the same.
Gonna taste the wine cause it's right there in front of me.
You won't find me, never get inside of me
Monday, February 18, 2013
Dr. Cornel West: President Obama Is A ‘War Criminal’ [VIDEO] | Breaking News for Black America
Dr. Cornel West: President Obama Is A ‘War Criminal’ [VIDEO] | Breaking News for Black America
Dr. Cornel West: President Obama Is A ‘War Criminal’ [VIDEO] | Breaking News for Black America
http://newsone.com/2229728/cornel-west-obama-drones/
Proving that conviction and consistency go hand and hand, Dr. Cornel West has once again called President Barack Obama a “war criminal” for his proliferation of a drone war that has killed an estimated 216 innocent children, reports Raw Story.Appearing on the radio with his comrade-in-arms, Tavis Smiley,
West criticized the Commander-in-Chief for a strategic decision which
seeks to minimize the loss of American lives by utilizing drone warfare
that is both indiscriminate and inhumane.
Read DOJ “White Paper” by clicking here.
Critics have denounced the inhumanity of drone warfare — and rightfully so. The United Nations has launched an investigation into the legality of the expanding US drone war and The Bureau reports that 4,643 people have been killed in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.
In a garishly hypocritical statement, President Obama, while framing Israel hurling rockets at innocent children in occupied Palestine as “self-defense,” said that he understands why vulnerable countries would criticize unmanned aerial attacks:
Pot? Meet Kettle.
As previously reported by NewsOne, Dr. West has been extremely vocal when criticizing President Obama, and held none of his anger back when it was announced that he would be sworn in using the bible of Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. To illustrate the vast contrasts between the two men, West presents hypothetical questions that he would ask the slain Civil Rights leader if he were alive today about the direction of the country under the Obama Administration:
Want to Keep Up With NewsOne.com? LIKE Us On Facebook!
President Obama said that the tragic, horrific massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut was the “worst day of [his] presidency,” and he called the victims by name. I would think that the murder of a child is the worst day of any parent’s life and out of respect for the hundreds of families who have lost children because of drones authorized by President Bush and President Obama, I list them here — by name.
RIP.
PAKISTAN
Name | Age | Gender
Noor Aziz | 8 | male
Abdul Wasit | 17 | male
Noor Syed | 8 | male
Wajid Noor | 9 | male
Syed Wali Shah | 7 | male
Ayeesha | 3 | female
Qari Alamzeb | 14| male
Shoaib | 8 | male
Hayatullah KhaMohammad | 16 | male
Tariq Aziz | 16 | male
Sanaullah Jan | 17 | male
Maezol Khan | 8 | female
Nasir Khan | male
Naeem Khan | male
Naeemullah | male
Mohammad Tahir | 16 | male
Azizul Wahab | 15 | male
Fazal Wahab | 16 | male
Ziauddin | 16 | male
Mohammad Yunus | 16 | male
Fazal Hakim | 19 | male
Ilyas | 13 | male
Sohail | 7 | male
Asadullah | 9 | male
khalilullah | 9 | male
Noor Mohammad | 8 | male
Khalid | 12 | male
Saifullah | 9 | male
Mashooq Jan | 15 | male
Nawab | 17 | male
Sultanat Khan | 16 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 13 | male
Noor Mohammad | 15 | male
Mohammad Yaas Khan | 16 | male
Qari Alamzeb | 14 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 17 | male
Abdullah | 18 | male
Ikramullah Zada | 17 | male
Inayatur Rehman | 16 | male
Shahbuddin | 15 | male
Yahya Khan | 16 |male
Rahatullah |17 | male
Mohammad Salim | 11 | male
Shahjehan | 15 | male
Gul Sher Khan | 15 | male
Bakht Muneer | 14 | male
Numair | 14 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Taseel Khan | 18 | male
Zaheeruddin | 16 | male
Qari Ishaq | 19 | male
Jamshed Khan | 14 | male
Alam Nabi | 11 | male
Qari Abdul Karim | 19 | male
Rahmatullah | 14 | male
Abdus Samad | 17 | male
Siraj | 16 | male
Saeedullah | 17 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Salman | 12 | male
Fazal Wahab | 18 | male
Baacha Rahman | 13 | male
Wali-ur-Rahman | 17 | male
Iftikhar | 17 | male
Inayatullah | 15 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Adnan | 16 | male
Najibullah | 13 | male
Naeemullah | 17 | male
Hizbullah | 10 | male
Kitab Gul | 12 | male
Wilayat Khan | 11 | male
Zabihullah | 16 | male
Shehzad Gul | 11 | male
Shabir | 15 | male
Qari Sharifullah | 17 | male
Shafiullah | 16 | male
Nimatullah | 14 | male
Shakirullah | 16 | male
Talha | 8 | male
YEMEN
Afrah Ali Mohammed Nasser | 9 | female
Zayda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 7 | female
Hoda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 5 | female
Sheikha Ali Mohammed Nasser | 4 | female
Ibrahim Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 13 | male
Asmaa Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 9 | male
Salma Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | female
Fatima Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 3 | female
Khadije Ali Mokbel Louqye | 1 | female
Hanaa Ali Mokbel Louqye | 6 | female
Mohammed Ali Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | male
Jawass Mokbel Salem Louqye | 15 | female
Maryam Hussein Abdullah Awad | 2 | female
Shafiq Hussein Abdullah Awad | 1 | female
Sheikha Nasser Mahdi Ahmad Bouh | 3 | female
Maha Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 12 | male
Soumaya Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 9 | female
Shafika Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 4 | female
Shafiq Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 2 | male
Mabrook Mouqbal Al Qadari | 13 | male
Daolah Nasser 10 years | 10 | female
AbedalGhani Mohammed Mabkhout | 12 | male
Abdel- Rahman Anwar al Awlaki | 16 | male
Abdel-Rahman al-Awlaki | 17 | male
Nasser Salim | 19
Dr. Cornel West: President Obama Is A ‘War Criminal’ [VIDEO] | Breaking News for Black America
http://newsone.com/2229728/cornel-west-obama-drones/
Dr. Cornel West: President Obama Is A ‘War Criminal’ [VIDEO]
Proving that conviction and consistency go hand and hand, Dr. Cornel West has once again called President Barack Obama a “war criminal” for his proliferation of a drone war that has killed an estimated 216 innocent children, reports Raw Story.Appearing on the radio with his comrade-in-arms, Tavis Smiley,
West criticized the Commander-in-Chief for a strategic decision which
seeks to minimize the loss of American lives by utilizing drone warfare
that is both indiscriminate and inhumane.“I think, my dear brother, the chickens are coming home to roost,” West told Smiley. “We’ve been talking about this for a good while, the immorality of drones, dropping bombs on innocent people. It’s been over 200 children so far. These are war crimes.”In addition to the children killed, a recently exposed “White Paper” from the Department of Justice — an internal memo scooped by NBC — revealed that under the Obama Administration, citizens of the United States can be assassinated if they are believed to be members of Al-Qaeda.
