Open thread for Sunday, October 7th: Columbus Day edition
Here is the open thread for Sunday, October 7th; please feel free to post links to interesting articles and discuss whatever issues arise during the day.
Tomorrow is Columbus Day so I dug around You Tube hoping to find a ‘Schoolhouse Rock’ video of Columbus but apparently they never made one. So instead I give you this Columbus Day cartoon from the ’70s. Enjoy and have a great day!
Email confirms the State Department ignored security request before the attack on the American consulate in Libya
Earlier this week Darrell Issa and Jason Chaffetz sent a letter to Hillary Clinton berating her for the Obama regime’s initial statement that the attack on the United States consulate in Libya grew out of an unplanned protest when there were warning signs all along that an attack was coming. The letter then goes on to claim that Chris Stevens made repeated requests to the State Department for increased security measures but these requests were denied.
If this is true it shows a total incompetence and a certain amount of indifference within the Obama regime to the plight of our officials overseas; to think that there were warnings an attack was coming and still deny extra security measures for our officials serving overseas is unconscionable and simply unthinkable and unforgivable.
When asked about this claim the White House had no comment, citing an ongoing investigation by the State Department. (Yes the same State Department responsible for the failures in the first place. That would be like letting the Department of Injustice investigate a gun running ring run from within…..oh wait, nevermind.)
Up to this point the State Department has not responded to the claim extra security measure requests were denied and this might be the reason why:
Elizabeth Warren’s great-grandfather, John H. Crawford, shot a Native-American in 1906. Why is this relevant today and why do I mention it? It is relevant because John H. Crawford is the great-grandfather whom Elizabeth Warren claimed was Native-American and if you follow this link you will see a scan of the original newspaper article from the time.
If you read the scan of the article you will see that John H. Crawford is described as a white man. Needless to say, this further debunks Elizabeth Warren’s Native-American claims if this story is true.
This story wasn’t broken by some nobody on the internet who is looking to gain attention either, this was broken by Twila Barnes. Twila Barnes IS a Cherokee and she is a genealogist who has taken great exception to Elizabeth Warren’s lies and she has been in the process of trying to trace Elizabeth Warren’s Native-American roots–obviously she not only hasn’t found any links, she has practically single-handedly disproven Elizabeth Warren.
Open thread for Thursday October 4th: Electric Eye edition, plus quick debate thoughts
Here is the open thread for Thursday, October 4th; feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues happen to arise during the day.
With the debate last night I am sure this will be much of the conversation today. Here is my quick take on the debate: Romney was the adult in the room and did much better than I thought he would, while Obama seemed disgruntled and agitated at being questioned and had a continual scowl on his face when Romney was talking. Clear victory for Romney.
“I’ve been in business 25 years and I have no idea what you are talking about, I might need to get a new accountant.” That statement by Romney was one of the best of the night, and showed that Romney understands the economy while Obama doesn’t, but it was dwarfed by the new terminology coined by Romney about the Democrats: trickle down government. That was brilliant! And then there was “you don’t pick winners and losers, you pick losers” when talking about Solargate.
The one thing that struck me about Mitt Romney was how natural and at ease he seemed throughout the debate, normally I find Romney to be kind of plastic and unengaged but he didn’t come off that way at all tonight.
On to the musical selection of the day:
Earlier this week I wrote this post about how domestic spying has increased dramatically under Barack Obama in spite of the fact he railed against it when he was running for president so I thought I would choose a song by Judas Priest entitled ‘Electric Eye’ recorded live in 1982 as the musical selection for today. It seems fitting, here are some of the lyrics:
Up here in space
I’m looking down on you.
My lasers trace
Everything you do.
You think you’ve private lives
Think nothing of the kind.
There is no true escape
I’m watching all the time.
I’m made of metal
My circuits gleam.
I am perpetual
I keep the country clean.
Always in focus
You can’t feel my stare.
I zoom into you
You don’t know I’m there.
I take a pride in probing all your secret moves
My tearless retina takes pictures that can prove.
Rob Halford is one of the three best metal singers of all time in my opinion (with Dio and Bruce Dickinson) and Judas Priest were ahead of their time with this one, here it is. Enjoy:
Militant freed during the Arab Spring might be responsible for the attack on the American consulate in Libya
When the revolutions which the mainstream media dubbed the ‘Arab Spring’ first broke out in the Middle East Barack Obama was given full credit for inspiring democracy in the region by way of his Cairo speech.
