President Obama's Insulting '2nd Term Agenda' Booklet

 

One thing about President Obama I've always disliked is a characteristic he shares with much of the left - the belief that everyone's stupid but themselves.

The president recently published a twenty page booklet outlining his agenda for a second term with lots of pictures for whom he obviously considers as the knuckle draggers in flyover country. It's insulting and absurd.

This is the president's 'New Economic Patriotism' he keeps jabbering about...you know, everybody pays more taxes, especially 'the rich'. Except the Obamas and their cronies, that is.

Last year, the taxpayers of the United States spent $1.4 billion solely to maintain the Obamas in the lifestyle they've become accustomed to. This includes the five star vacations, the president's incessant rounds of golf, the numerous parties and junkets, the fees paid to the entertainers at the White House, the inflated staff's salaries, the whole enchilada. By contrast, Britain maintained its entire Royal Family for a mere $57.8 million during the same period. Apparently for President Obama. 'Economic Patriotism' doesn't begin at home.

The president's 7 point plan basically promises more of what we've had during the last four years, except more of it.

He wants to pad the public employee union rolls by several hundred thousand, the better to finance future Democrats.

He spends a lot of time talking about outsourcing while saying nothing about changing the high taxes and stifling government regulations that guarantee it will continue, and even repeats the lie about how he's going to 'end tax deductions for outsourcing' when no such tax deduction exists except in his universe.

He brags about how he's reduced demand for imported foreign oil without mentioning that his economic policies have raised priced to the sky and kept demand low, along with demand for a lot of other things.People out of work in a stagnant economy don't usually fill up their gas tanks with cheerful abandon at $4.50 a gallon.

He claims he wants to invest in wind, solar, and clean coal to reduce demand further, but since we don't yet have sun powered cars or ones with sails, something is apparently lost in translation.

The only thing on the list that could be used to make oil is the coal, and we all know how this president feels about the coal industry.

Meanwhile, oil production on Federal land is declining, lots of our off shore drilling is blocked and the president's EPA is straining at the leash to go after fracking and shut down energy booms like the one in North Dakota if this president is re-elected.

The president little tract also makes much of his bailing out of GM and Chrysler. That gift to his union supporters at the taxpayer's expense cost us over $85 billion that will never be recovered, including a $45.4 billion special tax break for GM the president sneaked through by executive order.

He claims he wants to cut corporate tax rates, cut spending and reduce the deficit. He could have cut corporate taxes a long time ago, cutting spending has not been a hallmark of the Obama Administration to say the least and I seem to recall some verbiage by the president about cutting the deficit some time ago.

Odd how that turned out.In fact, President Obama even disregarded the recommendations of his own deficit-reduction commission!

No matter though. The booklet is saturated with pictures of President Obama beaming down at workers, children and peasants in true Dear Leader style. In fact that's really the booklet's focus,Obama as our feudal Lord and Dear Leader.

Anyone who's reasonably well informed would consider the whole thing a gross insult, but then, that's not the audience it's geared towards.

It says a great deal about President Obama and his contempt for much of the electorate - especially his supporters - that he would issue something like this with an election two weeks off and expect it to fly.

President Obama And Benghazi - The Ultimate Appeasement

This is painful to write. As much as I dislike and diapprove of almost all of President Obama's policies, I never would have assumed that a sitting president would be so callous and so disdainful of his responsibilities as commander-in-chief.

A number of e-mails have surfaced that now prove conclusively that the White House was directly aware within two hours after it started that the Benghazi attack was not a 'spontaneous protest' that got out of hand but a terrorist attack carried out by Ansar al-Sharia, an al-Qaeda affiliated militia named by the State Department as a terrorist group. They were sent from someone using the @state.gov email address directly to the Situation Room, the president's personal command center, along with other places.

Reuters, FOX and CBS news have posted the e-mails online, with the names of the actual sender redacted.

There is absolutely no way that President Obama, Secretary Clinton and other high level White House officials was not aware of exactly what was going on.

It gets even worse. The men in the consulate contacted the White House by phone at 10 PM Libya time, 4 PM Washington time when the attack began, and the White House was able to communicate with them and watch the attack in real time while it was occurring, thanks to a drone overhead.

The president could have ordered F-18s to fly overhead on afterburners and even fire into the mob, something that's worked in the past when it comes to dispersing attackers. They could have been there in an hour. He could have immediately ordered a full contingent of Special Operations Forces to fly in from the U.S. military base in Sigonella, Sicily. They could have been on the ground in less than three hours.

The president did nothing except to belatedly order a 22 man force to proceed from our embassy in Tripoli, about the same distance away as Sigonella. They did not arrive at Benghazi airport until 4 AM Libya time, six hours after the attack began.

By that time, Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans were dead.

They died because they were not treated as American personnel under attack who needed to be rescued, but as a situation to be managed so as not to offend Muslim sensibilities. And after their deaths, they became a political problem to be handled so as not to embarrass this president. So a scenario was concocted about a spontaneous protest aggravated over a video.It was a scenario that everyone directly from President Obama on down knew was false.

These e-mails and other information about the Benghazi debacle would likely not have surfaced if it hadn't been for President Obama's insistence that the White House was 'not informed', and his blaming the entire fiasco on the State Department and the intelligence community. Apparently some of the people involved in this didn't take kindly to that.

