Benghazi May Turn Out to be Obama’s Watergate

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Photo Credit: Greg GroeschBenghazi may turn out to be President Obama’s Watergate. The scandal is a growing cancer on the administration, threatening its very existence. The more information comes out, the more damning it is. This is why Democrats — and their media allies — are desperately trying to sweep the truth under the rug. Mr. Obama’s political survival is at stake.

High-profile lawyers Joseph diGenova and Victoria Toensing are in touch with State Department whistleblowers who were on the ground in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012, when our diplomatic mission was attacked by jihadists. Mr. diGenova says they can no longer remain silent. The whistleblowers want to testify before a House congressional committee. There is only one problem. According to Mr. diGenova and Ms. Toensing, the whistleblowers are being prevented — and intimidated — from speaking out by the Obama administration. Vindictive State Department officials are denying their request for legal representation. Since the whistleblowers’ potential testimony relates to classified information, they refuse to go forward in public without effective legal representation. The possible personal and professional consequences are immense.

If — and I stress if — they testify, then the Obama presidency is in mortal jeopardy. Mr. diGenova stresses that the whistleblowers possess information that will expose the administration’s lies and cover-up. Republicans on Capitol Hill should pursue this scandal to the end.

Benghazi should have been prevented. During the summer of 2012, al Qaeda thugs were roaming the streets of the city. The Red Cross and the British diplomatic mission pulled out. Our consulate had been physically attacked several times. This is why U.S. officials there repeatedly asked the State Department for bolstered security. It was denied.

Read more from this story HERE.

Radicalizing the Military

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Photo Credit: D’oh Boy (Mark Holloway)There have been few sanctuaries of American values as steadfast as the American armed forces. “Duty, Honor, Country”. “Semper Fidelis”. “Service Before Self”. “Honor, Courage, Commitment”. “This We’ll Defend”. “Semper Paratus”. These are words that denote selfless dedication to a higher calling than the gratification of one’s own desires. The men and women who have served our country in the past, and who serve now, are without a doubt the finest of us. They are the face of America around the world, and we are blessed beyond measure that they serve our country with such grace and courage under the worst of external conditions.

Presently, however, they are under threat from within, and one cannot help but notice that our military is being forced, against centuries of American tradition, morals and example, to become a reflection of the left. This appears to be part of the plan to fundamentally transform the United States, and it carries dire consequences for our long-term survival.

Until recently, the military had seemed able to preserve its traditions and principles against radical outside influences. This was due largely to the fact that members voluntarily surrendered their self-interest. By enlisting, they accepted the limits and code of the service they joined, and implicitly made their individuality secondary to the greater good. When asked after the Civil War to bless a woman’s infant son, Robert E. Lee also told her, “Teach him he must deny himself.”

Now, along with every other aspect of our nation, our armed forces are being radicalized. Political correctness, social experimentation, and religious bigotry are jeopardizing the mission and cohesiveness of the military, and putting the long-term security of our country at risk. The left has happily made the military, which it loathes, a target of liberal social change. In addition to making service uncomfortable for some of those already in the ranks, these changes threaten to discourage those who might otherwise have joined from doing so. In an all-volunteer force, this is predictably fatal.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Vanishing American

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Photo Credit: Serfs UP ! Roger SaylesAmerica as a continent, a region and as a political entity may well survive for centuries, but the American who has created and populated this nation is a vanishing breed. Is it possible for America to survive while Americans disappear?

Yes, it is possible. As our character and culture change, we become a different nation, like an alien being taking over a human body. It looks the same, but the soul is different.

As what it means to be an American changes, we are justified in wondering whether the nation’s Founding Fathers – or Alexis de Tocqueville or Teddy Roosevelt – would recognize the new Americans who celebrate not a special American identity and American destiny but our “common humanity” and “oneness” with the world’s collective misery.

Benjamin Franklin was one of the first to speak of Americans as a new people who required a new nation. For Franklin, what propelled Americans toward independence was not the Stamp Act or the Tea Tax or the quartering of British troops in the homes of colonists. America was destined to be a separate nation because we were a new people on the face of the earth.

In 1776, a fellow Pennsylvanian, John Dickinson, asked Franklin, who had been an early advocate for independence, exactly why the colonies should separate from the mother country. Franklin replied: “We have spawned a new race here in America. It’s rougher, simpler, more violent, more entrepreneurial, and less refined. … We require a new nation.”

