Sunday, June 24, 2012

Quick Hits - June 22, 2012

The battle over Fast and Furious and the President's use of executive privilege have temporarily set the news on the domestic and European economic challenges to the back pages.  Democrats and their sycophants in the mainstream media are reaching to point the entire issue to be one of just base partisan politics.  WH Press flack, Jay Carney, was one of the one's demonstrating some of the most 'impressive' gymnastics in the morning press briefing - to the point that even many of the sympathetic WH Press Corps were laughing at the ridiculous assertions he was making....


Carney is corrected on basic F&F facts by WH reporters...


Carney contending that the President's use of executive privilege here compared to his attacks on President Bush's use of executive privilege isn't hypocritical...


But worse of all is Carney's inability to remember the name of slain US Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry, who was killed by weapons the Administration let walk to the drug cartels...


The vapid Washington Post columnist, Eugene Robinson, takes his column today into new levels of obfuscation and desperation as he pushes the false meme that Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious are one in the same programs, that Fast and Furious was a 'botched' program, and then does the bidding for the President by calling for focus on the 'real solution' - fixing 'lax U.S. gun laws' by implementing draconian gun control laws - which is exactly the reason why the Obama Administration launched Fast and Furious.

Even the Washington Post editorial board works overtime to provide political cover for the President and Attorney General, saying the litany of lies provided by the DoJ to Congress were not efforts to mislead, but 'honest bureaucratic mistakes', while castigating the GOP members for not having 'assumed Mr. Holder's good faith'. They also start doing backflips to support the use of executive privilege to withhold information as they contend the subpoena 'improperly demands internal records relating to Justice Department's responses to Mr. Issa's investigation', while noting that while Congress is 'generally entitled to disclosure', but implies that not in this case. The paper that celebrates it's role in the Watergate investigation and cover-up is today trying to have it both ways while covering for a Democrat in the White House.

MSNBC 'host' Al Sharpton, is another leaping to defend the Administration - and in doing so out stupid's the 'Mad Red Queen of Haight Ashbury' -


...saying that Fast & Furious is a conspiracy - one operated by Bush to set Obama up...

GOP Senator Chuck Grassley, leading the investigative efforts from the Senate, continues to highlight one of the fundamental problems with the Obama Administration - the DoJ's refusal to provide documents - in particular, the laughable claim by the WH and DoJ that every document there is related to F&F has been given to Congress - a contention he calls 'hogwash'...
Grassley’s remarks come as two more senators on Thursday joined the ranks calling for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign over his handling of the botched gun-tracking operation and refusal to give Congress related documents, which spurred a House panel to vote this week to hold the nation’s top cop in contempt of Congress.

GOP Representative Trey Gowdy, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee called the rant of the House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, 'mind numbingly stupid...'. Which rant? This rant from the 'Mad Red Queen of Haight Ashbury' which accused the GOP motivations over Fast and Furious an effort to 'suppress minority voting'...


When you've lost Jon Stewart of 'The Daily Show'....
Not only does Jon Stewart tell an audience inclined towards supporting Obama in November exactly why Operation Fast and Furious was so important to investigate, he also explains that the Obama administration has been refusing to cooperate with subpoenas, giving false information to Congress, and generally stalling for the last several months. On top of that, Stewart then skewers the same Democrats who blasted George Bush in 2007 for hypocrisy in defending Obama’s executive privilege claim in 2012. That’s a hell of a lot more information than NBC provided its viewers this week, that’s for sure:


Did House Oversight and Government Reform Committee member, Representative Louie Gohmert catch Eric Holder making another known to be false accusation identical to one that the DoJ called an 'inadvertant mistake' a few days ago?
As Gohmert pointed out, when Holder said, “And that is in stark contrast to what happened to my predecessor, Attorney General Mukasey, when he was briefed about the transmission of guns to Mexico,” he said exactly the same thing as the false statement he withdrew from Congress.


DOJ spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler would not answer when asked whether the DOJ plans to retract Holder’s statement to Gohmert.


In the retraction of Holder’s statement to Cornyn, the DOJ said the charge Holder made was “inadvertent.”


Gohmert, however, is challenging the DOJ’s characterization of that statement as “inadvertent.”


“Perhaps the attorney general should review the definition of the term ‘inadvertent’ and explain how comments made in two different locations five days apart could be ‘inadvertent’ rather than false,” Gohmert said in a statement.


It’s unclear if Holder or the DOJ will also retract the assertion that the already-retracted false statement was “inadvertent.” Schmaler wouldn’t answer when TheDC asked her if he will.

PJ Media's Roger L. Simon asks a basic question in his latest blog entry - 'When Leaders Lie' -
How many lies does a man have to tell before we can call him a liar?


The Ancient Romans said only one, when they gave us the legal dictum Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.


That was a pretty stringent requirement. Most of us are not George Washington and one wonders if even George was perfect in his honesty, the cherry tree fable notwithstanding.


Barack Obama is another matter. According to Buzzfeed’s Ben Smith (normally a loyal member of the administration’s media claque), no less than thirty-eight documented falsehoods in the president’s memoir Dreams from My Father were revealed by David Maraniss’s new book Barack Obama: The Story.


What’s interesting about those falsehoods (can we call them lies?) is that they were unprovoked. We are used to presidential lies, most notably from Nixon and Clinton, but we know full well why those men were lying. In fact, in their cases it was obvious. In Obama’s, we do not.


Why was he lying? Self-aggrandizement? To sell books? For political purposes? Dreams from My Father was written before Obama supposedly had presidential ambitions. Or was there a hint, dare I say it, of pathology?...