Read DOJ “White Paper” by clicking here.
Kill List Exposed: Leaked Obama Memo Shows Assassination of U.S. Citizens “Has No Geographic Limit”
Obama
has struggled with criticism of the drone war that has expanded
dramatically under his administration. Indeed, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism,
there have been 6 times the number of drone strikes in Pakistan under
the Obama Administration than under the Bush 43 Administration, and the
CIA has been authorized to target funerals and rescuers.“I think we have to be very honest, let us not be deceived: Nixon, Bush, Obama, they’re war criminals,” West said. “They have killed innocent people in the name of the struggle for freedom, but they’re suspending the law, very much like Wall Street criminals. The law is suspended for them, but the law applies for the rest of us. You and I, brother Tavis, if we kill an innocent person we go to jail, and we’re going to be in there forever.”
In a garishly hypocritical statement, President Obama, while framing Israel hurling rockets at innocent children in occupied Palestine as “self-defense,” said that he understands why vulnerable countries would criticize unmanned aerial attacks:
“There’s no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders,” he said in a press conference in Thailand.
Pot? Meet Kettle.
As previously reported by NewsOne, Dr. West has been extremely vocal when criticizing President Obama, and held none of his anger back when it was announced that he would be sworn in using the bible of Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. To illustrate the vast contrasts between the two men, West presents hypothetical questions that he would ask the slain Civil Rights leader if he were alive today about the direction of the country under the Obama Administration:
“Brother Martin Luther King, Jr., what you say about the New Jim Crow? What would say about the Prison Industrial Complex? What would you say about the invisibility of so many of our prisoners, so many of our incarcerated, especially when 62 percent of them are there for soft drugs and not one executive of a Wall Street bank gone to jail. Not one. Martin doesn’t like that. Not one wire-tapper, not one torturer under the Bush Administration — at all,” said West.Whether one agrees with Dr. West or not, this country under this president is responsible for the deaths of innocent children in the names of freedom and patriotism. That is fact. And it is past time that we have an honest discussion on the differences between terrorism and justice.
“Then what would he say about the drones on the precious brothers and sisters in Pakistan, and Somalia, and Yemen. Those are war crimes, just like war crimes in Vietnam, Martin Luther King, Jr., what would you say?”
Want to Keep Up With NewsOne.com? LIKE Us On Facebook!
President Obama said that the tragic, horrific massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut was the “worst day of [his] presidency,” and he called the victims by name. I would think that the murder of a child is the worst day of any parent’s life and out of respect for the hundreds of families who have lost children because of drones authorized by President Bush and President Obama, I list them here — by name.
RIP.
PAKISTAN
Name | Age | Gender
Noor Aziz | 8 | male
Abdul Wasit | 17 | male
Noor Syed | 8 | male
Wajid Noor | 9 | male
Syed Wali Shah | 7 | male
Ayeesha | 3 | female
Qari Alamzeb | 14| male
Shoaib | 8 | male
Hayatullah KhaMohammad | 16 | male
Tariq Aziz | 16 | male
Sanaullah Jan | 17 | male
Maezol Khan | 8 | female
Nasir Khan | male
Naeem Khan | male
Naeemullah | male
Mohammad Tahir | 16 | male
Azizul Wahab | 15 | male
Fazal Wahab | 16 | male
Ziauddin | 16 | male
Mohammad Yunus | 16 | male
Fazal Hakim | 19 | male
Ilyas | 13 | male
Sohail | 7 | male
Asadullah | 9 | male
khalilullah | 9 | male
Noor Mohammad | 8 | male
Khalid | 12 | male
Saifullah | 9 | male
Mashooq Jan | 15 | male
Nawab | 17 | male
Sultanat Khan | 16 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 13 | male
Noor Mohammad | 15 | male
Mohammad Yaas Khan | 16 | male
Qari Alamzeb | 14 | male
Ziaur Rahman | 17 | male
Abdullah | 18 | male
Ikramullah Zada | 17 | male
Inayatur Rehman | 16 | male
Shahbuddin | 15 | male
Yahya Khan | 16 |male
Rahatullah |17 | male
Mohammad Salim | 11 | male
Shahjehan | 15 | male
Gul Sher Khan | 15 | male
Bakht Muneer | 14 | male
Numair | 14 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Taseel Khan | 18 | male
Zaheeruddin | 16 | male
Qari Ishaq | 19 | male
Jamshed Khan | 14 | male
Alam Nabi | 11 | male
Qari Abdul Karim | 19 | male
Rahmatullah | 14 | male
Abdus Samad | 17 | male
Siraj | 16 | male
Saeedullah | 17 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Salman | 12 | male
Fazal Wahab | 18 | male
Baacha Rahman | 13 | male
Wali-ur-Rahman | 17 | male
Iftikhar | 17 | male
Inayatullah | 15 | male
Mashooq Khan | 16 | male
Ihsanullah | 16 | male
Luqman | 12 | male
Jannatullah | 13 | male
Ismail | 12 | male
Abdul Waris | 16 | male
Darvesh | 13 | male
Ameer Said | 15 | male
Shaukat | 14 | male
Inayatur Rahman | 17 | male
Adnan | 16 | male
Najibullah | 13 | male
Naeemullah | 17 | male
Hizbullah | 10 | male
Kitab Gul | 12 | male
Wilayat Khan | 11 | male
Zabihullah | 16 | male
Shehzad Gul | 11 | male
Shabir | 15 | male
Qari Sharifullah | 17 | male
Shafiullah | 16 | male
Nimatullah | 14 | male
Shakirullah | 16 | male
Talha | 8 | male
YEMEN
Afrah Ali Mohammed Nasser | 9 | female
Zayda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 7 | female
Hoda Ali Mohammed Nasser | 5 | female
