Steyn: Benghazi Bungle Requires Urgent Act of Political Hygiene

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We’re going to have that person arrested and prosecuted that did the video,” said Hillary Clinton. No, not the person who made the video saying that voting for Barack Obama is like losing your virginity to a really cool guy. I’ll get to that in a moment. But Secretary Clinton was talking about the fellow who made the supposedly Islamophobic video that supposedly set off the sacking of the Benghazi consulate. And, indeed, she did “have that person arrested.” By happy coincidence, his bail hearing has been set for three days after the election, by which time he will have served his purpose. These two videos – the Islamophobic one and the Obamosexual one – bookend the remarkable but wholly deserved collapse of the president’s re-election campaign.

You’ll recall that a near month-long attempt to blame an obscure YouTube video for the murder of four Americans and the destruction of U.S. sovereign territory climaxed in the vice-presidential debate with Joe Biden’s bald assertion that the administration had been going on the best intelligence it had at the time. By then, it had been confirmed that there never had been any protest against the video, and that the Obama line that Benghazi had been a spontaneous movie review that just got a little out of hand was utterly false. The only remaining question was whether the administration had knowingly lied or was merely innocently stupid. The innocent-stupidity line became harder to maintain this week after Fox News obtained State Department emails revealing that shortly after 4 p.m. Eastern, less than a half-hour after the assault in Benghazi began, the White House situation room knew the exact nature of it.

We also learned that, in those first moments of the attack, a request for military back-up was made by U.S. staff on the ground but was denied by Washington. It had planes and Special Forces less than 500 miles away in southern Italy – or about the same distance as Washington to Boston. They could have been there in less than two hours. Yet the commander-in-chief declined to give the order. So Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods fought all night against overwhelming odds, and died on a rooftop in a benighted jihadist hell hole while Obama retired early to rest up before his big Vegas campaign stop. “Within minutes of the first bullet being fired, the White House knew these heroes would be slaughtered if immediate air support was denied,” said Ty Woods’ father, Charles. “In less than an hour, the perimeters could have been secured, and American lives could have been saved. After seven hours fighting numerically superior forces, my son’s life was sacrificed because of the White House’s decision.”

Why would Obama and Biden do such a thing? Because to launch a military operation against an al-Qaida affiliate on the anniversary of 9/11 would have exposed the hollowness of their boast through convention week and the days thereafter – that Osama was dead, and al-Qaida was finished. And so Ty Woods, Glen Doherty, Sean Smith and Chris Stevens were left to die, and a decision taken to blame an entirely irrelevant video and, as Secretary Clinton threatened, “have that person arrested.” And, in the weeks that followed, the government of the United States lied to its own citizens as thoroughly and energetically as any totalitarian state, complete with the midnight knock-on-the-door from not-so-secret policemen sent to haul the designated fall guy into custody.

This goes far beyond the instinctive secretiveness to which even democratic governments are prone. The Obama administration created a wholly fictional storyline, and devoted its full resources to maintaining it.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama: From Hope & Changer to Fearmonger-in-Chief

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Four years after he was elected as a self-described ‘hopemonger’ promising a new post-partisan era, President Barack Obama is trying to claw his way to re-election with an ugly, divisive campaign in which he is playing the role of fearmonger-in-chief.

On a chilling Wednesday evening in a Las Vegas park, Obama spoke to a raucous gathering of some 13,000 – more than twice the number his opponent Mitt Romney had attracted a few days earlier but a far cry from the crowds of 2008 when he was swept into office with a seven-point victory over Senator John McCain.

[T]he mood quickly darkened and it was at this point that any comparisons with 2008 evaporated. Obama – who was reading his remarks from two teleprompters flanking the stage – launched into a exhaustive and exhausting diatribe about Romney.

[H]e told the crowd that a vote for Romney would plunge Americans back to the early 1960s. ‘You can choose to turn the clock back 50 years for women and immigrants and gays,’ he said. ‘Or in this election you can stand up for the principle that America includes everybody. We’re all created equal – black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, abled, disabled – no matter who you are, no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from or who you love, in America you can make it if you try.’

