Besides the 4 dead guys in Benghazi, who else is the victim? The American people who are looked at as suckers by the political establishment

If you happened to read my post recently about the highly-touted “whistleblower” who appeared on Fox, you know I was less than impressed. Not because I don’t wish to see the truth about Benghazi come to light, rather I hope to see relevant testimony come forward. I think I can make a pretty safe bet that this isn’t it.

The GOP angle has become quite clear. Benghazi for them is merely a political opportunity to attempt to derail the Clinton 2016 candidacy before it ever gets legs. They know there isn’t any smoking gun to tie-in Obama who is a lame-duck anyway. So the next best thing is to tie Clinton in to the video cover-up and the non-response to the attacks in time to save lives.

The internet is strewn with stories today about the whistleblowers and the “explosive” testimony they are about to unleash. I have to go back to my post from October 18, 2012 – http://spellchek.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/the-true-benghazi-cover-up-means-asking-the-right-question/.

The media firestorm is all about the Obama cover-up of the response. It should be focused on why this ever happened because it stinks to high heaven. Ambassador Stevens is dead and it appears to me that it was intended to be that way. The testimony supports it. The events leading up to it supports it. The real question is why?

Despite all the attention that will be paid to Benghazi this week, we still won’t find out why. Nor will anyone even be asking the question. It just disgusts me. The GOP will be proudly displaying their badge of honor that they are fighting to get the truth out after all this time despite the Obama Administration doing their level best to just make it go away. Not in my book. The GOP may be doing all it can to score political points and better position themselves for 2016, but they aren’t pursuing the truth that really matters.

Don’t get me wrong. Tar and feathering Clinton for her involvement may be the best option the GOP has to take her down in 2016. Please proceed. But where is the ‘real’ investigation? I want to see the GOP pursue it with the same vigor they have for Clinton’s neck.

Investigate the gun trafficking and coordinating Jihadist fighters to Syria and al-Qaeda.

Investigate the CIA prisoner detention at the annex. Some speculate the NSA is behind all of it.

Investigate the survivors, how many, who they are, why they’re being silenced and what insight can they provide as to the above two questions.

Those are the core questions that will explain so much including the purpose of the U.S. special mission, the coordinated drawdown of security prior to the attacks and the lack of any aid once they commenced. This is where the real dirt is. And it’s why the GOP only gives it lip service. The truth will be extremely damning to the U.S. government and for a whole host of reasons the GOP doesn’t want it to get out any more than Obama does.

Once again, the American people are being snowballed. While the left and right have a political debate over Benghazi, the nasty, bitter pill that is the truth isn’t even up for discussion.

Three additional suspects in Boston bombings taken into custody

H/T – Business Insider

The Boston Police Department’s Twitter account has announced the arrest of three more suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings.

Boston Police Dept. ✔ @Boston_Police

Three additional suspects taken into custody in Marathon bombing case. Details to follow.
11:07 AM – 1 May 2013

4,501 Retweets 284 favorites Reply
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The Boston PD have confirmed the news in a phone call with Business Insider.

The three suspects are said to be college students, according to the Boston Globe. According to CBS’s Charlie Kaye, they were arrested for “harboring or aiding the suspects after the fact.”

CNN reports that the suspects are in the custody of the FBI.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/boston-police-3-more-suspects-arrested-2013-5#ixzz2S3UkB0TK

UPDATED***The three arrests are for activities AFTER the bombings took place – http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/01/3-more-suspects-taken-into-custody-in-boston-bombing-police-say/

Saudi Arabia tipped U.S. and Britain to Boston bombings in writing

The MailOnline has this exclusive story.

EXCLUSIVE: Saudi Arabia ‘warned the United States IN WRITING about Boston Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2012′
Saudis developed intelligence separately from Russia, which also warned the U.S. about the accused Boston bomber

A letter to the Department of Homeland Security allegedly named Tsarnaev and three Pakistanis as potential jihadis worthy of U.S. investigation
Red flags from Saudi Arabia to have included Tsarnaev’s name and information about a planned explosive attack on a major U.S. city

Saudi foreign minister, national security chief both met with Obama in the oval office in early 2013

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2317493/Saudi-official-Kingdom-warned-United-States-IN-WRITING-Boston-Bomber-Tamerlan-Tsarnaev-2012-rejected-application-entry-visa-visit-Mecca-2011.html#ixzz2S3Iu8Zfu
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

How much stock should we put in it? At this point it’s yet another strawman as we don’t have a source revealed. Just as we aren’t allowed to see the video showing the suspect brothers actually placing the bombs in position (which the feds tell us exists).

