Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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‘Dude, this was like two years ago’

My latest at Da Tech Guy Blog, ‘Dude, this was like two years ago’ is about the former van driver, former National Security Advisor Tommy Vietor dude.

More on the appalling Obama foreign policy team and the tangled web of media-Obama administration ties from Thomas Lifson, and a chart (click to enlarge):

And yes, Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Adviser, is the brother of David Rhodes, the President of CBS News the man who fired Sharon Attkisson. Attkisson was the only mainstream reporter to pursue Benghazi, asserting there was a coverup (h/t Monica Showalter).

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@MarkSteynOnLine on the Benghazi lies

The Dishonored Dead

But the court eunuchs never did take an interest, and it would be foolish to expect them to now. Nevertheless, if Washington had a healthy media culture, the Ben Rhodes email outlining the Administration’s four goals for Susan Rice’s telly marathon would be devastating:

*To convey that the United States is doing everything that we can to protect our people and facilities abroad;

*To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy;

*To show that we will be resolute in bringing people who harm Americans to justice, and standing steadfast through these protests;

*To reinforce the President and Administration’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges.

All four “goals” are bunk, but the second was an explicit lie.

Read the whole thing.

I have an article coming up at Da Tech Guy’s – will link to it later.

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Book review – Eyes On Target: Inside Stories from the Brotherhood of the U.S. Navy SEALs

Sometimes you read a book you can’t wait to recommend to everybody, and this is that book:

Eyes On Target: Inside Stories from the Brotherhood of the U.S. Navy SEALs by Scott McEwen and Richard Miniter, is a gripping read in many ways:
It tells the story of a group of men who will give their all to protect our country, from the point of view of several of the men themselves.
It is the history of the most-feared anti-terrorist force in the world.
And, as the book jacket aptly describes, it

is an inside account of some of the most harrowing missions in American history-including the mission to kill Osama bin Laden and the mission that wasn’t, the deadly attack on the US diplomatic outpost in Benghazi where a retired SEAL sniper with a small team held off one hundred terrorists while his repeated radio calls for help went unheeded.

Read my full review here.

And, please, buy the book and read it; it’s a fascinating, scrupulously-researched, moving account of a group of heroic men, and authors Scott McEwen and Richard Miniter lay to rest that “fake, phony scandal” narrative about Benghazi.

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Benghazi roundup

Hicks’s Full Account of Night of Benghazi Attacks
Full testimony at yesterday’s House of Representative’s subcommittee by Gregory Hicks, former deputy chief of mission in the U.S. embassy in Libya:

At Drudge:
Hillary Clinton Accepts Public Service Award In Beverly Hills On Day of Benghazi Hearings…

Susan Rice Honored With ‘Great American’ Award…

White House struggles to respond to new revelations…

Marco Rips Hillary…

MORRIS: Beginning Of End…

KRAUTHAMMER: ‘Where Was Commander in Chief?’

REPORT: CBSNEWS BOSSES IRKED BY CORRESPONDENT’S REPORTING; ‘DANGEROUSLY CLOSE TO ADVOCACY’…

At Memeorandum:

Official Offers Account From Libya of Benghazi Attack  —  WASHINGTON — A State Department official presented a minute-by-minute account on Wednesday of what happened during the seige of the diplomatic compound in Benghazi last Sept. 11, offering the first public testimony from an American official …
RELATED:

 Michael Hirsh / NationalJournal.com:

Benghazi: Incompetence, But No Cover-up  —  The hearings deepen the tragedy, but not the scandal.  —  There was tragic incompetence, plainly, in the Obama administration’s handling of the Benghazi attacks, and even possibly some political calculation.  It is a record that may well come …

 John Podhoretz / New York Post:10 minutes ago

Failings of Bam & Hill laid bare  —  After a remarkable House hearing yesterday, we can say this with almost complete certainty: The Obama administration knew perfectly well that last year’s Sept. 11 attack on Americans and American facilities in Benghazi was a terrorist act …
Discussion: PJ Media and Politico

 Tom Bevan / Real Clear Politics:NEW!

