Why Does Obama Deny The Fact That We Are At War?

This president has taken us from a nation ruled by laws which are designed to protect citizens from their government to a government that is not only corrupt but also chooses its enemies and then proceeds to attack them and deprive the of their Constitutional Rights.

This seems to be of little concern to anyone  nd one of the chief liars in the president's barrels of sour pickles has just been told by the president he continues to have full confidence in him.

One day, after it is too late,Americans will wake up to the fact that not only are the fruits of their labor being taxed to support a bloated and out of control government but the agency  in charge of making them cough up will also in charge of their entire physical being and the IRS will determine whether they get needed health care.

After 'Obamscare,' IRS will become the most powerful agency in the nation, if it is not already, and based on growing evidence happens also to be one of the most corrupt.

You wanted change well you are watching it happen before your very eyes so welcome to Obama's tea party. 

I believe it  is safe to say

our president is not guided by the  concept below:

What I do today is important, because I am paying a day
 of my life for it.

Therefore, what I accomplish must be worthwhile, because

 the price is high."
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Incompetent and why I do not trust!

Competent and why I revere!

Competent and why I revere!






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A lot of Americans, and now Britishers, have become so insulated from reality that they imagine that America and England can suffer defeat without any inconvenience to themselves.

Pause a moment, reflect back.

These events are actual events from history.

They really happened!!!

Do you remember?

1. In 1968, Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed

by a Muslim male.

2. In 1972, at the Munich Olympics, Israeli athletes were

kidnapped and massacred by Muslim males.

  

3. In 1972 a Pan Am 747 was hijacked and eventually diverted

to Cairo where a fuse was lit on final approach and it was blown

up shortly after landing by Muslim males.

  

4. In 1973 a Pan Am 707 was destroyed in Rome, with 33 people

killed, when it was attacked with grenades by Muslim males.

  

5. In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by Muslim males.

6. During the 1980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in
Lebanon by Muslim males.

7. In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by

Muslim males.

8. In 1985, the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a

70 year old Jewish American passenger was murdered and thrown

overboard in his wheelchair by Muslim males.

9. In 1985, TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens,and a US

Navy diver trying to rescue passengers was murdered

by Muslim males.

10. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by Muslim males.

11. In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed the first time

by Muslim males.

12. In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were

bombed by Muslim males.

13. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles

to take down   

the World Trade Centers and of the remaining two,

one crashed into the US Pentagon  and the other was diverted and

crashed  by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed

by Muslim males.

14. In 2002, the United States fought a war in Afghanistan
against Muslim males.

15. In 2002, a Jewish reporter, Daniel Pearl, was kidnapped and

beheaded by---you guessed it---Muslim males.

  16.  And now, the Boston Marathon bombings?

                    You are right --- Muslim males.

17. AND LEST WE FORGET, AN AMERICAN MAJOR, WHO JUST HAPPENED TO BE  A MALE MUSLIM, KILLED SOME OF HIS FELLOW WORKERS ON THE MILITARY BASE WHERE HE WORKED - FT. HOOD!

18.  LAST WEEK A BRITISH SOLDIER WAS ATTACKED, SLASHED AND KILLED BY

MUSLIM MALES.

No, I really don't see a pattern here to justify profiling, do you?

  

So, to ensure Americans never offend anyone, particularly

fanatics intent on killing us, airport security screeners

must not  be allowed to profile certain people.

  

Absolutely No Profiling!

WE MUST PROTECT THE SENSIBILITIES OF THOSE WHO ARE BENT ON DESTROYING OUR FREEDOMS AND NO, WE ARE NOT AT WAR WITH ANYONE!

WHAT'S NEW ON PJTV.Com

Trifecta -- London Jihad Horror Shocks The World. Why Won't the Mainstream Media Report the Truth About It? A jihadist butcher beheaded a British serviceman on video, but the mainstream media remains silent as to the motive for this murder. Why is the press so afraid to report that a radical Islamist murdered someone in broad daylight on a London street? Stephen Green, Scott Ott and Bill Whittle weigh in. Join the conversation and share your thoughts in the comments section.

