Benghazi updates

AAA Benghazi

Heroes of Benghazi were denied help three times

Fox News has learned from sources who were on the ground in Benghazi that an urgent request from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. consulate and subsequent attack several hours later on the annex itself was denied by the CIA chain of command -- who also told the CIA operators twice to "stand down" rather than help the ambassador's team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11. 

Benghazi and the CIA’s role

Breaking news on Benghazi: the CIA spokesman, presumably at the direction of CIA director David Petraeus, has put out this statement "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate. ” 

Let’s see if I have this.  Barack and Hillary threw the CIA under the bus and it now appears the CIA is returning the favor. 

Father asks who decided to not save my son

Charles Woods, the father of Tyrone Woods, who was killed in the 9/11 terrorist attack at the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, reveals details of meeting Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton at the publically broadcast memorial service for the slain Americans at Andrews Air Force Base only days after the attack. And, in a recent radio appearance, Woods publicly questions who made the call not to send in back-up forces to possibly save his son’s life, as well as the three other Americans killed in Benghazi (which includes the American ambassador to Libya).

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/father-slain-seal-who-made-decision-not-save-my-son_657782.html

President votes “present” when asked about Benghazi

In an interview with a Denver TV reporter Friday, President Obama twice refused to answer questions as to whether the Americans under siege in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012, were denied requests for help, saying he’s waiting for the results of investigations before making any conclusions about what went wrong.

Do you think that investigation will be done before the election?

Biden sticks foot in mouth again

"But you can't erase what you've already done, they've voted to extend tax cuts for the very wealthy, giving a $500 trillion dollar tax-cut to 120,000 families.

That amounts to over $4 billion per family if we are to believe Joe. 

Why Does Intrade give Obama a commanding lead?

Geek alert.  This is really a fascinating article if you are a geek.  The fast version is that you had a man name Nate Silver who in 2008 built a complex math model that called the correct outcome in 49 of 50 states.  If you saw the movie Moneyball, he based his model on Sabremetrics derived from a nearly 20-year old group known as the Society for American Baseball Research.   His writings tell us that Obama was a 73% chance of winning reelection and keep all the folks who use the NY Times as their political Bible happy. 

Of course for this to be correct he needs to have correctly identified the statistic that actually matters and it needs to be able to predict the outcome past events as well as the one it was based on since that one event might be an outlier.  So how did it do predicting the result of 2010?  

The first crack in Silver’s statistical prognostications appeared in 2010 when his early projections significantly undercounted Republican gains in the House.  Eleven days before the election he predicted that there was a 70% chance that Republicans would gain less than 60 seats.  They won 63.

As I said I found it fascinating since I’ve seen the NY Times page on the election and it always seemed so out of touch with reality. 

What happens if Romney wins?

92 percent of Obama supporters are sure their man will win.  What happens if he loses?

Can Obama win the election if he doesn’t win the popular vote? 

Can Obama win in the electoral college if he loses the popular vote by 3 percentage points – a raw vote margin of almost 4 million?

This stikes me as an exceedingly difficult feat. As far as I can tell, only Rutherford Hayes, in 1876, ever won enough states to carry the electoral vote, having lost the popular vote by more than 3 points. 

Except that Hayes didn’t really accomplish this. His opponent, Samuel Tilden, won the popular vote in more than enough states to carry the electoral vote. Unfortunately for Tilden, more than one state deprived him of his victory by simply overturning the result of its popular vote. For example, Louisiana, still under federal control near the end of Reconstruction, cast its electoral votes for Hayes even though something like 6,000 more votes were cast for Tilden.

George W. Bush, of course, also lost the popular vote but won in the electoral college. However, Al Gore’s popular vote margin was only 0.5 percent (about half a million votes).

As the race has tightened, it appears some on the left are beginning to create scenarios where Obama loses the popular vote but wins the electoral vote. 

Who’s ahead in Ohio’s early voting?

Democrats crow they are, while Republicans say “wait a minute,” we’ve had redistricting since 2008 and claim they are ahead by 10.5%.  Plus they point to the polls and how Romney is ahead among independents. 

The incredible shrinking president

Panic shows up in a lot of ways in this ad

 

Obama flails around trying to find the electoral sweet spot

In 2008 Obama found it with Hope and Change.  That is what the American public wanted.  This election you hear echoes of that but it is coming from Romney’s campaign while Obama struggles. 