For President Obama, there's no cover, no spin and no excuses possible any more, although I'm sure the attempt will be made. What happened in Benghazi was the culmination of his failed foreign policy in the Middle East,and his reacting as he did a perfect example of his weakness and lack of character.

It was the ultimate appeasement in a failed presidency.

Watcher's Council Nominations - Horses And Bayonets Edtion

To send President Obama's snide little comment from last night's debate right back at him, he needs to find out how our military actually works. He could start by talking to a Marine or a soldier who's had his or her life saved because he or she knew how to put their bayonet training to use.

Or to the men of the 10th Mountain, some of whom I'm honored to be acquainted with, who participated in an amazing but undereported endeavor known as Operation Mountain Thrust. It involved them landing by helicopter on the side of a mountain to outflank the Taliban, a position the jihadis thought was inaccessible. Horses and donkeys were used to cart supplies in on a daily basis.

Welcome to the Watcher's Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the 'sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.

Council News:

This week, The Grouch and The Pirate's Cove took advantage of my generous offer of link whorage and earned honorable mention status with some excellent pieces they sent in.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

Simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won't be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category Then just return the favor by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out Wednesday AM.

It's a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

So, let's see what we have this week....

Council Submissions

• The Right Planet – Mr. President, Here’s What Offends Me …
• The Noisy Room – A Red and Present Danger
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Austere Challenge 2012
• Joshuapundit-Heart Of Darkness - The Real Benghazi Coverup
• Simply Jews – "Lomonosov or Zuckerberg?" or unbearable pain of a good priest
• The Colossus of Rhodey – Update to Education Notes Post
• Bookworm Room – Romney, even if he didn’t win the debate, walked out of the debate a winner
• The Independent Sentinel – Romney Ran Out the Clock to Victory During Third Debate
• Gay Patriot – Only people who call gay Republicans “faggots” sit on political left
• The Mellow Jihadi – The Appearance of Competence
• The Glittering Eye -The Endorsements Are Coming In
• VA Right! - From Strategy to Execution: Who Won the 2012 Presidential Debates?
• Rhymes With Right – Zero Tolerance Gone Crazy
• The Political Commentator – "Bar Stool Economics" helps to explain taxes Obama-style!
• The Razor – Rural Justice

Honorable Mentions

• The Grouch - Death Panels are HERE!
• The Pirate's Cove - Hooray! With Two Weeks Left, Obama Finally Finds An Agenda

Non-Council Submissions

• Emmaus Ministries – Col. Davy Crockett on Government Welfare submitted by The Right Planet
• Sultan Knish –Obama's Last Stand submitted by The Noisy Room
• Swampland – The Election’'s Real Foreign Policy Issue: War with Iran submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Bing West – First, Aid the Living submitted by Joshuapundit
• BBC Watch – BBC interviewee’s support for Greta Berlin’s antisemitic videos submitted by Simply Jews
• The Guardian UK – Secret cinema gently subverts Saudi Arabia's puritanism submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
• White House Dossier -Romney’'s Brilliant Maneuver submitted by Bookworm Room
• Yid With Lid – Here Comes the Obama Hit Squad! submitted by The Independent Sentinel
• Commentary -War of the Late October Gaffes submitted by Gay Patriot
• Right Wing News –Interviewing Stephen Moore On The Truth About Opportunity, Taxes, and Wealth In America submitted by The Mellow Jihadi
• Glenn Greenwald/Comment Is Free – The remarkable, unfathomable ignorance of Debbie Wasserman Schultz submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Human Events – Obama's “Horses and Bayonets” Insult Backfiressubmitted by VA Right!
• Prairie Pundit – Foreign election 'observers' warned to abide by Texas law submitted by Rhymes with Right
• The Investigative Project On Terrorism – A Red Carpet for Radicals at the White House submitted by The Watcher
• Seraphic Secret – Debate #3: The Statesman and the Community Agitator submitted by The Watcher

Enjoy! And don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us Twitter..'cause we're cool like that!

Turkish Press Leaks That 70 U.S. Nukes Are Deployed In Turkey

 

Today the Turkish Haberturk news agency leaked the disturbing news that the U.S. has 70 B61 nuclear bombs stored at America's Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.

The U.S. military leases Incirlik from the Turkish government.

According to the report, the nukes are more or less stranded there because the Islamist regime in Turkey refuses to allow planes to land at Incirlik that are capable of transporting them, in spite of repeated U.S. requests. Presumably, the Turks aren't allowing them to be transported by land or sea either.

The obvious conclusion is that the Turks see the nukes at Incirlik as a ready made Turkish nuclear arsenal should they decide to simply confiscate them in the future. The F-16's we sold Turkey are fully capable of transporting them to a different facility under their control, or to a target for that matter.

This story gives rise to several questions. If it's true that the Turks are refusing to allow planes capable of moving these nuclear bombs to land at Incirlik, that would most of the more useful types of U.S. combat planes, thus making the base useless for most of our purposes. It's a lot more probable that the Turks are simply refusing to allow the nukes to be moved, period, and the Obama Administration is going along with it.

