Tag Archives: libya

Still no federal assistance on Staten Island. Mayor Bloomberg turns away national guard help. Obama not leading….

This is a disaster and this is not partisanship, it is a cold reality.

The federal response in New York and parts of New Jersey is not going well. After 72 hours FEMA and the military should be engaged full speed ahead. It isn’t. Main roads still have boats sitting on them.

Mayor Bloomberg is keeping out the National Guard because they have guns… no kidding. Obama should assert FEMA emergency powers since this is a multi-state disaster and over rule the Mayor. Bush did the same thing after Louisiana Governor Blanco refused to cooperate during Katrina. Bloomberg may know how to make money, but that is all he knows how to do. His failure as mayor is truly epic.

There is a shortage of water. So what you do is call in the Navy as the ships have large desalination machines to make fresh water which could be sent inland.

After Katrina Bush sent in the Navy, the Coast Guard and Army General Honore into New Orleans and the General got it under control and had choppers and trucks moving debris just after 72 hours. Bush also parked the US Navy a hospital ship just off the coast. By the way, federal guidelines say that FEMA’s and the federal response time should be 48-72 hours.

Honestly I was expecting the disaster response for this hurricane to go well like it did in Mississippi for Katrina.  Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour had asked for the military and national guard to come in before Katrina even hit. The damage to the Mississippi Gulf Coast was FAR worse than the damage in New Orleans, but they got things going in a hurry, got relief delivered well. This is what happens when Governors and local authorities cooperate with and coordinate with FEMA like they are supposed to. The reason the press didn’t tell you this was because what news is there report when the news is good?

Via Jim Hoft:

Staten Island resident John Tabacco told Neil Cavuto this morning that Staten Island is still alone.
** There is no federal help.
** The feds just drive by with their clipboards.
** We just found three more dead people in the pile this morning.

Obama STILL isn’t attending Jobs Council monthly calls or meetings! (Video)

Via our pal Jim Hoft:

Robert Wolf, a member of Barack Obama’s Jobs Council and a top campaign donor, admitted this morning that Barack Obama does not even join in on the regularly scheduled calls. The calls are held every two weeks.

In July, the administration told reporters Barack Obama was too busy to meet with his jobs council.

 

Benghazigate Part II – “Stand Down” orders came from the White House

When you are done reading be sure to see Benghazigate Part I and the following link has all of our coverage on this emerging scandal.

In a nutshell what is new:

More evidence on the timeline and what the White House knew and when they knew it.

New documents discovered show that Chris Stevens told the State Department that Al-Qaeda forces were gathering in Benghazi and that he believes the consulate was next. His warning was ignored.

Ambassador Chris Stevens called and spoke with Gregory Hicks, The Deputy Chief of Mission in Tripoli, begging for help as the attack began. We had TWO drones overhead. Hicks notified Washington.

Ed Klein reports that Hillary Clinton also asked President Obama to send in help and he said no. 

CBS News releases information form confidential emails showing that Obama would not even assemble the counter terrorism group and reports that they were told to stand down. 

***********************************************************************

Ambassador Stevens’ emails to State Department: Al-Qaeda forces are gathering in Benghazi and this consulate is the  next target.

His warnings, which were classified by the Obama Administration but leaked, came in the weeks and even hours before the attacks so why were his security teams taken away, even under protest? Previous requests for more security were not only denied, but they were told to stop making the requests.

The British came under attack previously so they got out. Lt. Col. Andrew Wood that they expected the attack sooner or later.

Catherine Herridge in the video below: The State Department has culpability in the deaths of these four Americans. The warnings were specific, they were direct, they named the enemy and they said that this consulate needed more support. Stevens said that the Consulate should move long term into the CIA Annex. [Diana West has a transcript of Heridge’s remarks in the video below as well as more details on the terror groups mention. Nice work Diana – Editor.]

Also in this video Intelligence Committee member Jason Chaffetz: Ambassador Chris Stevens called and spoke with Gregory Hicks, The Deputy Chief of Mission in Tripoli, begging for help as the attack began. Hicks notified Washington.

Chaffetz says that he spoke with (former as of a few days ago) AFRICOM commander Gen. Carter Ham personally. Chaffetz says Ham told him, “he did not get a directive from the White House, from the president of the United States to engage in the fire fight to help protect those people.”

“Mr. President, you can’t have it both ways,” Chaffetz added. “You can’t say that you are doing everything you can to protect the people in Benghazi when we are under attack — a fire fight that starts at 9:40 at night and goes to the wee hours of the morning — and say you did everything when the military did not engage.” Says Cheffetz, we had proximity, we had capability, and we had opportunity and the President would not pull the trigger.

Emails from the embassy staff to the State Department, local military commands such as AFRICOM, the CIA, DoD, DNI, and the White House Situation Room were sent DURING the attack. They watched the attack in real time via the drones flying overhead.

Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer along with Col. David Hunt said that his sources say that Obama was one of the people in the room watching the Benghazi attack. Col. Hunt explains how and who was watching the live feed from the two drones overhead. Says Col. Hunt, “This was also the fourth embassy in 24 hours to come under attack so the entire U.S. Government was paying attention”.

[Editor’s Note – Col. Hunt says that the President or the Secretary of Defense could have ordered the military to intervene, but it didn’t happen. President Obama said that he ordered the military to do all that they could to help, did the Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta disobey that order or is Obama lying again? Remember that after the “it was the video” lie was busted the next lie was “it was the fog of war, we had no communication, then we had too much communication” then after that the story was that we didn’t know what was going on and we didn’t want to send our guys into an ambush. But what better data is there than contact with people on the ground and two drones giving a live feed?

There are standing orders to preserve American life when such a call comes in. Why were those orders not followed or were commands ordered to stand down? 

Local CIA teams were told to stand down multiple times during the attack while in contact with Washington. The AC-130 gunship was certainly overhead because one of our people on the ground was painting the mortar target with a handheld laser designator that works with the fire control system of an AC-130. You do not waste batteries on the laser designator and make yourself a target in the process if you are not in direct contact with close air support.]

Two U.S. officials tell Eli Lake at The Daily Beast that the State Department never requested military backup the night of the attack.

Arab TV is reporting that documents found at the site confirm that Stevens was sending emails about the security situation HOURS before the attack. Foreign Policy Magazine also has the story:

BENGHAZI, Libya — More than six weeks after the shocking assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi — and nearly a month after an FBI team arrived to collect evidence about the attack – the battle-scarred, fire-damaged compound where Ambassador Chris Stevens and another Foreign Service officer lost their lives on Sept. 11 still holds sensitive documents and other relics of that traumatic final day, including drafts of two letters worrying that the compound was under “troubling” surveillance and complaining that the Libyan government failed to fulfill requests for additional security.

When we visited on Oct. 26 to prepare a story for Dubai based Al Aan TV, we found not only Stevens’s personal copy of the Aug. 6 New Yorker, lying on remnants of the bed in the safe room where Stevens spent his final hours, but several ash-strewn documents beneath rubble in the looted Tactical Operations Center, one of the four main buildings of the partially destroyed compound. Some of the documents — such as an email from Stevens to his political officer in Benghazi and a flight itinerary sent to Sean Smith, a U.S. diplomat slain in the attack — are clearly marked as State Department correspondence. Others are unsigned printouts of messages to local and national Libyan authorities. The two unsigned draft letters are both dated Sept. 11 and express strong fears about the security situation at the compound on what would turn out to be a tragic day. They also indicate that Stevens and his team had officially requested additional security at the Benghazi compound for his visit — and that they apparently did not feel it was being provided.

One letter, written on Sept. 11 and addressed to Mohamed Obeidi, the head of the Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ office in Benghazi, reads:

“Finally, early this morning at 0643, September 11, 2012, one of our diligent guards made a troubling report. Near our main gate, a member of the police force was seen in the upper level of a building across from our compound. It is reported that this person was photographing the inside of the U.S. special mission and furthermore that this person was part of the police unit sent to protect the mission. The police car stationed where this event occurred was number 322.”

The account accords with a message written by Smith, the IT officer who was killed in the assault, on a gaming forum on Sept. 11. “Assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures,” he wrote hours before the assault.

Jake Tapper at ABC News reports:

White House has disclosed that President Obama was informed about the attack on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi at roughly 5pm by his National Security Adviser Tom Donilon as he was in a pre-scheduled meeting with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey. At that meeting, senior administration officials say, the President ordered that the U.S. begin moving military assets into the region to prepare for a range of contingencies.

We believe this is misinformation. We know that there was a previously scheduled meeting with President Obama at 5pm, which is an hour and twenty minutes into the attack. What we do not believe was that this was the first that the President knew about the attack. As Col. Hunt said, this was September 11th and three of our embassies had already been attacked that day. The entire US Government was watching. Everyone was on a heightened state of readiness.

Remember when we said that the Obama administration may be  in denial of terrorism because they were caught up in a “mission accomplished” mentality? Today there are reports that President Obama said in a speech in Ohio that bin Laden is dead and Al-Qaeda is finished. After Al-Qaeda killed our people in Libya they flew the Al-Qaeda flag over our consulate.

