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Alaskan Navy Seal who wrote book on bin Laden killing identified, faces likely probe

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On Wednesday this week, Reuters reported that a Navy Seal had written a book about the mission that killed Osama bin Laden. The book, entitled “No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden,” was written by a former Seal Team Six member under the pseudonym of “Mark Owen” along with co-author Kevin Maurer. The publisher states that it will be released on 9/11.

According to Reuters:

The U.S. government was surprised by the news that a Navy SEAL who participated in the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan has written a book about the operation in which the al Qaeda leader was killed, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. . . It was not vetted by government agencies to ensure that no secrets were revealed.

The agencies not consulted included the Pentagon and the CIA. The publisher, Dutton of the U.S. Penguin Group, responded:

The book was vetted by a former special operations attorney. He vetted it for tactical, technical, and procedural information as well as information that could be considered classified by compilation and found it to be without risk to national security.

After a bit of sleuthing, Fox News discovered that the author was part of the elite team that killed three Somalian pirates who had taken control of an American vessel in the Indian Ocean in 2009, and that

“Mark Owen,” the pseudonym under which the book was written, is actually 35 year-old Matt Bissonnette of Wrangell, Alaska. Bissonnette held the rank of chief in the elite Navy SEAL Team 6 prior to retiring. He was one of the first men in the room where bin Laden died, witnessing the occurrence first-hand.

Some have called Fox’s decision to publicize Bissonnette’s name and location “astonishing” as it most certainly puts the former Navy Seal at risk of reprisal by Islamic fanatics.  Fox disagreed, noting that anyone who publishes such a book loses any reasonable expectation of privacy.  The network also contended that Bissonnette’s goal is to publicly confront Obama for “taking credit” for the raid, since he had cited the need to “set the record straight.”

It now appears that Obama may be attempting to preempt this confrontation. According to Reuters, Bissonnette is likely to face a Department of Defense probe over his failure to have the book “cleared” prior to publication:

Colonel Tim Nye, spokesman for the U.S. Special Operations Command, or SOCOM, which directs operations by Navy SEALs and other special operations forces, said on Thursday that SOCOM did not review the book before publication, nor had the SEALs.

Nye said that because the book had not been subjected to appropriate pre-publication review, it could become a target of “potential investigation” by government authorities.

Unfortunately for Obama, “any such inquiry was unlikely to be launched until after the book’s publication, scheduled for the anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States.”

 

Obama plans military intervention in Syria to seize Assad’s chemical weapons

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The Pentagon has made contingency plans to send small teams of special operations troops into Syria if the White House decides it needs to secure chemical weapons depots now controlled by security forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, senior U.S. officials said.

President Obama warned this week that any effort by Assad to move or use his arsenal of chemical munitions in the country’s conflict would cross a “red line,” implying it could prompt swift U.S. intervention.

But Pentagon planners are more focused on protecting or destroying any Syrian stockpiles that are left unguarded and at risk falling into the hands of rebel fighters or militias aligned with Al Qaeda, Hezbollah or other militant groups.

Securing the sites would probably involve stealthy raids by special operations teams trained to handle such weapons, and precision airstrikes to incinerate the chemicals without dispersing them in the air, the officials said. U.S. satellites and drone aircraft already maintain partial surveillance of the sites.

U.S. intelligence agencies believe Syria has over the years produced or acquired hundreds of tons of sarin nerve agent and mustard gas, a blister agent, and has sought to develop VX, another powerful nerve gas. The toxicity of some chemical agents degrades significantly over time, so it is unclear how lethal the stockpiles are.

Read more from this story HERE.

Glenn Beck interview with FRC shooting eyewitness General Boykin

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Glenn Beck interviewed retired General Boykin, who was at the Family Research Council at the time of the shooting this past week, about what he saw. Although there is a practical media black out on this, it’s fairly clear that the shooter intended a mass murder. Each of the 15 Chick-fil-A bags were apparently intended to be dropped next to each victim:

GLENN BECK: I think — we think that that’s only relevant because they think that’s his plan — that’s where he learned what he was going to do with GM, but that’s another story. We have a friend that works at the Family Research Council, Lieutenant general Jerry Boykin. He is on the phone. There was a tragedy this week, as you may know. A gunman came in, shot a security guard, and, of course, the press hasn’t stopped talking about it. Oh, no. Wait. They did. This one is — this one is significant because the shooter was a volunteer. This is a leftist — this is a political terrorist strike. General Jerry Boykin with us. General, how are you, sir?