A Coverup Laid Bare  —  Thanks to House Republicans, Americans finally got to hear from the State Department officials the Obama administration never wanted to testify.  They are now called “whistleblowers,” but that’s only because their accounts of what really happened in Libya on Sept. 11 …

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The “Where did I hear that before?” roundup

If you thought you’d heard it before, yes, you’d heard the State of the Groundhog,

Ed Morrissey points out that a minimum-wage hike is the wrong way to lift working poor, but Ed misses the point: politicians don’t want to lift the working poor. Instead they prefer doom, despair and agony if it serves their purpose,

No doom, despair and agony for Obama. After a $900 Valentine’s Day dinner, Obama’s spending a few days on Florida’s Atlantic Coast

relaxing with friends he did not identify. Mrs. Obama’s office did not respond to a question about her plans for the weekend.

[Update: Michelle’s going to Aspen.]
This will be his second vacation of the year. Back on 9/11/12 he did nothing on Benghazi, when he was President AWOL:

On the night of 9-11, after the US Embassy in Cairo was stormed, and after hearing that the US Consulate in Benghazi was under attack, Barack Obama did nothing.

After being briefed by his top security advisers at a pre-planned meeting in the White House around 5:30 PM EST, he never picked up the phone again to see how things were going. And four innocent Americans including the US ambassador to Libya, were slaughtered.

This email was sent to State Department officials, White House officials, Secret Service officials at 6:07 PM EST on 9-11, from Benghazi officials the night of the terrorist attack.

The email clearly blamed Al-Qaeda linked group Ansar al-Sharia for the attack on the US consulate.
This was before the lifeless body of Ambassador Stevens was dragged from the consulate ruins.

This was at least the third email sent to the White House on 9-11 from Benghazi.

Now that Lautenberg is finally(?) retiring – unlike the last time he retired, when he said “Just when i thought i was out, they pull me back in” –

everybody in NJ wants to be a Senator.

Why Should I Care About the U.S. Debt?

Name the party!

No biological clock for men: Cary Grant was a first-time dad at age 65, and now Steve Martin’s a first-time dad at 67.

Hugo Chavez? He’s aliiiive!

Why Was an Iranian Official Found with Millions in Venezuelan Money?

Meteorite Strikes Central Russia, Up To 500 Injured, not to be confused with the asteroid heading our way today.

You learn something new every day: Penises are called chubbies.

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Obama didn’t answer the 3AM call

Remember Hillary’s old campaign ad?

Well, it rang on 9/11/12.

Obama never called back to check on Benghazi, and Panetta can’t explain why:

SEN. GRAHAM: Are you surprised that the president of the United States never called you, Secretary Panetta, and say, ‘how’s it going?’
SEC. PANETTA: I — you know, normally in these situations –
SEN. GRAHAM: Did he know the level of threat that –
SEC. PANETTA: Let — well, let me finish the answer. We were deploying the forces. He knew we were deploying the forces. He was being kept updated –
SEN. GRAHAM: Well, I hate to interrupt you, but I got limited time. We didn’t deploy any forces. Did you call him back — wait a minute –
SEC. PANETTA: No, but the event — the event was over by the time we got –
SEN. GRAHAM: Mr. Secretary, you didn’t know how long the attack would last. Did you ever call him and say, Mr. President, it looks like we don’t have anything to get there anytime soon?
SEC. PANETTA: The event was over before we could move any assets.
SEN. GRAHAM: It lasted almost eight hours. And my question to you is during that eight-hour period, did the president show any curiosity about how’s this going, what kind of assets do you have helping these people? Did he ever make that phone call?
SEC. PANETTA: Look, there is no question in my mind that the president of the United States was concerned about American lives and, frankly, all of us were concerned about American lives.
SEN. GRAHAM: With all due respect, I don’t believe that’s a credible statement if he never called and asked you, are we helping these people; what’s happening to them? We have a second round, and we’ll take it up then.
SEC. PANETTA: As a former chief of staff to the president of the United States, the purpose of staff is to be able to get that kind of information, and those staff were working with us.
SEN. GRAHAM: So you think it’s a typical response of the president of the United States to make one phone call, do what you can and never call you back again and ask you, how’s it going, by the way, showing your frustration we don’t have any assets in there to help these people for over seven hours?
SEC. PANETTA: The president is well-informed about what is going on. Make no mistake about it.
SEN. GRAHAM: Well, that is interesting to hear.

In fact, Panetta says he had no communication with anyone from the White House, and Hillary wasn’t answering, either:

While some thought it a joke and some thought it a farce the true meaning of the empty chair was never clearer than it was at the Benghazi hearings.

Dereliction of duty? Malfeasance? The Immaculate Massacre? You decide.


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