Read more from this story HERE.

In One Day, 20 Shot in Chicago; Officials Blame the Weather, We Blame the Officials

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Photo Credit: Irish Central According to the Chicago Tribune’s May 1 edition:

“At least three people were killed and 17 wounded in shootings across Chicago overnight as the city saw its warmest weather in seven months.” See article.

In the past, Chicago’s Chief of Police Garry McCarty, has blamed warm weather for his city’s gun violence, along with pointing the finger of blame at Sarah Palin and “government sponsored racism.”

By using this metric, if the weather keeps heating up we can expect more gun violence to erupt on the streets of Chicago. Where’s Al Gore?

According to the Tribune article, “warm weather” is behind the outbreak of gun violence, not the lack of enforcement of some of the toughest anti gun laws in the United States.

Checking statistics in different countries known for their warm weather and violence, the following stats were observed:

In Afghanistan for the entire month of April a total of 17 coalition force personnel were killed, see report.

In a recent 5 day period in all of Iraq, a total of 25 civilians and police were killed, see report.

Chicago, one of our nation’s biggest cities outpaced the violence in 2 war torn countries.

Instead of pointing the finger of blame at outside forces, perhaps it’s time for the people of Chicago to point the finger of blame at their leaders.

Not long ago, NRA’s President Wayne LaPierre noted Chicago had the nation’s toughest gun laws, yet was failing to enforce them. He noted that if federal gun laws already on the books were enforced, instead of putting even more restrictions on gun legal ownership, it could help solve the city’s violence problems. See story.

La Pierre had also called on federal officials to bring in forces to patrol Chicago’s streets in order to restore order: “We need a federal task force, if it takes 500 agents; if it takes a thousand agents, go into Chicago.”

The law abiding citizens of Chicago deserve to have safer streets and adding more laws to the over 9,000 gun laws already on the books isn’t going to make any difference.

Chicago’s violence is not due to the weather, the NRA or Sarah Palin, it’s due to the lack of will by city officials to enforce the law.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

The Lies Go Deeper Than You Ever Imagined

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If you read the newspapers and listen to the perpetual happy talk out of D.C., you might become convinced that the economy is improving. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is supposed to tell us the unemployment rate; and currently, it says the rate is 7.6%. But in reality, we’re being misled.

It’s understandable… we all want to believe the best. And most likely, you feel a little better off than you did four years ago. You can probably look around your neighborhood and see some people doing just fine. But the sinister truth is that we’re being lied to. The government is sponsoring a campaign of misinformation, and we’re all the victims of a mass hypnosis. It leads us to think – falsely – that all’s well in the U.S. of A.

A Stark Contrast

I just spent four days on the beautiful Island of Coronado. I was at a board meeting at a 125-year-old resort, the Hotel Del Coronado. All seemed like a fairy tale. I drove into the city of San Diego and had dinner at a lovely Zagat-rated restaurant. I met a group of friends in a skybox, complete with a buffet line, to watch the Padres beat up on one of their rivals. But that’s where the fairy tale ends.

I also took the time to visit the community of El Centro, California. It’s down Interstate 8 from San Diego. In that town, headline unemployment is nearly 23%. Coming upon a church, I saw a line, winding around the block, of people simply wanting a hot meal.

This is the part of America the media is hiding. They don’t want to blemish President Obama. He feels people’s pain, so he can’t be responsible… right? But the reality is that every Coronado, America has at least one El Centro.

If you dig deeper and calculate unemployment, adding those people standing in the food line who are unemployed, discouraged, and dropping out of the job search, the unemployment rate is 14.3%.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rush Limbaugh: What is Real Courage? Benghazi Whistle-Blowers

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I could easily not say this and avoid a lot of trouble, but I’m gonna go ahead and say it. We’re losing our language. Words mean things. The way we’re defining “courage” is kind of curious to me. A pro basketball player announcing that he likes to have sex with other men, in my book, in a comparative sense, is not courageous, when compared, say, to a whistleblower trying to set the record straight about what happened in Benghazi.