[I]f Obama is re-elected the way he has run his campaign may make it almost impossible for him to govern effectively – let alone in the spirit of the ‘better angels of our nature’ that Abraham Lincoln cited in his first inaugural speech and that Obama used to love quoting.

Read more from this story HERE.

Romney Surges Past Childish Obama

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With less than two weeks to go before Election Day, Mitt Romney has eliminated the 16 point advantage Barack Obama once enjoyed among women. Last month, women preferred Obama over Romney 56% to 40% on the economy. Now, the difference is 49% for Romney and 45% for Obama. Where understanding people’s problems is concerned, Obama’s lead among women has shrunk from 58%-36% to a 50%-43%.

The polls consistently show a real surge to Romney, away from Obama:

Rasmussen: Mitt Romney 50% nationwide, Obama 47%.

Gallup: Romney 50%, Obama 47%.

ABC News/Washington Post: 49% Romney, 48% Obama.

Reuters/Ipsos: Romney 47%, Obama 46%.

AP-GfK: Romney 47%, Obama 45%.

In the battleground state of Michigan, once considered a lock for Obama, not only is the race now tied Romney 47%, Obama 47%, the Detroit News endorsed Romney:

“As we said, this is more than a choice between two individuals. America is locked in a struggle over what it will be as a mature nation.”

A country built on rugged individualism finds itself increasingly under the thumb of a federal government that is ever expanding its reach into the lives of its citizens.

Obama has proved himself a disciple of the doctrine that for every problem there’s a government solution.

Romney, by contrast, embraces individual initiative and entrepreneurship. He would turn back the encroachment of the bureaucracy into the private sector.

Romney would replace the heavy hand of government with the invisible hand of a rational marketplace working to produce broad prosperity.

While both poverty and dependency have increased on Obama’s watch, Romney promises to replace government checks with private sector jobs and reverse the decline in middle class incomes. It is heavy lifting, but we favor the candidate who is committed to it.

Romney’s goal is to help all Americans live independent and productive lives, free to rise to the extent of their personal capabilities. He would not shield them from risk or the consequences of their decisions, but neither would he deny them their earned rewards.

Our hope is that Mitt Romney would restore faith in the core principles of free men and women, free minds and free markets that made America great, and will keep it so.”

In his never ending quest to elevate America’s political climate above hateful, petty partisan rhetoric, in a Rolling Stone interview Barack Obama called Mitt Romney a bullshi**er:

“We arrived at the Oval Office for our 45-minute interview … on the morning of October 11th. … As we left the Oval Office, executive editor Eric Bates told Obama that he had asked his six-year-old if there was anything she wanted him to say to the president. … [S]he said, ‘Tell him: You can do it.’ Obama grinned. … ‘You know, kids have good instincts,’ Obama offered. ‘They look at the other guy and say, “Well, that’s a bullshi**er, I can tell.”’”

Such class…such poise…such leadership…such inspiration…such an example for young Americans. To have an Oval Office occupant who conveys to the world at every available opportunity that he bears no responsibility for the consequences of his policies, words or actions.

Romney’s surge is for real and for good reason.

America deserves better.

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Michael Fell is a former MCA recording artist from the seminal punk rock era who toured America from coast to coast. Today, he’s a leading voice in the L.A. Tea Party movement, active since the February 2009 inception. Mr. Fell currently chairs the Westwood Tea Party, is a founding member of the L.A. Metro Tea Party Coalition, serves as the Vice Chairman of the Westside Republicans Club in L.A. CA, and is an elected Republican delegate to the L.A. 47th AD Central Committee. He’s been Campaign Manager for a primary winning Congressional candidate, as well as Santa Monica and L.A. City Council candidates. Mr. Fell is a contributing writer for https://conservativedailynews.com/, https://rightwingnews.com/, https://www.hollywoodrepublican.net/, https://beforeitsnews.com, https://www.redcounty.com/, https://www.uspatriotpac.com and, https://westsiderepublicans.com/. His opinions on today’s news events and political climate can be found on his blog: https://mjfellright.wordpress.com/

Insecure Obama, Insecure World

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The United States has had good presidents and bad, but it has never had a leader who came to a debate on national security with so much insecurity. It was a small petty man who sat on the other side of the screen, alternately smirking and scowling, grinding his teeth and launching attack after attack instead of finally taking the opportunity to set the record straight with the American people.

Barack Obama came to the debate with a roster of prepared speeches, few of them about foreign affairs and most of them about the economy. Even while his Secretary of Defense has given an unprecedented order to top military officials to stonewall the congressional investigation into Benghazigate, even as it has become known that his administration watched four Americans be murdered in real time and did not lift a finger to save their lives, talking points prepared by highly paid speechwriters fell out of his mouth assuring the American people that everything was going well. There was nothing wrong except for a few non-optimal bumps in the road made up of dead Americans.

Anyone listening to Obama would have to conclude, like Voltaire’s Pangloss, that we truly live in the best of all possible worlds. During the Bush administration, liberal pols like Obama liked to claim that they were part of the reality-based community. But as Calvin of “Calvin and Hobbes” said, “I’m not in denial. I’m just very selective about the reality I accept.” Obama would appear to have joined Calvin’s selective reality community.

Instead of discussing foreign affairs and national security, the Contender-in-Chief did his best to divert the debate with a talking point that he called “Nation Building at Home.” “Nation Building” is usually a term reserved for the reconstruction of backward or broken nations. That Obama insisted on applying it to the United States was telling, but even more telling was that his big idea for the debate was not only a distraction but a call to repeat the same disastrous stimulus and shovel-ready project boondoggles that had dug the country 16 trillion dollars into debt.

Obama’s idea of a foreign policy agenda is to borrow trillions of dollars from China to invest in green energy and teachers unions while calling it nation building. Left unasked was the question of what nation would we be building—America or China?

Read more from this story HERE.

Biden is wrong: The Romney/Ryan ticket is Kennedy-esque

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During last week’s vice-presidential debate, Vice President Joe Biden inadvertently raised an interesting question when he dismissed comparisons between Paul Ryan and John F. Kennedy: Which presidential ticket is demonstrating more political courage?

Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy’s 1955 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, honored eight U.S. senators who risked their political careers by putting principle above politics. Kennedy wrote in Profiles that courage is “the most admirable of human virtues.” His brother Robert added in a forward to a later edition that President Kennedy was “fond of quoting Dante, who wrote, ‘the hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in a time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.’”

The Obama-Biden ticket is maintaining its neutrality in the face of a great moral crisis that will have a profoundly negative impact on Americans for decades to come if not faced squarely and very soon. President Obama and his vice president continue to act as if the federal government has not run trillion-dollar-plus deficits the past four years. “We just need to get the wealthy to pay their fair share and along with war savings everything will be okay.”

Supposed war savings can be dismissed out of hand as a means of ending the massive deficits of the last four years. The war in Iraq is over (and has been), and the nation still had a $1.1 trillion deficit in FY 2012. The war in Afghanistan is winding down, but it costs a relatively modest $120 billion per year.

Paul Ryan rightly pointed out during the vice-presidential debate that there are not enough rich people and small businesses to pay for the current $3.8 trillion federal spending level (up $700 billion since Bush left office) much less Obama’s proposed “investments.” Romney noted at this week’s debate that the top five percent of taxpayers already contribute nearly 60 percent of all federal income tax revenue (and the top 10 percent of taxpayers pay higher taxes than their peers in most other industrialized nations). So Obama’s fair-share argument does not hold water. Raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans to levels the president has proposed (from 35% to 39.6%) may raise an additional $50 billion and the new Obamacare taxes on investment income may raise a few billion more, but not if raising taxes on job creators — and the businesses they own and invest in — causes the overall economy to slow even more.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Price of Peace Remains Eternal Vigilance – Especially if Romney Wins

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Conrad Hilton, the founder of the Hilton Hotel Empire, spent money out of his own pocket to run the following prayer in many major American magazines on July 4th, 1952:

Our Father in heaven,

We pray that You save us from ourselves.

The world that You have made for us, to live in peace, we have made into an armed camp. We live in fear of war to come. We are afraid of “the terror that flies by night, and the arrow that flies by day, the pestilences that walks in darkness and the destruction that wastes at noon-day.” (Psalm 91)

We have turned from You to go out selfish way. We have broken Your commandments and denied Your truth. We have left Your altars to serve the false gods of money and pleasure and power.

Forgive us and help us.

Now, darkness gathers around us, and we are confused in all our counsels. Losing faith in You, we lose faith in ourselves.

Inspire us with wisdom, all of us of every color, race and creed, to use our wealth, our strength to help our brother, instead of destroying him. Help us to do Your will as it is done in heaven, and to be worthy of Your promise of peace on earth. Fill us with new faith, new strength and new courage, that we may win the Battle for Peace.

Be swift to save us, dear God, before the darkness falls.

Again, Hilton ran that ad in major American magazines in 1952. For many of us today, that period of time represents an era of nostalgic Americana we are striving to return to. Yet Hilton looked around at what seems to us an idyllic era and saw many of the exact same evils and threats to freedom we are wringing our hands about today.

There’s a lesson here.

American Christians like me are faced with a temptation to think shortsightedly that I don’t believe any other Christians in the history of Christendom ever had to deal with. That’s because as Americans we are blessed with a level of prosperity, freedom, and mainstream acceptance – yes, even under President Obama – that no other era of Christians has ever had. This provides us the luxury of thinking primarily about the next election, the next fiscal quarter, or the next job review.

Before and outside America, Christians worldwide faced a level of persecution, pestilence, and oppression that compelled them to think long-term, because otherwise there was no hope.

I understand Obama represents an unprecedented lack of respect and agreement with the traditions and values that created American Exceptionalism. I also remember when we were told the same things about Bill Clinton and Michael Dukakis, too. The other side of this debate does not agree or understand American Exceptionalism otherwise they would support policies that support it. That will always be the case until we win the day, and that requires a long-term plan.

Part of that long-term plan is realizing the battle isn’t over on Election Day, but is just beginning. The other side has more diligence and perseverance. Whether they win or lose on November 6th, they will be right back in the fight on November 7th.

Will we do the same? Yes Mitt Romney has more respect for American Exceptionalism than Obama, and he clearly has a better idea of how a real economy works, but given Obama’s failures that’s not a tough threshold to clear. Still, as someone that owns his own show and is thus a business owner himself, I could certainly use a better economy for me and my employees as much as the next guy.

I also agree that it’s tough to be free unless you can provide for yourself, and the more the government interferes with that the more freedom is threatened. I do agree that based on his private sector experience and Obama’s public sector record, Romney is the superior choice for freedom in this area.

However, let us not forget that Romney has shown repeatedly that left on his own he cannot be trusted, as have most Republican politicians who talk a good game on the campaign trail. If a politician like Romney in the heat of a campaign is willing to turn on his own base (see Todd Akin and Chick-fil-a) when he thinks most needs us in the heat of a campaign, what will he do in office when he thinks he doesn’t?

We must do a better job of being diligent in holding their feet to the fire while in office, rather than spinning their failures as “not as bad as the other guy.” For once they’re in office there is no “other guy,” for they are the ones taking the oath of office. Thus responsibility for leadership falls on them alone.

The past two election cycles we have thankfully been willing to wield the ultimate weapon against the ruling class—the threat or realization of a primary. We have mounted casualties of spineless and untrustworthy Republicans around the country, and this trend must not only continue but be ratcheted up all the more. Politicians don’t see the light until they feel the heat, and no amount of blogging, broadcasting, or blasting impacts a politician as much as the threat of losing their job.

The price of liberty remains eternal vigilance. We must be willing to pay it otherwise Hilton’s prayer will be as sadly relevant 60 years from now for our children and grandchildren as it was for Hilton 60 years ago.

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You can friend “Steve Deace” on Facebook and follow him on Twitter @SteveDeaceShow. To learn more about his nationally-syndicated radio show, go to www.stevedeace.com.

Romney Wins Debate on Critical Issues

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President Obama showed up ready to rumble last night at the Hofstra University, unfortunately for him, so did Mitt Romney.

But Romney had to debate the President and a mediator who thought she had to pitch in to help out the President if he appeared in trouble. Candy Crowley interrupted Romney 28 times, while she only admonished Obama 9 times for exceeding his time.

There are analysts saying President Obama scored some debate points and critiqued Romney for not taking advantage of clear openings to land a knockout blow on Obama. But when the “fog of the debate” clears, polls will show that Mitt Romney has picked up more support from the American electorate.

Some after the debate flash polls showed that Obama had an edge in the debate. But the question asked was who was the most improved from the Denver debate, of course that was Obama….and who performed close to expectations: Romney.

The left leaning CNN poll shortly after the debate showed that Romney had a 58-40 edge on the issue of economics/who had the best plan for righting our economic ship.

Additionally Romney had the edge in the following 3 key areas:

• Taxes 51-44

• Solving budget deficit 59-36

• Healthcare 49-46

President Obama still had a slight edge on Mitt Romney when it comes to foreign policy. But ominously for President Obama, the Benghazi attack on our consulate and murder of 4 Americans is becoming a big issue. Additionally it seems Al Quaeda and terrorism didn’t disappear from the scene when Osama Bin Laden was killed.

Another key item that will vex President Obama, is the sky high cost of gasoline plaguing American motorists and businesses. Last night Mitt Romney was able to lay that blame squarely on the shoulders of Obamas last 4 years of energy policy.

Political scientist Frank Luntz monitored a panel of 21 voters, many of whom previously voted for Obama in 2008. After the debate a majority of them said they will be voting for Romney.

A newly released Gallup Poll showed that Mitt Romney has jumped to a national lead against President Obama 51-45.

Romney’s popularity in the national polls is making a difference in swing states that were formerly assumed to be President Obama’s, or were leaning his way. They are now very close or leaning Romney.

Pundits might say they give the edge to Obama in points in this last debate, but the points that really matter to Americans all belong to Mitt Romney.

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Ed Farnan’s articles are also carried in:

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Why Romney Is Now Winning With Women

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I still remember the day that I learned the most important lesson a man can ever learn about women. It was the first semester of my sophomore year of college. My girlfriend had broken up with me the last semester of the previous year and I still hadn’t figured out why. I had begged her to stay. I told her that I was nothing without her and even cried in front of her. But she still left me for another guy.

What I didn’t understand was that when she had tried to break up with me just a month before, the emasculation of myself seemed to work wonders. She decided we’d give it another try and things seemed to go back to normal. But at the end of that month, she wasn’t snookered by my antics.

Don’t misunderstand, I wasn’t faking. I felt like my world was ending and that she alone held the key to my happiness in life. So it was easy to cry and tell her that I “dwelled in darkness without her.” But I allowed myself to do it because I thought it would work. I thought that getting sympathy could buy me some points with the gentler sex.

I thought that right up until the day I took mental inventory of my recent experiences with women. Since I’d been back as a sophomore, women had been treating me differently. The ones I thought were out of my league were inviting me to have lunch with them. Senior girls were taking walks across campus with me simply because they saw me passing by. Two girls who I’d been friends with for over a year were literally feuding over the “rights” to me to the point that they stopped being roommates.

What had changed? I had. Rather than being a soft spoken weenie whose only skill with women was attempting to solicit sympathy, I had improved myself. I didn’t do it to “get chicks” or win back the girl who’d dumped me. I did it for me. I’d begun a part-time business, started back lifting weights with a buddy, and reunited with friends I had basically ignored when I was infatuated the year before.

I’d become someone that girls wanted to date because I was going places, had a life outside of any one woman, was physically stronger, knew how to have fun and the “looks decent wagon” hadn’t passed me by. I’d earned it.

When I’d cried and begged my ex to stay, she stayed for a little bit because she felt sorry for me. So she felt good in giving me another chance that I really didn’t deserve. But that never works long term. It’s like a sympathy date in high school, it’s a short term relationship because it’s based on sympathy, not attraction and love.

So what does this have to do with Mitt Romney closing the gender gap with Barack Obama? Simple, Obama was a sympathy date in 2008.

He hadn’t earned anything. He had been a senator for less than two years when he started campaigning. He rose to the top because women got warm feelings by voting for him. They felt like they did him a favor. He wasn’t qualified. He hadn’t earned what he got by having a record of successes to point to (or much of any record at all).

But as I said above, the sympathy date is temporary just like the sympathy reconciliation I received. This is especially true of Obama when women are able to see the resume of Mitt Romney. Romney has never been anything but a winner. He’s wealthy, not because he sold a book based on unearned and faddish popularity but because he turned around failing businesses and took the Olympics from debt to profit. He won the governorship of Massachusetts and actually balanced the budget instead of just talking about it – a rare feat these days. He persevered and won the nomination of his party and now he’s standing up to someone who doesn’t have successes to under his belt. In fact, Obama is in a similar spot to where I was the second time my girlfriend tried to break up with me. I relied on what had worked before because that’s all I had. But sympathy didn’t work the second time. She wanted a winner. She wanted a man who had things going for him and was a strong leader in life.

So when women are faced with the choice between a man who’s using the same ole “give me another chance” line she’s heard from him before and a man who doesn’t need another chance because he’s already done the things Obama couldn’t, they’ll likely pick the man who’s already a winner in his own right. The sympathy date rarely happens more than once. And the same is true for the sympathy vote when the country is in need of someone who can actually do what needs to be done.

Free Speech Dying in the Western World

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Free speech is dying in the Western world. While most people still enjoy considerable freedom of expression, this right, once a near-absolute, has become less defined and less dependable for those espousing controversial social, political or religious views. The decline of free speech has come not from any single blow but rather from thousands of paper cuts of well-intentioned exceptions designed to maintain social harmony.

In the face of the violence that frequently results from anti-religious expression, some world leaders seem to be losing their patience with free speech. After a video called “Innocence of Muslims” appeared on YouTube and sparked violent protests in several Muslim nations last month, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned that “when some people use this freedom of expression to provoke or humiliate some others’ values and beliefs, then this cannot be protected.”

It appears that the one thing modern society can no longer tolerate is intolerance. As Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard put it in her recent speech before the United Nations, “Our tolerance must never extend to tolerating religious hatred.”

A willingness to confine free speech in the name of social pluralism can be seen at various levels of authority and government. In February, for instance, Pennsylvania Judge Mark Martin heard a case in which a Muslim man was charged with attacking an atheist marching in a Halloween parade as a “zombie Muhammed.” Martin castigated not the defendant but the victim, Ernie Perce, lecturing him that “our forefathers intended to use the First Amendment so we can speak with our mind, not to piss off other people and cultures — which is what you did.”

Of course, free speech is often precisely about pissing off other people — challenging social taboos or political values.

Read more from this story HERE.

Why is the American Automobile Association, With Over 50 Million Members, Doing Nothing About High Gas Prices?

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By My Auto Club. The American Automobile Association (AAA) has for years failed to fight high gas prices to benefit its motorist members. The AAA with 50+ million members is the largest nonreligious member organization in the country.

The AAA gas price surveys always have included the oil cartel’s excuses and red herring arguments for their skyrocketed prices.

The AAA is tasked to lobby in support of motorists. But it has not yet done any lobbying to any state or the Federal government to:

1. investigate the domestic oil cartel for collusion and antitrust violations.

2. investigate the worldwide oil cartel including OPEC and its allies.

3. urge President Obama to stop all help the US occupation authorities are giving to Iraq and its OPEC allies (could be done with a stroke of President Obama’s pen); and investigate the possible support the US occupying forces continue to give to Iraq and its OPEC allies, including enforcing worldwide oil production quotas. Iraq has kept its oil production down at the Saddam Hussein level of March 2003 when the occupation started. The price of gas was $1/gallon in March 2003 and is now $4/gallon.

4. stop tax increases on gasoline and diesel.

The two largest AAA clubs are the Automobile Club of Southern California (with about 7 million members), which owns the AAA clubs in Texas, New Mexico, and Hawaii, and parts of Northern New England (Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire), Missouri, and Alabama; and the Automobile Club of Northern California, which owns the AAA clubs in Utah and Nevada. Both have totally failed to lobby. No bills have been sponsored, no ballot measures been initiated.

Time for the AAA to rise up for its member-owners. The multi-billion dollar rip-offs must stop.