Keep Ignoring This Particular Problem Until It Swims Up and Bites Us … Again

Shooting At Washington DC Navy Yard Reportedly Leaves Several Woundedmass_shooters

The MSM (and liberals with Twitter accounts) resorted to the typical template with last week’s Washington DC Navy Yard mass murder shooting:

First, get the facts completely wrong, even the person’s name/identity … Just be first with the dirt
Second, continue to push the lie(s) because it fits the gun control agenda
Third, barely, if that, correct the error(s)
Fourth, still push the blame on the gun, even if it is not the gun used
Fifth, find somebody else to blame (always first blame the NRA, then the GOP and/or “Bible-thumping Second Amendment law-abiding Americans)
Sixth, stupidly and wrongly blame the TEA Party/conservatives/”rightwingers” (even though some of the recent shooters have been democrat/liberal-leaners … and Obama and gun control supporters)
Seventh, (“He played video games? Thank Gaia!”) Blame the video games!
*Eighth (continued below the fold), completely ignore the fact that almost all of the mass shootings are happening in “Gun Free Zones” … Yes, even military bases

You see, it is never the shooter’s responsibility, or their history of mental illness and its occasionally volatile medications. It is always a deflection of responsibility and blame and condemnation of the gun(s), the Second Amendment, those who persist in defending the Constitution’s Bill of Rights, the other political party, violence-based entertainment, global warming/climate change…

However, while we are grasping at blame cards, Ann Coulter does find a viable source of blame that absolutely does connect with the mass murderers in America over the last four decades:

There’s been another mass shooting by a crazy person, and liberals still refuse to consider institutionalizing the dangerous mentally ill.

[…]

But Alexis couldn’t be institutionalized because the left has officially certified the mentally ill as “victims,” and once you’re a victim, all that matters is that you not be “stigmatized.”

But here’s the problem: Coddling the mentally ill isn’t even helping the mentally ill. Ask the sisters of crazy homeless woman “Billie Boggs” how grateful they were to the ACLU for keeping Boggs living on the streets of New York City. Ask the parents of Aaron Alexis, James Holmes (Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooter), Jared Loughner (Tucson, Ariz., mall shooter) or Seung-Hui Cho (Virginia Tech shooter) how happy they are that their sons weren’t institutionalized.

Tellingly, throughout the last three decades, the overall homicide rate has been in free fall, thanks to Republican crime policies, from 10 per 100,000 in 1980 to 4 per 100,00 today. (You might even call them “common sense” crime policies.) But the number of mass shootings has skyrocketed from 4 per year, between 1900 and 1970, to 29 per year since then.

Something seems to have gone horribly wrong right around 1970. What could it be? Was it the introduction of bell-bottoms?

That date happens to correlate precisely with when the country began throwing the mentally ill out of institutions in 1969. Your memory of there not being as many mass murders a few decades ago is correct. Your memory of there not being as many homeless people a few decades ago is also correct.

But liberals won’t allow the dangerous mentally ill to be committed to institutions against their will. (The threat of commitment is very persuasive in getting disturbed individuals to take their medicine.) Something in liberals’ genetic makeup compels them to attack civilization, for example, by defending the right of dangerous psychotics to refuse treatment and then representing them in court after they commit murder.

[…]

In the decades since the deinstitutionalization movement began, more and more people kept being killed as a result of that movement — including the deinstitutionalized themselves. According to Torrey, between 1970 and 2004, the mentally ill were responsible for at least 4,700 murders in California.

Liberals will pretend to have missed the news that the Washington Navy Yard shooter was a paranoid schizophrenic. They refuse to acknowledge that the mass murder problem — as well as the homeless problem — only began after crazy people were thrown out of institutions in the 1970s. They tell us crapping in your pants on a New York City sidewalk is a “civil right.” They say that haranguing passersby on the street about your persecution by various movie stars is a form of “free speech.”

Only after a mass murder committed by a psychotic with a firearm do liberals spring to life and suggest a solution: Take away everyone’s guns.