Given that Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan is one of President Obama's favorite foreign leaders, that's fairly plausible.

One also has to wonder what we're doing about this.

One of the many consequences of our participating in the overthrow of Libyan leader Moamar Khaddaffi is an increased appetite in the Middle East for nuclear weapons. Many of the region's leaders noted that Khaddaffi gave up his nuclear weapons and started cooperating with the U.S. during the Bush Administration, but was sold out by an American president just the same. The lesson is not lost on them, and I doubt Tayyip Erdogan didn't catch on to the obvious and start wanting nukes pronto. especially with neighboring Iran pressing steadily towards nuclear capability.

I only hope President Obama had the foresight to order someone to quietly disarm the weapons an dmake them useless if we weren't wiling to simply go in, seize our property and take it elsewhere.

The idea of the Islamist government of Turkey being nuclear armed when they already have the largest conventional forces in NATO outside of our own is not a comforting thought.

Amazing Israel - New Technology Provides The Blind With Eyes-Free Smartphone

An Israeli company has developed a new app that allows the blind to use smartphones.

The application, called RAY, is based on a regular Android smartphone with the American company Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor, and it's expected to be on the market in about a month:

The multipurpose and easy-to-use phone is synchronized with the audio content of the Central Library for the Blind, Visually Impaired and Handicapped. After installing the application, users can use a touch screen, on which every finger movement triggers a certain function. Blind users, for example, can take pictures with a built-in camera of what is occurring in their homes and transmit the images to distant family members, allowing these family members to help out their blind relative without having to be physically present. A blind user can also choose music and books to listen to and almost all regular smartphone options are available.

The user interface supports a wide range of services including voice calls, text messaging with voice reading, navigation, object recognition, social networking services and access to audio books and other entertainment and leisure activities offered by the Central Library for the Blind, Visually Impaired and Handicapped.

It really makes you wonder...with all of the amazing technology Israel has developed, there have to be very few countries that have contributed so much to humanity as this one small nation.

That's something to consider when you hear talk from its neighbors about destroying it, especially when you consider what they've contributed to humanity in contrast.

Romney Wins Debate According To CBS Focus Group In Ohio

And the expressions on the faces of the news anchors are priceless...

Endgame: Tonight's Debate

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney squared off for the final time tonight. Who won?

Just like the second debate, the polls show things pretty even, with maybe a slight edge for President Obama by the usual suspects. But even they can't avoid what amounts to a Romney win on substance.

For instance, CNN's poll had 48% saying Obama won, 40% Romney.

But as far as changing votes, 24% said they were more inclined to vote for Obama, 25% for Romney.

On the question of who was qualified to be Commander in Chief: 60% said Romney was, while 63% said Obama was.

The bottom line? President Obama needed a knockout tonight, and he didn't come close to getting one. He needed to nail down the 'kill Romney ' strategy he and his campaign have pursued since day one instead on running on their record and to give the American people some clue as to what their agenda for a second term..and he failed.

As a matter of fact, Mitt Romney addressed this directly with one of the best lines of the night: "Attacking me is not an agenda."

The Obama campaign has spent hundreds of millions of dollars creating a caricature of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan as soulless vampires with no regard for the American people and lacking the stature to lead.And the complaisant Obama media has cooperated by doing their best to shroud the GOP candidates in a media bubble.

The debates allowed the American people to see Mitt Romney as concerned, decent, engaged and yes, presidential. They showed Paul Ryan as mature and ready to lead if he needed to.The undecided voters were finally allowed to compare the two tickets and compare for themselves.

In tonight's foreign policy debate, Barack Obama once again could not run from his record, even with Bob Schieffer's assistance. Even a lot people who don't follow foreign policy issues that closely have a feeling that America is weaker and less decisive than four years ago.Governor Romney was also able to link this with the President's economic failures and the shrinking of our military, and to propose an alternative direction. He was able to point out how the president's actions resonated in the Middle East,and he actually used the term 'jihadist', a welcome change.

The president had no real reply to that, and veered back to his usual strategy - change the subject and attack Romney. It didn't work particularly well, except in the minds of the president's True Believers.The president's dismissive snark to Romney's concern about our shrinking Navy on Obama's watch being smaller than at any time since 1916 - "We use less horses and bayonets than we did in 1916 too" shows all to clearly who's unworthy of being commander in chief.

Was Mitt Romney as strong as I would have liked him to be? No.

For instance,just two point among many: Romney failed to challenge the president's chest thumping on how "we" (meaning him and his administration) had ended the Iraq War, The reality was that President Bush left office with the agreement of forces turning over security to the Iraqis in place, and that agreement was due to Generals Petraeus and Ordiano's successful surge strategy, a strategy that Senators Obama, Clinton and Biden did their very best to sabotage and malign at every opportunity. President Obama deserves zero credit for that, the reverse in fact, and the American people need to be reminded.

Imagine this little hand grenade being tossed last night with a smile and an attitude of geniality: "Mr. President, you know, you didn't actually end the Iraq War. The agreement on turning over security control to the Iraqis was actually completed during President Bush's term in office, you merely abided by that agreement and our disengagement was only possible because of the surge strategy you vigorously opposed and attempted to sabotage as a senator. In view of all the things you've blamed President Bush for during your term in office, are you prepared to be gracious enough tonight to give President Bush credit for presiding over the strategy that enabled you to complete that disengagement?"