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More White House abuse and the curtailment of our freedoms is brewing! (See 1 below.)

Meanwhile Newt believes The Obama Scandals may start a new day and bring about reform.

Nice thought but I maintain Obama will go unscathed. (See 1a below.)

So what's new? Just another witch hunting Republican seeking another Democrat scalp for their misdeeds and lying. (See 1b and 1c below.)
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What one of my friends thinks.  (See 2 below.)
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Will Israel attack Russia's arms upon delivery?  Not if Obama can restrain Bibi. (See 3 and 3a below.)
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Dick
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1)

Obamacare "Navigators": Another Sebelius Snitch Brigade?

By Michelle Malkin

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius controls a $54 million slush fund to hire thousands of "navigators," "in-person assisters" and counselors who will propagandize and enroll Obamacare recipients in government-run health insurance exchanges. This nanny-state navigator corps is the Mother of all Community Organizing Boondoggles. It's also yet another Obama threat to Americans' privacy.

A reminder about Secretary Sebelius' sordid snooping history is in order here. In August 2009, HHS and the White House Office of Health Reform called on their ground troops to report on fellow citizens who dared to criticize their federal health care takeover. Team Obama issued an all-points bulletin on the taxpayer-funded White House website soliciting informant emails. Remember?

"If you get an email or see something on the Web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov," the Obamacare overlords urged. The feds even singled out conservative Internet powerhouse Matt Drudge because he had featured a video compilation of Obama and other Democrats -- in their own words -- exposing the "public option" as a Trojan Horse for government-run health care and the elimination of private industry.

Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn protested at the time that "these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program." The flagging operation was shut down, but a plethora of federal disclosure exemptions protect the Obama administration from revealing what was collected, who was targeted and what was done with the database information.

White House lapdogs dismissed the concerns of conservatives as paranoid delusions. Now, fast-forward three years. In light of the draconian IRS witch hunt against tea party groups and the Justice Department's plundering of journalists' phone records and email accounts, every tax-subsidized Obama "outreach" initiative warrants heightened scrutiny.

Obamacare navigators will have access to highly personal data from potential "customers" to assess their "needs." That means income levels, birthdates, addresses, eligibility for government assistance, Social Security numbers and sensitive medical information. They'll be targeting both individuals and small businesses. Anyone they can lay their grubby hands on. Who's getting the navigator grants and training? "Community groups" in 33 states that naturally include socialized medicine-supporting unions and Saul Alinsky-steeped activist outfits.

On Capitol Hill last week, a top Obamacare official told GOP lawmakers that navigators will not be required to undergo background checks. Criminal records are not automatically disqualifying -- and that includes identity theft. The federal rule-makers will require online training of a measly 20 hours. Health care regulations watchdog Betsy McCaughey adds that navigators "don't have to know math or insurance, but rules announced April 5 specify you have to match the race, ethnicity and language preferences of the neighborhood that will be targeted."

The Obamacare navigator corps smacks of ACORN redux, stocked with demographically tailored Democratic Party recruitment operatives, not objective, informed insurance experts.

Sebelius and her enforcers promise strict neutrality and clean conduct. The bureaucrats say there will be severe consequences for violating citizens' privacy or breaking any other laws. Pffft. The Office of Special Counsel determined that Secretary Sebelius herself violated the federal Hatch Act prohibition on exploiting her HHS leadership position for partisan activity last fall. She then tried to cover up her breach after the fact by classifying the event in which she electioneered for Obama as a "personal" appearance.

Consequences? What consequences?

Sebelius has zero credibility when it comes to reining in overzealous partisans. But she's darned good at unleashing them. During the White House pressure campaign for Obamacare, Sebelius goaded her "brothers and sisters" from the brass-knuckled SEIU. SEIU goon Dennis Rivera joined her on a White House conference call in which he lambasted tea party activists as the "radical fringe" of "right-wingers" whose protests amounted to "terrorist tactics."