GENERAL BOYKIN: I’m good, Glenn. It’s good to be with you. I’m not quite sure why you played that clip from the President in this segment that I’m on.

GLENN BECK: I really think it’s — I really think it’s because — it’s his plan for the economy, but help me out on — you were — you were actually there when the shooter came?

GENERAL BOYKIN: I was. It was about 10:46 on Wednesday morning. He walked in the lobby, set a backpack down in front of the guard desk and then reached in his backpack. Fortunately this guard who was actually the building manager but kind of dual roles as a guard, realized something was up and got out of his chair and approached the man and just as the man pulled a pistol, pointed it at his head, this gentle giant of a guard reached up and grabbed the gun and he shot him — the gunman shot our man Leo Johnson in the wrist but with one arm, Leo wrestled this man to the ground and took his gun away from him and what a hero this guy was. He saved a lot of people and there’s no question, Glenn, this guy’s intent based on the fact that he had about 50 rounds of ammunition and 15 Chick-fil-A bags was this was going to be a mass murder on our — a large scale.

GLENN BECK: You actually talked to the gunman?

GENERAL BOYKIN: I listened as the gunman lay on the floor talking to police and he said, I don’t like the policies here and, you know, he — in fact, he stated that to the guard, as well. So, yeah, it was — there was no question what his motive was. He tied us to Chick-fil-A and I think the scenario is — it doesn’t take much imagination, Glenn. He was going to go through and kill as many people as he could and drop Chick-fil-A bags at every dead body to send a signal that he was reacting to the — our stance on traditional marriage, that being between a man and a woman.

Read more at Page 2 HERE.

Enough on Akin’s ignorance, where’s the media outrage over Obama’s support for infanticide?

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In the wake of the Akin controversy, Jill Stanek points out that the US Senate candidate’s verbal missteps do not even register next to Obama’s radical support for infanticide.  She gives a brief history on the President’s endorsement of killing babies born alive after abortions:

“As Illinois state senator Obama opposed the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act, designed to give abortion survivors constitutional rights. Obama said giving premature born babies rights would be unconstitutional. Period. That’s what he said. Read page 86 of the senate floor transcript, when Obama was the only senator to speak against Born Alive. Read what Obama said very carefully:

Whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the Equal Protection Clause or other elements of the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a – a child, a 9-month-old – child that was delivered to term.

That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it – it would essentially bar abortions, because the Equal Protection Clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an anti-abortion statute. For that purpose, I think it would probably be found unconstitutional.

Obama’s support of abortion to the point of condoning infanticide could not be clearer. It is grotesque, barbaric, sick and yes, crazy. It is the radical belief of our current president of the United States.

And the press continues to minimize, distort, rationalize, or ignore it, because the press is pro-abortion and likes Obama.”  Read more from this story HERE.

Erik Erickson weighed in as well:

Todd Akin, the Republican Senate nominee in Missouri, made an inarticulate and rather dumb statement about rape and abortion on television in Missouri. He subsequently clarified his remarks. Congressman Akin, like many devout Christians, does not believe in a rape exception for abortion.

Naturally, the very same left that gave Joe Biden a pass on his “put y’all back in chains” comment is horrified by Todd Akin’s remarks.

Todd Akin was inarticulate. Some are now accusing him of being pro-rape. The people horrified by Todd Akin’s remarks are, I’m sure, thrilled to have a President who defended infanticide. I’ll take Todd Akin’s inarticulate remarks over an infanticide supporter any day of the week.

And no, this is not hyperbole. President Obama was the only member of the Illinois State Senate to speak in favor of the position that a child who survives an abortion and fully exits the womb can still be killed by the abortionist.