 

Obama’s glass jaw

If Peggy Noonan is correct, and the president’s performance in the first debate revealed him to be “[p]etulant, put upon, above it all, full of himself,” then the two weeks since have shown him to own what they call in the world of boxing, “a glass jaw.”

A glass jaw is the inability of a fighter to take a direct hit, one on the chin, a roundhouse. Once hit, a glass jaw boxer goes down and usually doesn’t get back up. If he does manage to get on his feet, he staggers around, lost and confused. for the rest of the fight as his opponent pummels him.

“Staggering around” is the best way to describe the president’s actions since the first debate in Denver. Mitt Romney has grown larger, more confident, full of energy and optimism, and not just about his campaign and the election, but for the country.

Barack Obama has grown increasingly gloomy, incoherent and strident, careening from Big Bird to binders to bayonets.

In a panic over falling poll numbers, the president and his ace team of consultants in Chicago rushed out a brand new glossy pamphlet of 20 pages, full of pictures of the president with children, and called it a program for the next few years.

The Cause of the Financial Crisis

Democrats like to tell us we must not go back to the Republican Policies that got us into this mess.  A great political talking point: easy to understand and simply wrong.

The question of what caused the crisis is obviously still controversial (though, Kessler notes, the official inquiry makes no mention of Bush's tax cuts). But a consensus seems to be forming around the following narrative: The federal government, out of an abundance of concern for the plight of the poor and middle class, made it too easy to buy a home. Congress, on a bipartisan basis, set unrealistic affordable-housing goals for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. President Clinton used those goals to expand access to mortgages to low-income borrowers. Then President George W. Bush, with the approval of Congress, expanded the practice, until way too many low-income or otherwise underqualified Americans owned mortgages they couldn't afford.

A mixture of greed, idealism, cynicism, and stupidity led to the practice of bundling those iffy mortgages into financial instruments that Wall Street didn't know how to handle and regulators didn't know how to regulate. As Representative Barney Frank (D., Mass.) put it in 2003, he wanted to "to roll the dice a bit" on regulating subprime mortgages.

Barack Obama defender of women

In a 1999 legislative vote, then-Illinois State Senator Barack Obama was the sole state senator to not vote for a bill that would protect sexual assault victims from having the details of their cases revealed publicly.

On May 11 of that year, Obama voted “present” on a bill, ultimately made law that allows victims of sex crimes to request that their cases be sealed from public view following a criminal conviction. Illinois Senate voting records show that Obama was the only senator who did not vote in favor of the bill.

Obama’s unique objection to voting for a bill meant to protect victims of sex crimes is a substantial departure from the picture he has attempted to paint for women voters.

Termination recommendation

Kevin Williamson shares a performance review from the Human Resources of The Firm U.S.A., Ltd., regarding employee USAPOTUS0044\, Barack Obama.  It is not a flattering report. In fact, he recommends non-renewal of the original 4-year contract. Some highlights (or perhaps I mean “lowlights”):

An Unconstitutional Presidency

What’s new Today

Our #1 story discusses why BHO will lie, cheat and steal to be reelected.  #2 talks about the “recess” appointments Obama has made.  #3 looks at the legality of what Obama’s done.  #4 relates how a group of students in Ohio laughed at “the One.”  #5 is an interesting collection of left wing pundits as they assess what an Obama defeat would do to their dreams.  Finally #6 looks at something new under the sun. 

1.  Why BHO will Lie, Cheat and Steal in the coming election

The future of America depends on electing a new president in 2012, and the best asset for any potential challenger is Barack Obama. His obtuse sense of self-worth will be a shrewd candidate's greatest advantage.

Obama believes that he is a spectacular success, almost godlike in his judgment. All his policies are not only correct, but manifestations of the transcendent, prescient leader he knows himself to be.

He will run, fast and furious, from his record -- but not because it shows him to be less than the greatest leader ever, except for possibly Johnson, FDR, and Lincoln...and even then, only "possibly.”…

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/01/obama_americas_greatest_asset.html#ixzz1iaCN33sd

Obama is delusional, but so too are those who think he will be reelected. 

2.  Legality of Cordray Appointment

Leaving aside the constitutional questions, there is a potential statutory problem with the legality of the Cordray appointment under Dodd-Frank. Section 1066 of Dodd-Frank provides that the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to perform the functions of the CFPB under the subtitle transferring authority to the CFPB from the other agencies “until the Director of the Bureau is confirmed by the Senate in accordance with Section 1011.” It turns out that section 1011 is a defined term which provides: “The Director shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.”

