Open thread for Sunday, November 18th: Everyday is Like Sunday edition
Here is the open thread for Sunday, November 18th; please feel free to leave links to interesting articles as well as to discuss whatever issues may arise during the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
Now that the election is over, and partially due to a slowing response to the open threads, I have decided to cut down the open threads to one per week. I will be posting the open threads on Sunday for the time being, but who knows, they may pick back up again and if they do I will be more than happy to go back to two per week.
For today’s musical selection I chose Morrissey’s song entitled ‘Everyday is Like Sunday’ because, well, it is Sunday. Morrissey was the frontman for the ’80’s band ‘The Smiths’ until they broke up in 1987, shortly after I discovered them.
This was I believe the second single Morrissey released as a solo artist if I am not mistaken, ‘Suedehead’ being the first, and it was probably his biggest solo hit.
In this song Morrissey laments what he sees as the loss of the British seaside due to the influx of tourism and the commercialization of the area compared to the way he remembers it growing up. Today we are lamenting the loss of the America we knew growing up as the statists continue to gain control over the country and influence with the people with the intent of fundamentally changing the United States of America.
Was the EPA using a secret email account to hide documents?
The big news from last week was of course the sex scandal involving General Petraeus. The media loves a good sex scandal and this was no exception, but this scandal served a dual purpose because it also provided the Obama regime and its propaganda arm with a diversion from the real Benghazi scandal and the ensuing cover-up.
The propaganda arm of the Obama regime was able to turn the whole Benghazi scandal into a sex scandal while taking the focus off the true scandal; that being Barack Obama’s failure to heed the warnings an attack was imminent, his failure to send in reinforcements once the attack was underway, and the cover-up which followed and is still ongoing.
There are really two separate scandals here although the propaganda arm of the Obama regime would have us believe otherwise…..but I digress.
One thing we learned during the last week was a trick that General Petraeus and his lover were using to hide the affair, and that is the fact they set up a secret email account and saved all their correspondence in a draft folder to avoid detection. Now it turns out that David Petraeus wasn’t the only person within the Obama regime which may have been using a fake email account to hide what was really going on if this story is true.
General Petraeus testifies in front of the Congress on Benghazi and admits he knew this was a terrorist attack from the beginning
Earlier today General Petraeus testified under oath about the terrorist attack in Benghazi which left Chris Stevens, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, and Sean Smith dead, and according to Peter King the general stated that he knew this was a terrorist attack unrelated to a You Tube video almost immediately.
Peter King then stated that this was not the impression General Petraeus’ testimony–while not under oath–from September 14th left with the Congressional leaders. During that testimony General Petraeus appeared to be backing Barack Obama’s claim that this was an attack which grew out of a protest of the previously mentioned You Tube video.
This leads us to the obvious question: Why did the general change his testimony? And the answer is equally as obvious to me. He changed his testimony because he was not telling the truth on September 14th. He was not telling the truth because he was compromised and he was still hoping to hold onto his job and his reputation.
Public health officials debate a “smoker’s license’
I don’t intend to spend much time on this story, but some public health and anti-tobacco advocates are now proposing and debating a “smoker’s license.”
A public health proposal suggests that tobacco smokers should be required to apply and pay for a “smoker’s license” in order to continue buying cigarettes.
In this week’s PLOS Medicine medical journal, two leading tobacco control advocates debate the merits of the smoker’s license. Simon Chapman, a professor at the University of Sydney, proposes that users would have to apply and pay for a mandatory license in the form of a smartcard that would be shown when buying cigarettes.
In a controversial move, the smartcard would allow the government to limit how many cigarettes a smoker could buy. Professor Chapman suggests 50 per day averaged over two weeks to accommodate heavy smokers.
Cigarette rationing sounds more like something I would expect out of a communist country, not the United States, but such could be life under Obamacare.
You may think that this is a farfetched idea and is something that could never happen in the United States, but I never thought the government would be allowed to force Americans into commerce in the first place, which is what the healthcare mandate does, so what is to stop the government from rationing cigarettes once they have total control of the healthcare industry and begin looking at ways to bring down healthcare costs through government intrusion?
Oh, and by the way, who will this hurt the most? Lower income people–a group which has a higher percentage of smokers than other groups–of course.
Obamacare: Denny’s to charge customers an additional 5% to help cover the costs of healthcare reform
A growing trend is emerging in the restaurant business as owners try to offset the costs of Obamacare; they are cutting the hours of their full time staff down in order to avoid paying the $2,ooo per employee penalty for not providing an insurance plan with which the government approves.
In what was a little known provision in Obamacare the definition of a full time employee was any person who worked over 30 hours, not 40 hours, so that means people who might otherwise be working 40 hours are now having their hours cut down to under 30. A double whammy for these employees who will now have to find a second job in this dreadful economy in order to make ends meet.
Barack Obama defends Susan Rice for lying about the Benghazi attack
Barack Obama held a press conference today and while that is news in and of itself we learned something today that I find to be quite interesting indeed.