Breitbart News:

Did Barack Obama have a “Mission Accomplished” moment with dreadful consequences in Libya? Libya’s former Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril believes he did.

Perhaps you’ll recall when George W. Bush stood on the flight deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln and a banner positioned behind him read “Mission Accomplished” regarding Iraq on May 1, 2003. It was a moment that haunted him throughout the rest of his presidency and beyond, as the Iraq War continued on for eight and a half more years.

And just as many Democrats say Bush made a premature call after the sacking of Baghdad and the toppling of the Hussein regime, so too the former Libyan PM says Obama counted his eggs before they hatched.

Jibril has “accused the United States and its NATO allies of high-tailing it out of [Libya] as soon as dictator Moammar Gadhafi was disposed a year ago.” He says the quick departure created “a power vacuum” that has allowed radicals, like those who attacked the Benghazi consulate, to strengthen their numbers and flourish.

According to Jibril:

After the collapse of the regime, the immediate task of our friends was to help us rebuild the government before they withdrew from Libya. [But] the moment the regime fell down, they felt that their mission [had] been accomplished. I think it was a premature decision.

Ed Klein, a confidant of Bill Clinton (known as one of the Clintonista’s) tells Andrew Wilkow that Hillary Clinton asked President Obama to respond as the attack happened and Obama refused. See the video interview HERE.

CBS News: Counterterrorism Security Group told to stand down

CBS News has learned that during the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, the Obama Administration did not convene its top interagency counterterrorism resource: the Counterterrorism Security Group, (CSG).

“The CSG is the one group that’s supposed to know what resources every agency has. They know of multiple options and have the ability to coordinate counterterrorism assets across all the agencies,” a high-ranking government official told CBS News. “They were not allowed to do their job. They were not called upon.”

Information shared with CBS News from top counterterrorism sources in the government and military reveal keen frustration over the U.S. response on Sept. 11, the night ambassador Chris Stevens and 3 other Americans were killed in a coordinated attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya.

The circumstances of the attack, including the intelligence and security situation there, will be the subject of a Senate Intelligence Committee closed hearing on Nov. 15, with additional hearings to follow.

Counterterrorism sources and internal emails reviewed by CBS News express frustration that key responders were ready to deploy, but were not called upon to help in the attack.

Now read carefully – from CBS:

Another senior counter terrorism official says a hostage rescue team was alternately asked to get ready and then stand down throughout the night, as officials seemed unable to make up their minds.

“The response process was isolated at the most senior level,” says an official referring to top officials in the executive branch. “My fellow counterterrorism professionals and I (were) not consulted.”

This of course is a bomb shell. What is interesting is that Speaker Newt Gingrich said that he knows of two major news agencies that have these emails, including the story about the stand down order, and that a Senator told him of this [probably the same Senator who leaked it to CBS and Glenn Beck in the first place who is almost certainly an Intelligence Committee member – Editor].

What is even more interesting is that Glen Beck not only said the same thing but he threatened that if said major news network waited until after the election to release these emails that he would out them, name names, etc. Hours later CBS released the story above.

Greg Davis, a retired DIA and State Department official tells Political Arena, “I think this is the first time in modern history where we can absolutely NOT trust our President to protect our troops; in this case, we need to protect them from him”. Davis has a light hearted blog where he talks about deadly serious things and offers up some of his speculation and what information he is still able to glean. He is not happy that our people were allowed to die while the White House situation room watched.

UPDATE – Followup report from Jennifer Griffon: More on the ground sources confirm they asked for help and were ordered to stand down – LINK:

Judge Pirro goes nuclear again: 

Bret Baier Special on Benghazigate: New Revelations (video)

Bret Baier – Benghazi Special New Revelations October 28, 2012:

Fact Check on Obama’s Statements (mostly on Benghazi):

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Sunday Morning Show’s Tee Off:

On Sunday’s political talk shows, several Republicans criticized the Obama administration’s response to the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. Here’s Senator John McCain of Arizona on CBS’s Face the Nation:

You know, this administration is very good at touting and giving all the details like when they got Bin Laden. But now, we know that there were tapes, recordings inside the consulate during this fight, and they’ve gotten—they came—the F.B.I. finally got in and took those, and now they’re classified as “top secret.” Why would they be top secret? So the president went on various shows, despite what he said he said in the Rose Garden, about terrorist acts, he went on several programs, including “The View” including “Letterman” including before the U.N., where he continued to refer, days later, many days later, to this as a spontaneous demonstration because of a hateful video. We know that is patently false. What did the president know? When did he know it? And what did he do about it?

McCain said for “literally days and days” the White House “told the American people something that had no basis in fact whatsoever.”

Newt Gingrich, on ABC’s This Week:

But the bigger issue is, whether it’s unemployment or it is what happened in Benghazi, where we’ve had this strange situation over the weekend that the Secretary of Defense apparently refused to obey the President’s order, if the president is telling the truth and he actually instructed his assistants to get aid to Benghazi, we’re now being told that the Secretary of Defense canceled that. And I think these kinds of things all drag down the Obama campaign.

Ohio senator Rob Portman talked on Fox News Sunday about a “shocking breakdown” with regard to the Obama administration’s response:

This is not about politics.  This is about a huge national security issue that affects all of us and there was a shocking breakdown, operationally, not to have the security there in the first place.   And then not to respond to these guys, in their pleas for help for 7 hours, during a firefight.  It’s unbelievable and now, we are hearing that the president of the United States, based on his own words, issued a directive immediately after he found out about the firefight, saying that he wanted to be sure those people on the ground were safe and they were getting what they needed.  It didn’t happen.  This means either that the president’s order was not followed, which would be a breakdown in terms of the White House procedure, or, it means the order wasn’t issued.  We need to find out about this, it is not about politics, it is a very serious situation.  After the fact, of course, there’s also been a lot of confusion about what happened and why it happened.

Here’s Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, also on Fox News Sunday:

Chris, the American people have the right to know. And that is what they are demanding here in Wisconsin. I mean, let’s face it. What was the president doing during those 7 hours? Did he give that directive? Or didn’t he? Did Leon Panetta directly defy his directive? I mean, what happened? Who sent out,  who sent Ambassador Rice out five days later when they knew it was a terrorist attack, that it was pre-planned, sent her out on the Sunday talk shows to say that in fact this was a spontaneous reaction to of course the video?

Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, on CNN’s State of the Union:

The mishandling of the situation in Benghazi. No answers, no transparency, 45 days after the fact is a great concern. Either the president gave an order that was disobeyed by the Secretary of Defense to provide support in Benghazi or he didn’t, and I think people want answers before this election on that, so that’s what’s going to determine the outcome.

Saudi funds to schools used to teach students Al-Qaeda talking points as fact (video)

Brigitte Gabriel, who watched Islamists take over Lebanon from within and slaughter the Christians there with the help of leftist Christians and secularists who did so in the name of “fairness and social justice”, founded ACT for America to warn people about radical Islamic influence in our government and universities.

State Department told Congress they witnessed the attack in real time (video) – UPDATED

Representative Jason Chaffetz also tells of his meeting with General Ham who said that no orders came to help those in Banghazi.

Democrat Senator Udal, who sits on the Intelligence Committee, confirmed that drones were overhead during the attack so all could see what was happening in real time:

UPDATE – Fox News Catherine Herridge:

Published October 29, 2012 | FoxNews.com

Two days after the Libya terror attack, representatives of the FBI and National Counterterrorism Center gave Capitol Hill briefings in which they said the evidence supported an Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda-affiliated attack, Fox News has learned.

The description of the attack by those in the Sept. 13 briefings stands in stark contrast to the now controversial briefing on Capitol Hill by CIA Director David Petraeus the following day — and raises even more questions about why Petraeus described the attack as tied to a demonstration.

The Sept. 13 assessment was based on intercepts that included individuals, believed to have participated in the attack, who were celebratory — as well as a claim of responsibility.
FBI and NCTC also briefed that there were a series of Al Qaeda training camps just outside of Benghazi, where the attack occurred and resulted in the deaths of four Americans. The area was described as a hotbed for the militant Ansar al-Sharia as well as Al Qaeda in North Africa.

Fox News is told there was no mention of a demonstration or any significant emphasis on the anti-Islam video that for days was cited by administration officials as a motivating factor.

The FBI and NCTC did not immediately respond to a request from Fox News for comment.

Fox News is told that the Petraeus briefing on Sept. 14 conflicted with that of the FBI and NCTC.

On Capitol Hill, Petraeus characterized the attack as more consistent with a flash mob, where the militants showed up spontaneously with RPG’s. Petraeus downplayed to lawmakers the skill needed to fire mortars, which were also used in the attack and to some were seen as evidence of significant pre-planning. As Fox News previously reported, four mortars were fired — two missed the annex, but the mortar team re-calibrated and the next two mortars were direct hits.

Fox News is told that Petraeus seemed wedded to the narrative that the attack was linked to a demonstration and was spontaneous as opposed to pre-meditated.

Editor’s Note – one of my closest sources told me that CIA Director Petraeus was trying to carry the water for the administration about “blaming it on the video” when he full well knew better. I am glad that he came clean. 