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The Most Ignored Administration in History

For starters, Democrat strategist Pat Caddell gives his ideas on why Rep. John Boehner has done little to nothing on the Benghazi and IRS investigations of the administration:

Mr. Caddell has back-up on his assertions…

IBD: A Select Committee Needed In IRS, Benghazi Scandals

Victor Davis Hanson @ NRO: Obama’s Watergates: Denial, evasion, “Let me be perfectly clear” — is this 2013 or 1973?

But wait, it gets even better…

Doug Ross @ Journal: BOMBSHELL REPORT: Valerie Jarrett Gave the Orders on 9/11/2012 and Blocked Rescue in Benghazi

However, a glint of admission comes from the media itself as to why the press finds it difficult to ask Obama, or anyone in the administration, the much needed and demanded tough questions:

As the one year anniversary of the deadly attack on an American consulate in Benghazi approaches, journalists have begun to take another look into the scandal surrounding the government’s response to that terrorist event. Last week, CNN aired two striking reports revealing that the Central Intelligence Agency had a large number of agents on the ground on the night of the attack and that a suspect in the attack has never been interviewed by investigators. Following these revelatory reports, which some in President Barack Obama’s administration believe represent a political threat, some CNN reporters now fear for their access to the White House. They are not alone.

On July 31, CNN’s The Situation Room broadcast a portion of an interview conducted by reporter Arwa Damon with a suspect in the Benghazi attacks. The suspect revealed to Damon that no investigator has attempted to contact him regarding his involvement in that deadly assault. The following day, CNN’s Drew Griffin broke the news that more than 30 CIA agents were on the ground in Libya on the day of the attack and they are being pressured by the spy agency to not reveal to reporters or congressional investigators what they know of the events of that night. Some CNN reporters are reportedly fearful now that their access to the White House will be hampered following their probing into a story that members of the Obama administration would prefer remain uninvestigated.

“Access is a very serious consideration when it comes to stories that could adversely impact a show, correspondent, or network’s relationship with the administration, a campaign, or any political leader,” one source with insider information told Mediaite.

“I would suggest it’s not an accident that those who have been given a lot of access to the president have generally been AWOL when it comes to stories that might reflect poorly on him,” the source, who did not wish to be identified, continued. “It’s the name of the game. And it’s bad for everyone trying to do this job the right way.” Those reporters have reason to fear for their access to America’s executive branch. Some suspect that reporters who soft-pedal or underreport stories uncomfortable to the administration receive preferential access to White House officials.

And then there are those pesky al Qaeda prison breaks just screaming for attention, in addition to Iraq falling apart.

Glenn Beck asks: “Why is no one talking about the three huge prison breaks in the Middle East?”

And how about Obama refusing to even talk about the recent terror threat with the press, but possibly giving the one and only question on the situation to a late night comedian?

President Obama continues to say nothing to a jittery nation about what some who have been briefed on the danger are describing as the worst terrorist threat since 9/11, declining to either offer reassurance or an explanation of the peril the nation faces.

Certainly, the president does not want to take questions about a threat he had minimized during the 2012 campaign. But what’s striking is that he has not addressed the nation in a formal manner on the potential for a major attack.

Incredibly, the first question Obama might take on the situation could come from a comedian. Obama is scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno this evening in California, and the topic is sure to come up. He has an event earlier in the day, but it’s a campaign-style appearance at a high school in Phoenix, also an odd venue to be discussing potential terrorist attacks.

Hey, MSM, you’re not the least bit pissed about this? I mean, can you imagine how the very same MSM would be reacting were it Pres. George W. Bush spending the weekend golfing while a record number of U.S. embassies in the world were closed due to a hightened terror threat(s) here and abroad … and then ducking onto a late night entertainment show for a bit of softball back-and-forth?

“Obama’s Castro-like speech, both in substance and length, bombs…”

ospeech

As usual we must swim across the deep blue pond to get the honest reviews/reporting from the UK’s non-Obama appeasing media. Here is the Telegraph’s Nile Gardiner on Obama’s long and inane speech from yesterday afternoon at Knox College, Illinois…

Today’s speech at Knox College, Illinois, was supposed to be the president’s come-back moment, the first of a series of addresses aimed at retaking the initiative by the White House. Instead it was a train-wreck. In an hour-long address, which seemed to last forever (and par for course started 15 minutes late), the president spoke in deeply partisan terms, often with bitterness and anger, lambasting his political opponents, dismissing criticism of his policies, and launching into his favourite theme of class warfare, attacking the wealthy and what he calls the “winner takes all economy.” In a display of extraordinary arrogance (even by his standards), he condemned what he called “an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals,” a direct reference to the Congressional investigations into the IRS and Benghazi scandals, which most Americans don’t see as phony. He also defended his increasingly unpopular Obamacare proposals, attacking what he calls “a politically-motivated misinformation campaign,” while failing to acknowledge that moderate Democrats are “steadily turning against Obamacare” as The Washington Post reported today.