Now, that’s courage because that’s taking on the oppressive power structure of this entire country. There are people, there are whistleblowers, there are people who are trying to blow the whistle on what happened in Benghazi. We still don’t have the answers. We have a dead ambassador and three other Americans and there has yet to be a satisfactory explanation. How in the world did this happen? All we’ve been told is that some renegade filmmaker, who’s now in jail, ginned up a lot of anger and that caused it. We know that’s not true.

Now, when you’re trying to blow the whistle on an administration, that, to me, is courage. To the audio sound bites. Last night on Fox Special Report, their correspondent, Adam Housley, interviewed an unidentified special operator — face was blacked out, voice changed for the interview — about the attack on the consulate in Benghazi. And during the interview the special operator said this about the attack:

I know for a fact that C-110, the UCOM SIF, was doing a training exercise not in the region of northern Africa, but in Europe, and they had the ability to react and respond. We had the ability to load out, get on birds, and fly there at a minimum stage. C-110 had the ability to be there, in my opinion, in four to six hours from their European theater to react.

Now, this is courage.

Read more from this story HERE.

President Obama’s Second Term Shaping up as a Train Wreck

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Photo Credit: APSuccessful presidential second terms have been hard to come by since the end of World War II. Dwight Eisenhower signed the 1957 Civil Rights Act and dispatched federal troops to escort black students to public schools in Little Rock, Ark., but then came Sputnik and the 1958 recession. Richard Nixon resigned in the wake of Watergate early in his second term, Ronald Reagan was distracted by Iran-Contra, Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives, and George W. Bush was preoccupied by the economic collapse of 2007 and the Great Recession that followed.

So perhaps no one should be surprised that President Obama’s prospects for his second term took a beating in April. Between the growing consensus that implementing Obamacare is a “train wreck” and confirmation that his administration is preventing Benghazi massacre survivors and whistle-blowers from testifying before Congress about what really happened in Libya, the outlines of a second-term collapse could take shape in the next several weeks.

A portent of trouble ahead came early in April when Time magazine’s Joe Klein, normally a reliable Obama enthusiast, warned that “we are now seeing weekly examples of this administration’s inability to govern.” Then the Obamacare train wreck meme flashed across the headlines when Sen. Max Baucus, one of the health reform law’s chief sponsors, told Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that “I just see a huge train wreck coming down. You and I have discussed this many times, and I don’t see any results yet.” Despite Baucus’ subsequent efforts to walk back his comments, the “train wreck” quickly became a staple of political conversation across the ideological and media spectrum, fueled by growing evidence that health insurance premiums for millions of Americans will soon skyrocket because of Obamacare.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s Press Conference: ‘I’m Still Relevant’ and ‘It’s Everyone Else’s Fault’

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller President Obama: I’m still relevant

By Glenn Thrush. If ever 47 minutes illustrated the frustration, tantalizing promise and ambivalence of a second term, this was it.

President Barack Obama, marking the 100th day since he delivered an ambitious inaugural address brimming with expansive plans, sparred with the White House press over a succession of issues over which he has conspicuously clipped control — from his response to the “game-changer” revelation that Syrian government forces used sarin gas, to the failure of his gun control push, to his continued efforts to shutter the Guantanamo Bay detention facility over the objections of Congressional Republicans and Democrats.

“Mr. President, you are a hundred days into your second term…my question to you is do you still have the juice to get the rest of your agenda through this Congress?” asked ABC’s Jonathan Karl — eliciting a surprised chuckle and “goll-y” from the commander-in-chief during a Tuesday morning press conference in the White House briefing room.

“You know… as Mark Twain said, you know, rumors of my demise may be a little exaggerated at this point,” said Obama, who seemed a lot less lighthearted than during his sharp-elbowed stand-up routine at the White House Correspondents Association dinner on Saturday. Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Blames Everybody

By Neil Munro. President Barack Obama spent most of his surprise April 30 press conference on the defensive, blaming the Senate, budget cuts, Republicans, Syria’s dictator and much else for the shaky start to his second term.

He had nothing major or new to announce, and no theme or message to steer media coverage.

About a third of the way through the press conference, Obama responded to a question about his political clout by saying sardonically that “as Mark Twain said, rumors of my demise may be a little exaggerated at this point.”

“In the Senate, this habit of requiring 60 votes for even the most modest piece of legislation has gummed up the works there,” he complained. Read more from this story HERE.