Admiral Lyons: They Watched and did nothing to answer repeated calls for assistance

Admiral Lyons:

There is an urgent need for full disclosure of what has become the “Benghazi Betrayal and Cover-up.” The Obama national security team, including CIA, DNI and the Pentagon, apparently watched and listened to the assault on the U.S. consulate and cries for help but did nothing. If someone had described a fictional situation with a similar scenario and described our leadership ignoring the pleas for help, I would have said it was not realistic—not in my America – but I would have been proven wrong.

We now know why Ambassador Christopher Stevens had to be in Benghazi the night of 9/11 to meet a Turkish representative, even though he feared for his safety.  According to various reports, one of Stevens’ main missions in Libya was to facilitate the transfer of much of Gadhafi’s military equipment, including the deadly SA-7 – portable SAMs – to Islamists and other al Qaeda-affiliated groups fighting the Assad Regime in Syria. In an excellent article, Aaron Klein states that Stevens routinely used our Benghazi consulate (mission) to coordinate the Turkish, Saudi Arabian and Qatari governments’ support for insurgencies throughout the Middle East. Further, according to Egyptian security sources, Stevens played a “central role in recruiting Islamic jihadists to fight the Assad Regime in Syria.”

In another excellent article, Clare Lopez at RadicalIslam.org noted that there were two large warehouse-type buildings associated with our Benghazi mission. During the terrorist attack, the warehouses were probably looted. We do not know what was there and if it was being administrated by our two former Navy SEALs and the CIA operatives who were in Benghazi.  Nonetheless, the equipment was going to hardline jihadis.

Once the attack commenced at 10:00 p.m. Libyan time (4:00 p.m. EST), we know the mission security staff immediately contacted Washington and our embassy in Tripoli.  It now appears the White House, Pentagon, State Department, CIA, NDI, JCS and various other military commands monitored the entire battle in real time via frantic phone calls from our compound and video from an overhead drone. The cries for help and support went unanswered.

Our Benghazi mission personnel, including our two former Navy SEALs, fought for seven hours without any assistance other than help from our embassy in Tripoli, which launched within 30 minutes an aircraft carrying six Americans and 16 Libyan security guards. It is understood they were instrumental in helping 22 of our Benghazi mission personnel escape the attack.

Once the attack commenced, Stevens was taken to a “safe room” within the mission. It is not known whether his location was betrayed by the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, the local force providing security to the consulate, which had ties to the Ansar al-Sharia terrorist group conducting the attack, and to al Qaeda. Unbelievably, we still do not know how Ambassador Stevens died.

The Obama national security team, including CIA, DNI, State Department and the Pentagon, watched and listened to the assault but did nothing to answer repeated calls for assistance. It has been reported that President Obama met with Vice President Joseph R. Biden and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in the Oval Office, presumably to see what support could be provided. After all, we had very credible military resources within striking distance. At our military base in Sigonella, Sicily, which is slightly over 400 miles from Benghazi, we had a fully equipped Special Forces unit with both transport and jet strike aircraft prepositioned. Certainly this was a force much more capable than the 22-man force from our embassy in Tripoli.

I know those Special Forces personnel were ready to leap at the opportunity. There is no doubt in my mind they would have wiped out the terrorists attackers. Also I have no doubt that Admiral William McRaven, Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, would have had his local commander at Sigonella ready to launch; however, apparently he was countermanded—by whom? We need to know.

I also understand we had a C-130 gunship available, which would have quickly disposed of the terrorist attackers. This attack went on for seven hours. Our fighter jets could have been at our Benghazi mission within an hour. Our Special Forces out of Sigonella could have been there within a few hours. There is not any doubt that action on our part could have saved the lives of our two former Navy SEALs and possibly the ambassador.

Having been in a number of similar situations, I know you have to have the courage to do what’s right and take immediate action. Obviously, that courage was lacking for Benghazi. The safety of your personnel always remains paramount. With all the technology and military capability we had in theater, for our leadership to have deliberately ignored the pleas for assistance is not only in incomprehensible, it is un-American.

Somebody high up in the administration made the decision that no assistance (outside our Tripoli embassy) would be provided, and let our people be killed. The person who made that callous decision needs to be brought to light and held accountable. According to a CIA spokesperson, “No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need.” We also need to know whether the director of CIA and the director of National Intelligence were facilitators in the fabricated video lie and the overall cover-up. Their credibility is on the line. A congressional committee should be immediately formed to get the facts out to the American people. Nothing less is acceptable.

Retired Adm. James A. Lyons was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet and senior U.S. military representative to the United Nations.

Islamist radicals welcomed in Obama White House; moderates shunned

Real moderate Muslims shunned by White House.

Daily Caller:

White House visitor records show that administration officials have hosted numerous White House meetings with a series of U.S.-based Muslim political groups that have close ties to jihadi groups and push to reduce anti-terrorism investigations.

The visits were discovered by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, which compared the Obama White House’s visitor records with its database of Islamist advocacy groups.

For example, the records show that officials from the Council on American Islamic Relations have visited the White House 20 times, according to the organization’s report.

Members of CAIR were invited to the White House, even though an April 2009 FBI statement said the bureau “does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner” because of its ties to the Hamas jihadi group.

Read the White House Visitor Logs

Administration officials also invited Syrian-born Louay Safi to the White House twice in 2011, even though he had been named an unindicted co-conspirator in two terrorism cases, and had been barred from Fort Hood following the 2009 jihadi attack by a Muslim U.S. Army major.

In contrast, White House officials have not invited Zuhdi Jasser, an Arizona-based, American-born moderate Muslim and former Navy officer.

“We’ve never been invited and nether have any of [the 24 leaders in] our American Islamic Leadership Coalition,” Jasser told The Daily Caller.

The absence of invitations to real Muslim moderates allows White House officials to pretend that members of the well-funded, U.S.-based radical group are moderates, even when they’re linked to the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood, he said.

Jasser’s nonpartisan coalition includes left-wing and feminist Muslims who are frequently criticized by the groups invited to the White House, he said.

“The White House has selectively omitted genuine [Muslim] moderates and instead has picked radical Muslims to meet,” said a statement from Steve Emerson, founder of the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

The closed-door White House meetings legitimize the radicals, but do not bring them into the mainstream, Emerson told TheDC.

“The American public has a right to know why the White House is meeting with Hamas front groups,” he added.

The visitor logs show that many of the Muslim advocates met with coalition-building officials in the White House, rather than with national security officials. The officials they met with include Paul Monteiro, the associate director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, and Amanda Brown, assistant to the then-White House director of political affairs Patrick Gaspard.

Gaspard is now the executive director of the Democratic National Committee.

Those Liars! Our guys were denied help DURING the attack!

UPDATE – More on the emails:

Fox News:

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 was denied by U.S. officials — 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.

Former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods was part of a small team who was at the CIA annex about a mile from the U.S. Consulate where Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team came under attack. When he and others heard the shots fired, they informed their higher-ups at the annex to tell them what they were hearing and requested permission to go to the consulate and help out. They were told to “stand down,” according to sources familiar with the exchange. Soon after, they were again told to “stand down.”

Woods and at least two others ignored those orders and made their way to the Consulate which at that point was on fire. Shots were exchanged. The quick reaction force from the CIA annex evacuated those who remained at the Consulate and Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight.

At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Specter gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights. The fighting at the CIA annex went on for more than four hours — enough time for any planes based in Sigonella Air base, just 480 miles away, to arrive. Fox News has also learned that two separate Tier One Special operations forces were told to wait, among them Delta Force operators.

A Special Operations team, or CIF which stands for Commanders in Extremis Force, operating in Central Europe had been moved to Sigonella, Italy, but they too were told to stand down. A second force that specializes in counterterrorism rescues was on hand at Sigonella, according to senior military and intelligence sources. According to those sources, they could have flown to Benghazi in less than two hours. They were the same distance to Benghazi as those that were sent from Tripoli. Specter gunships are commonly used by the Special Operations community to provide close air support.

According to sources on the ground during the attack, the special operator on the roof of the CIA annex had visual contact and a laser pointing at the Libyan mortar team that was targeting the CIA annex. The operators were calling in coordinates of where the Libyan forces were firing from.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday that there was not a clear enough picture of what was occurring on the ground in Benghazi to send help.

“There’s a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking going on here,” Panetta said Thursday. “But the basic principle here … is that you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/26/cia-operators-were-denied-request-for-help-during-benghazi-attack-sources-say/#ixzz2AQUQRvbw

[Political Arena Editor’s Note – They knew what was going on in real time because we had a drone right there and we were in contact vie emails as it all started.]

Hillary tells father of Navy Slain Seal “We will have that film maker arrested”.

We know from hundreds of emails leaked by the intelligence community and we now know that we had at least one drone flying overhead during the attack that the movie had nothing to do with any of this. It was not a protest. It was a coordinated attack.

Wow the lies are just stunning. The callousness is amazing. First Amendment, what’s that?

