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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
You might think that President Obama’s comfortable reelection last month would put an end to the Republican birther conspiracy. But if you do, you don’t know Arizona Republicans.
The latest battle for the movement that believes Barack Obama is ineligible to be President was fought Monday at the state’s Electoral College vote, where a trio of Republican electors — including state GOP chair Tom Morrissey — once again raised concerns that Obama’s birth certificate is a fake during the electoral college vote.
They were rebuffed by other Republicans in the room, including Gov. Jan Brewer. National Republicans have also distanced themselves from the birther movement. But in Arizona, the birthers aren’t going quietly, even if they do recognize that they are going.
Morrissey, the leader of the Republican Party in Arizona and a former Chief Deputy U.S. Marshal for the state, tried to present his concerns over Obama’s eligibility as something other than birtherism.
“My issue isn’t whether he was born here,” he told KFYI radio in Phoenix Monday. “I have questions [about Obama’s longform birth cerfiticate]. … You know, I have a law enforcement background. I come at this with a little different perspective. It just doesn’t ring right with me.”
I will admit something to you all. Back in 2007, When Barack Obama was still running for President, when I was running my old blog; I gave these very stupid people a minute of my time and took them seriously. What a huge mistake that was, I quickly realized that these people were nothing more than bitter and ugly racists. I can also tell you where this whole conspiracy originated from or at least I can tell you were I saw it originally.
Back in 2007, when I was running my old blog, I happened across an article at a site called The Conservative Voice, which merged with Townhall.com. In it was an article by someone, whom now I forget was his name and in it, it contended that Barack Obama was not an US citizen. Around this time, the Hillary camp picked up the story and feed it to the media. From there, it took a life of its own. The funny thing was in that article was a quote that was not sourced. So, I did a little investigation work and ran the quote through Google search and guess where it came from? It came from none other than the White Nationalist Website, Stormfront.org.
I was shocked that someone would make such an accusation like that, with no real proof. Much less, lifting a quote from another article taken from a site like stormfront. Which brings me to my point here. This “Birther” movement is nothing more than racism at its worst. Barack Obama is a citizen of this Country and the white people just need to get the hell over it. The Klan era is over folks, you lost the battle, now get over it and move on.
What really sucks is that we have people, who are millionaires and of politically privileged ethnic background; who claim to be on the side of liberty and freedom, who have pushed this nonsense and for what? So that they can get into newspapers and get attention paid to them. It is sick and sad, and it makes the Conservative movement, which has some very good American ideals behind it, look like an idiotic clown show.
This is why I stopped paying attention to those who involved with this many moons ago.
BRISTOL, Conn. (CBSDC) –Robert Griffin III might be the NFL’s offensive rookie of the year in a season that has his Redskins competing for the NFC East. But even with all his accomplishments on the field, one ESPN commentator thinks the former Heisman Trophy winner could be a “cornball brother” because of his white fiancée and speculation of the quarterback’s political leanings.
Rob Parker, a contributor for ESPN’s “First Take” morning show, questioned Griffin’s standing as a black man, asking whether the quarterback was a “cornball brother,” and later saying that the black quarterback is “not one of us.”
“He’s black, he kind of does his thing, but he’s not really down with the cause; he’s not one of us,” Parker said this morning. “He’s kind of black, but he’s not really the kind of guy you want to hang out with cause he’s off to something else.”
During the “First Take” segment, Parker pointed out Griffin’s engagement to his white fiancée, Rebecca Liddicoat. Parker also speculated that the Redskins quarterback might be a Republican, but that Griffin’s braids added to the “authenticity” of being black.
“I want to find about him,” Parker said about the rookie quarterback. “I don’t know because I keep hearing these things. We all know he has a white fiance. Then there was all this talk about him being a Republican, which there’s no information at all. I’m just trying to dig deeper into why he has an issue.”
At the end of the segment, Parker said that this was the type of talk about Griffin that is being brought up in the barbershops.
I will admit it, I was at one of my Dad’s friends, whom he used to work with at GM, at his house over the summer, my Dad was there to turn over a garden spot. I was there as the grunt worker and to do the heavy lifting. It may sound funny, but I am not much into gardening, outside of mowing the lawn. While we were there, some very interesting subjects came up; Detroit, the decline of it and then, the big one — Obama. I braced myself for what I was about to hear. Keep in mind that I really never was a fan of the guy.
Much to my shock, much of what this dude said up there in the video, was said by all the people who were there, who were, outside of me and Dad — black. I won’t lie to you, I sat there —- eyes bugged out, and jaw on the floor as they all said, and this was the exact quote, “He’s a bought nigga! Wall Street and the Jews own his ass!”
I was quite shocked, I did not ask questions. I just sat there, rather amazed. Well, I did ask if they voted for Obama. They answered, “Yeah, I did. But what did he change? Nothing. We’re still where we are! The Country still has the problems it did when they put him in office!”