I also would have challenged his intervention in Libya. We took out Moamar Khaddaffi at a cost of a billion dollars , a despot who had given up support for terrorism, that we were giving foreign aid to and who was helping our CIA finger members of Al Qaeda in the Maghreb. In his place, we enabled rebels who we knew had major al-Qaeda, salifist and Islamist elements not only to take over but to plunder Khaddaffi's heavy weapons stocks, and I would have loved to see Romney point out that the mortars, Ak-47's and RPGs used against our consulate in Benghazi almost certainly got into Al-Qaeda and their associate militia's hands solely because of the Obama Administration's intervention.

All in all though, Mitt Romney did exactly what he had to do...he stayed focused and presidential, and President Obama failed to move him off that stance.He did not allow Obama to paint him as some kind of neocon war crazy fanatic.

Charles Krauthammer made the interesting point that Romney made the strategic decision not to go after the president directly, but to concentrate on the perception of America's stance in the world..the big picture as opposed to President Obama's small, petty attacks.

Tonight's debate is not going to slow Romney's momentum. That what Obama needed to do, and on that basis, the president lost.

What To Expect In Tonight's Debate

First of all, expect Bob Schieffer to 'moderate' even more in Obama's direction than Candy Crowley did.The above clip should give you a pretty good idea what we're dealing with, and Michelle Malkin has a few more example of how biased and partisan this shill is.

Mitt Romney will end up with all the tough followups and will be interrupted frequently whenever he starts to make traction. Expect President Obama to end up with significantly more speaking time.

However, Romney may very well make a couple of good hits on Obama's foreign policy record. There's certainly plenty of targets.

Bob Schieffer will try to lure Romney into a soundbite that the Obama media can magnify into a gaffe or talking point. Do not be surprised if the president is fairly smooth tonight, as the questions will likely have been leaked to the White House in advance to allow him to rehearse some answers. Expect a lot of variations on 'I got bin-Laden'.

With all that, barring a major gaffe by either candidate, I'd be surprised if this particular debate had much impact. Barack Obama needs a knockout, to mak e Mitt Romney appear unpresidential and I doubt he's going to get it.

Americans are primarily concerned about the economy, the president's abysmal mismanagement of it is pretty well known, and in the end that's what the election will come down to..that, and turnout.

George McGovern, 1922-2012..RIP

Former progressive icon and Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern passed away today, and as is to be expected, the left is busily revising history and lionizing one of their own.

I originally planned to go into this a bit, but frankly, Joel Engel over at Legal Insurrection and Steven Hayward over at Powerline pretty much wrote what I would have.

So I'll briefly summarize my own feelings...a nice man personally from all reports, but a serious dupe who like most progressives had no idea of what he was doing, or the consequences.He aided and abetted America's enemies, something particularly poignant when you realize what a superb and heroic record he had as a pilot in WWII.

Much of the evil in this world is aided and abetted by people with the best of intentions.For all his pleasantries and undoubted good will, George McGovern was one of them, and the American people were both right and wise to reject him and his ideology utterly.

The senator belatedly realized that himself when he tried to open and run a small inn a few years back and was literally tied in knots and forced out by the same onerous government regulations he'd voted for as a senator.

RIP.

Obama Campaign Busted For Accepting Foreign Donation$

The New York Post has the story:

The Obama re-election campaign has accepted at least one foreign donation in violation of the law — and does nothing to check on the provenance of millions of dollars in other contributions, a watchdog group alleges.

Chris Walker, a British citizen who lives outside London, told The Post he was able to make two $5 donations to President Obama’s campaign this month through its Web site while a similar attempt to give Mitt Romney cash was rejected. It is illegal to knowingly solicit or accept money from foreign citizens.

Walker said he used his actual street address in England but entered Arkansas as his state with the Schenectady, NY, ZIP code of 12345.

“When I did Romney’s, the payment got rejected on the grounds that the address on the card did not match the address that I entered,” he said. “Romney’s Web site wanted the code from the back of card. Barack Obama’s didn’t.”

By the way, taking contributions from non-U.S. citizens is against federal law.

The actual numbers are quite instructive. In September, the Obama campaign took in more than $2 million from donors who provided no ZIP code or incomplete ZIP codes, according to data posted on the Federal Election Commission Web site.

Romney's numbers? $2,450 from donors without ZIP codes and $2,500 from those with incomplete ZIP codes.

Walker also says he began receiving multiple e-mails asking him to donate an additional $188. That would have put him just under the $200 threshold above which FEC requires campaigns have to identify the donor.

Just for the record, I had exactly the same experience.

My $5 donation sent from 'Ismail Haniyeh, Gaza City, Gaza' went right through, was processed and was billed to my account.

I also receive e-mails asking me to donate another $190...again, just under the $200 reporting limit.These people know exactly what they're doing.

By the way Haniyeh is the leader of Hamas in Gaza, officially listed as a terrorist group by our State Department. No problem for President Obama!