Read more from this story HERE.

 

 

Obama Admin: “Proud” that stimulus produced jobs at $738k each (+video)

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Photo credit: merfam

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood told The Daily Caller that he is “very proud” of the Economic Recovery Act of 2009 that put 65,000 people to work with $48 billion in federal funds for the Department of Transportation, amounting to $738,461 per job.

The Recovery Act of 2009, which in total cost taxpayers $825 billion, has been criticized because it did not prevent the unemployment rate from rising above 8 percent, contrary to what the Obama administration predicted.

“Yeah, we spent $48 billion and we put 65,000 people to work in 15,000 projects in two years with no problems,” LaHood told The Daily Caller in a video interview in Alexandria, Va., on Friday. “I’m very proud of that. I know that the governors can spend this money because over two years we gave them $48 billion, they created 65,000 jobs in 15,000 projects. This is doable. We’re going to get the money out and get people to work.”

TheDC also asked LaHood about the Obama administration’s decision to send an additional $473 million in unspent earmarks to states.

“You know what? These are old earmarks. There are earmarks that were set aside by members of Congress going back several years,” LaHood said. “We’re in the no earmark era. There are no more earmarks. This money needs to be spent because we need to get people to work.”

Glenn Beck interview with FRC shooting eyewitness General Boykin-Page 3

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GLENN BECK: Well, General, you are one of my favorite people because you never mince words and you’ve taken a strong stand to your own peril for a very long time. You’re a personal hero. Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin. Our best to the Family Research Council and everybody. How is everybody doing there?

GENERAL BOYKIN: They are doing well. Leo is an extraordinary hero and he’s doing quite well. I was with him when he came out of surgery; and the people at FRC are tough warriors, Glenn. We are not going away. We’re not going to change our position. We’re going to stand firm because we do believe that we are speaking for the majority of Americans who still maintain very traditional values.

GLENN BECK: Thank you very much, General. I –

GENERAL BOYKIN: Thank you, Glenn. God bless you.

Glenn Beck interview with FRC shooting eyewitness General Boykin-Page 2

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GLENN BECK: Well, I think the way to make sure everybody understands your point is to be a mass murderer. The media is reacting to this in their stereotypical way. General, what is the way — how do we change this? They’re ignoring the Black Panthers who have come out and said, Throw bombs into nurseries, kill crackers, as they would say, and everybody is ignoring it. The press even makes us into conspiracy freaks for bringing is up. We bring up the left is the one that always has caused 90% of the shootings and the political statement, kind of bombings, et cetera, et cetera, the terror throughout American history it’s generally from either crazy people or the left and how do we get this message out? Who do we do, General?

GENERAL BOYKIN: Well, Glenn, it’s even worse than that. It’s worse. I mean, not only are they ignoring this and don’t want to deal with it but CNN the morning after in an interview with Brian Brown from the National Organization For Marriage actually tried to justify the hate group label that was placed on the Family Research Council by this anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-sematic Marxist organization called the Southern Poverty Law Center which is a — just an evil group of people and so they actually tried to justify this hate crimes — I mean this hate group label that they gave. What do we do? Well, CNN’s ratings are already in the tank, as well as most of the mainstream media and what we do is continue to do what you are doing with both your radio program, as well as your broadcast, and other organizations like yours, we keep putting the truth out and it is starting to resonate and I think that’s the reason that the popularity of your program is growing is Americans are actually starting to look for truth. You know, Glenn, it’s important to remember that in a recent survey 80% of Americans surveyed supported Dan Cathy and his stance on traditional marriage but the mainstream media is never going to report that and the Southern Poverty Law Center is right in the middle of this culture war and I think what you’re doing and what others like you are doing, particularly with talk radio and with nontraditional means of communication is so critical to keeping the truth out for the American public today.

GLENN BECK: Okay. You made quite a statement about the Southern Poverty Law Center. Most people don’t even know who they are because — they’re quoted all the time by all of the news networks. They’re taking a look at all of the hate groups and monitoring all hate crimes. They have put the Black Panthers in the category of a right wing extremist group on the same list as FRC and the same list as David Barton. Can you — who is the Southern Poverty Law Center? Who are they?

