Benghazi: What really happened

This is very interesting: (H/T InstaPundit)

David Petraeus was betrayed by his own bodyguards and vengeful high-ranking enemies in the CIA, who made sure his affair with his biographer was exposed to the public, a new book claims.

MailOnline can reveal a new angle on the story that rocked Washington last fall. It comes from two retired special operations commandos – a Navy SEAL and a Green Beret – who say they discovered a plot against the former CIA director while doing research about the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Senior CIA officers targeted Petraeus because they didn’t like the way he was running the agency – focusing more on paramilitary operations than intelligence analysis. They used their political clout and their connections to force an FBI investigation of his affair with Paul Broadwell and make it public, according to ‘Benghazi: The Definitive Report.’

‘It was high-level career officers on the CIA who got the ball rolling on the investigation. It was basically a palace coupe to get Petraeus out of there,’ Jack Murphy, one of the authors, told MailOnline. — Via U.K. DailyMail

Needless to say, this is going to be an explosive book and could bring down people in the Obama Administration.

Get the Book:

If President Obama is smart, he won’t even blink

Interesting story released on Sunday:

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Iran on Sunday said that Tehran would be interested in participating in bilateral talks on its nuclear program, so long as there is “honest intention,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “If there is an honest intention on the other side, then we will take that into consideration,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told a panel discussion at an annual international security conference in Germany. The minister’s reply came in response to a renewed offer by the U.S. for talks, which have been led by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. The next round of discussions would take place in Kazakhstan on Feb. 25, Salehi said. A European Union spokesperson said the EU has been trying to set a data and location for the talks since early last month, the newspaper said. The U.S. has accused Iran of attempting to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says its program is peaceful, intended to develop nuclear power to generate electricity. The U.S. has imposed sanctions, designed to force Iran to abandon its nuclear program, that have crippled Iran’s economy. —- Iranian minister says nuclear talks possible – MarketWatch

If President Obama is smart, he would not even blink one iota. This could be a bluff to see what the United States of America will do. If the US does move to talk with them; they will look weak in the eyes of the international muslim community. The US should stick to their demands and not devaite from the rigid demands.

Just my opinion.

Hope and Change: Government drops probe of possible inside trading by media companies

Hmmmmm… Maybe Cornell West has a point:

The dismissal of an investigation into major media companies suspected of giving clients a sneak peek at crucial data drew great surprise on Wall Street, where traders make their living profiting from blips of information moving at the speed of light. Federal authorities had been pursuing allegations that various media companies — including Bloomberg LP, Thomson Reuters and Dow Jones and Co. — leaked key economic data to select investors, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday. But the investigators dropped the probe, according to the paper, in part because they could not conclusively determine that investors were able to use the advance look at the numbers to extract profits. Wall Street analysts pronounced that explanation baffling, noting that in modern markets — fueled by high-frequency trading and robotic transactions — a mere fraction of a second can be enough to execute trades worth billions of dollars. — Government Drops Insider Trading Probe Of Media Companies, Baffling Investors

How much you want to bet that these companies told Obama, “You want our support? You had better call off your dogs on this probe.” How much you want to bet that this is what went down? I would be willing to bet you a nice steak dinner, with all the trimmings that is what happened here. This is why I did not support the Democrats this time around; because I knew this is what was going to happen. Believe you me, it would not have been any better with Hillary either; she is bought and paid for like the rest of them.

This is why I won’t be voting for Democrats in 2014 or 2016; because they are two sides of the same coin. Bought out, corrupt, self-serving vermin is all that they are, anyone that believes anything else; is crazy.

Taking Religion out of the Military?

I have mixed feelings about this one:

“Soldiers with minority religious beliefs and atheists often feel like second-class citizens when Christianity is seemingly officially endorsed by their own base,” American Atheists president David Silverman told Fox News. “We are very happy the Pentagon and the Army decided to do the right thing.” A military spokesman told Fox News the cross was literally dismantled and will be removed from the base to be in “compliance with Army regulations and to avoid any misconception of religious favoritism or disrespect.” “After a Christian prayer, the cross was removed from the roof of the chapel,” the spokesman said. “During the removal, the cross was dismantled; however the cross was reassembled and currently awaits transportation to a larger operational base.” The military told Fox News the cross will only be brought out during Christian services and will be designated as a “non-permanent religious symbol.” Silverman said a Christian chapel on an Army base in Afghanistan could have put American troops in danger. “It inflames this Muslim versus Christian mentality,” he said. “This is not a Muslim versus Christian war — but if the Army base has a large chapel on it that has been converted to Christian-only, it sends a message that could be interpreted as hostile to Islam.” An Army spokesman said all chapels must be religiously neutral. “The primary purpose of making a chapel a neutral, multi-use facility is to accommodate the free exercise of religion for all faith groups using it,” he said. “We take the spiritual fitness of our Soldiers seriously and encourage them to practice their faith and exercise their beliefs however they choose.” Retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, of the Family Research Council, told Fox News a Christian cleansing of the military is under way. “I don’t think you can categorize it any other way,” he said. “There is a strong effort, led partially by the Administration as well as by atheist groups to destroy the identity of who we are as a nation and that means robbing us of our history.” —- Military: Crosses Removed ‘Out of Respect for Other Faiths’ | FOX News & Commentary: Todd Starnes