Sheikha Ali Mohammed Nasser | 4 | female
Ibrahim Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 13 | male
Asmaa Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 9 | male
Salma Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | female
Fatima Abdullah Mokbel Salem Louqye | 3 | female
Khadije Ali Mokbel Louqye | 1 | female
Hanaa Ali Mokbel Louqye | 6 | female
Mohammed Ali Mokbel Salem Louqye | 4 | male
Jawass Mokbel Salem Louqye | 15 | female
Maryam Hussein Abdullah Awad | 2 | female
Shafiq Hussein Abdullah Awad | 1 | female
Sheikha Nasser Mahdi Ahmad Bouh | 3 | female
Maha Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 12 | male
Soumaya Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 9 | female
Shafika Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 4 | female
Shafiq Mohammed Saleh Mohammed | 2 | male
Mabrook Mouqbal Al Qadari | 13 | male
Daolah Nasser 10 years | 10 | female
AbedalGhani Mohammed Mabkhout | 12 | male
Abdel- Rahman Anwar al Awlaki | 16 | male
Abdel-Rahman al-Awlaki | 17 | male
Nasser Salim | 19
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Benghazi Testimony - Panetta and Dempsey - Compilation - YouTube
Benghazi Testimony - Panetta and Dempsey - Compilation - YouTube
A HIDEOUS DISPLAY OF INTENTIONAL NEGLIGENCE OR INCOMPETENCE
BORN OUT OF INSANE MENTAL INSUFFICIENCY IN THIS LOONY LEFT TOON THREE
RING CIRCUS --- SUCKERS ARE BUYING THIS LOAD
GET THESE FREAK SHOW LOW LIFE SCUM OUT
OF GOVERNMENT, PERIOD,
UNFIT TO WASH THE URINALS OF CAPITOL SPILL.... TRIP AND FAIL
Unbelievable how obvious Dempsey's body language, hand motions, facial expression, the whole picture of Dempsey in response to McCain is an elementary school version of the ABC's of LYING. WOW!!
Unbelievable how obvious Dempsey's body language, hand motions, facial expression, the whole picture of Dempsey in response to McCain is an elementary school version of the ABC's of LYING. WOW!!
Monday, February 4, 2013
Republican governors lead all ten of the best states for business | WashingtonExaminer.com
Republican governors lead all ten of the best states for business | WashingtonExaminer.com
http://washingtonexaminer.com/republican-governors-lead-all-ten-of-the-best-states-for-business/article/2502599?custom_click=rss
http://washingtonexaminer.com/republican-governors-lead-all-ten-of-the-best-states-for-business/article/2502599?custom_click=rss
Republican governors lead all ten of the best states for business
Republican governors lead every one of the ten states with the
best climate for business this year, according to rankings released by
Business Facilities 2012 State Rankings Report that have Texas leading
the pack.
“The Lone Star State has been able to match and then exceed pre-Recession employment levels faster than any state in the nation,” said Business Facilities Editor in Chief Jack Rogers in a statement on the rankings.
Here’s the list of the ten states with the “best business climate” in 2012:
The praise Business Facilities lavishes on some of these governors at times undermines a growing criticism of Obama in the wake of the Solyndra debacle. “With mega-incentives for big-ticket projects and low business taxes, Utah has succeeded in convincing tech giants including Adobe and eBay to put major operations in the Beehive State,” Business Facilities says. Herbert gave Adobe, for instance, a $40 million tax break in order to lure the company to his state.
If beneficial in the short term, such subsidies create a culture of government involvement in the market that leads to the kind of crony capitalism that cost taxpayers so dearly when Solyndra — a company funded by an Obama campaign fundraiser — went bankrupt after receiving a $535 million loan from the Energy Department.
“In order to stop the flow of subsidies to politically connected businesses, Romney should simply stop the flow of subsidies,” The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney wrote in his column this week.
“The Lone Star State has been able to match and then exceed pre-Recession employment levels faster than any state in the nation,” said Business Facilities Editor in Chief Jack Rogers in a statement on the rankings.
Here’s the list of the ten states with the “best business climate” in 2012:
1 TEXAS — Gov. Rick Perry, R — took office in 2000Gov. Rick Scott, R-Fla., received praise for “eliminat[ing] hundreds of regulations he says are impeding business expansions and new facilities in the Sunshine State.” Such an economic policy contrasts with President Obama’s, given his penchant for mandating regulations that each cost over $100 million a year, according to a new House report.
2 UTAH — Gov. Gary Herbert, R — took office in 2009
3 VIRGINIA — Gov. Bob McDonnell, R — took office in 2009
4 FLORIDA — Gov. Rick Scott, R — elected in 2010
5 LOUISIANA — Gov. Bobby Jindal, R — elected in 2010
6 INDIANA — Gov. Mitch Daniels, R — elected in 2004
7 SOUTH CAROLINA — Gov. Nikki Haley, R — elected in 2010
8 TENNESSEE — Gov. Bill Haslam, R — elected in 2010
9 GEORGIA — Gov. Nathan Deal, R — elected in 2010
10 NEBRASKA — Gov. Dave Heineman, R — elected in 2006
The praise Business Facilities lavishes on some of these governors at times undermines a growing criticism of Obama in the wake of the Solyndra debacle. “With mega-incentives for big-ticket projects and low business taxes, Utah has succeeded in convincing tech giants including Adobe and eBay to put major operations in the Beehive State,” Business Facilities says. Herbert gave Adobe, for instance, a $40 million tax break in order to lure the company to his state.