Now, the SEIU is on the board of directors of Enroll America, the left-wing, Obamacare advocacy nonprofit for whom shakedown artist Sebelius has been soliciting funds.

Sebelius' corruptocracy runs deep. While she was governor of Kansas, an independent inspector general reported that her appointed health policy board had "applied pressure to alter an audit report, restricted access to legal advice and threatened to fire her for meeting independently with legislators," according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.

Team Sebelius was also embroiled in a ruthless vendetta and obstruction campaign against then-GOP Attorney General Phill Kline, who unearthed damning evidence that the Sebelius administration had shredded key documents related to felony charges against Sebelius' abortion racketeering friends at Planned Parenthood.

Sebelius notoriously threatened private companies and insurers who increased rates to cope with Obamacare coverage mandates. She bullied private companies to meet discriminatory and arbitrary disclosure demands. And she lashed out at newspapers that dared to report on the true costs of the Obamacare regulatory leviathan.

You can't trust sleazy Sebelius to navigate anything with her broken ethical compass. This is worse than the fox guarding the henhouse. She has unfettered authority and a bottomless budget to weaponize legions more foxes who will serve as Obamacare's eyes and ears on the ground. The snitch brigade lives.


1a)

Pivotal Moment or Passing Scandal? By Newt Gingrich There is a familiar pattern for scandals in American politics: they degenerate into gotchas and personalities and then disappear with nothing having been reformed. The breadth of the Big Government Scandals under President Obama is so great that House Republicans have an opportunity to break out of this pattern and make history. They could choose to turn these scandals into learning opportunities that teach people something profound about Big Government. Together with the American people, Republicans in Congress could draw on these lessons to insist on a scale of reform which, holds its bureaucrats accountable, and shrinks its size and reach, and brings Big Government under control. David Axelrod, a senior advisor to President Obama, is the person who stated most clearly the case for a deep, reform-minded response to the various scandals. In trying to defend President Obama from responsibility in the IRS scandal, Axelrod clearly described the government as too big, out of control, unmanageable, and unaccountable.  Here is his comment on Morning Joe: “It’s an interesting case study, right, because if you look at the Inspector General's report, apparently some folks down in the bureaucracy, and you know we have a large government, took it upon themselves to shorthand these applications for tax exempt status in a way that was, as I said, idiotic, and also dangerous because of the political implications...Part of being president is there's so much underneath that you can’t know because the government is so vast.” We already know enough to suspect that the “folks down in the bureaucracy” almost certainly did not just “take it upon themselves” to mishandle conservative organizations’ files. But let me repeat his definitive indictment of the current scale and structure of Big Government: "Part of being president is there's so much underneath that you can’t know because the government is so vast." If House Republicans simply adopt as a goal a government small enough to be accountable, manageable, controllable, and responsible, they will have a goal around which to rally the American people. Chairman Darrell Issa, who heads the House Oversight Committee, began the learning approach with his investigations of Fast and Furious (the gun running scandal in which the U.S. government sent illegal guns into Mexico and then lost them) and the Solyndra and other crony-capitalist “green” energy scandals. Now the scandals Chairman Issa started to investigate are beginning to be dwarfed by the IRS, the Justice Department’s assault on the First Amendment, Benghazi, and the Sebelius scandal (in the Iran-Contra tradition) of shaking down private health care companies to pay for implementing Obamacare. More scandals are presumably just waiting to come, not least in the Environmental Protection Agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Interior Department. Again and again environmental extremists have cast phony science and phony studies to push these agencies to slow down America's development of natural resources. Then there are the certain false payments and fraud scandals involving tens of billions of dollars from incompetent bureaucracies especially in healthcare, in Earned Income Tax Credit and in food stamps. A methodical strategy by House Republicans to expose and dig into every uncontrollable, destructive part of the federal bureaucracy would educate the country deeply on the flaws and failures of Big Government. Axelrod is right. The federal government is currently too big to manage and too big to hold accountable. A serious learning strategy seeking big enough solutions would rapidly arrive at the need to replace the current civil service system. When IRS official Lois Lerner is suspended from her job with full pay ($177,000 a year plus a total of $42,000 in bonuses over the last four years) most Americans see that as "vacation". Yet everyone understands she "can't" be fired. But of course she could be fired. It requires changing the law to require accountability. There can be no real changes without reforming the 142 year old civil service model that was designed to be rigid and unaccountable. Moreover, reforming and curtailing the federal government so it could be properly managed would save taxpayers huge amounts of money. A consortium of high tech companies estimated that simply applying modern management practices would save the federal government $125 billion a year (over a trillion dollars over the next decade). The even bolder analysis by Strong America Now, an organization of Lean Six Sigma consulting specialists, estimated the mismanagement of the federal bureaucracy wastes more than $500 billion a year (that’s $6 trillion in savings in a decade including lower interest payments on the debt). The positive impact on the private sector resulting from these types of reform might be even bigger than savings in the federal budget. No one who has tried to reform the government has thought boldly enough about the changes that are needed in a government “so vast,” as David Axelrod put it. He may have given House Republicans the right framework for holding hearings aimed at learning and reforming rather than the gotcha and posturing that has historically characterized Washington scandals. The Obama Big Government Scandals could be the beginning of a new era of reform.