On one hand, I would hate to think that having Christian symbols on a battle front could be putting our Military at risk. On the other hand, I would hate to see Christianity being removed from the Military entirely. However, we are in a Muslim Nation is Afghan region; one would think that the Military would want to be respectful of those people and their culture.

It is a mixed bag, and all the more reason why we really need to get out of that Country. Our mission is done there; we killed Osama and we need to leave. We do not want to make the same mistake the Russians made there. Besides all that, Al-Qaeda has moved into other regions and is much more a threat to other interests in other parts for the world now.

So, to this Independent, the quicker we leave, the better.

Answering Digby

Just thought I’d answer a progressive blogger.

Digby who runs Hullabaloo, which is a left-wing blogger, reacting to this story here, asks the following:

I have to say that while Scott Walker is clearly the meanest of all the GOP wingut Governors (and Jan Brewer is clearly the dumbest) Rick Scott has got to be the weirdest. And that is saying something.

Florida, what were you thinking?

via Hullabaloo.

The same darned thing that you progressives and the rest of the rube idiots were thinking, when you elected and reelected that flipping dishonest, wall street brought and paid for, Marxist asshole in the White House — that’s what! The man campaigned on hope and change and what’d we get? More of the same. More of the same polices of George W. Bush. More drone strikes of American Citizens, More of “F*** the big three!” More of this President being interested in so-called “High tech jobs” and not low tech, general labor jobs.

So, the next time you want to lash out at the right there Digby. Remember, try looking in your own backyard for a change. (Hope Change?) Because your man is not really much of a prize either. In case you have not figured it out; I was not, am not, and never will be a fan of this President. Not because of his skin color; but because of what he is. Malcolm X summed him up very nicely — there are two kinds of blacks — Field and House; and Obama is a House. I have friends who are Field, and they are the best people ever. Most of the House kind are on Fox News and now are in the White House.

Now only this; and this comes from a personal standpoint; namely mine. He promised these jobs would come springing out of the woodwork. Just where the hell are all of these jobs at? I am unemployed, have been since 2005. Well, except for blogging, which really does not count as a job; because for one, I love doing it and for two, it really does not pay that great. But, where are these “Shovel-Ready” projects that this idiot actually had the stones to say would come popping out of woodwork? Now, you cannot blame the Republicans! You all had a majority in the Congress and the House for the first two years. Not to mention now, you basically have a majority in both houses, with a bunch of candy ass Republicans in both houses. So, where are the jobs at, that your “Hope and Change” savior promised?

The truth is, he could not create jobs! You knew it, Obama knew it; and the Democratic Party knew it! But, they instead chose to LIE to the uneducated idiot voters and they bought that damned lie and proceeded to elected and reelected the man. I knew what Obama was about, long ago. Which is why I broke away from that Party! Yeah, the Republicans are for the rich people. I get that; but at least they do not blow smoke up people’s butts and promise them stuff that they cannot deliver on. I give them that credit. Which is a heck of a bunch more than I can say about Obama and the Democrats now.

My detractors always tell me, “get a job!” My response is, “find me one, and I will!”

Of course, when you are a housewife out in Santa Monica and not actually in the real world, trying to find a job; one can only expect so much. I am just saying.

Interesting note about Jack Lew

Honestly, what does Barack Obama have against the working class in this Country? Quite a bit, it seems:

With President Obama poised to tap current chief of staff Jack Lew as his next treasury secretary, Republicans are already attacking Lew for supposed slights during budget talks. Some progressives may bring renewed scrutiny to his time at CitiGroup. But if history is any guide, there will be little talk about another line on Lew’s résumé: The key role he played in New York University’s campaign to rid itself of a graduate student workers’ union.

Lew, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Clinton, joined NYU as chief operating officer and executive vice president in 2004. At the time, NYU was the only private university in the United States whose graduate students had a union contract. By the time Lew left two years later, NYU graduate students had lost their collective bargaining rights. In between, picketers hoisted “Wanted” posters with his face on them.