If beneficial in the short term, such subsidies create a culture of government involvement in the market that leads to the kind of crony capitalism that cost taxpayers so dearly when Solyndra — a company funded by an Obama campaign fundraiser — went bankrupt after receiving a $535 million loan from the Energy Department.
“In order to stop the flow of subsidies to politically connected businesses, Romney should simply stop the flow of subsidies,” The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney wrote in his column this week.
From WashingtonExaminer.com
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Someone's Wrong: CIA and State Dept. Accounts of Benghazi Contradict Gen. Dempsey’s Explanation for Why DOD Sent No Help | CNS News
Someone's Wrong: CIA and State Dept. Accounts of Benghazi Contradict Gen. Dempsey’s Explanation for Why DOD Sent No Help | CNS News
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/someones-wrong-cia-and-state-dept-accounts-benghazi-contradict-gen-dempsey-s
(CNSNews.com) - The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is telling a
different story about Benghazi than the State Department and the
Central Intelligence Agency.
If the story Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is telling is correct, then the story the State Department Accountability Review Board (ARB) and the Central Intelligence Agency have told is not. If the story the State Department and the CIA have told is correct, than Gen. Dempsey is telling an inaccurate story to explain why the Defense Department sent no help to the State Department and CIA personnel who were attacked by terrorists in Libya on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11.
On CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Dempsey said the reason the Defense Department sent no aid to the Americans under attack by terrorists in Benghazi on the night of Sept. 11-12, was because the attack did not last seven hours but was really two 20-minute attacks six hours apart.
However, both a CIA timeline provided last fall by a senior
U.S. intelligence official and the report published by the State
Department ARB, published in December, contradict Gen. Dempsey’s claim
that the Benghazi terrorist attack was two discrete 20-minute battles
separated by six hours.
Additionally, an account presented by the Senate Homeland Security Committee in its report on Benghazi also does not comport with General Dempsey's version of events.
According to these accounts, the first phase of the battle against the Benghazi terrorists lasted roughly three hours and 20 minutes, during which time the terrorists fired at U.S. State Department and CIA personnel at the State Department's compound in Benghazi, on the road between the State Department compound and the CIA Annex, and at the CIA Annex itself.
The firing on the Annex during this first phase of the battle ceased at about 1:00 a.m. Benghazi time--which was about three hours and twenty minutes after the attack started at about 9:40 pm Benghazi time, and about two and a half hours after Gen. Dempsey and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had been notified at 10:32 p.m Benghazi time that the attack was happening.
The second phase of the terrorist attack started at about 5:15 a.m. Benghazi time--or about four hours and fifteen minutes after the first phase ended. This second phase lasted about 11 minutes.
An accurate summation of the Sept. 11-12 event in Benghazi, based on the CIA and State Department accounts, is that it was a three hour and 20 minute series of attacks followed four hours and fifteen minutes later by an eleven minute attack. That is significantly different than Gen. Dempsey's claim--while trying to defend not sending any military assets to the rescue--that Benghazi was two 20 minute battles separated by six hours.
The Benghazi terrorists killed Amb. Chris Stevens and State Department Information Management Officer Sean Smith during the first phase of the attack by burning the building in which they were taking refuge. The terrorists killed former Navy SEALS Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, who worked for the CIA, and severely wounded a State Department security officer, in the second phase of the attack when they fired mortars into the CIA Annex.
Dempsey made his claim that the Benghazi event was really two discrete 20-minute attacks six hours apart in responding to CNN’s Candy Crowley, who had asked him why a U.S. military force could not have gone to help out in Benghazi if the terror attack was a seven-hour battle.
“You know, it wasn't a seven-hour battle,” Dempsey said. “It was two 20-minute battles separated by about six hours. The idea that this was one continuous event is just incorrect.
“And the nearest, for example, the nearest aircraft, armed aircraft, happened to be in Djibouti, the distance from Djibouti to Benghazi is the distance from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles,” Dempsey continued.
“There is some significant physics involved,” said Dempsey. “And the time available, given the intelligence available, I have great confidence in reporting to the American people that we were appropriately responsive given what we knew at the time.”
After the initial attack began at 9:42 p.m. in Benghazi, according to the ARB report, the State Department’s senior security officer at the Benghazi mission used his cell phone to immediately notify the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli and the CIA at their Benghazi Annex, which was about a half mile as the crow flies from the State Department mission.
Both the State Department deputy chief of mission in Tripoli and the CIA security chief in Benghazi moved immediately into action. The CIA security chief started mobilizing his personnel to go to the rescue of the State Department’s Benghazi compound and the deputy chief of mission in Tripoli first immediately notified Washington, D.C., and then began working for what turned out to be “hours” to charter a private plane—not a U.S. military aircraft--to fly a rescue team from Tripoli to Benghazi.
When that rescue team from Tripoli finally arrived at the Benghazi airport in its chartered private plane--again, a chartered private plane, not a plane provided by the U.S. military--it would be delayed for more than three hours before it could leave the airport and go to the CIA Annex in Benghazi.
According to the timeline released by Defense Secretary Panetta’s own office, Panetta and Dempsey did not even learn of the ongoing terrorist attack in Benghazi until it had been raging for far more than 20 minutes. Thus, if the first phase of the attack had only lasted 20 minutes, as Gen. Dempsey said on CNN, then it would have been over by the time Panetta and Dempsey were told of it. However, the attack was far from over when Panetta and Dempsey first learned of it.
This Defense Department timeline says the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon notified Panetta and Dempsey of the ongoing attack at about 4:32 p.m. Washington, D.C. time or 10:32 p.m. Benghazi time—that, according to the State Department and CIA accounts, was about 50 minutes after the ongoing attack had started.
At that moment, Panetta and Dempsey were actually in the White House waiting for a pre-scheduled 5:00 p.m. Washington time (11:00 p.m. Benghazi time) meeting with President Barack Obama.