The reason for the laxity regarding ZIP codes and 3 and 4 digit security codes (CVV) is a no brainer. A lot of foreign cards don't have them, so requiring them would limit foreign donations, if, let's say, you weren't too choosy about the law and wanted to accept them.

Not only that, but the address verification system used on VISA, MasterCard and American Express cards is the default position in the software involved. Someone would have to deliberately disable it in order for this type of fraud to go through.

The piece also reiterates the information about Obama.com, owned by a prominent Obama bundler named Robert Roche who lives in China, has extremely close connections with the Chinese government, and received a prominent seat at a state dinner in honor of the Chinese President.

Is the FEC going to do anything about this 1 days before a national election? Probably not. But one would hope they'd investigate this thoroughly and prosecute. The Obama Campaign did exactly the same thing in 2008 and got away with it, so apparently they figured it was just fine to pull it again.

Iran has agreed to Nuclear Talks..What, Again?

According to the New York Times, the U.S. and Iran "have agreed in principle for the first time to one-on-one negotiations."

Iranian officials have insisted that the talks wait until after the presidential election, a senior administration official said, telling their American counterparts that they want to know which American president they would be negotiating with.

News of the agreement — a result of intense, secret exchanges between American and Iranian officials that date almost to the beginning of President Obama’s term — comes at a critical moment in the presidential contest, just two weeks before Election Day and a day before the final debate, which is to focus on national security and foreign policy.

Just a coincidence this gets leaked right before the coming presidential debate that focuses on foreign policy no? Rest assured that President Obama will mention it as proof 'my policies on Iran are working.' Nicely timed,isn't it?

Interestingly enough, the AP has a story quoting National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor saying that there is no agreement for any talks.

And of course, the unnamed officials who leaked this conveniently said that they weren't sure Iran's Supreme Leader the Ayatollah Khamenei had signed off on any one on one talks. Which means that after the election, this 'scoop' can be dismissed by simply saying that the Ayatollah Khamenei was unwilling to proceed.

Let's sort through this mess.It's nice because it's meaningless no matter how you look at it.

Obviously, if Pravda-on-the-Hudson simply came up with something just to help a favored candidate ( and it would not be the first time they've done so) than it can be dismissed as what it is, a campaign contribution in kind. If the president mentions it, all Mitt Romney has to do is replay Vietor's own words back at him.Along with repeating that out of the 25 nations who import significant amounts of Iranian oil, 20 of them have received waivers on observing the sanctions courtesy of our State Department.

If someone in the Iranian regime actually made such an overture it's meaningless unless Khamenei signs off on it.

And even if Iran's Supreme Leader okayed the approach,let's look at Iran's history in these matters.

The west has been engaged in talks with Iran over its illegal nuclear program for seven or eight years now. In every case, it's simply been a ploy to get the nuclear football closer to the goal post. They have lied, cheated and obfuscated in every instance to buy time to continue to develop their nuclear weapons program.

It is also worth considering that to the Ayatollahs, no agreement Iran makes with non-believers is valid according to Islam.

The Muslim concepts of Kitman and Taqiyya, lying to non-believers to advance Islam are sanctioned in the Qur'an by Qur'an 1:10, 9:3 - "...Allah and His Messenger are free from liability to the idolaters ..." (remember, to most Muslims Christians are considered polytheists and idolators), 3:54, 66.2 and a host of others.

And of course, by this famous quote attributed to Mohammed in the Hadiths "war is deception."

I would love nothing better than for the Iranians to decide that nuclear weapons are no longer a priority and what they really want is better relations with the west, so that peace prevails. I'd also like for some unknown distant relation to pass on to their eternal reward and leave me a couple of million dollars. The two events have about an equal probability.

It's important to remember that the Iranians already signed one agreement with the west - the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty - and broke it with impunity. There's no real way to monitor compliance with any future agreements they make as long as the present regime is in power.

And in any case, Iran is a dying nation, demographically and economically. And obtaining nuclear weapons and using them to blackmail the neighboring GCC countries or as a military tool to take over the primarily Shi'ite regions of, say, Bahrain or the eastern, oil bearing provinces of Saudi Arabia is the only way the regime can survive.

They will not give up their nuclear weapons program voluntarily. And unlike this New York Times piece, that's a simple fact that isn't meaningless.

Bret Baier's FOX News Special Report On Benghazi

Generally speaking, a pretty good walk through on what happened, although it skips some major details and is far too fair to the Obama Administration and their attempted coverup in my opinion.Mark Steyn and John Bolton have some good bits, as does ex-CIA head Porter Goss.

Why Fox aired this at 10PM on a Friday night is another question.

Former Obama Adviser 'Our Foreign Policy Is A Mess'

 

Normally, with an election less than three weeks off you would expect people who've worked with this president to be effusive in praising him, especially in his so-called strong point of foreign policy.

Apparently, not all of them do.

Ed Morrisey over at Hot Air writes about one example, former Obama administration Defense undersecretary and State Department adviser Rosa Brooks, who wrote a particularly scathing piece over at Foreign Policy:

Despite some successes large and small, Obama’s foreign policy has disappointed many who initially supported him. The Middle East initiatives heralded in his 2009 Cairo speech fizzled or never got started at all, and the Middle East today is more volatile than ever. The administration’s response to the escalating violence in Syria has consisted mostly of anxious thumb-twiddling. The Israelis and the Palestinians are both furious at us. In Afghanistan, Obama lost faith in his own strategy: he never fought to fully resource it, and now we’re searching for a way to leave without condemning the Afghans to endless civil war. In Pakistan, years of throwing money in the military’s direction have bought little cooperation and less love.