Reached over email, Andrew Ross, NYU professor of social and cultural analysis, charged that “the administration followed every page of the union-busting playbook, as instructed by the anti-union lawyers retained for that purpose.” Ross, a co-editor of the anthology “The University Against Itself: The NYU Strike and the Future of the Academic Workplace,” wrote that despite broad faculty and community support for the union, “students on the picket line were threatened with expulsion. There was no indication that Lew, as a senior member of the team who executed this policy, disagreed with any of these practices. To all appearances, he was a willing, and loyal, executor of decisions that trampled all over the students’ democratic right to organize.”

When contacted for a response, White House spokesperson Eric Schultz emailed: “Jack Lew has been a strong supporter of the right of workers to organize – as has the President. And that support will not change in his new role as Treasury Secretary.” – via Jack Lew’s union-busting past – Salon.com.

I always said, since day one of the first election cycle of Barack Obama; that he was nothing more than a two-bit phony. I believe that in his second term, we are going to find out just how big of a two-bit phony that he can really be towards the unions and the working class. Would Hillary have been any better? I really do not know. But, when I hear a Democrat basically say, “I care about the high-tech jobs.” and not say anything about the unskilled laborers, like myself. I have to really wonder, just what kind of person is he really? We are about to find out, I think and I believe it is not going to be good for the unions and the working class in general —- not to mention most gun owners.

I hate to say it, but he does have a good point

A very good point:

Obama won two elections giving voice to these policies, but within the neocon-dominated punditocracy and a Congress subject to pressure by the increasingly extremist American Israel Public Affairs Committee, they are akin to kryptonite. Hagel’s critics have been quick to unsheathe the McCarthyite tactics employed whenever opposition to any position of Israel’s right-wing government is at issue. The accusation is almost always “anti-Semitism,” but rarely has that charge proven as empty as in Hagel’s case. Leading the assault have been Pavlovian attack dogs like William Kristol and The Weekly Standard, Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post, ex–AIPAC flack Josh Block, the ADL’s Abe Foxman, Bret Stephens at The Wall Street Journal, and convicted criminal and former Reagan and Bush II official Elliott Abrams, now respectably ensconced at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The allegation rests in significant measure on a 2008 quote in which Hagel—whom the interviewer, author and former US diplomat Aaron David Miller termed “a strong supporter of Israel and a believer in shared values”—criticized the use of political intimidation by the “Jewish lobby,” an infelicitous phrase he accidentally used to describe AIPAC. Hagel later said he misspoke and had meant to refer to the “Israel lobby,” just as he did elsewhere in Miller’s interview. It’s an easy mistake to make, since the “Israel lobby” is pretty darn Jewish. (Dick Cheney, for instance, has made the same error.) As it happens, Hagel is a better friend to Israel than the Likud quislings and apologists who make up what journalists mistakenly term the “pro-Israel lobby”; for starters, he is willing to tell its leaders the truth. Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general and adviser on US affairs to Prime Minister Ehud Barak, wrote recently that “Barak was thoroughly impressed not only by Hagel’s military background, but by his analysis, knowledge of the Middle East, and his understanding of Israel’s security issues and predicaments,” adding that Hagel “is not anti-Israeli and he is not an anti-Semite. In fact, if I were him I would lodge a complaint with the Anti-Defamation League, asking their assistance and support for being unfairly called an anti-Semite.”

What these hysterics may actually indicate is a genuine fear on the part of the neocons and conservative professional Jews that they are about to be exposed as generals without armies, demanding fealty to policies opposed by the vast majority of American Jews for whom they profess to speak. How marvelous, then, that Barack Obama finally decided there was one time he’d rather fight than switch. via Hooray for Hagel | The Nation

One thing that I really wish to dwell on here, and it bears repeating:

Hagel’s critics have been quick to unsheathe the McCarthyite tactics employed whenever opposition to any position of Israel’s right-wing government is at issue. The accusation is almost always “anti-Semitism,” but rarely has that charge proven as empty as in Hagel’s case.

I must admit, I can truly relate to this; I have accused of the very same stuff myself. I support Israel’s right to exist and all. But I do not support the stupidity of the Neoconservative right at all. This whole idea that America has to defend Israel unto the death is idiotic at best. Furthermore, the idea that America has to be the world’s policeman is out of touch with our economic realities here at home. The fact is that Wilsonian foreign policy is a disaster and America has had to learn the hard way many times already. We learned it in Korea, we learned in World War I, we learned it in Vietnam and now, we have learned it in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Furthermore, Israel has my support on existence; but this idea that Israel has the right to build on disputed territories and then sit, and moan and complain when Palestinian and Gaza terrorists fire rockets into Israel is mindbogglingly stupid. It is something that I cannot support at all. The said part is, that these Wilsonian Neoconservatives will tell you that I am a Jew-hater and Antisemite for simply saying what I just said to you here. I call it playing the Jew Card or playing the Semite Card. It cheapens the discussion and frosts any kind of criticism at all. Which is precisely what Joseph McCarthy did in the 1950’s.