By the time Panetta, Dempsey and Obama started this meeting, the battle at the State Department’s Benghazi compound had been going on for about an hour and 18 minutes. It would not be until two hours after Obama, Panetta and Dempsey started this meeting that the first phase of the attack ended when the terrorists took a break from shooting at the CIA’s Benghazi Annex. That was about 7:00 p.m. Washington time or 1:00 a.m. Benghazi time.
According to the CIA timeline, it was at about 11:30 pm Benghazi time, or 5:30 p.m. Washington time, that the State Department Diplomatic Security agents at the State Department compound in Benghazi—covered by the CIA security personnel who had come to their rescue and under fire from the terrorists—left that facility and headed toward the CIA Annex.
Thus, that movement-under-fire by the State Department security officers from their compound to the CIA Annex took place about 30 minutes after Panetta, Dempsey and Obama began their White House meeting--and, according to a report by the Senate Homeland Security Committee, about 20 minutes after an unarmed U.S. drone arrived over the State Department mission where the battle was unfolding.
That drone had been redirected to Benghazi by U.S. Africa Command at 3:59 p.m. D.C. time (9:59 p.m. Benghazi time)—or more than a half an hour before Panetta and Dempsey even learned about the ongoing terror attack in Benghazi. The drone actually arrived over the Benghazi mission at 5:10 p.m. Washington time, ten minutes after Panetta and Dempsey started their meeting with Obama.
According to the report published by the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Panetta and Dempsey were actually able to brief Obama in their 5:00 p.m. Washington-time meeting about the then-1-hour-and-20-minute-old-and-still-unfolding terrorist attack in Benghazi as that attack continued to unfold.
“As noted earlier, the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) at the Department of Defense (DOD) directed an unarmed surveillance aircraft to the skies over the Benghazi compound at 3:59 p.m. EST,” said the Homeland Security Committee report. “It arrived there at 5:10 p.m. EST (11:10 p.m. Benghazi time). At 4:32 p.m., the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon alerted the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff, and the information was shared with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey. Secretary Panetta and General Dempsey were at the White House for a previously scheduled meeting at 5:00 p.m. and so were able to brief the President on the developments in Benghazi as they were occurring.”
Listing the incidents as they occurred in Benghazi time (which is six hours ahead of Washington, D.C. time), here is how the CIA timeline, provided by a senior U.S. intelligence official, described the series of events that Gen. Dempsey, this Sunday, told CNN was “two 20-minute battles separated by about six hours”:
“Around 9:40pm (local) the first call comes in to the Annex that the Mission is coming under attack. Fewer than 25 minutes later, a security team left the Annex for the Mission. Over the next 25 minutes, team members approach the compound, attempt to secure heavy weapons, and make their way onto the compound itself in the face of enemy fire. At 11:11pm, the requested ISR arrives over the Mission compound. By 11:30pm, all US personnel, except for the missing US Ambassador, depart the Mission. The exiting vehicles come under fire. Over the next roughly 90 minutes, the Annex receives sporadic small arms fire and RPG rounds; the security team returns fire, and the attackers disperse (approx 1am). At about the same time, a team of additional security personnel lands at the Benghazi airport, negotiates for transport into town, and upon learning the Ambassador was missing and that the situation at the Annex had calmed, focused on locating the Ambassador, and trying to secure information on the security situation at the hospital. Still pre-dawn timeframe, that team at the airport finally manages to secure transportation and armed escort and--having learned that the Ambassador was almost certainly dead and that the security situation at the hospital was uncertain--heads to the Annex to assist with the evacuation. They arrive with Libyan support at the Annex by 5:15am, just before the mortar rounds begin to hit the Annex. The two security officers were killed when they took direct mortar fire as they engaged the enemy. That attack lasted only 11 minutes then also dissipated. Less than an hour later, a heavily-armed Libyan military unit arrived to help evacuate the compound of all US.”
The State Department ARB report also reported the sequence of events in Benghazi in Benghazi time. It indicated: The CIA personnel at the Annex reacted immediately to go to rescue of their fellow Americans at the State Department compound. The embassy in Tripoli had to work for hours to charter a private plane. U.S. Africa Command immediately redirected a drone to Benghazi. Terrorists continued to fire at the State Department security officers when they fled their compound, under covering fire from their CIA colleagues, and headed for the Annex. Terrorists continued to fire on the Annex until an hour after midnight Benghazi time—or about 3 hours and 20 minutes after the attack had first started and after Washington, D.C. had first been notified that the Americans in Benghazi were fighting off a terrorist attack.
“Just prior to receiving the TDY RSO’s [State Department temporary duty regional security officer's] distress call shortly after 2142 local [3:42 p.m. Washington time], the head of [CIA] Annex security heard multiple explosions coming from the north in the direction of the SMC,” said the ARB report.
“The Annex security head immediately began to organize his team’s departure and notified his superiors, who began to contact local security elements to request support," said the ARB report. "The Annex response team departed its compound in two vehicles at approximately 2205 local [4:05 p.m. Washington time]. The departure of the Annex team was not delayed by orders from superiors; the team leader decided on his own to depart the Annex compound once it was apparent, despite a brief delay to permit their continuing efforts, that rapid support from local security elements was not forthcoming.”
“At the urging of the [CIA] Annex security team and friendly militia members, who warned that the compound was at risk of being overrun, the TDY RSO and four ARSOs [State Department assistant regional security officers] departed for the Annex without having found Ambassador Stevens,” said the ARB report. “As the Annex team provided cover fire, the five DS agents’ fully armored vehicle departed and took hostile fire as they left the SMC and turned right out of the C1 entrance. The driver, ARSO 1, reversed direction to avoid a crowd farther down the street, then reverted back to the original easterly route towards the crowd after a man whom the DS agents [State Department Diplomatic Security agents] believed to be with February 17 signaled them to do so. Farther ahead, another man in a small group of individuals then motioned to them to enter a neighboring compound, some 300 meters to the east of the C1 entrance of the Special Mission compound. The DS agents suspected a trap, ignored this signal, and continued past.