The Russians want to reset the reset, neither the Chinese nor anyone else can figure out what, if anything, the “pivot to Asia” really means, and Latin America and Africa continue to be mostly ignored, along with global issues such as climate change. Meanwhile, the administration’s expanding drone campaign suggests a counterterrorism strategy that has completely lost its bearings – we no longer seem very clear on who we need to kill or why.

Could Obama have done better?

In foreign policy as in life, stuff happens — including bad stuff no one could have predicted. Nonetheless, to a significant extent, President Obama is the author of his own lackluster foreign policy. He was a visionary candidate, but as president, he has presided over an exceptionally dysfunctional and un-visionary national security architecture — one that appears to drift from crisis to crisis, with little ability to look beyond the next few weeks. His national security staff is squabbling and demoralized, and though senior White House officials are good at making policy announcements, mechanisms to actually implement policies are sadly inadequate.

It doesn’t have to be this way. If Obama wants to fix his broken foreign policy machine, he can do it — but conversations with numerous insiders, as well as my own government experiences, suggest that he needs to focus on strategy, structure, process, management, and personnel as much as on new policy initiatives.

Not sexy, I know. But just as a start-up company needs more than an entrepreneurial founder with a couple of good ideas and a nifty PowerPoint presentation, the United States needs more than speeches and high-minded aspirations.

She offers some specific suggestions, but none of them are likely to succeed because of the amateur and dysfunctional nature of the Administration itself. Barack Obama is running America like he was mayor of Chicago, and it's not what you know but whom you know, who brought you to the dance, and what you did in the last political campaign.

Add to that a president who's largely disconnected and an essentially leftist tilt, and you have a recipe for exactly what we have now - a disaster.

Lots Of Obama Supporters Apparently Never Even Heard Of The Benghazi Attacks

An interesting sampler, done at an Obama campaign rally at Ohio University on October 17 by Revealing Politics, who says "most of the event attendees” had never heard of the terrorist attack or knew whom Ambassador Stevens was.

Yet another argument that we need to start administering tests to voters before handing them a ballot.

(h/t, The Blaze)

Heart Of Darkness - The Real Benghazi Coverup

The CIA is apparently not willing to fall on its sword to protect President Obama, Secretary Clinton , Ambassador Rice, and the rest of the Obama Administration.

It's now been leaked by officials within the Obama Administration that the CIA Head of Station in Libya reported within 24 hours that the attack on Benghazi that left four Americans dead was carried out by al-Qaeda and associated groups, that it was a planned operation, and that it had nothing to do with any protest or unrest over a video.

The linked story, which is essentially an AP rewrite says 'It is unclear who, if anyone, saw the cable outside the CIA at that point and how high up in the agency the information went.'

'Unclear'? It obviously went to various places - to the head of the CIA General Petraeus, to Obama's NSC Tom Donilon, and to Hillary Clinton as head of the State Department at the very least. That's how these things are routinely handled. Are we to believe Joe Biden and President Obama that nobody told them, and the entire attempt to spin this for nine days as a 'protest' over a video was due to misinformation and intelligence failure?

Or Hillary Clinton's claim that she didn't know either and that the obscene spin put on this was due to ' the fog of war'?

The AP does their best to shield the Administration, like always. They even repeated the falsehood Obama told at the last debate (with an assist from 'moderator' Candy Crowley) that he referred to Benghazi as a terrorist attack during his speech the day after in the Rose Garden, something I debunked previously.

But even if one takes a large leap in logic to assume that no one in the administration knew for certain what had happened, how does that explain the certainty with which the president and his minions declared for 8 days that what happened in Benghazi was a protest over a poorly made video on YouTube that turned violent?

How does it explain the deliberate removal of special forces security teams from Libya and the denials of Ambassador Stevens' own repeated requests for more of it? Even his request for a barbed wire fence around the Benghazi consulate was denied.

How does it explain situating an unprotected consulate and staff in Benghazi, known to be a hotbed of al-Qaeda and associated militias? Even the International Red Cross pulled out months before the attack because of the security situation. If the Red Cross knew, if most European intelligence bureaus like Britain's M15 knew, why didn't our own intel?

The answer of course, is fairly simple. None of it adds up.

What does add up is an attempt at a political coverup, and it possibly goes even deeper than just shielding the president and his administration from charges of gross incompetence during an election year when President Obama is chest pounding over his supposed foreign policy expertise.

Obama's big boast is 'I got bin-Laden'. What he also got (and its becoming more and more evident every day) is a relocation of al-Qaeda back into the Arab world.

He certainly deserved death, but along all the other disastrous fallout that occurred from assassinating a man who was essentially a retired terrorist, we settled a dispute between Osama bin-Laden and his second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri:

Bin laden was relatively comfortable in Abbotobad and wanted to keep al-Qaeda anchored in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Zawahiri, looking at developments in his native Egypt and elsewhere like the 'Arab Spring' , the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and President Obama's already announced retreat from the region was pushing to relocate al-Qaeda back to the Middle East and the roiling Arab world.