So, as much as it pains me to say this; even though he is of the far left —- Alterman has a good point.

White House considering executive action on guns

I knew this was coming, it was just a matter of time; and unlike this idiot here, who believes that the following headline was overdone. I happen to believe it to be very true:

drudgeheadline

From the Weekly Standard:

Vice President Joe Biden revealed that President Barack Obama might use an executive order to deal with guns.

“The president is going to act,” said Biden, giving some comments to the press before a meeting with victims of gun violence. “There are executives orders, there’s executive action that can be taken. We haven’t decided what that is yet. But we’re compiling it all with the help of the attorney general and the rest of the cabinet members as well as legislative action that we believe is required.”

Biden said that this is a moral issue and that “it’s critically important that we act.”

Biden talked also about taking responsible action. “As the president said, if you’re actions result in only saving one life, they’re worth taking. But I’m convinced we can affect the well-being of millions of americans and take thousands of people out of harm’s way if we act responsibly.”

Biden, as he himself noted, helped write the Brady bill.

Eric Holder was scheduled to be at the meeting that’s currently take place at the White House.

Ah yes, this ought to be very interesting to see what these Marxist gun grabbers come up with; as the Godfather of Chicago said, never let a crisis go to waste. As for what the idiot above that I linked to said about Drudge’s headline, I give you the words of Lew Rockwell:

In my experience, gun controllers are violent people, and private gun-owners are not. That is, gun controllers support mass murder; they just want it to be a monopoly of soldiers, police, etc. They would be glad to see Alex and the rest of us shot. Gun owners tend to abhor personal violence, and would only use it in defense of their family, themselves, and their property. And this is not a left-right issue. Non-commissar leftists like the late Alexander Cockburn are anti-gun control; neocons like Bill Kristol or the Randites are pro-gun control. Here is something that all good people across the spectrum can agree on: the state should be disarmed; the people should be packing.

It will be an amazing thing to see just whom on the right caves to the Marxist’s demands of gun surrender, or “control” as they like to call it. I just wonder which one of the Neoconservatives will fall first and say, :”Well, we have to have some sort of control!” I expect that Podhoretz or Kristol will be the first ones to falter to the demands of this administration.

Again, I do not know if having Alex Jones coming out as the circus act for the far right was a good idea, it may have just given the White House the ammo (sorry…) it needed to get what it wanted to carry out. Needless to say, there is going to be political fallout from something like this and it is not going to be good for the Democrats. I just hope that the GOP is ready to stage a comeback in 2014 or 2016. But from the looks of things at the moment, the GOP has some serious image issues, especially when it comes to the middle class.

Oh Great: another minority for treasury secretary

Aren’t there any white people that can do these jobs? Am I even allowed ask such questions?

Quote:

White House officials have approached American Express Co. (AXP) Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Chenault about joining President Barack Obama’s second-term administration, possibly as Treasury secretary, according to two people familiar with the matter.

White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew remains the leading contender for the Treasury job, the people said. Still, consideration of Chenault among Obama’s staff may indicate the president hasn’t made a final decision on a replacement for Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who has said he plans to leave the post.

Other potential roles for Chenault, a longtime Obama supporter, may be as Commerce secretary or as a senior adviser to the president, according to the people, who asked for anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations. White House officials have also considered Xerox Corp. (XRX) CEO Ursula Burns as a potential nominee for the Commerce Department job, both of the people said.

via AmEx’s Chenault Said to Be Discussed for Treasury Post – Bloomberg.

I wonder if he will get a golden parachute like the guy did who ran Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and was found to be a thief?

It’s a Obama World and now, it sucks. So does diversity and multiculturalism by the way. I never played that silly game, never will.

So much for transparency

I guess that is another promise broken, WaPo reports:

At a meeting with the Business Roundtable on Wednesday morning, President Obama publicly warned Republicans that he would not negotiate over the debt ceiling. But after those opening remarks, reporters were ushered out of the room so Obama could talk to the gathered CEOs in private.

“”Yeah, I think the press is … they’ve probably got enough there to spin a story,” Obama said as the reporters were kicked out of the room.

via Press kicked out of Obama Q & A.

I guess Cornell West was right: