John Brennan’s ‘Exceptionally Sensitive’ Issue

John Brennan's 'Exceptionally Sensitive' Issue

Total: 3.9K Facebook Twitter Print EmailUnder John Brennan, the CIA operated as an opposition research outfit for the Hillary Clinton campaign. It appears from leaked news stories in the British press that Brennan's oafish spying on Trump began around April 2016, right after Trump's biggest primary victories.

Meet Hillary Clinton’s Other, Much More Powerful, Shadowy Oppo Research Firm

Funny how a lot of information just seems to sit out there waiting for "journalist" to report on. Yet all we hear is an echo chamber of stories repeated ad nauseous. -Jer

Meet Hillary Clinton's Other, Much More Powerful, Shadowy Oppo Research Firm | LifeZette

Fusion GPS has gotten all the headlines but there was a second even more powerful and mysterious opposition research and intelligence firm lurking about with significant political and financial links to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her 2016 campaign for president against Donald Trump. Meet

The Real Collusion Story

The Real Collusion Story | National Review

In a textbook example of denial and projection, Trump foes in and out of government wove a sinister yarn meant to take him down. Barack Obama keeps a close watch on his emotions. "I loved Spock," he wrote in February 2015 in a presidential statement eulogizing Leonard Nimoy.

Uranium One House of Cards

Read here

Benghazi, the “difference” that it makes

)As the smoking guns pile up on the Benghazi scandal it is time to recognize the harm it is doing to our republic.

Hillary Clinton on the Hill

In just the past few days two  important new “smoking gun” emails have come to the public’s attention about the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on our Benghazi consulate which killed four American’s including the United State’s Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens. One of the emails was released only after the “most transparent administration in history” was ordered to do so by a federal court as the result of a Freedom of Information request by the watchdog organization Judicial Watch.

The fact that it took a “watchdog” organization to unearth an email which appears to directly tie the White House to the infamous talking points of former UN Ambassador Susan Rice is in itself disturbing.  It clearly demonstrates that the institution, meaning a “free” press, which the framers of our constitution intended to be a watchdog of government’s inevitable abuse of power failed at that task.

It is particularly telling in this case since the email itself is no more than “how to” guide on  “spinning” the narrative of the events surrounding the attacks to that very same media, a task which was evidently successful. The media could not even be bothered to “dig” into the events enough to find the memo which explained how they, the media,  could be spun. It is not as if such tactics are not standard fare of any administration, all administrations attempt to shine the best light on themselves and everybody knows it. The problem is when the media as an institution willingly even  actively joins an administration in this political game.

The fact that this particular email came from Ben Rhodes is even more disturbing since Ben Rhodes is the brother of  David Rhodes who is the President of CBS News the same CBS News which was once instrumental in uncovering the Watergate, Iran-contra  and other Washington political scandals but seems to be less than enthused in perusing this particular “cover-up.” Recently CBS’s best investigative journalist Sharyl Atkisson resigned  and revealed that CBS made no FOIA requests to obtain emails such as the one the network’s president’s brother sent out to “spin” CBS and other news organizations.

Which brings us to the exposure of the most recent “smoking gun” email. On her website, Atkisson informs us of another email which until recently has been not made public at the State Department’s request. The email  from Assistant Secretary of State Beth Jones sent on September 12, 2012  to multiple high ranking State Department officials and as Atkisson points out totally contradicts nearly everything the administration was saying about the video being the cause of the attacks.

The private, internal communication directly contradicts the message that President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice and White House press secretary Jay Carney repeated publicly over the course of the next several weeks.They often maintained that an anti-Islamic YouTube video inspired a spontaneous demonstration that escalated into violence.

The email is entitled “Libya update from Beth Jones. ” Jones was then-Assistant Secretary of State to Hillary Clinton. According to the email, Jones spoke to Libya’s Ambassador at 9:45am on Sept. 12, 2012 following the attacks.

“When [the Libyan Ambassador] said his government suspected that former Qaddafi regime elements carried out the attacks, I told him the group that conducted the attacks—Ansar Al Sharia—is affiliated with Islamic extremists,” Jones reports in the email.

There is no uncertainty assigned to the assessment, which does not mention a video or a protest. The State Department provided the email to Congress in Aug. of 2013 under special conditions that it not be publicly released at that time. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) sought and received permission to release it Thursday.

With the publication of these two emails we now have documentation that:

• On September 14, 2012 The White House attempted to deflect blame away from their policies and to the You Tube video as the Ben Rhodes email makes clear when he writes under “goals” for Susan Rice’s appearances

“To underscore that these protests are rooted in an internet video, and not a broader failure of policy;”

• On September 12, 2012 The State Department knew that the attacks in Benghazi were from a known terrorist organization and not the result of the “internet video.”

“I told him the group that conducted the attacks—Ansar Al Sharia—is affiliated with Islamic extremists,”

All of these high-ranking administration officials were “in the loop” on how the Obama Administration was going to respond to the events of September 11, 2012, yet they continued for weeks afterwards to portray the events in Benghazi as being the result of the video.

Which brings us to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s famous response to Senator Ron Johnson’s (R-WI) question on why the American public was not informed that this was a terrorist attack and not a demonstration “gone awry.”

 Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?

The difference that it makes is huge and it is very simply this.  A fundamental bedrock of American democracy is that the powers of government should not be used as a means to attain or retain power. As naïve as this may sound knowing that all administration do use the power of government for this purpose, our very existence as a free nation depends on the concept that it is not acceptable for politicians to abuse the levers of government in order to retain their positions.  As fundamental as this concept is, the nation has grown cynical and ignores its importance at its peril.

In the same way that homicides occur multiple times a day in our nation there occurrences does not make the act acceptable.  Using the same institutions of government that are in place to protect and serve the American people in order to mislead them is murder of the public’s trust. One of our foundation beliefs as a nation is that government’s very existence is by “the consent of the governed” and if that consent is bought through the  deceptive use of our public servants of our government institutions then there is no real consent at all, there is only tyranny.  It is not necessary, at least initially, for despotic governments to rule by force if they can rule through deception.

This administration’s first big failure in the Benghazi scandal was that they did not attempt to rescue our fellow citizens.  An attempt which if unsuccessful or even futile still defines who we are as a nation.  As General Lovell testified “the point is we should have tried.”  How can the world look at us as anything other than weak when with the most powerful military force in the history of humanity we sit by and watch our diplomats slaughtered without an effort at rescue and thus far any retribution.

From a domestic political point of view it is even worse. The institutions which have been established to protect and serve us are now being used to deceive and manipulate us with no oversight from the media and in some cases with active support from that media.  At this point in our history, this makes a very big difference Madam Secretary, a very big difference indeed.

Toon

Toon

Via-Legal Insurrection

No, Hillary. Benghazi Will Not Go Away

Via-PJ Media

by Roger L Simon

Off in Lima, Peru — at least it wasn’t Antarctica or the Aleutian Islands — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has fallen on the proverbial sword long distance, declaring the buck the stops with her on the Benghazi security debacle.

That’s all well and good, but where does the buck stop on all the lying and covering up that followed? Yes, I used the unvarnished “l-word” because that’s what it was. How else to characterize UN Ambassador Susan Rice running around telling everyone in earshot that the Benghazi events were caused by an idiotic and unwatched YouTube trailer when Occam’s Razor — not to mention rocket-propelled grenades, an ambassador dragged through the streets, and a safe house mysteriously under fire — pointed to a terror attack commemorating September 11?

And then the president, acting like an errant husband unwilling to confess his adultery (who do you believe – me or your lying eyes?), repeated the same swill on The View nearly a week later. Unconscionable.

Why did this happen? Why this bizarre need to obfuscate or push away such an obvious truth?

Hillary Clinton’s Falsehoods

Via-Commentary

Peter Wehner  

 

On ABC’s “This Week,” host Jake Tapper asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in the context of the Libya operation, “Why not go to Congress?”

“Well, we would welcome congressional support,” Clinton said, “but I don’t think that this kind of internationally authorized intervention where we are one of a number of countries participating to enforce a humanitarian mission is the kind of unilateral action that either I or President Obama was speaking of several years ago.”

Secretary Clinton’s implication, of course, is that Iraq was a “unilateral action,” as opposed to what President Obama is doing in Libya.

This assertion is false on multiple levels. Let’s start by citing Josh Rogin in Foreign Policy, who referenced a chart listing all the countries that contributed at least some military assets to the five major military operations in which the United States participated in a coalition during the last 20 years: the 1991 Gulf War (32 countries participating), the 1995 Bosnia mission (24 countries), the 1999 Kosovo mission (19 countries), the 2002 invasion of Afghanistan (48 countries), and the 2003 invasion of Iraq (40 countries), at the height of the size of each coalition. “As of today,” Rogin writes, “only 15 countries, including the United States, have committed to providing a military contribution to the Libya war.”