This was a highly defensive speech, with President Obama in full campaign mode. There were no fresh ideas, just a tired rehash of earlier campaign rhetoric. It was also another love letter to big government, with a clarion call for yet more federal spending on environmental measures, infrastructure, manufacturing, and a laundry list of liberal pet causes. There was not a word about reducing the burden of government regulation, and getting bureaucracy off the backs of entrepreneurs. His speech promised more government spending at a time when America’s national debt is approaching a staggering $17 trillion. He rejected tax cuts, and bashed the rich, at times sounding more like Francois Hollande than the leader of the free world.

Once again, Barack Obama demonstrated why he has built an unenviable reputation as a perpetual campaigner in chief, with an overwhelmingly partisan agenda. Obama is no Ronald Reagan, who always sought to bring the country together based on the common ideals of the Founding Fathers. President Obama’s message will do nothing to reassure a sceptical American public. With unemployment still above 10 percent in 27 major US metropolitan areas, and nearly one in six Americans living on food stamps, the economic record of this administration leaves much to be desired. Today in Illinois, President Obama spoke the language of decline, promising more of the same left-wing policies that have weakened US competitiveness, eroded economic freedom, and have saddled the world’s superpower with historic levels of debt. Americans deserve better than the failed statism that has bankrupted cities like Detroit, and threatens to do the same to the rest of the country.

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While watching Sean Hannity’s FOX News Channel TV show last night, Sean was running a recording of this Obama speech silently in the botton right corner of the screen, showing how long the man had droned on and on, and did not finish by the time Hannity’s show had ended. Here is a link to the video and the transcript of Obama’s Knox College, Illinois speech from yesterday.

HT on this post’s title from Mark Levin @ Facebook

Of interest:

“Two Americans Added to Food Stamp Rolls for Every Job Administration Says It Created”

“Top 10 Signs Scandals Aren’t ‘Phony'”

“President Alinsky Threatens Americans with Rising ‘Social Tensions’”

“Poll: Race relations have plummeted since Obama took office”

The Media’s Sloppy Racist Ways on Display … Again

“If there’s anyone out there that has never said something that they wish they could take back, if you’re out there, please pick up that stone and throw it so hard at my head that it kills me … Please, I want to meet you.”

In the last week we have heard the tale of cooking queen Paula Deen’s sin of using a certain derogatory racist term roughly twenty years ago when she had a gun in her face during a bank robbery. Yes, the “N” word. You see, full-throated Obama supporter Paula Deen (who has fallen out of favor for something else) was under oath and asked if she had ever used that word. Instead of the usual CYA answer most people use when asked such things under oath (I can’t/don’t recall…), Deen responded truthfully and answered ‘yes’ she had. Some defense of Deen has been how she grew up in the south where use of that word was ingrained in the culture. She is currently being dumped from TV, Vegas, stores, and business endorsements and to be the scourge of humanity until the Earth collides with the Sun … and then some. Yet, her new book has jumped to #1 on the Amazon best seller’s list, and it’s not even due to be released until October.

Jump now to the George Zimmerman trial taking place in Florida. From the first moment this local story was shoved onto the national stage the MSM has spun it thick with racial tone, going so far as to designate Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic” who murdered an unarmed black teen (Remember, this is the same MSM that has completely tossed out the fact that Barack Obama is half white so that they can cut-off any opposition/criticism of him and his policies). The media continued to feed the racist beast for months and months, even getting caught creatively editing the audio tape of Zimmerman’s 911 call to make him sound like a racist out for blood becuase he used the word “black” in his description to the 911 operator, or selectively editing police station video to make Zimmerman appear unharmed. The prosecution’s key (very but troublesome) witness in its case against Zimmerman, Rachel Jeantel, is the female friend that was allegedly on the phone with Trayvon Martin at the time of the altercation with Zimmerman the night he died.