Was the Daily Mail waiting for the official White House denials first so they could catch them with their hands in the cookie jar first? We’ll see.

It certainly fits in with the idea that our government absolutely knew this attack was going to happen. That’s why the bomb squad drills were scheduled the day of the marathon. The feds thought they were going to derail the attack and bust the brothers in the act. Didn’t work out so well despite having all the proper people in place beforehand.

DHS can never admit they were trying to allow the attackers to make their move before busting them. Doesn’t look so good when you have dead people to account for. However, the evidence trail showing prior knowledge of the attacks is seemingly getting longer by the day. You may also recall that Obama was tipped 48 hours prior to Benghazi by the Libyan government and we see where that got us as well.

Fox Benghazi whistleblower bombshell interview? Or not?

What is a whistleblower? According to the online dictionary, it is this: One who reveals wrongdoing within an organization to the public or to those in positions of authority.

What’s unique concerning the Benghazi cover-up is the fact that no whistleblower has yet to come forward. We are merely hearing from hidden sources that “potential” whistleblowers exist and that they are being threatened. The supposed whistleblower that appeared in the Fox story is unidentified.

So we have State Dept. employees seeking legal counsel as they claim to have been threatened by the Obama Administration with career ending punishment should they go public. And we have special ops sources that appear on Fox that “would be decapitated if they came forward with information that would affect high level commanders”.

I remember serving on jury duty years ago in a drunk driving case. It seemed a little surreal to us jurors at first when both sides came out and told us that the defendant was guilty. In other words, we were only there to decide how much money to award the victim. The analogy being that we have both sides telling us that these whistleblowers really do exist and we are merely negotiating their punishment for doing so.

It would seem a little less weird if we had already seen a whistleblower come forward with an accusation and we were debating its merits. Instead, we are watching the GOP say they exist but they want the Obama Administration to be the ones to out them. Confusing to say the least.

A logical thinking person may ask what harm could come from simply releasing the identities of the survivors. Or what harm could come from the supposed State Dept. employees counsel revealing the names of those who wish to tell Congress what they know. After all, wouldn’t it seem preferable to have your identity revealed as a protection against future retaliation? It’s likely these State Dept. employees don’t have any concrete evidence as to direct threats or we would already know about it.

I mean, we aren’t even talking about giving up the goods on Obama, only the identities of those people. Yet we can’t even get to that starting point in uncovering Benghazi. Of course the Administration lackeys are all deployed to say it’s time to move on, we’ve spent enough time on Benghazi, etc. They have everything to lose if we ever get to the bottom of it.

But why won’t the GOP reveal names? Why won’t Issa issue subpoenas? Is everybody really caught up in playing this silly media game in which they simply hope to shame Obama in coming clean? Never. Gonna. Happen.

Either put your cards on the table or we may as well do as Obama wishes and just move on. Merely accusing Obama of misusing his options to respond to the Benghazi attacks isn’t going anywhere. Wouldn’t matter if the SEALS were having a training exercise 2 blocks away went it went down. If he made the wrong call as a response, the most you get him on is being an incapable Commander-in-Chief. You need solid evidence, not hearsay, of a stand-down order issued.

You can’t tell me that if that evidence exists that the GOP wouldn’t give every assurance to the whistleblower that they won’t need to worry anymore about career progression as they will be taken care of for the rest of their life. Some rich donor would see to that for sure if the result were to take down Obama. So suffice it to say that it isn’t out there. Any orders given were verbal only.

Nice try Fox. You might get your ratings bump by selling this as a bombshell revealed yet it’s only more of the same we’ve been hearing for seven months. Wake me up when you have something relevant.

Shotgun hold-up FAIL

It would appear that this would-be thief followed Biden’s advice and bought a shotgun. Apparently, he didn’t realize that you don’t need to be 2 inches from your targeted victim for it to be effective.

You know, it’s bad enough to be made to look foolish by having your weapon knocked away but to have it completely stripped from you in a flash? This is one criminal who should have taken advantage of one of those cash for guns programs. At least he would have walked away with a few bucks.

Honey, what’s for dinner?