My Dad wasn’t in on the conversation, he was running the tiller and it was louder than they were. 😀
Keep in mind now, these were not 20-something people. These were people in their 50’s and 60’s. At first, I was a bit saddened; but you know what? It really proves something that I really have known about black people for a very long time. They know the difference between an authentic black person and someone who is a faker, someone who is not really down with the struggles that the black community did really face back in the day and some of the ones that blacks face now. They know. It all goes back to that little thing that Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. disagreed on. It is part of the black culture and I do get it. Most of the Conservatives that I now or have had interaction with, they do not understand it at all.
There is a reason for it too. It is because they are a product of their environment. I am not faulting them for it, really, I’m not. Everyone is a product of their environment. Some people grew up in the ghetto, some people grew up in the suburbs; all of that stuff affects your worldview and the way that you interact with other people. The problem is that for whatever reason, those who believe that smaller Government is the answer, and also happen to white; they have this built-in resentment of the fact that black people insist that other people acknowledge the fact that they were brought into this Country as slaves by white people.
The Conservatives like to call it race-baiting, race-hustling or having a “victim mentality” or an “Oppression Complex.” Which is pretty damned ironic, because the Jews in America; many of them have the same problem and nobody, especially on the right says anything about that at all. In fact, most Conservatives think that is just perfectly fine. Anyone that disagrees with that; I have two simple words for you to Google — Rick Sanchez. Sanchez dared to speak his mind, without his “I gotta watch what I say, or someone will get angry” filter enabled and you know what happened? He lost his job and his good career. The question I have is this; was that even remotely fair to the guy at all? I mean, I can give perfect examples were American Jews have bad mouthed White Angelo-Saxon protestants like me, and not a word as ever been said about it.
I will be perfectly honest with you, people like Al Sharpon and Jesse Jackson, as a white man; they get on my nerves. Why? Because they are exploiters. They exploit racial divisions and tensions to further their little pet causes. Now does the right do this? Hell yes they do. A perfect example: the recent event in Lansing, Michigan with the Hot Dog cart guy. That guy was out $500 and the right acted like he had lost his entire business. The truth is, he didn’t lose anything at all and the right played the people who read that little sad tale like a fiddle.
The result is that all that money, will go to replace a tent, that was lost, because a bunch of political activists decided to wade into a territory that normal sane Conservative people would not go near. What those idiots did was the moral equivalent of going into a high school on the east side of Detroit, which is, conversely almost all black and hollering “NIGGER!” at the top of your lungs repeatedly, like someone with Tourette syndrome. Which would most likely get you beat up, or worse even killed! Then, after doing this; you complained about getting beat up and accuse the other people of not being tolerant! I know, it sounds funny; but it happens to be very true.
The problem I have with this sort of thing; is that it cheapens this discussion, it also cheapens everything that Martin Luther King Jr. fought so hard for and gave up his life for. As for Conservatives, this idiotic nonsense that they are doing, cheapens the legacy of people like William F. Buckley, who simply wanted people to reconsider the idea that Government was the “end all”, of the problems of our Country. I guess it all goes along with that whole “dumbing-down” of the Conservative movement and as whole, of America.
It is not to say that the Democrats are not guilty of some of the very same things. They are most assuredly. The whole thing of being told that if you did not vote for Obama, you were most likely a racist bigot, I found that to be most highly annoying. It was as if the Democrats were cheapening voting down to the lowest common denominator. I thought we had evolved as a society not to look at things through the prism of race?
In closing: Whew. I took a simply blog posting and turned it into an almost 1500 plus word philosophical essay. I hate it when I do that. However, I believe it is necessary to espouse things like this; because the political process and the idiotic nonsense that goes along with it, is cheapening the battles that our founding fathers fought, and the people who died in all of our wars, especially the revolutionary war and world war II. It is sad to know that all of things that people, like my great-uncle John Franklin Hayes of Dalton, Georgia, fought for are now being cheapened by those, who could really care less what my great-uncle lost and gained in that war. This is what corporate shills do, they are all about an agenda and could quite honestly care less about me and you.
It is a sad thing to behold; but it is the America in which we live.
I hate to be the resident Blogosphere a-hole blue-dog Democrat jerk. But the truth is the truth:
Sunday afternoon I received an email from Howard Dean. Not a personal one, but nevertheless seeing his name there made me look twice, because I never get emails of any kind from Howard Dean. This one warned me ominously about the looming cuts to Medicare, and while the Deanian digit of outrage was pointed at the Republicans, the email also noted that my voice was needed to ensure that the Democrats stood united against the assault. Translated, this means that liberals are terrified that the White House is about to agree to increase the Medicare eligibility age to 67. I don’t personally feel quite as strongly about this as many others do, for reasons I’ll get into. But my own views aside, I think the White House ought to know that by all existing evidence, if it agrees to such a deal, Barack Obama will lose liberal support far more quickly, more despondently, and more, if I may put it this way, ferociously and furiously than he ever lost it over the public option.
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.
I will admit something to you all. Back in 2007, When Barack Obama was still running for President, when I was running my 