Mz. Jeantel’s testimony today revealed part of the phone exchange where Trayvon described Zimmerman as a “crazy-assed cracker”. When Zimmerman’s lawyer, on cross-examination, suggested to the witness that racism did come into that horrible night, but that Trayvon Martin had been the one that brought it in by using those words, she denied the suggestion, finally defending the use of the racist white term as part of her “community” (i.e., culture) … as is the dreaded “N” word.

And here we have the media that spent a week not accepting any explanations or apologies regarding Paula Deen’s nasty word usage, bending over backward and twisting inside-out to rationalize and excuse Jeantel’s and Trayvon’s (and their community’s/culture’s) use of racist words

(This guy will not be the only one to make this stretch … Count on it.)

I don’t know about you but in a country that just yesterday had the highest court in the land pretty much rule in favor of equal treatment under the law (which the media openly celebrated), I refuse to continue to live under this slapping-hand of the hypocritical MSM PC word police (MSNBC one of THE worst media racists on a daily consistent basis) and the equally guilty politicians and all other “progressive” Alinsky-fed ilks dictating to the rest of the country. I am beyond disgusted with this. Shame on the manipulative MSM, political class, and various other racially motivated instigators dragging down this great country. And shame on the American people for not only swallowing it, but allowing it to continue. It has to stop … immediately.

Malfeasance: Subverting Democracy and The Republic from Within

Conservative radio host Michael Savage has been warning for years about “The Enemy Within”. It is like a cancer … by the time you actually see it and feel it you just might be in the end stage and dying…

Obama and his team have subverted the government they pledged to serve.

Truth is the lifeblood of democracy. Without honesty, the foundations of consensual government crumble. If the Internal Revenue Service acts unlawfully, our system of citizens’ computing their own taxes implodes.

Yet Lois Lerner, one of the IRS’s top officials, would not answer simple questions about her agency’s conduct during congressional testimony, instead pleading the Fifth Amendment. Any taxpayer who tried that with an IRS auditor would end up fined, if not in jail.

[…] IRS malfeasance was not limited only to the Cincinnati office, as alleged, but followed directives sent from higher-ups in Washington.

[…]

Attorney General Eric Holder — who had already been held in contempt by the House of Representatives for declining to turn over internal Justice Department documents in the earlier Fast and Furious scandal — swore to Congress that he had no knowledge of any effort to go after individual reporters. But according to an official Justice Department statement, Holder had in fact signed off on the search warrant to monitor the communications of Fox News reporter James Rosen. In other words, the attorney general of the United States under oath misled — or lied to — Congress.

[…]

Deception is now institutionalized in the Obama administration. It infects almost every corner of the executive branch, eroding the trust necessary for the IRS, the Department of Justice, our security agencies, and the president’s official spokesman — sabotaging the public trust required for democracy itself.

What went wrong with the Obama administration?

For one thing, there is no longer a traditional adversarial media in Washington. Spouses and siblings of executives at the major television networks are embedded within the administration. […]

There is also utopian arrogance in Washington that justifies any means necessary to achieve exalted ends of supposed fairness and egalitarianism. If one has to tell a lie to stop the Tea Party or Fox News, then it is not seen by this administration as a lie…

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However, the MSM (who have already been targeted and, in some regards contained (or worse???), by the Holder DOJ to keep them in their place) shouldn’t expect any answers if/when they do decide to do their defined “watchdog” job(s) and hold this administration accountable with serious questions that demand answers: “White House’s Jay Carney dodges questions more than 9,000 times”

And come Tuesday Obama begins his next phase of the coup he is operating against the American people/business/industry/economy, and the U.S. Constitution, complete with propaganda video..

President Obama said Saturday that scientists must design new fuels and energy sources to curb carbon pollution, part of a larger plan that he will announce next week that is expected to include efforts to regulate emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The president says in an online video that his plan includes preparing the United States for the effects of such pollution, which has been connected to climate change, and leading other nations in such efforts.

The new details and the Environmental Protection Agency-led plan for coal-firing plants, under the Clean Air Act, comes as no surprise, considering what Obama said in 2008 while running for this first term.