GENERAL BOYKIN: Well, first of all, I’ve already given you my label for them and they are — in fact, they are very similar to the ACLU. They’re a group of lawyers, as well as Marxists who have, in fact, raised an awful lot of money which we understand is being kept offshore and they go after every liberal cause in America. They are — they — in fact, they just had a big meeting this week with the Muslim political action committee and that is a very anti-sematic organization and these people are dangerous, they are evil, and my question is, Glenn, who are they to have any authority to declare anybody a hate group? And, remember, they also called Hitler right wing, as well. I don’t mean SPLC but, you know, people today on the left refer to Hitler as right wing and compare conservatives to Hitler. Well, Hitler was anything but right wing. Remember, he was the nationalist socialist party.

GLENN BECK: Are you more optimistic, less optimistic, or about the same as you were a year ago for the health of the nation?

GENERAL BOYKIN: I am so concerned, Glenn. I must tell you, I’m angry. I’m really angry. I’m angry because people like you and the FRC and others are standing up and speaking for what I believe is the majority of Americans, while Americans, you know, sit at home and cheer you on but they’re doing very little to actually get involved in this culture war and I’m optimistic that people are starting to wake up and as tragic as this event was, Glenn, I think that it is just another way that people are being shaken and people are being brought to an awareness that we are losing our country and the average American that stands on traditional values, the average Christian that believes in a biblical world view have got to get involved and they’ve got to put their time, their effort, their money, and their speech behind what is happening here. So, thank you for what you’re doing.

Read more at the final Page 3 HERE.

Obama falsely denies that his campaign called Romney a felon

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Photo credit: Cain & Todd Benson

During a surprise press briefing on Monday in which President Barack Obama took questions from White House reporters for the first time in months, he claimed that “nobody accused Romney of being a felon.”

Obama’s statement was in response to a question about his re-election campaign’s attacks on Mitt Romney‘s time at Bain Capital. It appears to directly contradict something his deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter said back in July, when she suggested that Romney may have committed a felony.

“Either Mitt Romney, through his own words and his own signature, was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the SEC, which is a felony,” Cutter said on a conference call with reporters back then. “Or he was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the American people to avoid responsibility for some of the consequences of his investments.”

The rub came because of Securities and Exchange Commission documents that the Boston Globe claims show Romney worked at Bain until 2002 — despite him having said publicly he left in 1999.

Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul called that Boston Globe characterization inaccurate because as “Bain Capital has said, as Gov. Romney has said, and as has been confirmed by independent fact checkers multiple times, Gov. Romney left Bain Capital in February of 1999 to run the Olympics and had no input on investments or management of companies after that point.”

Army morale hits rock bottom due to Obama-loving generals, loss of discipline

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Photo credit: US Army

Only a quarter of the Army’s officers and enlisted soldiers believe the nation’s largest military branch is headed in the right direction — a survey response that is the lowest on record and reflects what some in the service call a crisis in confidence. The detailed annual survey by a team of independent researchers found that the most common reasons cited for the bleak outlook were “ineffective leaders at senior levels,” a fear of losing the best and the brightest after a decade of war, and the perception, especially among senior enlisted soldiers, that “the Army is too soft” and lacks sufficient discipline.

The study, ordered by the Center for Army Leadership at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, also found that one in four troops serving in Afghanistan rated morale either “low” or “very low,” part of a steady downward trend over the last five years. But the most striking finding is widespread disagreement with the statement that “the Army is headed in the right direction to prepare for the challenges of the next 10 years.” “In 2011, [active duty] agreement to this statement hit an all-time low,” according to the survey results, a copy of which were provided to The Boston Globe. “Belief that the Army is headed in the right direction is positively related to morale.” In 2010, about 33 percent of those surveyed didn’t agree with the statement; the number was 38 percent in 2006.