Barack Obama himself even extolled the virtues of a people struggling for freedom and liberty, calling it a “joyful longing for human freedom,” while the mainstream media giddily bought into the virtues of Barack Obama’s new Middle East policy, drawing a clear distinction between Barack Obama’s approach and that of President Bush’s. Neither the Obama regime nor the media seemed to ask the question of who was going to come to power in the void left behind.
But as predicted in the conservative blogoshpere the virtues of the ‘Arab Spring’ quickly dissipated as Jew hating radical extremists, in the form of the Muslim Brotherhood, gained a foothold in the region and rose to a power they could only dream of at one time.
By now you have probably heard about Joe Biden’s latest gaffe; during a campaign event yesterday Joe Biden admitted that the middle class has been buried over the last four years.
It didn’t take long for the Romney campaign to come up with an ad using these words against Barack Obama. It is well done and here it is:
Darrell Issa wants to know why the Obama regime ignored requests for more security in Libya before the consulate attack–so do I
Darrell Issa and Jason Chaffetz (the Chairman on the subcommittee on national security) want answers about the terrorist attack on the American consulate in Libya and today they sent a letter to Hillary Clinton asking why Chris Stevens’ request for more security was ignored.
Based on information provided to the Committee by individuals with direct knowledge of events in Libya, the attack that claimed the ambassador’s life was the latest in a long line of attacks on Western diplomats and officials in Libya in the months leading up to September 11, 2012. It was clearly never, as Administration officials once insisted, the result of a popular protest,” the committee’s chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and subcommittee chairman, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, write. “In addition, multiple U.S. federal government officials have confirmed to the Committee that, prior to the September 11 attack, the U.S. mission in Libya made repeated requests for increased security in Benghazi. The mission in Libya, however, was denied these resources by officials in Washington.
If it is true that US officials in Libya made repeated requests for more security and were denied in Washington that is pretty damning and downright unforgivable and indefensible.
Last week Barack Obama conducted an interview with Univision and during that interview he lied about Fast and Furious being started under President Bush. This is an outright lie; while President Bush had a similar operation called Operation Wide Receiver it had little in common with Barack Obama’s deadly operation, and he certainly didn’t start Operation Fast and Furious. Previously the Obama regime had stated they were simply using policies the Bush administration had used, but with this interview with Univision Barack Obama actually claimed that Fast and Furious was started under President Bush. In this one interview Fast and Furious went from being an extension of President Bush’s policies to being an operation started by President Bush.
America’s Watchtower debunked the Obama myth that Fast and Furious was an extension of a Bush era policy in this post from November of last year, and eventually Eric Holder was forced to retract his sworn testimony about President Bush’s involvement in Fast and Furious.
That did not stop Barack Obama from continuing to lie about President Bush’s involvement when he spoke to Univision; apparently he thinks Univision viewers (a Spanish station) are too stupid to realize he is trying to pull the wool over their eyes.
Domestic spying has increased dramatically under Barack Obama
When running for president in 2008 Barack Obama promised to end the Bush policy of warrantless wiretaps, but as president not only has Barack Obama not ended this Bush era policy, he has expanded it. And he has expanded the policy beyond simple wiretaps:
A new report from the American Civil Liberties Union shows a dramatic increase in the U.S. Department of Justice’s electronic surveillance of Americans under the Obama administration.
Documents obtained by the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act
request revealed that under President Obama between 2009 and 2011, warrantless electronic surveillance requests by the Justice Department to spy on phone
The number of people whose phone calls were subject to such surveillance during that same time period tripled.
Phone numbers called and received, emails sent and received, and other Internet communications were all monitored by the federal government via “pen register” and “trap and trace devices” — systems that measure the data, not the content, about the communication.
Such techniques are different from wiretaps, which monitor the content of communications.
More people were subjected to federal government pen register and trap and trace surveillance of their phones in the past two years than in the previous decade.
DOJ surveillance of Internet communications, while rarer, increased 361 percent between 2009 and 2011.
On top of this news comes the revelation that the federal government is also pressuring sites like Twitter and Facebook to create a “backdoor” which would allow the government access to people’s accounts on those sites without their knowledge as well: Read more…
Firewall with Bill Whittle: Why Don’t You Mind My Own Business
Lou provided me with the latest Firewall with Bill Whittle video in today’s open post and I thought it deserved a post of it’s own. It is brilliant: in this video Bill Whittle explains the difference between rights and commodities and explains the consequences of making commodities into rights and ties it to Obamacare.
Here is the video:
America's Watchtower 