“If someone wants to build a new coal-fired power plant they can, but it will bankrupt them because they will be charged a huge sum for all the greenhouse gas that’s being emitted,” he said.

Obama also says in the video that no single step can reverse climate change and that workers must prepare for a clean energy economy.

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And they aren’t finished trying to disarm us. Even this administration’s own netroots are reaching their limit.

As the overreaching federal government grows and grows in strength the only ‘gain’ gotten from all this exercise in ‘pain’ we are going to increasingly feel is to Barack Obama’s and the federal government’s advantage, not ours. When the administration has become repeatedly unaccountable to the Congress and the American people … Well, what was it he scoffingly discounted on a warm sunny May afternoon at The Ohio State University’s commencement…???

Best Pickings of The Day

American Thinker: “IRS Targeted Conservative Hispanic Outreach Group, Too” (More @ The Gateway Pundit)

The Gateway Pundit: “Beck, Bachmann, Rand Paul, Mike Lee & Ted Cruz to Headline “Audit the IRS Rally” Wednesday in Washington DC”

But hey, we are all just being paranoid and blowing that whole NSA spying on Americans all out of proportion.

Is every country in South America going all Castro Cuba these days (previous post here)?

APTOPIX Brazil Confed Cup Protests

From Sen. Ted Cruz (You magnificent bastard!) @ Twitter

Meet Louisiana State Sen. Elbert Guillorynew Republican

You can “Like” the Good Senator on Facebook. (Not sure if he’s on Twitter.)

More “Best Pickings”:

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Eager and Willing Bedfellows Now Complaining About the Lousy Sex…

The national politics editor for the (AP), writer Liz Sidoti, tries her hand at scolding Obama in the face of mounting scandals of government overreach and malpractice…

WASHINGTON (AP) — As a candidate, Barack Obama vowed to bring a different, better kind of leadership to the dysfunctional capital. He’d make government more efficient, accountable and transparent. He’d rise above the “small-ball” nature of doing business. And he’d work with Republicans to break Washington paralysis.

You can trust me, Obama said back in 2008. And – for a while, at least – a good piece of the country did.

But with big promises often come big failures – and the potential for big hits to the one thing that can make or break a presidency: credibility.

A series of mounting controversies is exposing both the risks of political promise-making and the limits of national-level governing while undercutting the core assurance Obama made from the outset: that he and his administration would behave differently.

The latest: the government’s acknowledgement that, in a holdover from the Bush administration and with a bipartisan Congress’ approval and a secret court’s authorization, it was siphoning the phone records of millions of American citizens in a massive data-collection effort officials say was meant to protect the nation from terrorism. This came after the disclosure that the government was snooping on journalists.

Also, the IRS’ improper targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny as they sought tax-exempt status has spiraled into a wholesale examination of the agency, including the finding that it spent $49 million in taxpayer money on 225 employee conferences over the past three years.

[…]

If the controversies drag on, morale across America could end up taking a huge hit, just when the mood seems to be improving along with an economic uptick. Or, Americans could end up buying Obama’s arguments that safety sometimes trumps privacy, that his administration is taking action on the IRS, and that he’s doing the best he can to forge bipartisan compromise when Republicans are obstructing progress.

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“Progress” being the operative word the liberal MSM is now worried about. I’d wager the media is less concerned with the content of these mounting scandals, and more concerned they managed to seep out and soil their champion of “progress”. Obviously the writer manages the “it’s the GOP’s fault” in order to lessen the weight of all of this on Obama’s “no buck stops here” shoulders. Oh, and by the way, that economic “uptick is a joke.

“In the morning, those who have engaged in whorish behavior … are somehow astonished by a lack of respect”

102109_obama_media-500x375

Clark Whelton writes in “City Journal” about Obama’s “Death by Media”

Through two presidential campaigns and Obama’s first term, mainstream editors, editorial writers, and journalists served as de facto auxiliaries for the White House press office. Certain that they were serving a noble cause, they soft-pedaled bad news about the economy and ignored or played down the president’s gaffes. Aided by one-liners from late-night talk-show hosts, they attacked and ridiculed Fox News or any reporter, radio commentator, writer, or blogger not riding Obama’s bandwagon. They hounded and harassed Sarah Palin—author Joe McGinnis even moved next door to her home—determined to destroy someone they perceived as a threat to Obama’s power. They rode shotgun as Obamacare made its way through Congress. And they led the chorus of derision that greeted early reports of political corruption inside the IRS.

[…]

In the morning, those who have engaged in whorish behavior—or in this case, those rewarded with invitations to insider Washington parties and access to private e-mail lists—are somehow astonished by a lack of respect. Members of the media, including Associated Press reporters, after favoring and flattering Obama for years, were stunned to discover that Obama’s Department of Justice was treating them like tarts and had targeted the AP with secret subpoenas.

The end of the affair is always painful and poignant. Unaccustomed to sunlight, fleeing suspicions of malfeasance and outright criminality, the Obama administration is pleading guilty to incompetence and ignorance…

An independent press is a compass, a vital part of the American system of checks and balances. It can provide the ship of state with mid-course corrections. But a compass that swings any way the helmsman wants is worse than useless. It points the way to disaster.

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HT: Ziva

The Obama administration, in the end, simply just didn’t trust the media that was eating out of the palm of its unclenched hand … even when it was making them feel so important and successful at their job of making his time in office a success.

And if reporters and investigative journalists dare to do what is true to their job description they are punished:

“Stratfor Email: Brennan Behind ‘Witch Hunt’ of Journalists Reporting Leaks”

“Fired KMOV anchor Larry Conners defends Facebook comments about IRS”

“NY Times Scrubs Article Critical Of IRS…”

“Chuck Todd: Obama Administration Wants To Criminalize Journalism”

“DOJ Denies it Hacked Attkisson’s Computer”

“DOJ invoked Espionage Act in calling Fox News reporter criminal ‘co-conspirator'”

“House pushes judicial oversight of DOJ in wake of Associated Press leaks case”

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As The Worm Turns: Hey (AP), Who’s Your Messiah Now?

obama halo

As if the IRS bombshell isn’t bad enough, now comes word the Obama/Holder DOJ has swooped-in and scooped-up two months of cell phone records of reporters and editors of the news organization Associated Press … secretly:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.

The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery, according to attorneys for the AP. It was not clear if the records also included incoming calls or the duration of calls.

In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices where phone records were targeted, on a wide array of stories about government and other matters.

In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation. He demanded the return of the phone records and destruction of all copies.

“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know,” Pruitt said.

The government would not say why it sought the records. U.S. officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have provided information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.

In testimony in February, CIA Director John Brennan noted that the FBI had questioned him about whether he was AP’s source, which he denied. He called the release of the information to the media about the terror plot an “unauthorized and dangerous disclosure of classified information.”

Prosecutors have sought phone records from reporters before, but the seizure of records from such a wide array of AP offices, including general AP switchboards numbers and an office-wide shared fax line, is unusual.

In the letter notifying the AP received Friday, the Justice Department offered no explanation for the seizure, according to Pruitt’s letter and attorneys for the AP. The records were presumably obtained from phone companies earlier this year although the government letter did not explain that. None of the information provided by the government to the AP suggested the actual phone conversations were monitored.

Among those whose phone numbers were obtained were five reporters and an editor who were involved in the May 7, 2012 story.

The Obama administration has aggressively investigated disclosures of classified information to the media and has brought six cases against people suspected of providing classified information, more than under all previous presidents combined.

In the letter notifying the AP received Friday, the Justice Department offered no explanation for the seizure, according to Pruitt’s letter and attorneys for the AP. The records were presumably obtained from phone companies earlier this year although the government letter did not explain that. None of the information provided by the government to the AP suggested the actual phone conversations were monitored.

Among those whose phone numbers were obtained were five reporters and an editor who were involved in the May 7, 2012 story.

Continue

Always the Friday/weekend docu-dump with this administration.

Keep in mind, the (AP) is one of the many news outlets that have willfully and eagerly coddled and acquiesced to Barack Obama for over six years, not only protecting him from any negative press and attacking any opposition to him, but presenting him in this almighty, flawless, ethereal image.

The Endangered MSM Plays Catch-Up on Benghazi While Acting as If It’s New News

DEVELOPING: The U.S. military has been put on alert because the security situation has deteriorated in Tripoli, and U.S. and other nations are pulling their government personnel in response.
One more developing mention, Stephen Hayes is tweeting that more Benghazi whistleblowers are on-deck, including CIA officials. (popcorn please)

The most transparent administration in U.S. history held an off-the-record Benghazi briefing — er — “deep background” with the press. Well, it is Friday, and time for an administration docu-drop when everybody’s looking forward to starting the weekend. By the way, The Daily Caller has proof the White House press corps are being bought-off by the administration with donuts. I guess controlling the message is slipping through the administration’s fingers. Uh-huh…

Here is a brief summary about how the *yawning* MSM has covered the Benghazi hearing.

This from ABC today, which they are laughingly calling an “Exclusive” report: “Exclusive: Benghazi Talking Points Underwent 12 Revisions, Scrubbed of Terror Reference”

Never mind most of us have known this information for months since the attacks, but have been ignored, or called nasty names. I think it’s safe to say ABC has finally read the Stephen Hayes piece from a few days ago

I am told MSNBC has echoed ABC’s report, which takes from The Weekly Standard. And Chris Matthews and Company try so darned hard over there. However, many Obamabots are in seething denial.

Meanwhile the White House Press Secretary still driving that whole administration lie, and then some.

Heh!

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The Rhodes to The Benghazi Cover-Up?

rhodes obama

It’s an interesting bit of twisted incest, if you will. Follow along

CIA career officials clearly and repeatedly identified Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda-linked Islamic terrorists as the culprits behind the murder of four Americans.

Of course, this would cause embarrassment for the Obama team, especially in the few weeks before the election. They had been boasting for years that Al Qaeda had been decimated, the “tide of war” was receding; they had been on a mission to whitewash the prospect of Islamic terrorism as a threat to America (see Lauri Regan’s superb column (“Can a President who has promised to stand with Muslims protect America? ). Obama’s Cairo speech before an audience that included Muslim Brotherhood officials that he compelled Egypt to include, was a paean to Islam. It was also, to a great extent, a work of fiction that included grandiose and subsequently disproven claims about the positive contributions Islam has made to America and the world.

That speech was written by Obama’s foreign policy speechwriter and now National Security Council team member, Ben Rhodes.

That is the man who Hayes “outs” as a key person behind the Benghazi cover-up.

He reportedly altered the CIA talking points to delete references to Islamic terrorists, “attacks” (they became “demonstrations”) and other negative references to Islamism. Also, someone at the White House level apparently dreamt up the idea of blaming an inconsequential video for triggering a spontaneous protest, that in the frenzy of events, led to the murder of Americans. These CIA talking points were eviscerated to whitewash the role of Islamic terrorism.

There was a White House whitewash that should not be dismissed over events that occurred a ‘long time ago;” contrary to Hillary Clinton saying that responsibility for the deaths of Americans serving their nation does “matter.” And despite Secretary of State’s John Kerry’s dismissiveness towards the Benghazi murders – “we got a lot more important things to move on to” – justice for the America’s dead demands we find who is responsible.

Ben Rhodes should be called to account for trying to divert blame away from Islamic terrorists and the Obama team members whose feckless negligence led to the Benghazi massacre.

I have previously written about Ben Rhodes and his role in the Obama White House. It is shameful that this “kid” (he is all of 35) has been given any responsibility at all in our government.

In “Does it bother anyone that this person is the Deputy National Security Adviser?” I noted his problematic background for someone given so much power by Obama. But then again he does specialize in fiction-writing.

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I am not sure just to what degree somebody such as Ben Rhodes should shoulder the weight of the Benghazi cover-up. After all, the buck stops at the desk where Obama props-up his feet, and in the worn sensible pumps Hillary Clinton walked the halls of the State department.

American Thinker contributor Clarice Feldman reminds me that the brother of Ben Rhodes is the president of CBS News, David Rhodes. As I stated earlier today, it has been CBS’s investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson who has been basically pulling teeth (and at times getting bitten) trying to get the truth out about what happened in the Obama administration’s “Fast and Furious” gunwalking project and the attack in Benghazi, and the political cover-up(s) aftermath. It is also important to point out Attkisson has been doing this tough and responsible journalist-thing, much to CBS’s chagrin, and I remind you that roughly a month ago she was in talks with CBS management to get out of her contract with the network. However, I am sure my Monday afternoon speculating over these ‘connections’ may appear a bit weak to some … but that’s probably because it is not a republican administration n`nat (as they say in Pittsburgh). “What difference does it make?”