The apparent lack of confidence poses a new set of challenges to the Army as it undergoes budget cuts and shrinks its ranks. The Army’s top officer, General Raymond T. Odierno, says he is taking the findings to heart. “It is very important for us to be introspective, and we are committed to continual self-assessment,” Odierno told the Army Times newspaper in a statement. A major concern that the survey identified was whether the Army would be able to keep top-notch leaders as it cuts its ranks, as well as fears it would be stretched too thin to meet unforeseen demands. Junior officers were particularly concerned about retaining good leaders.

The active-duty Army, which is currently about 570,000 strong, is preparing to reduce its ranks by about 90,000 soldiers in the coming years, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down and the Pentagon budget is subject to a government-wide belt-tightening. “Comments on downsizing the force reflected concerns by leaders that troop reductions would significantly impact the Army’s ability to respond to future conflicts,” the study’s authors wrote.

The Army has historically surveyed attitudes within the ranks to improve professional education and training. But since 2005 it has undertaken the empirically based Army Leader Development Survey each year in an effort to identify trends and leading indicators for leadership problems and signs of dissatisfaction.

Read more from this story HERE.

This Is Not “Let’s Make A Deal” and David Axelrod is Not Monty Hall

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The White House re-election campaign wants to make a deal. In exchange for GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney releasing five years of tax returns, they will stop criticizing him for not releasing more. While hiding behind the skirt of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the White House campaign alleges there may be as many as ten years when Romney evaded paying income taxes.

Romney says that over the past decade he has paid at least 13 percent in federal income taxes. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, a non-partisan group, middle income families average paying 12.8 percent in federal income tax.

Critics complain that Romney pays too few taxes. At his income level, Romney pays plenty of taxes. Romney made every penny he has. Hence every dime he uses to make investments has already been taxed at wage income rates. Romney pays a lower tax rate than wage earners because a majority of his income comes from investments, which are taxed at a lower rate than wages. Investment income is taxed at a lower rate because, unlike wages, investments are at risk.

If Romney was guilty of income tax evasion, the IRS would already be after him and his campaign for the White House would long be over. The IRS falls within the Department of Treasury. At the behest of the White House, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the IRS would be all over Romney like a ravenous pack of hyenas.

Romney has released his 2010 tax records and vowed to release his 2011 returns. That matches the number of returns released in 2008 by Senator John McCain when he was the GOP candidate. The number of tax returns released by McCain was never an issue.
This is not Let’s Make A Deal, and David Axelrod is not Monty Hall. For Mitt Romney, only a booby prize or worse waits behind curtain number three.

This bait and switch by the White House and their “progressive” co-conspirators is more than simply a distraction from the issues.
Throughout a shadowy, veiled, mystery shrouded political career where his own past has been intentionally concealed, obtaining confidential information about political opponents and distorting that information to smear them has been the signature move of this candidate.

Remember, the current Oval Office occupier is the same clandestine, shadowy figure caught in an open-mic moment with then-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev saying that after his re-election he would have “more flexibility.”

Flexibility for … ?

Three members of a Russian punk band were found guilty and sentenced to two years in jail for protesting against Russian president Vladamir Putin. The band members were arrested on March 3rd and charged with “hooliganism”. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30 have been in jail ever since.

What kind of flexibility is this secretive, anti-business, hostile to constitutionally protected individual Liberty White House promising to a Russian president who imprisons people for free speech?

Is this flexibility related to non-military federal agencies purchasing millions of rounds of hollow point bullets?

Could this flexibility include plans to tighten the iron grip of power by imposing Martial Law and suspending elections to ensure he can finish the “fundamental transformation” of America through the imposition of a form of government completely foreign to every principle espoused by its Founding Fathers?

By agreeing to release any additional tax returns, Mitt Romney would be making a crucial mistake. Let the White House re-election campaign go into grand mal seizure. Let them scream like banshees and howl at the moon. Let them cry like babies. Let them wet themselves. Let them posture, threaten, intimidate and bully. You can bet your underwater sub-prime mortgage they will do anything, be it lie, cheat and steal to win this election.

To borrow a phrase from another popular television game show:  No deal.

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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/