See the video: http://video.foxnews.com/v/1924759413001/

That’s not all. The Hill is reporting  that when House Oversight Committee Chair Darryl Issa released some of the diplomatic cables from Libya proving that they were asking for help with their security concerns the Obama Administration accused Issa of releasing the names of secret operatives in an attempt to smear him. The Obama Administration had publicly published the names of the same people in a press release in December of 2011.

Related:

Political Arena October 9th: Everything you need to know about how Obama lied about the embassy attacks in two minutes (video)

Political Arena October 10th: Rep Gowdy Goes Ballistic on Ambassador Rice and Obama Administration over Lies About Benghazi Murders (Congressional hearing videos)

Political Arena October 11th: Mother of slain State Department official: I am sick of being lied to…. (video)

Political Arena October 14th: Brigitte Gabriel, General McInerney, Commander Lippold & Gary Bersten on Benghazi-Gate /w Judge Jeanine Pirro (video)

Political Arena October 14th: Bob Beckel and The Five Blast Obama Admin for Lying About Embassy Attacks (video)

Political Arena October 14th: Will Obama Throw Hillary Under the Bus?

Political Arena October 17th: Romney Campaign Gloves Come Off: Obama Lies

Political Arena October 17th: White House Timeline Video of Lies About Embassy Attacks

Political Arena October 20th: Obama Administration prevents military from talking to Congress about embassy killings.

Political Arena October 23th: Obama Lied. White House knew Benghazi was a coordinated terror attack as it happened (video)

Obama Administration Sending Guns to Al-Qaeda/Muslim Brotherhood in Syria

This is not the first time the Obama Administration has helped these groups with arms. He helped them take over Egypt and he helped them take over parts of Libya – VIDEO (Megynn Kelley and Marc Thiessen from AEI). The Muslim Brotherhood is the most organized group in Syria at the moment.

As this very writer said March 11th:

The situation is portrayed as a crazed dictator indiscriminately slaughtering his own people who want democracy – and that description is a load nonsense if their ever was one. We were told the exact same thing about Libya and Egypt, and as soon as we helped the Muslim Brotherhood take over the freedom crowd vanished instantly. The Muslim Brotherhood is now murdering Christians in Egypt, murdering black Africans in Libya, imposing Sharia Law and abusing women. The now Muslim Brotherhood controlled Egypt is sabre rattling at Israel

The dictators in the Middle East kept the Muslim Brotherhood and the Al-Qaeda’s at bay. Mubarak was critical to maintaining the Israeli/Egyptian Peace Treaty and many of the worlds terror groups want to replace the Arab dictators with Sharia inspired regimes.

Now President Obama is arming the Middle East to the gills, including modern M1 battle tanks to Egypt in spite of the fact that the new authorities are engaging in Taliban like behavior such as attacking peaceful Coptic Christians with armored military vehicles.

If our entire policy is designed to undermine Israel’s security it explains why Obama was not interested in helping the Iranian freedom movement.

There has been every indication, as Prof. Niall Ferguson (video) pointed out as the Egyptian protests began in early 2011, that the so called “Arab Spring” is being coordinated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

With all of this information now known so publicly, advocacy of Syrian intervention is not only irrational, it aids our enemies and Israel’s enemies in the middle-east.

New York Times News Service:

Rebel Arms Flow Is Said to Benefit Jihadists in Syria

October 15, 2012 6:03 pm
By DAVID E. SANGER / The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups that the West wants to bolster, according to American officials and Middle Eastern diplomats.

That conclusion, of which President Obama and other senior officials are aware from classified assessments of the Syrian conflict that has now claimed more than 25,000 lives, casts into doubt whether the White House’s strategy of minimal and indirect intervention in the Syrian conflict is accomplishing its intended purpose of helping a democratic-minded opposition topple an oppressive government, or is instead sowing the seeds of future insurgencies hostile to the United States.

“The opposition groups that are receiving the most of the lethal aid are exactly the ones we don’t want to have it,” said one American official familiar with the outlines of those findings, commenting on an operation that in American eyes has increasingly gone awry.

The United States is not sending arms directly to the Syrian opposition. Instead, it is providing intelligence and other support for shipments of secondhand light weapons like rifles and grenades into Syria, mainly orchestrated from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The reports indicate that the shipments organized from Qatar, in particular, are largely going to hard-line Islamists.

The assessment of the arms flows comes at a crucial time for Mr. Obama, in the closing weeks of the election campaign with two debates looming that will focus on his foreign policy record. But it also calls into question the Syria strategy laid out by Mitt Romney, his Republican challenger.

In a speech at the Virginia Military Institute last Monday, Mr. Romney said he would ensure that rebel groups “who share our values” would “obtain the arms they need to defeat Assad’s tanks, helicopters and fighter jets.” That suggests he would approve the transfer of weapons like antiaircraft and antitank systems that are much more potent than any the United States has been willing to put into rebel hands so far, precisely because American officials cannot be certain who will ultimately be using them.

But Mr. Romney stopped short of saying that he would have the United States provide those arms directly, and his aides said he would instead rely on Arab allies to do it. That would leave him, like Mr. Obama, with little direct control over the distribution of the arms.

American officials have been trying to understand why hard-line Islamists have received the lion’s share of the arms shipped to the Syrian opposition through the shadowy pipeline with roots in Qatar, and, to a lesser degree, Saudi Arabia. The officials, voicing frustration, say there is no central clearinghouse for the shipments, and no effective way of vetting the groups that ultimately receive them.

Those problems were central concerns for the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, David H. Petraeus, when he traveled secretly to Turkey last month, officials said.

The C.I.A. has not commented on Mr. Petraeus’s trip, made to a region he knows well from his days as the Army general in charge of Central Command, which is responsible for all American military operations in the Middle East. Officials of countries in the region say that Mr. Petraeus has been deeply involved in trying to steer the supply effort, though American officials dispute that assertion.

One Middle Eastern diplomat who has dealt extensively with the C.I.A. on the issue said that Mr. Petraeus’s goal was to oversee the process of “vetting, and then shaping, an opposition that the U.S. thinks it can work with.” According to American and Arab officials, the C.I.A. has sent officers to Turkey to help direct the aid, but the agency has been hampered by a lack of good intelligence about many rebel figures and factions.

Another Middle Eastern diplomat whose government has supported the Syrian rebels said his country’s political leadership was discouraged by the lack of organization and the ineffectiveness of the disjointed Syrian opposition movement, and had raised its concerns with American officials. The diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing delicate intelligence issues, said the various rebel groups had failed to assemble a clear military plan, lacked a coherent blueprint for governing Syria afterward if the Assad government fell, and quarreled too often among themselves, undercutting their military and political effectiveness.

“We haven’t seen anyone step up to take a leadership role for what happens after Assad,” the diplomat said. “There’s not much of anything that’s encouraging. We should have lowered our expectations.”

The disorganization is strengthening the hand of Islamic extremist groups in Syria, some with ties or affiliations with Al Qaeda, he said: “The longer this goes on, the more likely those groups will gain strength.”

American officials worry that, should Mr. Assad be ousted, Syria could erupt afterward into a new conflict over control of the country, in which the more hard-line Islamic groups would be the best armed. That depends on what happens in the arms bazaar that has been feeding the rebel groups. In several towns along the Turkey-Syria border, rebel commanders can be found seeking weapons and meeting with shadowy intermediaries, in a chaotic atmosphere where the true identities and affiliations of any party can be extremely difficult to ascertain.

Late last month in the Turkish border town of Antakya, at least two men who had recently been in Syria said they had seen Islamist rebels buying weapons in large quantities and then burying them in caches, to be used after the collapse of the Assad government. But it was impossible to verify these accounts, and other rebels derided the reports as wildly implausible.

Moreover, the rebels often adapt their language and appearance in ways they hope will appeal to those distributing weapons. For instance, many rebels have grown the long, scraggly beards favored by hard-line Salafi Muslims after hearing that Qatar was more inclined to give weapons to Islamists.

The Saudis and Qataris are themselves relying on intermediaries — some of them Lebanese — who have struggled to make sense of the complex affiliations of the rebels they deal with.

“We’re trying to improve the process,” said one Arab official involved in the effort to provide small arms to the rebels. “It is a very complex situation in Syria, but we are learning.”

Robert F. Worth and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Romney Campaign Gloves Come Off: Obama Lies

Political Arena Editor Chuck Norton – No one wants to have to call out their president as a liar, even if one didn’t vote for him, but after last night’s performance filled with instance after instance where he doubled down on untruths that anyone could unravel in minutes using an internet search engine or looking up facts at government web sites, President Obama left no room for continued benefit of a doubt. If anyone doubted Rudy Giuliani and Phyllis Schlafley when they called out Barack Obama as a Saul Alinsky inspired Chicago style politician all remaining doubts should have evaporated after last night. Not so long ago under President Clinton we were uncomfortable with lies even about sex, now we see lies laid out as a tool for calculated aggression and no one in the elite media bats an eye.

UPDATE – White House Libya lies timeline – LINK

While most elite media outlets did not bother to take the time to fact check most of Obama’s statements in the debate, they did check a few and what we have below from the Romney Campaign is just the tip of the iceberg of the lies that were told last night.