And while we’re on the topic of Iraq and historical revisionism, it’s worth pointing out that the attempts at diplomacy with Saddam Hussein lasted through 12 years, 17 UN Resolutions, and two administrations, including the Clinton administration (which went so far as to bomb Iraq in 1998 without UN or NATO approval). It ranks among history’s longer diplomatic efforts to avoid war. And under President Bush, five separate Iraq-related UN Security Council Resolutions were passed unanimously, including 1441, which found Iraq in material breach of its obligations and warned Iraq of “serious consequences” (which all parties understood to mean war) for continued violations. For four-and-a-half months, the United States and its allies worked within the Security Council to enforce that Council’s long-standing demands. Yet, some permanent members of the Security Council publicly announced they would veto any resolution that compelled the disarmament of Iraq. These governments shared America’s assessment of the danger but did not share America’s resolve to meet it. More than three dozen nations, however, did have the resolve to act against Saddam Hussein.

As for Iraq and Congress: On October 10-11, 2002, the House voted 296-133 in favor of the Use of Force Resolution, while the vote in the Senate was 77-23. All told, 110 Democrats in the House and Senate voted in favor of going to war – including then-Senator Hillary Clinton who, in speaking about the United Nations (whose support in the war she, like President Bush, preferred), said,

It often lacks the cohesion to enforce its own mandates. And when Security Council members use the veto, on occasion, for reasons of narrow-minded interests, it cannot act. In Kosovo, the Russians did not approve NATO military action because of political, ethnic, and religious ties to the Serbs. The United States therefore could not obtain a Security Council resolution in favor of the action necessary to stop the dislocation and ethnic cleansing of more than a million of Kosovar Albanians… In the case of Iraq, recent comments indicate that one or two Security Council members might never approve force against Saddam Hussein until he has actually used chemical, biological, or God forbid, nuclear weapons.

Which brings us back to Mrs. Clinton’s comments yesterday about “unilateral action.” Since the idea of a Clinton knowingly spreading untruths is inconceivable, we’ll simply assume that her charges of unilateralism are the product of extraordinary sloppiness and an unusual memory lapse.

What Is Hillary’s ‘Appropriate’ Punishment for Adultery?

Via-BIG PEACE

Christine Brim

According to CNN, a 42-year old Iranian mother of two – Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani – will be executed by stoning for the alleged crime of adultery in the near future, in a court case upheld by Iran’s Shariah Supreme Court in 2007. Ashtiani speaks Turkish, not Farsi, and therefore her forced confession, given after receiving 99 lashes and later retracted, was based in part on not comprehending the court proceedings.

In his inaugural address Obama promised the world’s tyrants that “we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” The administration’s hand is still extended; the Iranian fists are still clenched.

In the next few days, those fists will be throwing stones at Ashtiani until she is dead, unless the world intervenes. Amnesty International, among other groups, is strongly protesting the imminent execution. Our current State Department – not so much.

Assistant Secretary of State P.J. Crowley stated Thursday, “We have grave concerns that the punishment does not fit the alleged crime … from the United States’ standpoint, we don’t think putting women to death for adultery is an appropriate punishment.” Crowley called Iran’s judicial system “disproportionate” in its treatment of women.
Apart from this tepid protest of a death by stoning, Crowley’s statement clearly implies that there is an “appropriate” and “proportionate” punishment for women for alleged adultery. The State Department needs to clarify whether this is Crowley’s personal opinion, or the official position of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration. This guidance would be especially helpful for women in Shariah-ruled countries, as well as for women in the US and Europe, where honor killings are on the rise (see Phyllis Chesler’s research here and here).

Exactly what punishment for women in cases of alleged adultery does “fit the crime” for this administration?

Bubba is back, and that's bad news for Barry

Via-Washington Examiner

By: Chris Stirewalt

The current Clinton resurgence may or may not be the groundwork for a 2012 primary challenge of our beleaguered president. That will depend on when (and if) President Obama can pull himself out of his current skid.

But whether this is the start of Hillary's revenge or just some flexing by the former first lady and her globetrotting husband, it's still bad news for Obama. Americans may not be certain if they're ready for a Republican president, but the chorus of regret over Hillary's 2008 loss is deafening.

Obama, anointed as "our first female president" by Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker for his preference for talk over action, has proven himself passive and vain. His secretary of state, meanwhile, seems tough, decisive and a self-sacrificing team player.