…The odd confluence of the publication of the Maraniss revelations makes this declaration of executive privilege by Barack Obama almost nauseating because we now know something unequivocally:


The president is a liar.

How then do we believe anything he says when he asserts a privilege? This depends on trust but we can’t even respect him when he’s such a small time prevaricator. There’s a good chance he’s hiding something; one could almost say a certainty. We don’t know where this will lead, but the chances are that it is nowhere good.

Speaking of David Maraniss and his biography of Barack Obama, there's this interesting element of the story....
Liberal historian and Barack Obama biographer David Maraniss is almost beside himself that people everywhere are talking about his new book Barack Obama: The Story.


While most authors would be overjoyed at the amount of free publicity that Maraniss is receiving, the veteran author is almost distraught that conservatives are talking about the book in a way he didn't intend--to debunk many of the lies and half-truths that President Obama told about his young adulthood in his autobiography, Dreams From My Father.


As conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh noted during his radio program on Wednesday, Maraniss is “in crisis” because “the right wing” is using his book to point out “all the things in Obama's autobiography which are not true.”


Limbaugh stated that Maraniss is “vetting Obama and doesn't realize it” by “documenting lies and falsehoods, and as far he's concerned, all he's doing is getting the record straight” by “poking holes” in information from the president's book, "Dreams From My Father."

Better late than never with the vetting, eh?

From The Hill - which is it?

Headline: Romney closing the election gap with focus on the economy

Meanwhile, Obama sycophant Amie Parnes has the following headline on her article on the home page of the paper...

Obama looks to capitalize on shift in presidential race's momentum: 'Obama has shifted the discussion from the economy and forced Romney to play defense on immigration...'

Credibility - or the lack thereof...

Emails suggest that WH pushed business to David Axelrod's former firm to sell Obamacare...

Is the dimbulb Chair of the Democratic National Committee to become the House Minority Leader, or, heaven forbid, Speaker of the House?
When asked about up-and-comers, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland, whom Wasserman Schultz very well may try to leap over in the event of a Pelosi departure, includes her on his list.


This speculation comes amid confirmation from a top party strategist of a series of events that has left the breast-cancer survivor out of favor with the Obama team. Those run from annoyance over misstatements that turn into Republican talking points, to her sometimes too-heavy-handed tone, to perceptions that she is self-focused.
“She looks out for No. 1—herself,” complained the strategist.


At the Capitol, however, some say that her tensions with the White House do not necessarily undercut any possible candidacy for a caucus leadership spot. One House Democrat said that certain members might even prefer aggressive leaders with a degree of independence from the other end of Pennsylvania Ave.

Syria shoots down Turkish Air Force F-4...
Reuters reports that Syria shot down a Turkish warplane on Friday, according to Lebanon's al-Manar television reported, "risking a new crisis between Middle Eastern neighbours already at bitter odds over a 16-month-old revolt against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad." "Syrian security sources confirmed to a Manar correspondent in Damascus that Syrian defence forces shot down the Turkish fighter jet," the Hezbollah-owned channel said." Here is the rub: Turkey is a NATO member, and by definition the alliance will have to come to Turkey's aid if requested. Syria, however is not just any country as has been made quite clear over the past several months of UN impotence: it is a critical staging ground for both Russia (which has a very critical regional naval base in the city of Tartus) and China, and according to the Jerusalem Post, the three countries are in preparation to conduct the "largest ever" war game.

Head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, is urging action to be taken on the Eurocrisis - looking directly at German Chancellor Angela Merkel for action...
Heavily outnumbered in the Italian capital, Ms. Merkel now also has to contend with an appeal from the I.M.F., which called late Thursday for the euro area to move swiftly toward a fiscal union including issuance of joint euro zone debt and said the viability of the currency was being questioned.


The fund also said it would like euro zone bailout funds to be lent directly to struggling banks – rather than through national governments – and appealed to the European Central Bank to take more aggressive measures to quell volatile financial markets, such as increasing the money supply or resuming the purchase of the bonds of stressed sovereigns such as Spain.


“Christine Lagarde is throwing down the gauntlet,” said one euro zone official, referring to the managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

Today in History

1611 – Explorer Henry Hudson, his son, and 7 supporters are set adrift in an open boat in present day Hudson Bay as his crew mutinied against Hudson after spending a winter trapped by ice. Hudson and the 8 others are never seen again.

1937 – Joe Louis wins the world heavyweight boxing title when he defeats Jim Braddock via an 8th round knockout. During his reign as heavyweight champ, the longest in the history of the heavyweight division, he defended his title 25 times, winning 21 by knockout.

1940 – France signs the armistice formally surrendering to Germany at Compiegne.

1941 – 3 million German troops invade Russia in what is the most powerful invasion force in history….3,000 tanks, 2,500 aircraft, and 7,000 artillery pieces attack on a thousand mile front. By the end of the first day of the invasion, the German air force had destroyed more than 1,000 Soviet aircraft. And despite the toughness of the Russian troops, and the number of tanks and other armaments at their disposal, the Red Army was disorganized, enabling the Germans to penetrate up to 300 miles into Russian territory within the next few days.

1944- FDR signs the GI Bill – considered by some to be the last of the sweeping New Deal reforms. Contributed to the post war US economic expansion as veterans got college educations and buy / build homes in the suburbs.

1945 – Japanese resistance on Okinawa comes to an end. During the nearly 3 months battle, the Japanese lost 120,000 troops, and several thousand aircraft (primarily Kamikazes). The US suffered 12,500 dead, 35,000 wounded, and 36 ships sunk. With the end of the Okinawa campaign, the invasion of Japan was the next step…





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