1b)Rep. Peter King: Holder May Be Guilty of Perjury

By Jim Meyers

Rep. Peter King says Attorney General Eric Holder's initial denial of involvement in the targeting of Fox News reporter James Rosen "could be perjury."

In an wide-ranging interview Tuesday with Newsmax TV's "The Steve Malzberg Show,"  King also discussed:

• 
  
• President Barack Obama's "moralizing" speech on the closing of Guantanamo Bay, saying the terror threat is more dangerous now than on 9/11;
• 
  
• The Obama administration should exercise "extreme caution" in evaluating the possible sale of Sprint Nextel Corp. to a foreign company.

King, a Republican from New York, was highly critical of Holder, who previously said he would never be part of targeting a reporter and didn't think it was good policy, when he actually approved a search warrant on James Rosen. The House Judiciary Committee is reportedly looking into whether he perjured himself in steadfastly denying a role in the Rosen subpoena when he OK'd the seizure of the Fox reporter's phone records.

King comments: "To me, on its face, that certainly could be perjury. And the reason I'm saying 'could be' -- I know there's always precise standards to meet -- that certainly warrants a full investigation as to whether or not perjury was committed there. There've been other people over the years indicted for perjury or tried for perjury on a lot less evidence than that."

King also insists that the closing of Gitmo can fuel more terror acts against the United States.

"In many ways the terror threat is more dangerous now than it was on Sept. 11, 2001, and for the president to be saying what he did last Thursday -- somehow we can declare victory in this or we can phase it down -- in many ways it's more dangerous.

"What we saw in Boston we've seen in London, we've seen in Paris; that is the face of al-Qaida. That is the face of Islamic jihad. [We need to] face up to it and realize that's going to be here for a long time, until we stop it, until we make sure that we have the strongest possible defenses and we're going on offense. We have to go out on front, we have to be preemptive, we have to stop them before they get to us."

Obama in his speech also said the Muslim community is cooperative and wanting to help. King doesn't entirely agree.

"The overwhelming majority of Muslims are good Americans. The fact is we've had case after case where there are plots coming from within the Muslim community where we have not gotten the assistance from the Muslim community," he says.

"For instance, it's my understanding, and this is what I've been told by law enforcement people, that when the picture of the two jihadists in Boston was put up, not one person in the mosque in Boston came forward to identify them. It's impossible to believe with the whole world knowing about what happened, the whole world looking at those faces, that not one person in that mosque recognized either one of those brothers.

"It's the reason why police and law enforcement have to use so many undercovers, why they have to penetrate into the community, because we are not getting the level of cooperation that we should be getting."