"The group along the route then opened fire at the vehicle’s side, shattering and almost penetrating the armored glass and blowing out two tires," said the ARB report. "While the identities of the individuals who fired upon the DS agents is unknown, they may have been part of the initial wave of attackers who swarmed the SMC earlier that night. A roadblock was present outside this compound and groups of attackers were seen entering it at about the time this vehicle movement was taking place.”
“Just before midnight, shortly after the [State Department] DS and [CIA] Annex security teams arrived from the SMC, the Annex began to be targeted by gunfire and RPGs, which continued intermittently for an hour,” said the ARB report. “Annex security personnel engaged from their defensive positions, which were reinforced by DS agents. Other personnel remained in contact with Embassy Tripoli from the Annex.”
“Within hours [emphasis added], Embassy Tripoli chartered a private airplane and deployed a seven-person security team, which included two U.S. military personnel, to Benghazi,” said the ARB report. “At the direction of the U.S. military’s Africa Command (AFRICOM), DoD moved a remotely piloted, unarmed surveillance aircraft which arrived over the SMC shortly before the DS team departed.”
Thhe Senate Homeland Security Committee's report, released on Dec. 31, presents the sequence of events in Benghazi that generally mirrors the accounts in the CIA timeline and the State Department ARB report.
"Soon after the Americans returned to the Annex, just before midnight, they were attacked by rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) and small arms fire," says the committee report. "The sporadic attacks stopped at approximately 1:01 a.m."
Thus, according to this committee in the Democrat-controlled Senate, this one part of the first phase of the Benghazi attack began at the CIA Annex about midnight Benghazi time--or 6:00 p.m. Washington time. That was an hour after Panetta, Dempsey and Obama began their meeting at the White House, and after Panetta and Dempsey, according to the committee, were able to brief Obama "on the developments in Benghazi as they were occurring"
As this committee in the Democrat-controlled Senate tells the story, this one phase of the Benghazi terrorist attack--which occurred after the terrorists had attacked the State Department compound, and after they had attacked the State Department security personnel enroute from the State Department compound to the CIA Annex, and before the attack on the Annex that would kill Woods and Doherty--lasted about an hour. Thus, this one part of the Benghazi terror attack lasted three times as long as either of the two 20 minute attacks Gen. Dempsey described in his CNN interview.
"U.S. government security personnel who were based in Tripoli had deployed to Benghazi by chartered aircraft after receiving word of the attack, arriving at the Benghazi airport at 1:15 a.m," added the Senate committee report. "They were held at the airport for at least three hours while they negotiated with Libyan authorities about logistics. The exact cause of this hours-long delay, and its relationship to the rescue effort, remains unclear and merits further inquiry. Was it simply the result of a difficult Libyan bureaucracy and a chaotic environment or was it part of a plot to keep American help from reaching the Americans under siege in Benghazi?"
Why did this rescue team from Tripoli have to charter a plane to Benghazi? Why couldn't the Defense Department send these Americans a plane in the "hours" they were working to get one? No one in the government has explained this.
"The team from Tripoli finally cleared the airport and arrived at the Annex at approximately 5:04 a.m., about ten minutes before a new assault by the terrorist began, involving mortar rounds fired at the Annex," said the Senate committee report. "The attack concluded at approximately 5:26 a.m., leaving Annex security team members Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty dead and two others wounded."
Thus Woods and Doherty died less than four and a half hours after the earlier hour-long fight at the CIA Annex, which, in turn, had followed two hours and 20 minutes of fighting at the State Department's Benghazi compound and on the road between that compound and the CIA Annex.
But Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has a different story. “It was two 20-minute battles separated by about six hours,” he told CNN.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/someones-wrong-cia-and-state-dept-accounts-benghazi-contradict-gen-dempsey-s
Someone's Wrong: CIA and State Dept. Accounts of Benghazi Contradict Gen. Dempsey’s Explanation for Why DOD Sent No Help
February 3, 2013
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (AP Photo)
If the story Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is telling is correct, then the story the State Department Accountability Review Board (ARB) and the Central Intelligence Agency have told is not. If the story the State Department and the CIA have told is correct, than Gen. Dempsey is telling an inaccurate story to explain why the Defense Department sent no help to the State Department and CIA personnel who were attacked by terrorists in Libya on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11.
On CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Dempsey said the reason the Defense Department sent no aid to the Americans under attack by terrorists in Benghazi on the night of Sept. 11-12, was because the attack did not last seven hours but was really two 20-minute attacks six hours apart.
Additionally, an account presented by the Senate Homeland Security Committee in its report on Benghazi also does not comport with General Dempsey's version of events.
According to these accounts, the first phase of the battle against the Benghazi terrorists lasted roughly three hours and 20 minutes, during which time the terrorists fired at U.S. State Department and CIA personnel at the State Department's compound in Benghazi, on the road between the State Department compound and the CIA Annex, and at the CIA Annex itself.
The firing on the Annex during this first phase of the battle ceased at about 1:00 a.m. Benghazi time--which was about three hours and twenty minutes after the attack started at about 9:40 pm Benghazi time, and about two and a half hours after Gen. Dempsey and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had been notified at 10:32 p.m Benghazi time that the attack was happening.
The second phase of the terrorist attack started at about 5:15 a.m. Benghazi time--or about four hours and fifteen minutes after the first phase ended. This second phase lasted about 11 minutes.
An accurate summation of the Sept. 11-12 event in Benghazi, based on the CIA and State Department accounts, is that it was a three hour and 20 minute series of attacks followed four hours and fifteen minutes later by an eleven minute attack. That is significantly different than Gen. Dempsey's claim--while trying to defend not sending any military assets to the rescue--that Benghazi was two 20 minute battles separated by six hours.
The Benghazi terrorists killed Amb. Chris Stevens and State Department Information Management Officer Sean Smith during the first phase of the attack by burning the building in which they were taking refuge. The terrorists killed former Navy SEALS Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, who worked for the CIA, and severely wounded a State Department security officer, in the second phase of the attack when they fired mortars into the CIA Annex.