President Obama’s Five Worst Lies & Exaggerations From The Second Presidential Debate

NUMBER 1: President Obama Falsely Claimed He Immediately Characterized The Attacks In Benghazi As Terrorism:

President Obama: “The Day After The Attack, Governor, I Stood In The Rose Garden, And I Told The American People And The World That We Are Going To Find Out Exactly What Happened, That This Was An Act Of Terror.” (President Barack Obama, Second Presidential Debate, Hempstead, NY, 10/16/12)

The Washington Post’s Fact Checker: “What Did Obama Say In The Rose Garden A Day After The Attack In Libya? … He Did Not Say ‘Terrorism’…” “What did Obama say in the Rose Garden a day after the attack in Libya? ‘No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this nation,’ he said. But he did not say ‘terrorism’—and it took the administration days to concede that that it an ‘act of terrorism’ that appears unrelated to initial reports of anger at a video that defamed the prophet Muhammad.” (Glenn Kessler, “Fact Check: Libya Attack,” The Washington Post, 10/16/12)

Politico’s Mike Allen, On President Obama’s Rose Garden Remarks: “He Makes A Reference To 9/11 And He Says, Very Generally, We Will Not Let Acts Of Terror Go Unpunished.” ALLEN: “There’s going to be a bunch of fact checks, but just to do a fact check here. … And I’m looking at the transcript of that White House event the day after and he started by referring to them as selfless acts, which is casted very differently than the sort of very planned action that we now have. Later toward the end, he makes a reference to 9/11 and he says, very generally, we will not let acts of terror go unpunished. So that’s going to be an arguable point.” (Presidential Debate Wrap-Up, Politico Live, 10/16/12)

CNN’s Candy Crowley Admitted Mitt Romney “Was Right In The Main.” CROWLEY: “And I think actually, because right after that, I did turn around and say but you are totally correct that they spent two weeks telling us that this was about a tape and that there was this riot outside the Benghazi consulate, which there wasn’t. So he was right in the main, I just think he picked the wrong word. They’re going to parse and we all know what the definition of ‘is’ is, but, you know, in the end, I think John’s probably right.” (CNN’s “Debate Night In America,” 10/16/12)

NUMBER 2: President Obama Repeated His False Attack About A $5 Trillion Tax Cut:

President Obama: “It Costs About $5 Trillion.” OBAMA: “Look, the cost of lowering rates for everybody across the board 20 percent, along with what he also wants to do in terms of eliminating the estate tax, along what he wants to do in terms of corporates changes in the tax code — it costs about $5 trillion.” (President Barack Obama, Second Presidential Debate, Hempstead, NY, 10/16/12)

Obama Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter: “Okay, Stipulated, It Won’t Be Near $5 Trillion…” BURNETT: “Right. So you’re saying if you lower them by 20% you get a $5 trillion tab, right?” CUTTER: “It’s a $5 trillion tab.”  BURNETT: “But then when you close deductions it’s not going to be anywhere near $5 trillion. That’s our analysis.” CUTTER: “Well, okay, stipulated, it won’t be near $5 trillion, but it’s also not going to be the sum of $5 trillion in the loopholes that he’s going to close.” (CNN, 10/4/12)

FactCheck.org: “Obama Accused Romney Of Proposing A $5 Trillion Tax Cut. Not True.” “Obama accused Romney of proposing a $5 trillion tax cut. Not true. Romney proposes to offset his rate cuts and promises he won’t add to the deficit.” (Brooks Jackson, “Dubious Denver Debate Declarations.” FactCheck.org, 10/4/12)

ABC’s Jon Karl, On President Obama’s $5 Trillion Claim: “Mostly Fiction.” KARL: “Okay, so, the big thing there, and he came back to it several times, is Governor Romney has a $5 trillion tax cut plan. I rate that mostly fiction.” (ABC’s “Your Voice: 2012Presidential Debates,” 10/3/12)

The Associated Press: “Obama’s Claim That Romney Wants To Cut Taxes By $5 Trillion Doesn’t Add Up.” “Obama’s claim that Romney wants to cut taxes by $5 trillion doesn’t add up. Presumably, Obama was talking about the effect of Romney’s tax plan over 10 years, which is common in Washington. But Obama’s math doesn’t take into account Romney’s entire plan.” (Calvin Woodward, “FACT CHECK: Presidential Debate Missteps,” The Associated Press, 10/3/12)

NUMBER 3: President Obama Claimed Mitt Romney’s Private Sector Experience Involved Outsourcing – A Claim Repeatedly Debunked By Fact Checkers:

President Obama: “As I Already Indicated, In The Private Sector, Governor Romney’s Company Invested In What Were Called Pioneers Of Outsourcing.” (President Barack Obama, Second Presidential Debate, Hempstead, NY, 10/16/12)

FactCheck.org: “We Found No Evidence To Support The Claim That Romney — While He Was Still Running Bain Capital — Shipped American Jobs Overseas.” “But after reviewing numerous corporate filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, contemporary news accounts, company histories and press releases, and the evidence offered by both the Obama and Romney campaigns, we found no evidence to support the claim that Romney — while he was still running Bain Capital — shipped American jobs overseas.” (Robert Farley and Eugene Kiely, “Obama’s ‘Outsourcer’ Overreach,” FactCheck.org, 6/29/12)

The Washington Post, On An Obama Outsourcing Ad: “On Just About Every Level, This Ad Is Misleading, Unfair And Untrue…” “The Obama campaign fails to make its case. On just about every level, this ad is misleading, unfair and untrue, from the use of ‘corporate raider’ to its examples of alleged outsourcing.  Simply repeating the same debunked claims won’t make them any more correct.” (Glenn Kessler, “4 Pinocchios For Obama’s Newest Anti-Romney Ad,” The Washington Post, 6/21/12)

The Washington Post: “Obama Never Mentions Another Washington Post Article, One That Detailed How He Has Not Been Able To Fulfill Many Of His Campaign Promises In 2008 To Stem The Outflow Of American Jobs…” (Glenn Kessler, “Fact Check: Pioneers Of Outsourcing,” The Washington Post, 10/16/12)

NUMBER 4: President Obama Claimed He Cut Taxes For The Middle Class – But Didn’t Mention His Policies Are Threatening To Hike Taxes By $4,000:

President Obama: “My Philosophy On Taxes Has Been Simple, And That Is, I Want To Give Middle-Class Families, And Folks Who Are Striving To Get In The Middle Class, Some Relief…” OBAMA: “My philosophy on taxes has been simple, and that is, I want to give middle-class families, and folks who are striving to get in the middle class, some relief, because they have been hit hard over the last decade, over the last 15, over the last 20 years.” (President Barack Obama, Second Presidential Debate, Hempstead, NY, 10/16/12)

President Obama Has Already Raised Taxes On Nearly 5 Million Middle-Class Americans In Obamacare. (“Payments Of Penalties For Being Uninsured Under The Affordable Care Act,” Congressional Budget Office, 9/12)

  • An Analysis By The Congressional Budget Office Found That “Nearly 80 Percent Of Those Who’ll Face” Obamacare’s Mandate Tax Are In The Middle Class. “Nonetheless, in his first campaign for the White House, Obama pledged not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 a year and couples making less than $250,000. And the budget office analysis found that nearly 80 percent of those who’ll face the penalty would be making up to or less than five times the federal poverty level.” (“Tax Penalty To Hit Nearly 6M Uninsured People,” The Associated Press, 9/19/12)

American Enterprise Institute Has Calculated That The Annual Cost Of President Obama’s Current And Looming Debt Burden Amounts To $4,000 Per Year In Higher Taxes On The Middle Class. “In a new paper, AEI’s Matt Jensen looks at the real annual cost of servicing the debt for households at various levels of income — including a potentially higher tax burden. As the table below illustrates, a household making between $100,000 and $200,000 a year could find its tax liability higher by roughly $2,400 every year. Over ten years, that works out to $24,000. And when you add in the debt already accrued the past four years under President Obama (the second table), that’s another $1,600 a year. So now we are now talking about $4,000 a year, $40,000 over ten years.” (James Pethokoukis, “Study: Obama’s Big Budget Deficits Could Mean A $4,000 A Year Middle-Class Tax Hike,” American Enterprise Institute, 10/2/12)

NUMBER 5: President Obama Falsely Claimed He Has Increased Energy Production On Public Lands:

President Obama: “We Have Increased Oil Production To The Highest Levels In 16 Years. Natural Gas Production Is The Highest It Has Been In Decades.” OBAMA: “The most important thing we can do is to make sure we control our own energy. Here is what I have done since I was president, we have increased oil production to the highest levels in 16 years. Natural gas production is the highest it has been in decades.” (President Barack Obama, Second Presidential Debate, Hempstead, NY, 10/16/12)