Federal Case May Hold Obamacare Unconstitutional; the Coming Train Wreck if it Doesn’t

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Last year, Justice Roberts upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. In his twisted decision, Roberts determined that the Obamacare was a “tax” and could be imposed under the federal government’s taxing power since the Commerce and Necessary and Proper clauses did not provide a constitutional basis for the law.

But Robert’s activist decision to uphold Obamacare under the government’s taxing power may circle back and upend the law. An opinion piece from today’s Christian Science Monitor observed:

Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution says that tax bills – “all bills for raising revenue” – must “originate in the House of Representatives.” The framers wrote this “Origination Clause” because they recognized the potential danger in the taxing power, and they wanted to keep it as close as possible to voters. So they entrusted it to members of the House, who are elected every two years and have smaller constituencies than senators, who represent whole states and serve staggered six-year terms.

But Obamacare didn’t follow the constitutional script. Instead of originating in the lower chamber, it started in the Senate, when Majority Leader Harry Reid took an old bill the House had passed that would have given veterans tax credits to buy homes, struck out all of that bill’s language, and inserted instead the confusing web of provisions that became the Affordable Care Act.

Was this “gut and amend” ploy valid?

That question is now in front of US District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C., in a challenge to Obamacare filed on behalf of Matt Sissel, an Iowa small business owner who was decorated for service as a medic in the Iraq war.

Obamacare was passed hastily, by lawmakers who admitted they had not read the bill. The legislation was passed during the holiday season, through questionable procedural tricks. It was never popular, and a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that only 36 percent of Americans currently support the law. Even the Supreme Court’s liberal wing agreed that large parts of it were unconstitutional. In part of last June’s decision, Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan joined the conservatives to hold that Congress had illegally tried to force states to expand their Medicaid rolls.

Obamacare’s Tax Hike Train Wreck

By John Kartch. The most destructive Obamacare tax increases are just around the bend.

Asked about Senator Max Baucus’s (D-Mont.) recent “train wreck” comments, President Obama today said, “A huge chunk of it [Obamacare] has already been implemented.” Unmentioned was the wave of destructive Obamacare tax increases that will begin to hit Americans during the next tax filing season and beyond…

Obamacare Surtax on Investment Income: A new, 3.8 percent surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single)…

Obamacare Medicare Payroll Tax Increase: [from 1.45% to 2.35% for employees, and from 2.9% to 3.8% for self-employed, making over $250,000 ($200,000 single)]…

Obamacare Medical Device Tax: Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. Obamacare imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales – even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. In addition to killing small business jobs and impacting research and development budgets, this will make everything from pacemakers to artificial hips more expensive.

Obamacare Flexible Spending Account Tax: The 30 – 35 million Americans who use a pre-tax Flexible Spending Account (FSA) at work to pay for their family’s basic medical needs face a new Obamacare cap of $2,500. This will squeeze $13 billion of tax money from Americans over the next ten years. (Before Obamacare, the accounts were unlimited under federal law, though employers were allowed to set a cap.) Now, a parent looking to sock away extra money to pay for braces will find themselves quickly hitting this new cap, meaning they would have to pony up some or all of the cost with after-tax dollars. Read more from this story HERE.

President predicts ‘glitches and bumps’ in ObamaCare rollout

By Sam Baker. President Obama said Tuesday that his healthcare law is bound to hit some snags as it comes fully into effect over the next six months.

“Even if we do everything perfectly, there will still be glitches and bumps, “Obama said at a news conference.” That’s pretty much true of every government program that’s ever been set up.”

Asked about Democratic concerns that the implementation could be a “huge train wreck,” Obama said the law will be fully implemented on time.

“We’ve got a great team in place. We are pushing very hard to make sure we are hitting the deadlines and the benchmarks,” Obama said.

The president acknowledged the difficult work facing his administration as it scrambles to set up new insurance markets, known as exchanges, by October. Republican governors’ resistance to setting up exchanges in their states has made life harder, Obama said. Read more from this story HERE.
Photo Credit: AP
Health Care Law Is ‘Working Fine,’ Obama Says in Addressing Criticism

By Robert Pear. President Obama said Tuesday that his health care law was “working fine,” and he played down concerns that the law could disrupt coverage or lead to higher premiums for people who already had health insurance.