Dempsey made his claim that the Benghazi event was really two discrete 20-minute attacks six hours apart in responding to CNN’s Candy Crowley, who had asked him why a U.S. military force could not have gone to help out in Benghazi if the terror attack was a seven-hour battle.
“You know, it wasn't a seven-hour battle,” Dempsey said. “It was two 20-minute battles separated by about six hours. The idea that this was one continuous event is just incorrect.
“And the nearest, for example, the nearest aircraft, armed aircraft, happened to be in Djibouti, the distance from Djibouti to Benghazi is the distance from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles,” Dempsey continued.
“There is some significant physics involved,” said Dempsey. “And the time available, given the intelligence available, I have great confidence in reporting to the American people that we were appropriately responsive given what we knew at the time.”
After the initial attack began at 9:42 p.m. in Benghazi, according to the ARB report, the State Department’s senior security officer at the Benghazi mission used his cell phone to immediately notify the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli and the CIA at their Benghazi Annex, which was about a half mile as the crow flies from the State Department mission.
Both the State Department deputy chief of mission in Tripoli and the CIA security chief in Benghazi moved immediately into action. The CIA security chief started mobilizing his personnel to go to the rescue of the State Department’s Benghazi compound and the deputy chief of mission in Tripoli first immediately notified Washington, D.C., and then began working for what turned out to be “hours” to charter a private plane—not a U.S. military aircraft--to fly a rescue team from Tripoli to Benghazi.
When that rescue team from Tripoli finally arrived at the Benghazi airport in its chartered private plane--again, a chartered private plane, not a plane provided by the U.S. military--it would be delayed for more than three hours before it could leave the airport and go to the CIA Annex in Benghazi.
According to the timeline released by Defense Secretary Panetta’s own office, Panetta and Dempsey did not even learn of the ongoing terrorist attack in Benghazi until it had been raging for far more than 20 minutes. Thus, if the first phase of the attack had only lasted 20 minutes, as Gen. Dempsey said on CNN, then it would have been over by the time Panetta and Dempsey were told of it. However, the attack was far from over when Panetta and Dempsey first learned of it.
This Defense Department timeline says the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon notified Panetta and Dempsey of the ongoing attack at about 4:32 p.m. Washington, D.C. time or 10:32 p.m. Benghazi time—that, according to the State Department and CIA accounts, was about 50 minutes after the ongoing attack had started.
At that moment, Panetta and Dempsey were actually in the White House waiting for a pre-scheduled 5:00 p.m. Washington time (11:00 p.m. Benghazi time) meeting with President Barack Obama.
By the time Panetta, Dempsey and Obama started this meeting, the battle at the State Department’s Benghazi compound had been going on for about an hour and 18 minutes. It would not be until two hours after Obama, Panetta and Dempsey started this meeting that the first phase of the attack ended when the terrorists took a break from shooting at the CIA’s Benghazi Annex. That was about 7:00 p.m. Washington time or 1:00 a.m. Benghazi time.
According to the CIA timeline, it was at about 11:30 pm Benghazi time, or 5:30 p.m. Washington time, that the State Department Diplomatic Security agents at the State Department compound in Benghazi—covered by the CIA security personnel who had come to their rescue and under fire from the terrorists—left that facility and headed toward the CIA Annex.
Thus, that movement-under-fire by the State Department security officers from their compound to the CIA Annex took place about 30 minutes after Panetta, Dempsey and Obama began their White House meeting--and, according to a report by the Senate Homeland Security Committee, about 20 minutes after an unarmed U.S. drone arrived over the State Department mission where the battle was unfolding.
That drone had been redirected to Benghazi by U.S. Africa Command at 3:59 p.m. D.C. time (9:59 p.m. Benghazi time)—or more than a half an hour before Panetta and Dempsey even learned about the ongoing terror attack in Benghazi. The drone actually arrived over the Benghazi mission at 5:10 p.m. Washington time, ten minutes after Panetta and Dempsey started their meeting with Obama.
According to the report published by the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Panetta and Dempsey were actually able to brief Obama in their 5:00 p.m. Washington-time meeting about the then-1-hour-and-20-minute-old-and-still-unfolding terrorist attack in Benghazi as that attack continued to unfold.
“As noted earlier, the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) at the Department of Defense (DOD) directed an unarmed surveillance aircraft to the skies over the Benghazi compound at 3:59 p.m. EST,” said the Homeland Security Committee report. “It arrived there at 5:10 p.m. EST (11:10 p.m. Benghazi time). At 4:32 p.m., the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon alerted the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff, and the information was shared with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey. Secretary Panetta and General Dempsey were at the White House for a previously scheduled meeting at 5:00 p.m. and so were able to brief the President on the developments in Benghazi as they were occurring.”
Listing the incidents as they occurred in Benghazi time (which is six hours ahead of Washington, D.C. time), here is how the CIA timeline, provided by a senior U.S. intelligence official, described the series of events that Gen. Dempsey, this Sunday, told CNN was “two 20-minute battles separated by about six hours”:
“Around 9:40pm (local) the first call comes in to the Annex that the Mission is coming under attack. Fewer than 25 minutes later, a security team left the Annex for the Mission. Over the next 25 minutes, team members approach the compound, attempt to secure heavy weapons, and make their way onto the compound itself in the face of enemy fire. At 11:11pm, the requested ISR arrives over the Mission compound. By 11:30pm, all US personnel, except for the missing US Ambassador, depart the Mission. The exiting vehicles come under fire. Over the next roughly 90 minutes, the Annex receives sporadic small arms fire and RPG rounds; the security team returns fire, and the attackers disperse (approx 1am). At about the same time, a team of additional security personnel lands at the Benghazi airport, negotiates for transport into town, and upon learning the Ambassador was missing and that the situation at the Annex had calmed, focused on locating the Ambassador, and trying to secure information on the security situation at the hospital. Still pre-dawn timeframe, that team at the airport finally manages to secure transportation and armed escort and--having learned that the Ambassador was almost certainly dead and that the security situation at the hospital was uncertain--heads to the Annex to assist with the evacuation. They arrive with Libyan support at the Annex by 5:15am, just before the mortar rounds begin to hit the Annex. The two security officers were killed when they took direct mortar fire as they engaged the enemy. That attack lasted only 11 minutes then also dissipated. Less than an hour later, a heavily-armed Libyan military unit arrived to help evacuate the compound of all US.”