So now that Osama's dead (and according to my sources, there are pretty solid indications he was deliberately fingered) Zawahiri, a former Muslim Brotherhood member has taken over and we see increased al-Qaeda presence in both the Egyptian Sinai and Libya, as well as in Iraq where the Maliki government's marginalization of the Sunnis has given al-Qaeda new life.

And that's not all.

Libya is another case where President Obama's amateurism has led to dangerous developments.Moammar Khaddaffi was an odious tyrant, but he essentially retired from any support for terrorism. In fact, he was helping our CIA catch al-Qada fighters in the Maghreb and was actually receiving foreign aid from us.

It was known from the very beginning that the Libyan rebels had substantial elements of al-Qaeda and other salifist groups, yet President Obama intervened militarily, allowing the rebels to take over the country and murder Khaddaffi when he otherwise would have quashed the revolt.

Aside from allowing al-Qaeda and its associated militias to survive, it also allowed them to plunder Khaddaffi's armories and help themselves to his weaponry, including shoulder fired Stinger missiles capable of bringing down a helicopter or a commercial airline. In fact, a shipment of those missiles coming from Libya was intercepted on its way to the al-Qaeda forces in Sinai.

The mortars, RPGs and automatic weapons used in the attack on our Benghazi consulate were almost certainly obtained by al-Qaeda as a direct result of President Obama's intervention in Libya.

That's undoubtedly the Heart of Darkness, the real core of what President Obama and his minions  would rather  the American people weren't talking about right now.

Think of it as a Middle Eastern version of Fast and Furious, where innocent peopl egot murdered by weapons they obtained by this Administration's policies. Only  this one has  much more disastrous long term consequences for America.

The Council Has Spoken!! This Week's Watcher's Council Winners

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week's Watcher's Council match up.

Even taking into consideration the normal high level of quality in both the Council and Non-Council entries, this was a tough call with some exceptional pieces to choose from, and the close vote tallies reflect that, believe me!



An old saying...the coverup's worse than the crime.

This week's winner, The Independent Sentinel's  False Benghazi Narrative Exposed, Bizarre Finger Pointing, a Leaderless White House is an excellent look at the Benghazi debacle and the White House attempt at a politically motivated coverup. Here's a slice:

the wheel spins if you give it time

Did you really ever believe the movie trailer led to the Benghazi attacks? I googled anti-Mohammad videos on YouTube to see if the trailer was unique. It was not. I found hundreds of anti-Mohammad videos within minutes and I didn’t try very hard. So, why this video? There is no reason. It could have been any video. It wasn’t about the video.

Using the trailer as an excuse works for terrorists who want to keep President Obama in office but still launch an attack. The attackers at several of the embassies, including the one in Cairo, chanted, “Obama, Obama, we are all Osama,” giving a clear indication of who they were really angry with.


Did spiking the football at the DNC Convention have NOTHING to do with the attacks? The death of Osama bin Laden was glorified 21 times during the convention.
Benghazi was particularly horrific and we lost four lives:

• Benghazi was different from the other attacks in that there was absolutely no evidence of a protest.
• There were at least 48 attacks in Benghazi prior to the attack in which our four Americans died and a total of more than 230 attacks in Libya overall.
• Libyan employees quit their jobs at the consulate in the months before the attack and told the Ambassador and other U.S. officials that a big attack was coming.
• Within days of the attack, the Libyan guards said an attack was coming.
• The Ambassador feared for his life and put it in a journal that had to be found by a CNN reporter because the FBI wasn’t at the consulate until October 3rd.
• Charlene Lamb of the State Department testified under oath that she had real time communication with the consulate during their five hours of hell.
• It was 9/11.
• Lt. Col. Andrew Wood and Eric Nordstrom, security officials, pleaded for more security and were given less security.
• After Benghazi, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama went on a blame the trailer tour and the director of the trailer, Nakoula Basseley Nikoula, has been jailed without remand on an old probation beef. Clinton and Obama even appeared in apology ads that played in Pakistan and which led to the government giving Pakistanis the day off to riot against the U.S.
• Because of the lack of adequate security and an inadequate facility, high level intelligence documents went missing along with weapons and equipment belonging to the Brits.

In our non-Council category, the winner was Lara Logan with 'We're Being Lied to' submitted by Joshuapundit. It's a video of a speech the veteran foreign correspondent gave to an organization of journalists, politicians and influential academics as the Keynote speaker for the Foundation of Good Government in Chicago in which she details what's really going on in AfPak and the Middle East, how the American people are being lied to by Washington and how it's a threat to our way of life.Highly recommended, it's twenty minutes that could change your perspective.

I'd also like to especially direct your attention to The Mellow Jihadi's piece this week, Major Andrew Olmsted: Blogger, American Hero. To those of us whom remember Major Olmstead's time on the Watcher's Council, being deprived of his friendship, his warmth, and his rare sense of humor is a loss we feel to this day. I'll never forget his wisecrack upon being deployed; "Hey, Iraq must be in worse shape than I thought if they're sending me!"