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The MSM’s Silencing of The Lambs Again

“If Dr. Gosnell had walked into a nursery and shot seven infants with an AR-15, it would be national news and the subject of presidential hand-wringing.” – Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ)

The big question all week has been why the MSM news is not covering the murder trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell. Because shut up, that’s why! Let me elaborate a bit more on that…

Under all the growing pressure over the deafening silence Planned Parenthood had to squirm out an unbelievably “appalling” bullshit statement. You would think the MSM might take their lame lead and run with it, but no. You see this, in no way possible, is the abortion culture’s fault. No, it is the fault of pro-lifers that a Kermit Gosnell exists and desperate women seeking late term, partial birth and born alive abortions were forced to his little shop of (MSM) unspeakable horrors, damn it. No, the pro-abortion advocates and activists would have us believe Gosnell is an “outlier”, and not to be included with other mainstream “heroic” abortion-providers. Yeah, right.

If Newtown is a national news story, so is Kermit Gosnell. I think they’re both important. Why don’t you? – Jim Treacher @ Facebook

Well … Because just one day’s coverage, any of the last several days of verbal testimony (that would make Dr. Mengele proud) from those who worked beside Gosnell in those abortion rooms … just one story, will undo all that successful post Roe v. Wade leftist/liberal/progressive/democrat/MSM “sanitizing” of this abomination of a procedure/practice than all the pro-choice dreaded pre-abortion ultrasounds in the world could. Such messy little “things”.

Andrew McCarthy explains the abortion culture’s word game, and how the MSM just can’t seem to put the graphic testimony of Gosnell’s trial into words without undoing all the decades of skillful wordsmithing

Of course, to describe newborn children in their boundless possibilities and wonder would be to acknowledge, foremost, their humanity. That is why, instead, abortion enthusiasts must grope for words when circumstances force them to speak publicly about their gruesome business.

“That fetus, or child — however way you want to describe it,” Mr. Obama once stammered. This was back when, as a state senator, he was unnerved by the natural resistance of babies to the unnatural insistence of their mothers — of the culture — that they just disappear. If you’ve ever watched a hit man testify, you’ve heard the same stammer: the faint glimmer of a long-forgotten but stubbornly indelible line between right and wrong.

It is the line that makes killing much easier to do than to talk about. It is the line that now impels a self-imposed media embargo against news about the shocking trial of Kermit Gosnell.

[…]

Mounting evidence reveals him to be a mass murderer of epic scale and Mengele methods. It also spotlights the evil — the apparently unspeakable evil — of legalized abortion in all its coarsening gore. Plainly, the vaunted journalists of our debased mainstream have determined that there must be no meaningful coverage. No time in the 24/7 cycle to notice the inexorable path from dehumanizing the vulnerable through word games to mass-murdering them with casual sadism.

Better to shove the evidence into a dark closet. That’s what they did in Chicago. There, despite the best efforts of “physicians” (they of the “do no harm” oath), many “however way you want to describe its” were “not just coming out limp and dead,” as Obama haltingly put it. The abortionists’ answer was to stick the helpless survivors in a utility closet where they could die, out of sight and out of mind. Obama, in the pitiless logic of legalized abortion, labored to preserve this oft-practiced but never discussed form of infanticide against the Illinois legislature’s proposed “Born Alive” ban. (See senate transcript, April 4, 2002, beginning at page 29.)

A decade later in Philadelphia, “it would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place.” So said Stephen Massof, one of Kermit Gosnell’s fellow butchers, as he described for the jury the chamber of horrors that was the “Women’s Medical Society” on Lancaster Avenue. There, scores of babies — perhaps hundreds of them — were willfully mutilated after being born alive.

Standard fare was the “snip.”

To Jim Treacher’s query about the extensive coverage of the deaths of 20 children in a school in Newtown, but the lack of coverage for countless babies Kermit Gosnell has mass murdered…

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