  • President Obama: “We’ve Opened Up Public Lands. We’re Actually Drilling More On Public Lands Than In The Previous Administration.” ROMNEY: “As a matter of fact, oil production is down 14 percent this year on federal land, and gas production is down 9 percent. Why? Because the president cut in half the number of licenses and permits for drilling on federal lands and in federal waters.” OBAMA: “Candy, there’s no doubt that world demand’s gone up. But our production is going up, and we’re using oil more efficiently. And very little of what Governor Romney just said is true. We’ve opened up public lands. We’re actually drilling more on public lands than in the previous administration.” (President Barack Obama, Second Presidential Debate, Hempstead, NY, 10/16/12)

The Washington Post: “Contrary To President Obama’s Assertions,” Oil Production “On Public Land Is Down 14 Percent And Production Of Gas On Public Land Is Down 9 Percent.” “Is Gov. Mitt Romney telling the truth when he says oil and gas production is down on public land? Contrary to President Obama’s assertions, Romney’s telling the truth when he says, ‘Production of oil on public land is down 14 percent and production of gas on public land is down 9 percent.’ That’s because energy production on federal lands is down compared to 2010, according to the Energy Information Administration.” (Juliet Eilperin, “The Truth About Oil And Gas Production On Public Land,” The Washington Post, 10/16/12)

ABC’s Jonathan Karl: “It Is True That Those Drilling Leases And Permits Are Down Under President Obama.” KARL: “But on this issue of oil and gas drilling, Governor Romney said that oil and gas drilling is down by 50% on public lands. That is not exactly true but it’s not far off. In fact, we looked at the numbers and oil drilling permits on public land dropped by 37% in the first two years of the Obama administration, 42% in terms of leases for natural gas. So the numbers weren’t exactly right, but it is true that those drilling leases and permits are down under President Obama.” (ABC’s Presidential Debate Coverage, 10/16/12)

Obama Administration Illegally Fires ATF “Fast & Furious” Whistleblower

….in a Denny’s parking lot.

You just can’t make this stuff up folks… Lawsuit sure to come….

RELATED: White House Aide Involved in ‘Fast and Furious’ Suddenly’ Transferred to Iraq – LINK

Kate Pavlich:

Special Agent Vince Cefalu has worked for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms for more than 25 years. On top of successfully placing dozens of hard criminals behind bars throughout his career, Cefalu has received promotions and consistently positive evaluations. When he started raising his voice about ATF corruption and illegal wiretapping in 2005, things changed.  Tuesday evening, Cefalu was asked to meet Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco Field Division Joseph Riehl at a Denny’s Restaurant near Lake Tahoe. When he arrived, he was served termination papers in the parking lot. Classy move. The exchange was secretly recorded by a confidential source. David Codrea has more:

The video, shaky at times from being handheld, and with color imbalance streaking happening inadvertently in the uploading to YouTube, was recorded by a confidential source and shows Cefalu approached by two ATF management representatives including Joseph M. Riehl, Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco Field Division, which encompasses Northern California and Nevada field offices.

Riehl, seen talking to Cefalu through his Jeep window and reportedly telling him he couldn’t leave because he had to sign papers, had been criticized on the CUATF forum, and Gun Rights Examiner is attempting to track down audit reports to determine what an independent assessment reveals about the allegations there. But the bottom line is, an employee with over 25 years of service who has been a leading spokesman for whistleblowers was unceremoniously canned in a public parking lot by senior division management.

Cefalu was placed on administrative leave a year and a half ago after speaking out about Operation Fast and Furious. In 2009, he launched the website CleanUpATF.org in order for agents within ATF to blow the whistle on corrupt behavior anonymously due to the agency’s history of retaliation against those who “jump their chain of command.” His website is where bloggers and news reporters first saw allegations of gunwalking. The site is heavily monitored by the Department of Justice.

In the February 2012 issue of Townhall Magazine, Cefalu detailed the ATF corruption leading up to Fast and Furious and his retaliation case coming from inside the bureau that led to his firing this week.

Continue reading HERE.

Radical Islamists Shoot 14 Year Old Girl for Speaking Out for Good Education: Educating Girls is Obscenity

14-year-old Malala Yousufzai
14-year-old Malala Yousufzai

Fox News:

A Taliban gunman walked up to a bus taking children home from school in Pakistan’s volatile Swat Valley on Tuesday and shot and wounded a 14-year-old activist known for championing the education of girls and publicizing atrocities committed by the Taliban, officials said.

The attack in the city of Mingora targeted 14-year-old Malala Yousufzai, who is widely respected for her work to promote the schooling of girls — something that the Taliban strongly opposes. She was nominated last year for the International Children’s Peace Prize.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, calling Malala’s work “obscenity.”

“This was a new chapter of obscenity, and we have to finish this chapter,” said Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan by telephone. “We have carried out this attack.”

Everything you need to know about how Obama lied about the embassy attacks in two minutes (video)

UPDATES – Not only were our guys murdered, they were raped and sodomized. The Obama Administration doesn’t like American mercenary companies so they hired Libyan’s to act as bodyguards. It was those body guards who gave up the locations of our peoples secret safe house. Videos from the White House Press Room and the House Oversight Committee highlights can be seen HERE.

This ad is spot on accurate, and only leaves out a couple of points. Think about this, not only was security not beefed up at our embassies on 9/11, but there are credible, yet disputed reports from forces on the ground that they were not given live ammunition at several of the embassy posts.

OK so let me get this straight. The White House released secret methods while coordinated with Sony Pictures in the making of the film “Zero Dark Thirty” about the killing of Osama bin Laden….and that won’t inflame the Islamic world at all…but a tiny film trailer from a Coptic Christian is the cause of the world’s unrest?

So why lie? Ironically the Obama Administration has put itself into a “Mission Accomplished” moment. They say that “We got bin Laden”, “Al-Qaeda is dead – finished”, after we finished Iraq that was it etc. Well they have overplayed that card so the news of coordinated Al-Qaeda attacks against our embassies on 9/11 when they were in essence ordered to essentially stand down by the refusal to allow extra security and safety measures does not bode well politically.

Remember this Lie? White House: This is not a case of protests directed at the United States … and in the video below not only was the White House lying because now it was out that not only did they know what the truth was with 24 hours, they were warned in advance. In the video they also lie and said that they took appropriate measure to give extra security on 9/11. Now we know those requested measures were denied:

Judge Jeanine Pirro: Obama White House Lied About Embassy Attacks for Two Weeks:

Yahoo/Reuters News:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. security officer twice asked his State Department superiors for more security agents for the American mission in Benghazi months before an attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans, but he got no response.

The officer, Eric Nordstrom, who was based in Tripoli until about two months before the September attack, said a State Department official, Charlene Lamb, wanted to keep the number of U.S. security personnel in Benghazi “artificially low,” according to a memo summarizing his comments to a congressional committee that was obtained by Reuters.

Nordstrom also argued for more U.S. security in Libya by citing a chronology of over 200 security incidents there from militia gunfights to bomb attacks between June 2011 and July 2012. Forty-eight of the incidents were in Benghazi.

A brief summary of Nordstrom’s October 1 interview with the Republican-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was contained in a memo prepared by the committee’s minority Democratic staff.

House Oversight Committee:

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee leaders today sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking why requests for more protection were denied to the U.S. mission in Libya by Washington officials prior to the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. The denials came after repeated attacks and security threats to U.S. personnel.

“Based on information provided to the Committee by individuals with direct knowledge of events in Libya, the attack that claimed the ambassador’s life was the latest in a long line of attacks on Western diplomats and officials in Libya in the months leading up to September 11, 2012. It was clearly never, as Administration officials once insisted, the result of a popular protest,” the committee’s chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and subcommittee chairman, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, write. “In addition, multiple U.S. federal government officials have confirmed to the Committee that, prior to the September 11 attack, the U.S. mission in Libya made repeated requests for increased security in Benghazi. The mission in Libya, however, was denied these resources by officials in Washington.”

The letter outlines 13 security threats over the six months prior to the attack.

“Put together, these events indicated a clear pattern of security threats that could only be reasonably interpreted to justify increased security for U.S. personnel and facilities in Benghazi,” the chairmen write.

The Committee indicated it intends to convene a hearing in Washington on Wednesday October 10, 2012, on the security failures that preceded the attack.

Aside from our own coverage of Egypt and Libya be sure to see these related stories:

President Obama Skipped His Intel Brief the Day After the U.S. Ambassador to Libya was Murdered by Terrorists – LINK

Cheney: Obama Administration “Involved In A Cover Up” Of Libya Attack – LINK

Even Rush Limbaugh had this one right – LINK

US knew Ambassador Stevens assassination was work of terrorists within 24 hours of attack – LINK

Obama dispatched U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to Fox News Sunday to keep spreading the lie a week after – LINK

Liberal Magazine Salon.com  cites diplomatic sources who say that U.S. officials had prior warning of coming attack – LINK

There was not even a demonstration against the movie before the embassy attacks – LINK

NPR – Libyan President: Preposterous to think consulate attacks were spontaneous protest  – LINK (2)

Mediaite: White House Misrepresented the Facts, Much of Elite Media Silent – LINK

Intelligence officials angered by Obama administration cover up of intelligence on Iranian, al Qaeda surge in Egypt and Libya – LINK

The Obama Adsministration/Muslim Brotherhood Timeline from IBD – LINK

CRS: One illegal alien in six is a repeat criminal offender! Recidivism rate is a whopping 67%!