RIP Major Olmstead..and rest assured you are not forgotten by those whom had the privilege of knowing you for an all too brief time.


OK, here are this week’s full results:

Council Winners

• *First place with 3 1/3 votes! The Independent Sentinel –False Benghazi Narrative Exposed, Bizarre Finger Pointing, a Leaderless White House


• Second place with 3 votes – Joshuapundit - What The Reaction To The VP Debate Proves About The Left


• Third place with 2 1/3 votes – The Mellow Jihadi-Major Andrew Olmsted: Blogger, American Hero


• Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – The Razor-You Can't End Racism by Being Racist


• Fourth place *t* with 1 1/3 vote – The Noisy Room-Cyber Smoke Screen


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Right Planet-Fed Up with 'Middle Class'


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote – Gay Patriot-No, Mrs. Clinton didn't fall on her sword over Benghazi


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Bookworm Room – Found it on Facebook — Planned Parenthood’s attack on Paul Ryan


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – VA Right! –Voters Find ‘Mitt the Monster’ a Complete Fabrication by the Left


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Simply Jews –Gideon Levy and the ugly act of not-rape


• Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Glittering Eye – Why Unemployment Stays High, Simply Explained

Non-Council Winners

• First place with 2 1/3 votes! – Lara Logan-We're Being Lied to'   submitted by Joshuapundit


• Second place *t* with 1 2/3 votes – Gates of Vienna – Faceless In The Park s submitted by The Watcher


• Second place *t* with 1 2/3 votes – Dennis Prager –Joe Biden's True Religion submitted by The Watcher


• Third place with 1 1/3 votes -Sultan Knish-The Odd Couple of Barack and Joe submitted by The Noisy Room


• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote Yid With Lid -Newsbusted: Pennsylvania Dems Holding Voter Registration Drives at Cemeteries


• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote - Allen West – Field Of Dreams   submitted by The Right Planet


• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote - The Commentator –The banal realities of Israel's self-defence submitted by Simply Jews


• Fourth place *t* with 1 vote -Amil Imani –Criminalizing The Defamation of Islam submitted by The Mellow Jihadi


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -LSE –Germany and Israel: Is It Friendship? submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD


• Fifth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Joshua Gans/Digitopoly –A Nobel Prize for Market Design submitted by The Glittering Eye


• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Big Lizards –Obama's October (yawn) Surprise? submitted by Rhymes With Right


• Sixth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Huffington Post –Black People For Obama: African-American Support For Obama Called Prejudice, Blind Loyalty submitted by The Razor


• Seventh place with 1/3 vote -Camile Paglia/WSJ –How Capitalism Can Save Art submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey

See you next week! Don't forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week's Watcher's Forum, as the Council and their invited guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day and weigh in...don't you dare miss it. And don't forget to like us us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter..'cause we're cool like that!

Romney Does Stand Up Last Night At The Al Smith Dinner!!

The Al Smith dinner is an annual gala event held every year at this time in New York by the Al Smith Charitable Foundation, a Catholic charitable organization named after New York's former governor, the first Catholic ever to run for president as a Democrat in 1928. It's a $2,500 a seat fundraiser for the foundation.

In keeping with its namesake's sharp wit, noted goodwill and friendship for people on both sides of the aisle, the dinner is a bi-partisan affair noted for barbed humor and witty byplay by the speakers..and all in a good cause.

Mitt Romney and Barack Obama both spoke to the assembled bi-partisan crowd and I note with interest the difference in tone, the sense of humor, the difference in their ability to laugh at themselves and the way their remarks were received.

To me, Mitt Romney seemed confident, comfortable and loose. The president did not. See what you think.



( thanks and a hat tip for the Romney video to Wolf Howling via Dr. Sanity)

'Undecided' Voter Who Asked AK-47 Question At Debate - Registered Dem, Obama Campaign Worker

Goodness, I wonder how that happened?

I'll tell you how..it's because the GOP continues to lay down and allow left leaning talking heads from the dinosaur media to moderate and control the debate action.

If I were running, I'd insist on Lincoln-Douglas style..a neutral timekeeper with a gavel and no moderator at all.

Excellent Ad Exposing What Obama And The Administration Really Said About Benghazi

Devastating. From American Crossroads. Their description:

The video juxtaposes Obama’s claim in the debate against multiple televised statements by White House and Administration officials in subsequent days. It clearly shows that while the president now claims his Rose Garden speech called the Benghazi attack an “act of terror,” neither the White House press office nor Administration officials viewed that speech as an affirmation of terrorism in Benghazi.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice repeatedly referred to the “video” as cause of the attack in subsequent administration statements – with Carney specifically affirming that the White House HAD NOT called the Benghazi attack “terrorism” on September 20.

The Rice and Carney statements unambiguously show that Obama’s claim is misleading.

Jimmy Kimmel Scores Again: 'Who Won The First Lady Debate' ?

This is absolutely hysterical.

There's no such thing as a 'First Lady debate' , so Jimmy Kimmel went on the street and asked a slew of Hollywood Boulevard pedestrians who they thought won the non-existent event and taped their made up answers.

One guy even admitted that "honestly" he only saw a "little bit of it," because he was busy with something else....

Pure comedy gold.