Finally, King is skeptical that a foreign company should own the third-largest cellphone provider in America. The Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Corp. announced in October that it was seeking approval from the United States for a $20 billion purchase of a 70-percent stake in Sprint.

SoftBank's bid has raised concerns due to the firm's close financial ties to the Chinese telecom company Huawei. In October 2012, the House Intelligence Committee, after an 11-month investigation, concluded that Huawei posed a major cybersecurity threat to U.S. intellectual property.

Last month Dish Network, an Englewood, Colo.-based satellite TV company, challenged SoftBank's bid for Sprint, offering $25.5 billion for the entire company.

Asked if the administration should use "extreme caution" in this matter in light of the cyber-warfare threat, King responds: "Absolutely. There's no doubt at all.

"This is a new form of warfare. It's a warfare that we have to accept. We have to accept that it's there and then go after it.

"What's going to happen in this particular case I can't say, but I can say we cannot allow corporate profits to come first. We have to make sure our national security, our homeland security is there and we have to do all we can to make sure that we are protecting our people against this type of cyberinvasion."


1c) House Judiciary Chairman to Newsmax: Holder Should Resign

By Jim Meyers and Kathleen Walter

Rep. Bob Goodlatte is leading a Judiciary Committee probe of Attorney General Eric Holder's actions regarding the targeting of reporters. And he tells Newsmax he is "very concerned" about Justice Department efforts to "harass the news media."

The Virginia Republican also reiterates his call for Holder to step down, a demand he first made two years ago during the Fast and Furious controversy.

Elected in 1992, Goodlatte has been chairman of the House Judiciary Committee since January.

Holder recently testified before the committee that targeting journalists was "not something I've even been involved in." But it's now been reported that Holder personally sanctioned a search warrant labeling Fox News correspondent James Rosen a co-conspirator in leaking  national-security secrets.

In an exclusive interview Wednesday with Newsmax TV, Goodlatte discusses his probe of Holder.

"We are sending a letter today-- myself and the chairman of the Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations Subcommittee -- asking him to explain how his answers to the committee conflict with the actions that he appears to have taken with regard to Mr. Rosen, and we will withhold judgment on what the attorney general's actions constitute until we give an opportunity for him to explain himself.

"But it is quite concerning."

The Judiciary Committee also has been investigating disclosures that the Justice Department secretly obtained telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press.

"Subpoenas were issued there which appear to have been overbroad both in terms of the number of reporters whose phone-call records were sought as well as the length of time, 60 days, that was involved in that," Goodlatte says.

"[And we have] some questions about the attorney general's involvement in that, where he said that he recused himself and turned over that responsibility to Deputy Attorney General James Cole.

"We have already sent a letter to Mr. Cole asking him a series of questions regarding how that matter took place. Now we are pursuing it further with regard to the Fox News matter with Mr. Rosen, and we have sent a letter to the attorney general asking him to explain how the information that we have regarding the search warrant with Mr. Rosen conflicts with his sworn testimony before the committee.

"We are very concerned about the Justice Department targeting reporters and using what could be overbroad investigative tools to harass the news media, and we want to make sure they are following the rules. But we are also concerned that Mr. Holder has again contradicted himself and we want to know why that is. We'll wait for an answer to that before we decide what our next step is in terms of committee hearings."

Sen. Lindsay Graham has called for an independent special counsel to investigate the IRS and Justice Department scandals.

But Goodlatte believes a select committee or independent special counsel would "sidetrack" the ongoing investigation.

"The fact of the matter is, if we find sufficient information to justify getting this off on the separate track and delaying the investigation while a special select committee or a special counsel is appointed, we will do that," he says.

"But at this point in time it's important that the committees involved — and it's not just the Judiciary Committee, but with regard to the IRS, it's also the Ways and Means Committee and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee — that we continue to pursue this investigation aggressively and look into the matter, and if we were to sidetrack to get to a select committee, that will slow down this process.

"There will be a decision made later on about whether or not we need to take a different course with regard to these investigations."

Asked if Holder should resign, Goodlatte responds: "Last year in the last Congress I co-sponsored a resolution calling for him to step down, and he has still not complied with the subpoena that was given to him with regard to the investigation of Fast and Furious.

"The result of that is that his noncompliance, his having been held in contempt of the House of Representatives, all indicate to me his unwillingness to take responsibility for the actions in this Justice Department, his inability to provide leadership.

"Therefore it is very concerning to me, and I see nothing that would change my opinion from two years ago that he should step down."

Goodlatte also is working on immigration-reform legislation in the House. 

He tells Newsmax: "We are taking a step-by-step approach. We appreciate the effort that is ongoing in the Senate. We have a broken immigration system and it needs to be fixed, both in the sense of enforcing our immigration laws and in finding the appropriate legal status for those who are not lawfully present in the United States today.

"We also want to make sure that we're doing everything possible to improve our legal immigration system because we think it could work much better from the standpoint of the national interest of the United States and American citizens in creating jobs and growing our economy.

"We are hard at work. We have introduced three bills in the House Judiciary Committee dealing with various aspects of immigration reform. The Homeland Security Committee has introduced and passed out of the committee a fourth bill dealing with border security.

"Next week we will introduce in the Judiciary Committee a fifth bill dealing with interior security, because the problem is not just at the border:  35 to 40 percent of the people who are not lawfully present in the United States entered the country legally on visitor visas, business visas, student visas, visa waivers, etc., and simply overstayed their visa.

"So fixing the issues on the border does not by any means completely solve the problem. In fact, some would argue that the biggest problem we have right now is the lack of enforcement in the interior of the country.

"We are also continuing to work on the issue of what the legal status of people not lawfully present in the United States should be. I do not support a special pathway to citizenship. That would give people who entered the country unlawfully an advantage over people who have been attempting — in some cases for many, many years, — to lawfully immigrate.

"Figuring out what the way forward is in terms of enforcing our immigration laws; adding new enforcement measures; making sure that no president of the United States, not just President Obama, but no president can flip a switch and determine not to enforce the immigration laws as they pertain to millions of people who are not here lawfully; and making sure we do not undertake something that will cost the taxpayers of this country huge sums of money, are all matters that we are working our way through, one step at a time."

Regarding the immigration-reform bill in the Senate, Goodlatte says: "The biggest concern I have is that long before they ever give anybody a pathway to citizenship, they almost immediately give a legal status to people before they have in place the measures that would assure that we don’t have a repeat of what happened in 1986, when 3 million people were given an easy pathway to citizenship and the enforcement measures never were seriously implemented — employer sanctions and other things.

"Now we have new measures like E-Verify, which is a voluntary system we want to make mandatory for every employer. That would be implemented under the Senate rule after they've given legal status to millions of people.

"We've got to make sure that if we are going to change the legal status of millions of people, we don’t have another tidal wave of people coming into the country after them."
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2)As our Congress returns from their Memorial Day break, presumably the inquests into the multiple scandals besetting our current administration will resume. The scandal involving the IRS is probably the most constitutionally significant. However, the inquest around the Benghazi incident offers a distinct possibility of abject dereliction of duty by our current Commander-in-Chief.

The Benghazi debacle boils down to a single key factor - the granting or withholding of "cross-border authority (CBA)."  Once the alarm is sent - in this case, from the consulate in Benghazi - dozens   of HQs are notified and are in the planning loop in real time, including AFRICOM and EURCOM, both located in Germany.  Without waiting for specific orders from Washington, they begin planning and executing rescue operations, including moving personnel, ships, and aircraft forward toward the location of the crisis. However, there is one thing they can't do without explicit orders from the president: that is, cross an international border on a hostile mission.

That is the clear "red line" in this type of a crisis situation. No administration wants to stumble into a war because a jet jockey in hot pursuit (or a mixed-up SEAL squad in a rubber boat) strays into hostile territory. Because of this, only the President can give the order for our military to cross a nation's border without that nation's permission. For the Osama  bin Laden mission, our current President granted CBA for our forces to enter Pakistani airspace.

If the decision to grant CBA never comes, the besieged diplomatic outpost in Benghazi can rely only on assets already "in country" in Libya - such as the Tripoli quick reaction force and the Predator drones. These assets can be put into action on the independent authority of the acting ambassador or CIA station chief in Tripoli. They are already "in country," so CBA rules do not apply to them.

How might this process have played out in the White House? If, at the 5:00 p.m. Oval Office meeting with Defense Secretary Panetta and Vice President Biden, our current President said about Benghazi: "I think we should not go the military action route," meaning that no CBA will be granted, then that is it “Case closed.”

Another possibility is that the   president might have said: "We should do what we can to help them. but no military intervention from outside of Libya ." Those words then constitute "standing orders" all the way down the chain of command, via Panetta and General Dempsey to General Ham and the subordinate commanders who are already gearing up to rescue the besieged outpost. Nobody in the chain of command below President Obama can countermand his "standing orders" not to send outside military forces into Libyan air space. Nobody. Not Leon Panetta, not Hillary Clinton, not General Dempsey, and not General Ham in Stuttgart, Germany, who is in charge of the forces staging in Sigonella.

Perhaps the president left  "no outside military intervention, no cross-border authority"  standing orders, and then made himself scarce to those below him seeking further guidance, clarification, or modified orders.  Or perhaps he was the Situation Room watching the Predator videos in live time for all seven hours. We don't yet know where the president was hour by hour.

We should, and the Congressional committees must ask those questions.

But this is 100 percent sure:  Panetta and Dempsey would have executed a rescue mission order if the president had given those orders. And like the former SEALs in Benghazi, General Ham and all of the troops under him would have been straining forward in their harnesses, ready to go into battle to save American lives.

Leon Panetta is falling on his sword for President Obama with his absurd-on-its-face, "the U.S. Military doesn't do risky things"-defense of his shameful no-rescue policy.  Panetta is utterly destroying his reputation. General Dempsey joins Panetta on the same sword with his tacit agreement by silence. But why? How far does loyalty extend when it comes to covering up gross dereliction of duty by the president?

General Petraeus, however, has indirectly blown the whistle. He was probably "used" in some way early in the cover-up with the purported CIA intel link to the Mohammed video, and now he feels burned. So he conclusively said via his public affairs officer that the stand-down order did not come from the CIA. Well - what outranks the CIA?  Only the national security team at the White House.

And that means our current President.

We do not know the facts for certain, but we do know that the rescue mission stand-down issue revolves around the granting or withholding of cross-border authority, which belongs only to the current President.  More than one hundred gung-ho Force Recon Marines were waiting on the tarmac in Sigonella, just two hours away for the launch order that never came.

A “bump in the road” with our brave warriors dead.

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3)Divide and conquer

By Boaz Bismuth 

While in Paris on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attacked the European Union's decision to lift the embargo on the sale of weapons to the Syrian rebels, saying it contradicted international law. Lavrov's deputy Sergei Ryabkov accused European leaders of “fanning the flames” of the conflict in Syria, while at the same time confirming that his country would supply the Syrian government with advanced anti-aircraft missiles. As if this was not enough, Russia also insisted that Iran take full part in the Geneva peace conference scheduled for late summer, at which the world will search for a diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis. The bottom line is that Russia is standing very firm.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Lavrov on Monday. Kerry is cooperating with him on organizing the Geneva conference. During the meeting, Kerry said it is the Syrian people who need to determine their fate. Kerry's boss in the White House, Barack Obama, has said that the U.S. wants to see Syrian President Bashar al-Assad out of power, but the U.S. is helping to organize a conference in which representatives of the rebels and the Assad regime participate. The bottom line is that the U.S. is very confused.

Influenced by Britain and France, the EU on Monday lifted the arms embargo on the Syrian rebels. Yet, the 27 EU foreign ministers failed to agree on actually selling any weapons to the rebels. The EU believed, with a certain naivete, that its decision to lift the embargo would produce pressure on Assad. But to not torpedo the diplomatic process, EU countries will not supply the rebels with any weapons. The bottom line is that the EU is not very convincing.

The Syrian story is complicated, both militarily and diplomatically. Assad has understood this for a long time now and has skillfully used the divisions within the international community to survive. But we are stuck with Assad not only because of Russia, but also the rebels themselves. Fighting alongside the Free Syrian Army are jihadists and al-Qaida operatives. The West knows that while it would be easy to arm the rebel militias, it would be hard to disarm them later. America's goal right now is not to topple Assad, but rather to prevent the accumulation of power by jihadist militias affiliated with al-Qaida. Given the current reality, a sudden fall of Assad could be threatening to the West.

The U.S. is not enthusiastic about arming the rebels either. It remembers how the Stinger missiles it gave to the mujahideen in Afghanistan were turned against American forces a decade later. Not to mention the weapons provided to the rebels in Libya, which ended up in the hands of jihadists in Africa's Sahel region. Paradoxically, Assad's enemies are helping him survive.

3a)Israel says will act to prevent S-300 missile systems from becoming operational

Netanyahu tells European foreign ministers that if the Russian missile systems get into Syria, Israel's 'entire airspace will become a no-fly zone' and therefore it 'cannot stand idly by.'

By Barak Ravid 

Israel's National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror sketched out what Jerusalem's "red line" is vis-à-vis the S-300 missile systems Russia intends to send to Syria before the 27 European Union ambassadors in Israel.

Two diplomats who were in the room during the briefing last Thursday, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was a closed event, said that Amidror stressed Israel will act "to prevent the S-300 missiles from becoming operational" on Syrian soil. This message was also conveyed by Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon when he said on Tuesday that if the missiles reach Syria "Israel will know what to do."

Amidror's briefing, the diplomats said, made it clear that Israel estimates that sooner or later Russia will provide Syria with the missile systems and for reasons unrelated to Israel - namely Russian rivalry with the U.S., Britain and France on the Syrian issue. "We understood from Amidror that the Israeli government thinks the missile transfer cannot be prevented, therefore it will act against them after the transfer but before they become operational," one of the diplomats said.

The S-300 system is considered one of the world's most advanced aerial defense systems. Apart for the system's advanced radar, which can identify and track long-range targets, the missile themselves have a range of 200 kilometers.

Because of the system's advanced technology, the time required to make it operational can range between three to six months. Syrian operators and technicians also need to undergo training, possibly in Russia, but in order to fully calibrate the system and make it operational some of the process will have to take place in Syria.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked government ministers not to comment publicly about the S-300 systems, but in talks behind closed doors with diplomats and foreign ministers he relayed his concerns on the matter, in an attempt to exert last-minute pressure on Syria. The British Guardian newspaper reported on Wednesday that a delegation of Israeli intelligence officials arrived in Syria on Tuesday for more talks with senior Russian government officials.

A senior Israeli official and a European diplomat who are involved in the talks said that even though Netanyahu has not said so explicitly, he signaled in the past two weeks in talks with several European foreign ministers that his efforts to convince President Vladimir Putin not to provide Syria with the systems did not bear fruit.

"If the missiles are provided and become operational Israel's entire airspace will become a no-fly zone," Netanyahu told the European foreign ministers. "The missile transfer is a significant security challenge to Israel and we will not be able to stand idly by."

In the briefing to the European ambassadors Amidror tried to clarify Israel's policies on other issues concerning the Syrian civil war, and denied international media reports that Israel prefers President Bashar Assad remains in power.

"We are not interested in intervening or influencing the situation inside Syria," Amidror told the ambassadors. "We will only act when needed to protect our security, and thus we will prevent in the future the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah."

According to one of the diplomats present at the briefing, Amidror concluded by saying that for Israel, the strategic issue is weakening Hezbollah and Iran, and its policies are determined accordingly.

The Prime Minister's Office refused to comment.

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