At the same time, federal officials released simplified application forms to be used by people seeking health insurance, tax credits and other government subsidies under the law, which Mr. Obama signed three years ago.

The new application forms — one for individuals is three pages long, and another for families is seven pages — are significantly shorter than a 21-page draft that the administration circulated earlier this year.

Major provisions of the law take effect next Jan. 1, when most Americans will be required to have health insurance.

The law represents one of the biggest changes in domestic policy in decades, as significant in some ways as the creation of Social Security or Medicare. But at a news conference on Tuesday, Mr. Obama suggested that most Americans would not be affected by changes taking effect next year. And some of his comments may lower public expectations. Read more from this story HERE.

‘Obamacare’ Poll Finds 42% of Americans Unaware It’s Law

By Sarah Parnass. A new poll finds that many Americans are confused about the health care overhaul legislation commonly called “Obamacare.”

The Kaiser Family Foundation released results of a non-partisan study today finding more than 40 percent did not even know the law was in place.

“Four in ten Americans (42%) are unaware that the ACA [Affordable Care Act] is still the law of the land,” the report says, “including 12 percent who believe the law has been repealed by Congress, 7 percent who believe it has been overturned by the Supreme Court and 23 percent who say they don’t know enough to say what the status of the law is.”

The survey showed public opinion on Obamacare is at its second-lowest rating in the past two years.

Less than half – 40 percent – of adults viewed the ACA favorably, whereas 35 percent said they viewed it unfavorably. Another 24 percent said they did not know or refused to answer. Read more from this story HERE.

They Say Success has Many Fathers, but Benghazi Libya is the Orphan on the White House Step

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Photo Credit: Irish CentralThis snippet from a CNN feature story after the fall of Libya’s strongman Moammar Gadhafi put the whole gambit in Libya into proper political perspective:

“The fall of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is a significant foreign policy triumph for U.S. President Barrack Obama.” It further went on to say “Gadhafi’s utter defeat seemingly put new wind in the sails of humanitarian intervention.”

This was to be the “good” foreign policy military intervention for the administration to show us how it’s done.

Hillary Clinton sealed the deal for the removal of Gadahfi when she stated: “left unchecked, Gadahfi will commit unspeakable atrocities.”

National Security Council Senior Director Samantha Power, led the drafting of PSD-10, the Presidential Study Directive on Mass Atrocities, used as the policy justification to topple Gadahfi.

So there was a lot of prestige riding on the decision to remove Gadahfi by the Obama administration and see a triumphant Libya blossom under a new government.

Although Gadahfi was brutal in his attempts to stifle dissension, there were also many reasons to leave the country alone and let it settle its own differences without interfering.

Gadahfi had become an ally in the terror war and was providing valuable intelligence to us …He had even given up his nuclear ambitions to show his sincerity. Under Gadahfis 40 year rule, Libya became one of the most prosperous and peaceful countries in Africa.

But the decision was made to get rid of Gadahfi by the Obama administration. After his regime collapsed, his arsenals were left unguarded and an estimated 20 thousand shoulder launched missiles and countless high powered weapons, were let into the hands of terrorists and extremists. Israel reported these missiles were right on their border.

Military experts say to leave these arsenals unguarded was a grievous error in planning and should have been taken into account by the Obama administration when they moved to help topple Gadahfi.

The looting of the arsenals was downplayed and ominously, so was the emergence of strong militant groups linked to Al Qaeda and Islamic radicals, evidently unforeseen by the Obama administration.

But to give the air of success and normalcy, especially with a presidential election on the horizon, evidently it was felt best to keep a low profile for embassy security in Libya….In spite of repeated requests by the soon to be murdered ambassador Stevens for more force to protect him.

Eight months after the attack on our consulate, many of the key players involved in the decisions on Libya have distanced themselves from the administration. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has retired, so have Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and CIA Director David Petraeus. Senior National Security Advisor, Samantha Power & UN Ambassador Susan Rice, both resigned to “spend more time with their families.” Many of the top military commanders in that region of the world have been replaced.

Eight months after the murder of our ambassador and 3 other Americans, no one has been brought to justice, as President Obama promised.

With the announcement of new Congressional hearings on Benghazi coming at the beginning of May and the promise whistle blowers will be testifying, perhaps we will be seeing someone brought to justice soon.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.