When Barack Obama was asked about Susan Rice and her appearance on several different Sunday morning television talk shows five days after the attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi which left four American heroes dead–you know, the shows where she repeatedly lied about the attack having been born out of a peaceful protest over a You Tube video–he actually admitted that he was the one who sent her out there with the misinformation.
As I said before, she made an appearance at the request of the White House in which she gave her best understanding of the intelligence that had been provided to her
According to Barack Obama the White House sent her out there and she was simply repeating the latest intelligence she had at that time. That is very interesting because we already know that the attack on the consulate was watched in real time, and we already know that it was known by virtually everybody that this was a terrorist attack which was unrelated to any peaceful protest within two hours of the attack if not sooner. So who told her to repeat this lie over and over again?
But that’s not all because I also seem to remember a presidential debate with Mitt Romney in which Barack Obama claimed to have linked the attack to terrorism on September 12th, the day after the attack, so it seems quite strange that if Barack Obama was telling the truth in that debate that he would send Susan Rice out there to spread the lie. Of course at that time Barack Obama was still under the belief that the truth could be hidden from the American people.
Barack Obama spoon fed the story to Susan Rice that he wanted promulgated and she was all too willing to do so and now today Barack Obama is coming to her defense, but in doing so he seems to have implicated himself in the cover up.
Afterburner with Bill Whittle: Cannibals
Below is the latest ‘Afterburner’ video by Bill Whittle which I found over at Sentry Journal, it is a must watch as always. In this video he reminds us all that we are in this fight for the duration and while we are still upset we must now fight harder than ever if we want to achieve our goal.
In this video he lays the blame for what is about to happen right where it belongs, both on those who voted for socialism and those who decided to stay home so they wouldn’t bear the responsibility of what is about to happen. By refusing to take a stand those who stayed home in protest are partially responsible for whatever happens to us over the next four years whether they want to admit it or not.
Susan Rice may replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State
We have heard for quite some time that Hillary Clinton was going to step down as Secretary of State after Barack Obama’s first term but we hadn’t heard any names mentioned as possible replacements.
That changed today with this report that claims that the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, is the favorite to replace the departing secretary if she does indeed decide to step down.
You may remember Susan Rice; she was the one who went on the Sunday morning television shows five days after the attack on the consulate in Libya and repeatedly lied about the attack having escalated from a peaceful protest over a You Tube video.
We now know that the Obama regime watched the attack in real time and knew within hours that this was a terrorist attack unrelated to the video and yet she was still promoting the lie five days later hoping that the truth wouldn’t be learned by the public.
And now one of the people at the heart of the Benghazi cover up might be the new Secretary of State? Elections do have consequences and we are about to get the government we deserve…..
New report claims the CIA annex in Benghazi was a detention and interrogation site
I previously wrote this post about the possibility that General Petraeus’ mistress, Paula Broadwell, had disclosed on October 26th the possibility that the CIA annex in Benghazi was being used as a prison.
This is something the CIA adamantly denies, claiming that Paula Broadwell got misinformation from a report done by Fox News earlier that same day.
According to this article Fox News now has new unnamed sources which state this claim is indeed true:
We originally reported on October 26th based on conversations with sources in touch with those who were at the annex that night, that the CIA contractors had captured three Libyan prisoners who they handed over to the Libyan authorities when they fled Benghazi. Now we never knew who those prisoners were; we didn’t know what ended up happening to them but we have now learned that those three prisoners had been held for a few days at the annex and more than just Libyan militia members were held there. There may have been prisoners from other African countries maybe even the Middle East. They were interrogated allegedly by CIA contractors.
If this news is true we now know two things we didn’t know before: One; General Petraeus likely leaked sensitive information to his lover and if this is the case his resignation is justified, and two; Barack Obama’s executive order banning this type of “dark site” was just as phony as his executive order shutting down GITMO, and most likely this is part of what the Obama regime is trying so desperately to cover up.
Barack Obama may have hoped that the resignation of General Petraeus would make it more difficult to get to the truth of the matter but all it has done is shined a spotlight on the Benghazi scandal and raised more questions that Barack Obama doesn’t really want answered and that is all the more reason why David Petraeus must testify before the Congress.
Was the annex in Benghazi a secret CIA prison?
Back on October 26th the woman who we now know was General Petraeus’ lover gave a speech in which she stated the following:
Now, I don’t know if a lot of you have heard this but the CIA annex had actually taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner, and they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try get these prisoners back, so that’s still being vetted
The CIA is adamantly denying this claim that there was a secret prison located at the annex in Benghazi, stating that Paula Broadwell probably got this information from a Fox News report earlier in the day.
And honestly I hope that is the truth because if it is not the truth that means she probably got this information directly from David Petraeus and to think that one of the most admired generals of our generation would give this type of top secret information to his lover is very troubling and indicative of the reason he needed to step down.
We still don’t know what the truth is at this time; it is possible that the Fox News report was correct even though the CIA denies it and it is possible she did get the information from General Petraeus, which would make this claim very plausible.
America's Watchtower 