The State Department ARB report also reported the sequence of events in Benghazi in Benghazi time. It indicated: The CIA personnel at the Annex reacted immediately to go to rescue of their fellow Americans at the State Department compound. The embassy in Tripoli had to work for hours to charter a private plane. U.S. Africa Command immediately redirected a drone to Benghazi. Terrorists continued to fire at the State Department security officers when they fled their compound, under covering fire from their CIA colleagues, and headed for the Annex. Terrorists continued to fire on the Annex until an hour after midnight Benghazi time—or about 3 hours and 20 minutes after the attack had first started and after Washington, D.C. had first been notified that the Americans in Benghazi were fighting off a terrorist attack.
“Just prior to receiving the TDY RSO’s [State Department temporary duty regional security officer's] distress call shortly after 2142 local [3:42 p.m. Washington time], the head of [CIA] Annex security heard multiple explosions coming from the north in the direction of the SMC,” said the ARB report.
“The Annex security head immediately began to organize his team’s departure and notified his superiors, who began to contact local security elements to request support," said the ARB report. "The Annex response team departed its compound in two vehicles at approximately 2205 local [4:05 p.m. Washington time]. The departure of the Annex team was not delayed by orders from superiors; the team leader decided on his own to depart the Annex compound once it was apparent, despite a brief delay to permit their continuing efforts, that rapid support from local security elements was not forthcoming.”
“At the urging of the [CIA] Annex security team and friendly militia members, who warned that the compound was at risk of being overrun, the TDY RSO and four ARSOs [State Department assistant regional security officers] departed for the Annex without having found Ambassador Stevens,” said the ARB report. “As the Annex team provided cover fire, the five DS agents’ fully armored vehicle departed and took hostile fire as they left the SMC and turned right out of the C1 entrance. The driver, ARSO 1, reversed direction to avoid a crowd farther down the street, then reverted back to the original easterly route towards the crowd after a man whom the DS agents [State Department Diplomatic Security agents] believed to be with February 17 signaled them to do so. Farther ahead, another man in a small group of individuals then motioned to them to enter a neighboring compound, some 300 meters to the east of the C1 entrance of the Special Mission compound. The DS agents suspected a trap, ignored this signal, and continued past.
"The group along the route then opened fire at the vehicle’s side, shattering and almost penetrating the armored glass and blowing out two tires," said the ARB report. "While the identities of the individuals who fired upon the DS agents is unknown, they may have been part of the initial wave of attackers who swarmed the SMC earlier that night. A roadblock was present outside this compound and groups of attackers were seen entering it at about the time this vehicle movement was taking place.”
“Just before midnight, shortly after the [State Department] DS and [CIA] Annex security teams arrived from the SMC, the Annex began to be targeted by gunfire and RPGs, which continued intermittently for an hour,” said the ARB report. “Annex security personnel engaged from their defensive positions, which were reinforced by DS agents. Other personnel remained in contact with Embassy Tripoli from the Annex.”
“Within hours [emphasis added], Embassy Tripoli chartered a private airplane and deployed a seven-person security team, which included two U.S. military personnel, to Benghazi,” said the ARB report. “At the direction of the U.S. military’s Africa Command (AFRICOM), DoD moved a remotely piloted, unarmed surveillance aircraft which arrived over the SMC shortly before the DS team departed.”
Thhe Senate Homeland Security Committee's report, released on Dec. 31, presents the sequence of events in Benghazi that generally mirrors the accounts in the CIA timeline and the State Department ARB report.
"Soon after the Americans returned to the Annex, just before midnight, they were attacked by rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) and small arms fire," says the committee report. "The sporadic attacks stopped at approximately 1:01 a.m."
Thus, according to this committee in the Democrat-controlled Senate, this one part of the first phase of the Benghazi attack began at the CIA Annex about midnight Benghazi time--or 6:00 p.m. Washington time. That was an hour after Panetta, Dempsey and Obama began their meeting at the White House, and after Panetta and Dempsey, according to the committee, were able to brief Obama "on the developments in Benghazi as they were occurring"
As this committee in the Democrat-controlled Senate tells the story, this one phase of the Benghazi terrorist attack--which occurred after the terrorists had attacked the State Department compound, and after they had attacked the State Department security personnel enroute from the State Department compound to the CIA Annex, and before the attack on the Annex that would kill Woods and Doherty--lasted about an hour. Thus, this one part of the Benghazi terror attack lasted three times as long as either of the two 20 minute attacks Gen. Dempsey described in his CNN interview.
"U.S. government security personnel who were based in Tripoli had deployed to Benghazi by chartered aircraft after receiving word of the attack, arriving at the Benghazi airport at 1:15 a.m," added the Senate committee report. "They were held at the airport for at least three hours while they negotiated with Libyan authorities about logistics. The exact cause of this hours-long delay, and its relationship to the rescue effort, remains unclear and merits further inquiry. Was it simply the result of a difficult Libyan bureaucracy and a chaotic environment or was it part of a plot to keep American help from reaching the Americans under siege in Benghazi?"
Why did this rescue team from Tripoli have to charter a plane to Benghazi? Why couldn't the Defense Department send these Americans a plane in the "hours" they were working to get one? No one in the government has explained this.
"The team from Tripoli finally cleared the airport and arrived at the Annex at approximately 5:04 a.m., about ten minutes before a new assault by the terrorist began, involving mortar rounds fired at the Annex," said the Senate committee report. "The attack concluded at approximately 5:26 a.m., leaving Annex security team members Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty dead and two others wounded."
Thus Woods and Doherty died less than four and a half hours after the earlier hour-long fight at the CIA Annex, which, in turn, had followed two hours and 20 minutes of fighting at the State Department's Benghazi compound and on the road between that compound and the CIA Annex.
But Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has a different story. “It was two 20-minute battles separated by about six hours,” he told CNN.
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