The first 18 months of the Obama presidency have played perfectly to Hillary's 2008 pitch: Obama is not man enough for the job, but she is.

It's not just the 3 a.m. calls that Obama seems to struggle with. Whether it is an emerging crisis, like the explosion of an oil platform, or a long-standing problem, like the stalled American enterprise in Afghanistan, Obama prefers to let all the calls go to voicemail.

Obama likes to talk about comprehensive, abstract solutions to concrete problems. You say "border security" and he says "path to citizenship." You say "plug the hole" and he says "global warming." You say "unemployment" and he says "economic sustainability."

It's no wonder that in a poll by Rasmussen Reports, 57 percent said Hillary was qualified to be president compared with the 51 percent who said Obama has what it takes.

We've felt a few tremors of ambition from the former first lady in Foggy Bottom.

She has stampeded the administration on announcing some topics near to her heart, particularly the awarding of partner benefits to gay federal employees and filing a federal lawsuit against Arizona's illegal-immigration crackdown.

There has also been the occasional Clinton insider whispering to a friendly reporter about how the secretary is left out of the Obama inner circle and can't overcome Obama's aloofness.

Also note well where she has made her friends in the administration. She is chummy with the warriors -- siding with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and keeping lots of channels open to the trigger pullers, including the recently ousted Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

But that's the kind of maneuvering that you'd expect inside an administration.

Her husband, though, has not been so constrained of late.

When you heard Bill Clinton tell Wolf Blitzer that he felt bad for Obama about the pounding he was taking on the oil spill he might as well have been saying "I told you so."

Bubba's pitch two years ago was that Obama might make Democrats feel good, but that he couldn't deliver.

When Clinton then suggested that it might be time to bring in the Navy to blow up the leaking oil riser and then dump a million tons of stone on the hole, he showed that there was another way to handle the situation than holding meetings on whose ass to kick.

Billy Jeff Clinton has been everywhere lately: Taking the heat for the administration's effort to bribe Rep. Joe Sestak out of the Pennsylvania Senate primary. Saving Blanche Lincoln's candidacy in Arkansas. Blowing his vuvuzela with Nelson Mandela in South Africa for the World Cup. Laughing off Valdimir Putin's denials about the recent Russian spy bust.

But the big moment came when Bill endorsed former Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, who is running a campaign to knock off Obama's man, Sen. Michael Bennet.

Clinton's endorsement came when Romanoff needed it most -- just at the end of the fundraising cycle when Romanoff needed a boost to show he was viable against the White House-backed Bennet.

It was a neat play for Clinton. By lobbing a grenade into the race, he shows that he's hip with the more "progressive" Romanoff and that he has his own mind on politics. Rather than just running Obama's errands and trying to get people out of races as he did with Sestak, Clinton is bucking the system.

Just as he did in 2008, Bill is testing the limits of how hard he can hit Obama without causing a backlash.

If Obama continues to weaken, count on Bill to take heavier shots.

Bill Clinton made millions from foreign sources

WASHINGTON (AP) - Financial documents filed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton show that her husband earned nearly $6 million in speaking fees last year, nearly all of it from foreign companies.

The documents obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press indicate that $5 million of the former president's reported $5.7 million in 2008 honoraria came from foreign sources. They included Kuwait's National Bank, a Hong Kong-based company, and other firms and groups in Canada, Germany, India, Malaysia, Mexico and Portugal.

All senior officials in the Obama administration are required to complete a detailed disclosure of their personal finances, including spouse and children, which is updated yearly.

More...

Complete Original Article

Smart Politics?

In her Senate confirmation hearing, Hillary Clinton testified that "smart power" would be the hallmark of the Obama administration's foreign policy. This means, she said, an emphasis on diplomacy rather than "military force" and "unilateral action." She intended, of course, to differentiate Obama's philosophy from that of the Bush administration. In fact, however, George Bush did not address any major international issue unilaterally--not Afghanistan, not Iraq, not Iran, not North Korea.

The Bush administration employed military force in two arenas, Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama has said that he approves of the Afghanistan war and plans to intensify it. So what Clinton's "smart power" theme really comes down to is We won't do dumb things like the Iraq war.

Hillary Clinton, however, voted for the Iraq war, so she's a doubtful carrier of the "smart power" message, at best. The "smart power" theme is one more instance of the incoming administration's lack of seriousness in its public pronouncements. Whether it will be equally unserious when the need arises for action, time will tell.

More...