Or maybe this guy just doesn’t grill out very often?

Could this be the photo of the third Boston Marathon bomber?

Hey, what else are black backpacks used for but pressure cooker bombs? He looks pretty suspicious to me.

Sorry, couldn’t miss a chance to bash a player from a New York team. If I have lost you and you have absolutely no idea why Tim Tebow’s pic is in this post, go here – http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/tim-tebow-released-new-york-jets-042913?ocid=ansfox11

Liberal Suffering and Confusion by Walter E. Williams

Liberal Suffering and Confusion by Walter E. Williams.

Here is yet another must-read article from the great Walter Williams. However, I will have to disagree with Mr. Williams on his title. It is the rest of us that suffer due to liberal confusion.

The liberal world vision and reality are often at variance, for example, with equal pay for equal work. I’ve often watched “Lockup,” a show that features California supermax prisons, including Pelican Bay and Corcoran. Often, a recalcitrant prisoner must be extracted from his cell through brute force. I’ve never seen female guards remove a prisoner. If they are part of the process at all, it’s to videotape the extraction for legal purposes. It’s my bet that female guards receive the same salaries as male guards while not having to risk injury. Along the same lines, women on aircraft carriers earn as much as their male counterparts, but I have yet to see women hefting a hernia bar to attach a 500- or 1,000-pound bomb to a fighter jet wing. All of this suggests that liberals are for equal pay for unequal work. Or could it be sex discrimination whereby equally qualified women are denied the opportunity to extract beastly inmates from their cells and load heavy bombs on fighter planes?

Here’s another bit of liberal confusion. Liberals deny that raising labor cost through minimum wages reduces incentives to hire. But if you asked a liberal for advice on how to stop rich people from shirking their tax obligations, they’d say raise the penalty. Ask low-information Harvard University doctors what should be done to stem gun violence and they answer that government should institute “a new, substantial national tax on all firearms and ammunition.” Ask Illinois’ Cook County Board of Commissioners President Toni Preckwinkle how to reduce purchases of bullets and guns. She’d say levy a nickel tax on each bullet and a $25 tax on each gun. Liberals demonstrate they understand the law of demand – that raising the cost of something lessens the amount taken – but they deny that it applies to labor. That’s as ludicrous as suggesting that the law of gravity applies to everything in the universe except cute creatures, such as pandas and puppies.

Liberals love political correctness that conceals information. For example, how does one know whether the “chair” of a board of directors or the chair of a city council is a man or woman? This issue arose during my (1995-2001) chairmanship of George Mason University’s distinguished economics department. At a chairman’s meeting or gathering, I was referred to as department chair. I told the speaker that I am a chairman and that I have empirical evidence as proof. Needless to say, it didn’t go over well, but academics don’t like the terms chairwoman or chairperson, either, but puzzlingly, God forbid that people refer to their idol as Chair Mao instead of Chairman Mao.

How liberals identify black people must be confusing to whites. Having been around for 77 years, I have been through a number of names. Among the more polite ones are colored, Negro, Afro-American, black and, more recently, African-American. Among those names, African-American is probably the most unintelligent. Let’s look at it. To identify their races, suppose I told you that I had a European-American friend, a South America-American friend and a North America-American friend. You’d probably say, “Williams, that’s stupid. Europe, South America and North America are continents and home to different races, ethnicities and nationalities.” You might suggest that my friend is a German-American instead of European-American. My friend from Brazil is a Brazilian-American rather than a South America-American, and my friend from Canada is a Canadian-American instead of a North America-American. So wouldn’t the same apply to people whose heritage lies on the African continent? For example, instead of claiming that President Barack Obama is the first African-American president, he’s the first partially Kenyan-American president. Obama is lucky; he knows his national heritage. The closest thing to a national identity for most black Americans is some country along Africa’s Gold Coast. Adding to the confusion, what would you call a white American of Afrikaner or Egyptian descent? Is he an African-American?

Liberals suffer confusion and cognitive dissonance because the rest of us don’t help explain things to them.

April 30, 2013

Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University, and a nationally syndicated columnist. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page

So who’s really right on this whole unemployment/disability mess?

The monthly drama surrounding the nation’s unemployment rate will play out again next Friday when the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases its April report. It’s become an industry upon itself with different organizations and media sources making predictions prior to the release and then subsequently debating its merits afterward. The methodology employed by the BLS makes any result unreliable as a true measure of the nations employment situation, yet the results drive policy and have a significant effect on the political climate in America.