This seems to suggest that even if the President might be able to appoint Cordray under the recess power the full grant of statutory authority wouldn’t transfer to the Bureau unless the statutory language was fulfilled as well.

http://volokh.com/2012/01/04/legality-of-cordray-appointment-under-dodd-frank/

The law doesn’t seem to be an impediment to BHO.  He regularly violates it. 

3.  Is the Senate in Recess?

Article One, section Five of the Constitution states:

Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days...

This presents a problem for President Obama, who claims to have just made a recess appointment when the Senate is not actually in recess. The Constitution says the Senate cannot recess for more than three days without the House's permission. The House has not granted permission, and as a result both houses have been holding pro forma sessions out of constitutional necessity.

There is an argument that pro-forma sessions are just a sham. Obama is not the first to make it. I don't find it very persuasive, but it's an argument that some very smart people make.

Yet in this particular case, in which the House has not consented to a Senate recess, the pro forma session does not seem to be the issue. The Constitution is the issue. Without the consent of the House to adjourn for more than three days, the Senate is in session, whether it wants to be or not.

The only argument left is one that the Obama administration has itself rejected – that a three day “recess” is sufficient for such an appointment.

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/senate-recess-constitution-says-no/292211

Hypocrisy abound in this issue.  Reid has come out in support of Obama’s action after using the same tactics in 2007 to stop Bush from making recess appointments. 

4.  Something New in Obama’s Ohio Speech

…Obama goes to Shaker Heights High School. With Obama, these choreographed crowd events have a rigidity, a predictable faux friendliness. He's been doing them so long, even before Oprah helped four years ago….

… Then, out of the blue Wednesday, came a tiny incident. A minute moment. There had been no signs of trouble, nothing to reveal that the Real Good Talker's real good talking had lost his touch or control of his sitting subjects. The rest of the speech continued normally. Many there probably didn't even notice.

The president of the United States has said the next line so many times over these 1,080 days of his reign. He says it as a kind of democratic gesture, a compliment to a crowd of American citizens, a public obeisance that the most powerful man in the world is profoundly connected to them.

Obama said, "You inspire me."

And you know how the members of that crowd in the most Democratic district of Ohio responded to that campaigning Democratic president's professed sincerity this time?

They laughed at him…

http://news.investors.com/Article.aspx?id=596792&p=1

Its little things like this that confirms what the polls are telling us.  His stage managed stump speech drew laughter rather than cheers. 

5.  The Left Worries: “What if Obama Loses?

It’s a common complaint—we’ve certainly made it over the years—that too much political campaign coverage focuses on the horse race. The packed debate schedule in the current GOP nomination battle has put a bit more focus than usual on the substance of what the candidates are saying, which is good. But even so, most of this coverage has wound up being about whether a given policy position might help or hurt a candidate’s chances of winning. What’s most important has been left largely unexamined: if one of these candidates actually becomes president and advances his or her policies, what would be the consequences for the nation? …

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/january_february_2012/features/what_if_he_loses034501.php

If you are a liberal you will despair.  If you are a conservative, you’ll break out the bubbly. 

6.   Something New Under the Sun

A new way of collecting solar energy has polarized scientists around the world and ignited fierce debate on the Internet, where the innovator in question has been called everything from an alien to the agent of a global conspiracy.

Maybe a better title would be an intellectual Hannah Montana. That's because the scientist, Aidan Dwyer, is 13 years old.

This past summer, Aidan won a national science competition with what seemed to be a bright idea: His research appeared to show that solar panels arrayed like the leaves on a tree collect sunlight more efficiently than traditional setups.

Many people on the Web called the Long Island teenager a "genius" who had achieved a true "breakthrough" in solar power. Others praised him for proving that nature's own designs are superior to man's.

But there was one little problem: To prove his hypothesis, Aidan had measured the wrong thing.

As readers figured out the mistake, the Internet went supernova. Commenters and bloggers attacked Aidan with vitriol usually saved for political enemies and the Kardashians. Blogs decried his experiment as "bad science" and "impossible nonsense." Someone called him "an alien—a cool one, though." …

… On a recent afternoon, Aidan showed a visitor his newest model, tweaked to respond to his critics: a towering seven-foot tree form adorned with solar panels and painted green. He is now measuring current and power. So far, he said, the tree continues to outperform the traditional panel. "I'm thinking that it could actually change the world."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203550304577138511287470508.html?mod=ITP_AHED

Here’s hoping he comes up with something.