Via the Congressional Research Service. The recidivism rate is 67%. That is staggering.

Fox News:

Roughly one in six illegal immigrants is re-arrested on criminal charges within three years of release, according to new government data being released Tuesday.

Those charges range from murder to drunken-driving and, according to House Republicans pushing out the report, are symptoms of what they describe as a “dangerous and deadly” immigration policy.

The findings, obtained by Fox News, are contained in reports by the Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee and nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. They are the result of the committee’s subpoena request for Department of Homeland Security records from October 2008 to July 2011.

The information was analyzed by the CRS, which also broke down the information for criminal immigrants — legal immigrants who committed crimes and were arrested again over the three-year period. Together, the two groups also had a roughly one-in-six recidivism rate.

The records show 276,412 reported charges against illegal and criminal immigrants over that three-year period as identified by Secure Communities, a federal program that essentially attempts to make best use of resources by identifying and prioritizing which illegal immigrants pose the biggest threat to public safety and should be arrested or deported.

Of the 160,000 people in the database, more than 26,000 were re-arrested — accounting for nearly 58,000 crimes and violations.

They allegedly committed nearly 8,500 drunken-driving offenses and more than 6,000 drug-related violations. The records also show major criminal offenses, which included murder, battery, rape, kidnapping and nearly 3,000 thefts. Roughly 2 percent of the crimes included carjacking, child molestation, lynching and torture, according to the 13-page Congressional Research Service report.

“The Obama administration could have prevented these senseless crimes by enforcing our immigration laws,” the committee chairman, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said. “But President Obama continues to further his anti-enforcement agenda while innocent Americans suffer the consequences.”

The report showed that more than 7,000 of those re-arrested were illegal immigrants. Among their charges were 19 murders, three attempted murders and 142 sex crimes.

Taking Your Citizenship Seriously Is a Matter of Life and Death – UPDATED

by Chuck Norton

By happenstance I found myself helping a kind young lady get her car ready for a trip. I asked her where she was going and she said “Texas”. I asked “Anything fun?” and she  answered, “I hope so. I am going to a retreat for military widows”. Something had taken away my breath. Then she let it all come out. Her husband was killed in Iraq and she has two young children, the youngest never got to meet her father.

I was crushed.

Why?

I was in the military during the first Gulf War under President George H.W. Bush. This was my generation’s war and it didn’t seem right that this sweet young lady standing in front of me had to pay the price.

How is this related to citizenship?

During my time our military was in Iraq with 500,000 men led by General “Stormin'” Norman Schwarzkopf. We were in a MUCH better position to finish the job than President Bush the younger. But Bush the elder wanted to make the United Nations happy. You see the UN did not want to offend some Islamic countries by “allowing” the Christian United States oust an Arab dictator, no matter how bad he was. Since all George H.W. Bush could talk about in speeches was “the vision of the UN’s Founders” he complied with the UN and had our military pull out with the job unfinished.

Understand; “everyone” in the military knew that some day, some way, we would have to come back to finish the job. This was the topic of many a conversation between officer and enlisted alike.

President Bush the elder encouraged Saddam Hussien’s domestic enemies to try to oust him, but without our help they were simply outgunned. Saddam slaughtered many of the Kurds in the North and genocided the Marsh Arabs in the South. He want on a reign of terror rooting out his internal enemies. The result was hundreds of mass graves and it is estimated that his reign of terror resulted in 680,000 dead – and that is only counting Kurds and Shiites. Saddam went on to fund terrorist groups including the PLO and Al-Qaeda.

You cannot do evil and expect good to come of it. Take a moment to consider the suffering brought about by a decision to just make the easy choice.

George H.W. Bush was an “establishment guy”. The “establishment” GOP had always opposed Ronald Reagan and Reagan probably would have had a convention fight on his hands if he had rejected their insistence that George H.W. Bush be brought on to the ticket as Vice President. When Vice President Bush became President Bush (41) it did not take him long to abandon the Reagan legacy, raise taxes, get all “internationalist” on us and pretty much go back to big government business as usual, which is why he ended up being a one term president. So damaging was President Bush’s single term that even Mitt Romney was saying on television that “I don’t want to go back to the time of Reagan/Bush”.

It is my generation that let this happen and the consequences of our lazy citizenship was standing in front of me in the form of this sweet, heart broken young lady who is raising two children on her own. She told me of the fights she had with the VA and other benefits the government tried to deny her and her children. It took everything I had to hold back the tears. All I could do was apologize to her and take responsibility as I explained to her how my generation had dropped the ball. She graciously accepted my apology, but of course, she had figured out long ago the reality that had just hit me in the face.

Get along to go along, big government business as usual, can never be allowed to happen again. The consequences of allowing it to happen are dire and very real. I am grateful that a new generation of Americans is at trying to get the Republican Party back on track.

UPDATE – A reader sent us the following message:

Bigger factors were happening and had to be considered before we went against the UN mandate to get Iraq out of Kuwait. Don’t think if we would have gone in and removed him that the situation would have solved itself. WW3 was diverted by not going in in which saved thousands of lives. By containing him and restricting air space proved the best course of action. Remember at that time, The UN mandate was to get military forces out of Kuwait, not to overthrow a government. This was a joint action with members. ANY aggressive action with forces in the field would have prompted a HOLY war against western aggression. The surrounding countries to Iraq, were already at this time planning the breakup of Iraq and there oil reserves. This would have caused a power vacuum in the region as it did in the second gulf war. They knew this, so they avoided the aftermath by containment not invasion.

Also consider Israel which was another BIG factor in this. In the further study of tactics used and not used in desert storm need to be looked at but not by military means but by the other political, economical, territorial and cultural aspects of the region. The Pres did what he had to do and he did it.

Political Arena Editor responds – This was the spin and conventional thinking at the time, but as a matter of political science, and as a matter of history such a case is not very convincing. How often have “containment” policies stopped madmen from being madmen? With that said, while my piece was philosophical in nature, the challenge is more policy directed so I offered this policy response:

In other words, President H.W. Bush made a political decision to please the wrong people. Sir, there are five reasons in history, mostly recognized by international law, that cause a country to lose its sovereignty:

1 – If you invade other countries – /check

2 – If you screw around with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT) – /check
3 – If you mass slaughter your own people – /check
4 – If you fund terrorism/piracy – /check5 – If you violate a cease fire agreement – which Saddam did later

And then Saddam invented a 6th – Mass eco-terrorism when he lit up the oil wells and made a huge mess that the rest of the world had to clean up.

It would have been better to let a few countries in “the coalition” drop off and finish the job. I was in the military during that time as well, and “everybody” knew that we would have to go back. Why? because it was obvious that letting such an evil to fester was going to be a problem; understanding this even at the time wasn’t rocket science. I got out of the military in ’94 and I cannot count how many conversations I had about when circumstances would cause us to come back and finish the job.

I am well aware that we asked Israel to stand down – the whole Israeli angle –  I get it. Sir it is called making a trough, but correct political decision when there are no “clean” answers.

The UN Mandate? Really? Really? Was this about defending an ally we had a treaty with (Kuwait) and preserving the Straight of Hormuz and preventing Saddam from invading Saudi Arabia and toppling the House of Saud – OR was it about trying to make the UN the super-sovereign?

So let us examine the consequences of President H.W. Bush’s decision and just look at what happened before the 2003 invasion.

1 – We left and Saddam wiped out the Marsh Arabs in the south (where was the UN then huh?)

2 – He made war on the pro-Western Kurds in the North of Iraq and even used chemical WMD’s on them – for which later we had to institute the no fly zone.

3 – Saddam continued to fund terror multiple terror groups including Al-Qaeda

4 – While Saddam destroyed and/or shipped out most of his WMD cache, he continued to actively pursue a long range missile program, preserved his WMD programs in static and was stockpiling raw materials in violation of the sanctions and the cease fire agreement, so he could go back into WMD production any time he wanted (I read the David Kay and Charles Duelfer Inspection Team Reports).

5 – After we left we encouraged elements inside Iraq to try and overthrow Saddam, but without much support from us, so they got wiped out. Saddam went on a purge that would have made Stalin green with envy. There are several estimates that Saddam killed up to 680,000 people he considered political enemies – NOTE – many of those people killed threw in their hat with us and/or were sympathetic to our first war with Iraq – and now they are in thousands of mass graves that are STILL being found to this day in Iraq. Of course there were also the political prisons and torture camps.

This is why history shows us time and time again that it is beyond foolish to let evil fester. I said this before the 2003 invasion and I am saying it now and I was far from the only one.

Quite simply – George H.W. Bush’s head was misguided from the get-go, his often stated desire of achieving the goals of the U.N.’s Founders was wrong headed to put it mildly. He broke the first rule of foreign policy, which is that there are no permanent allies, just permanent interests; and look at the good people who have been made to pay the price for that one very bad decision.