The biggest problems are in what defines an employed person and how people are counted in the survey taken each month to derive the nations official measure of the unemployment rate.

The BLS considers one employed if you work as little as one paid hour per month. If you work at least 15 hours unpaid, such as in a family business, you are also counted as employed.

Interpreting the unemployment rate is really a crapshoot. The flimsy requirement to be counted as employed as well as other factors such as marginally attached workers and those considered not in the labor force at all make the rate a truly poor measure of the state of the economy.

However, this post isn’t intended to delve into the BLS methodology and all of its misgivings. Rather, it is to touch on the latest skewing of the nations unemployment rate via the meteoric rise in the number of Americans collecting disability payments. Disability has become the unofficial extension of federal unemployment benefits. After state and federal benefits and extensions are all exhausted, many are moving to disability as the next source of the social safety net.

The BLS recently released a new study concerning disabled Americans – http://www.bls.gov/news.release/dissup.nr0.htm.

In it we find that over 28 million Americans are considered disabled. Keep in mind these numbers are already nearly a year old as of May, 2012.

Just over 18% of the disabled were employed (recall the flimsy BLS definition of employed). That compares to around 64% of the overall working age population of Americans employed.

Here’s where it starts to get a little sticky. Nearly 60% of the disabled received some form of financial assistance in the last year from one or more of the following sources: Workers Compensation, Social Security Disability Income, Supplemental Security Income, Veterans Disability compensation, disability insurance payments, Medicaid, Medicare, and other payments or programs.

Yet over 92.5% of those surveyed stated that the financial assistance failed to impede their search for work. Really? Realistically, the only way for that to be true is that the rocketing numbers of those on the disability rolls are truly disabled and not simply collecting benefits as a source of income when all others have been exhausted. Can this possibly be true despite the tremendous advances in medical technology allowing the disabled to work and function nearly normal? We must be experiencing an unprecedented spike in Americans becoming disabled despite more reasons than ever before to not let it affect their lives.

National Public Radio (NPR) completed a study showing 14 million Americans are receiving disability benefits from the government – http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/.

Reporter Chana Joffe-Walt made this statement during an interview with NPR’s This American Life on March 22, 2013.

since the economy began its slow, slow recovery in late 2009, we’ve been averaging about 150,000 jobs created per month. In that same period every month, almost 250,000 people have been applying for disability.

Can it be pure coincidence that the rise in disability mirrors the high unemployment numbers?

Chana Joffe-Walt calls it the disability-industrial complex. This has the left in a tizzy. They have trotted out a long line of debunkers and consider anyone even quoting the NPR study a right-wing extremist since the results don’t fit the official narrative of the left. You can draw your own conclusions as to the merits of the study. What is undeniable however is the rise in those considered disabled since Obama took office.

If you take any of these studies with a grain of salt perhaps because you consider them partisan or slanted in some manner, numbers from the Social Security Administration itself confirm that nearly one thousand new people each day are enrolling for disability benefits since Obama took office – http://cnsnews.com/news/article/8803335-another-new-record-disability-975-day-under-obama. The SSA is hardly a right-wing extremist source.

Also from the NPR study.

The federal government spends more money each year on cash payments for disabled former workers than it spends on food stamps and welfare combined.

Many people have heard that over 47 million Americans from 23 million households are now on food stamps or SNAP – http://cnsnews.com/blog/joe-schoffstall/record-number-households-food-stamps-1-out-every-5. They probably didn’t know that the cost of disability benefits was exceeding food stamps and welfare combined.

In fact, the fight against poverty is costing America a trillion dollars each year according to the CATO Institute – http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/PA694.pdf.

What can you takeaway from this barrage of numbers through various studies that show conflicting results? The economy stinks for the average American. The crony-capitalists and corporatists may be profiting per usual no matter who is in office, but there’s a reason this doesn’t feel like a recovery. Because it isn’t for most of us despite a booming Dow stock market average and the Wall Street financial markets that benefitted the most from the American taxpayer bailing them out.

So when the unemployment rate is released next week and the debate rages on, just remember to take it all in context with the big picture. Not all of us are suffering as the well-connected keep on living the American dream.

The Biden “Buy a Shotgun” self-defense theory tested

Make sure you watch to the end for the best part!