Obama Administration Reverses on Jerusalem Being Capital of Israel

We saw the first part of this video of Jay Carney as it went viral on the net, but stay tuned and watch what comes next from the State Department in the form of Spokesman Victoria Nuland on March 29, 2012. We apologize for totally missing this when it happened. It got very little coverage.

Disgraced Penn State President Hired by Obama Administration for Top Secret National Security Post

You just cant make this stuff up folks. Of course Spanier has been shilling and covering for the progressive secular left for years – LINK and was invested in the child sex abuse cover-up according the the investigation of Penn State by former FBI Director Louis Freeh.

Political commentator Marie Garr said it best, “Guess they figure he can keep a secret……….GEEZ!”

Our take: What if Bush had done this?

penn state president graham spanier
Disgraced Penn State President Graham Spanier

Washington Post:

Graham Spanier might have been ousted from his post at the helm of Penn State over the sex-abuse scandal that engulfed the university, but it seems he’s found a backup employer: the American taxpayer.

Only a disgraced public figure would consider joining the much-maligned ranks of the federal workforce as a step up, reputation-wise. We can assume there were no openings for a used-car salesman.

Spanier was faulted in an internal Penn State report after the conviction on child-molestation charges of former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky. The report said he, head coach Joe Paterno and others helped cover up Sandusky’s abuse.

His lawyer confirms to the Loop that Spanier is working on a part-time consulting basis for a “top-secret” agency on national security issues. But the gig is so hush-hush, he couldn’t even tell his attorneys the name of the agency. In April — months after his ouster as president but before the release of the internal report — he told the Patriot-News of central Pennsylvania that he was working on a “special project for the U.S. government relating [to] national security.”

But who’s he working for? The CIA? Homeland Security? Or maybe just a dull consulting firm with a government contract?

“I have no idea,”says his lawyer, Peter Vaira. “We know the work is in security and he’s prohibited from disclosing which agency or agencies he’s working for.”

Here is the rub. Even if he is not working for a government agency directly and he is a contractor for an intelligence agency he would still have to submit an SF86 and still pass the most rigorous national security scrutiny – unless of course that process was greased for him just like it has been for others in the Obama White House who couldn’t pass such scrutiny normally on their best day. One thing is almost a certainty; someone tipped off the Washington Post to this and they almost certainly know more than what they are reporting here.

Newt Gingrich Defends Bachmann about Muslim Brotherhood and Huma Abedin (video)

Let us be clear. Huma Abadin  is not under allegation. Her brother is a big shot in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (her mother is also a prominent figure) and has stated that the pyramids and such in Egypt should be blown up because they are idols and he says that all Christians are mentally ill – LINK  [Note – the source for this is Walid Shoebat who is an Arab Palestinian so claims that this is some sort of racist play is nonsense – Editor].  The Muslim Brotherhood wants Sharia Law through any means, be it an election, or take over by force in Jihad. They say so when speaking in their native language, but in English they talk about peace, love and social justice.

Why does it matter who her brother is? Because, according to security regulations which have been in place for decades, if you have had contact with an enemy or sworn enemy of an ally your security clearance is limited. The greater the contact the greater the limits. For national security reasons conflicts of interests have to be nipped in the bud. The question is, and this is just one question asked, why was she not properly vetted?

By the way, notice how agitated and hostile the clearly biased reporter from Politico is. This is just a single example of many why Politico has not well respected as a news organization.

Andrew C. McCarthy has two very informative articles on this issue that should be read before anyone can have a truly informed opinion on this issue:

Questions about Huma Abedin: A State Department adviser has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood – LINK

Huma Abedin’s Muslim Brotherhood Ties: Michele Bachmann has every right to ask questions – LINK

Note: Frank Gaffney and John Bolton also agree – LINK and the Center for Security Policy has a piece on this issue HERE.

Obama Administration: Murdering 1,000 Christians Is Not Terrorism

You just can’t make this stuff up folks…

Via Godfather Blog and Jewish World Review:

In the past three years, over 1,000 Christians in Nigeria have been brutally murdered by an extremist Islamic group known as Boko Haram and the United States has refused to classify the group as being a terrorist organization.

Nigeria’s Christian leaders had asked the United States government to place Boko Haram on the list of terrorist organizations.  The radical Islamic group has vowed to eradicate all Christians from Nigerian soil and will continue to murder men, women and children in the process unless something is done to stop them.

Instead of declaring Boko Haram a terrorist organization, the U.S. government only placed three of the group’s leaders on a terrorist blacklist and then said that it was more important to address social inequalities in the country first.  Christian leaders in Nigeria said the actions or perhaps lack of action by the United States has only served to make the group bolder and more aggressive in their pursuit to exterminate the remaining Christians.

Appearing before House Foreign Affairs Committee, Christian Association of Nigeria President Ayo Oritsejafor said the decision was:

“The equivalent of designating (Osama) bin Laden a terrorist but failing to designate Al-Qaeda a terrorist organization.”

“By refusing to designate Boko Haram as a foreign terrorist organization, the United States is sending a very clear message, not just to the federal government of Nigeria, but to the world that the murder of innocent Christians and Muslims who reject Islamism — and I make a clear distinction here between Islam and Islamism — are acceptable losses.”

“It is hypocritical for the United States and the international community to say that they believe in freedom and equality when their actions do not support those who are being persecuted.”

Obama threatened to Veto the Defense Authorization Act because it would require that soldiers shot by home grown terrorists be given the purple heart

Now why would Obama be so opposed to soldiers getting a purple heart who were shot by home grown jihadists such as those at Fort Hood by Major Hassan? This speaks volumes about the radicalized mindset of this president. Remember how Obama wanted to define the Hassan shootings as “workplace violence” instead of what it really was?

USA Today:

This spring, the Obama administration threatened to veto the 2013 Defense Authorization Act. Of all the reasons given for the threat, the objection to granting the Purple Heart to Pvt. Andy Long stands out as strange. That is, unless you know the story.

On June 1, 2009, Pvt. Long was killed outside an Army recruiting office in Little Rock by Carlos Bledsoe, who had become Abdul Hakim Mohammed after converting to Islam. Since then, we, the fathers of Carlos and Andy, have been trying to tell our story so that other parents do not experience our tragedy.

Carlos grew up in a loving, church-going family. There’s a picture of Carlos at his high school graduation with a huge smile on his face, ready to go off to Tennessee State University for college. He looked forward to becoming a businessman and joining the family owned tour company in Memphis.

Switch to Islamism

But he did not get the education everyone expected. Instead, he became interested in Islamic extremism. At TSU, preachers from a radical Nashville mosque led courses in Islam. Eventually, Carlos began frequenting this mosque, converted, and took the name of the mosque’s imam. This imam taught worshipers that America “is the worst country on earth,” that the Christian faith is “the greatest lie ever told,” that this worldly life “is trash,” and that Muslims must seek death and the afterlife.

Carlos began to change his behavior: He abandoned his dog in the woods because he was told Muslims shouldn’t have dogs. He took Martin Luther King‘s picture off his bedroom wall. He was sent by another Nashville imam to a school in Yemen, which turned out to be an al-Qaeda front. Carlos then returned to America and planned his own jihad.

Andy grew up in a military family and decided to follow in his parents’ footsteps. He found out he was good at it; he enjoyed it. Before being deployed to South Korea, he volunteered to work as a recruiter in Little Rock near our home. His mother, Janet, went to visit him there on June 1, 2009.

Fateful day

That was the day Carlos decided to kill a soldier. He had already firebombed a rabbi’s house in Nashville and shot up another rabbi’s house in Little Rock. That morning, he fired three bullets at Andy. Quinton Ezeagwula, another soldier, was also shot but survived. Carlos eventually pleaded guilty to killing Andy, and was sentenced to life in prison without chance for parole.

Since that tragic day, we have been speaking out about the dangers of homegrown terrorists. We testified to Congress, with mixed results. Some congressmen dismissed us for not being experts. Nevertheless, following our testimony, Congress passed a provision, as part of the defense bill, to give the Purple Heart to Andy and the victims of a similar 2009 attack at Fort Hood, Texas. Now the administration is threatening to deny it.

The president, we believe, doesn’t want to admit the first successful al-Qaeda murder on U.S. soil since 9/11 happened on his watch or to acknowledge the problem of homegrown Islamic radicalization. This indirectly provides cover to extremists at the expense of moderate Muslims. To withhold the Purple Heart from U.S. soldiers for political reasons is to dishonor those who risk everything to protect us all.

We have pledged to our families and to ourselves that we will not be silent until America knows what happened to our sons. On June 1, 2009, it happened to Andy and Carlos. Tomorrow, it could be your children.

Melvin Bledsoe is the father of Carlos, who fatally shot Pvt. Andy Long, son of Daris Long. They have cooperated in producing a documentary that can be viewed at losingoursons.com.

Flashback 2008: Obama Trashed Hillary for Proposing Health Care “Penalty” (video)

Via The Blaze:

White House chief of staff Jack Lew repeatedly insisted Sunday that those who fail to buy health insurance will be assessed a “penalty” — not a tax.

But just four years ago, then-candidate Barack Obama ran an ad attacking rival Hillary Clinton for her health plan that it said would do just that.