Pink line over Damascus

Charles Krauthammer  "You know you’re in trouble when you can’t even get your walk-back story straight. Stung by the worldwide derision that met President Obama’s fudging and fumbling of his chemical-weapons red line in Syria, the White House leaked to the New York Times that Obama’s initial statement had been unprepared, unscripted and therefore unserious.
"The next day Jay Carney said precisely the opposite: “Red line” was intended and deliberate."
....
"So far [Obama's] thought of nothing. Instead he’s backed himself into a corner: Be forced into a war he is firmly resolved to avoid, or lose credibility, which for a superpower on whose word relies the safety of a dozen allies is not just embarrassing but dangerous."

Rand Paul: The moment of responsibility for Hillary Clinton

Rand Paul: Hillary should never hold high office again. 'Evidence we had about Benghazi in January was enough' she 'should've been relieved of her post'

The Washington Times  [Les] "Aspin resigned over Black Hawk Down. The same precedent should have applied apply to Mrs. Clinton. To date, no one has ultimately taken responsibility for Benghazi.
My office is currently seeking out the witnesses and survivors of Benghazi to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. To date, the Obama administration has refused to let them testify.
Too many questions remain unanswered. Now, there are too many new questions. The evidence we had in January already suggested that Mrs. Clinton ignored repeated requests for more security in Benghazi. The new evidence we have today — and that continues to mount — suggests that at the very least, Mrs. Clinton should never hold high office again."



 

Benghazi: A Smoking Gun

 

Benghazi: A Smoking Gun  "For going on eight months now, we’ve pointed to one of our own posts as evidence that the Obama administration never should have believed that a YouTube movie had anything to do with the terrorist attack in Benghazi. That post, by Ray Ibrahim, pointed to a report in the Egyptian media published on September 10, 2012, that demonstrators would be converging on the US embassy in Cairo not to protest a movie, but to apply pressure and demand the release of Islamist terrorists who have been tried in American courts and/or are held in American prisons. Chief among them is Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, mastermind of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. Rahman is currently in federal prison in North Carolina, for his role in that first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York.

 

"The September 10 post, republished in its entirety here, was a warning regarding riots that would take place the following day in Cairo, Egypt."....

Friday-Free- For All: Fox Hosts Slam MSM Media Hacks For Helping Regime Cover Up Benghazi Scandal

Nice Deb, quoting Mediaite:

One day after accusing the media of acting as President Obama’s “scandal condom” on the Benghazi story, The Five’s Greg Gutfeld was at it again, this time calling MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert “media hacks” for their highly critical commentary on Fox News’ coverage.
“People died, but what difference does it make?” Gutfeld said sarcastically, echoing Hillary Clinton’s infamous Benghazi hearing question. “The story will probably die, like the four in Benghazi with the lapdog media standing down, making these so-called journalists co-conspirators in the Benghazi cover-up, and that’s comedy when you’re winning.” He summed up the position of Maddow, Stewart and Colbert like this: “They refuse to actually cover the story. Instead, they want to cover people who care about the story, because then that kind of absolves them from having to deal with the ugliness.”

"Bob Beckel got under Perino’s skin for comparing the nine hearings on Benghazi under Obama to the one hearing under President George W. Bush after 54 diplomatic missions were attacked and nine Americans died. “Are you kidding me?” Perino shot back at Beckel, saying the difference in this case is the “cover-up” that is yet to be proven. “What kind of comparison is that?!” Unlike Bush, Perino said, the Obama administration is trying to “sweep” this scandal “under the rug” and “pretends like their you know what doesn’t stink. That really pisses me off.”" 

 

NRO: Krauthammer called the State Department response to the Benghazi hearing, “pathetic”:

Charles Krauthammer called State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell’s response to the Benghazi Hearing “pathetic.” Ventrell told reporters earlier today, ”We don’t believe that new information was necessarily presented that hadn’t been already either entered into the public record through congressional testimony or investigated by the ARB or otherwise looked at.”

Mother left with SEVEN-INCH forceps inside her body for three months in shocking toll of 750 NHS blunders

UK Daily Mail

Donna Bowett, 42, had instrument left inside her after keyhole surgery

Nurse has been forced to change jobs and received six-figure payout

More than 750 have suffered in a similar way since 2009, FOI reveals

Botched care included 214 people who had wrong organ operated on

And NHS staff have left 332 medical tools inside patients

"During the past four years there have been 762 so-called ‘never events’ at NHS hospitals – blunders deemed so serious they should never happen.
They include 322 cases of medical instruments being left in the body and 214 operations on the wrong limb or organ. In another 73 incidents, feeding tubes or medication lines were fed into the lungs instead of the stomach and in 58 cases patients were fitted with the wrong implant or prosthetic limb.
....
"He also argued that hospitals have no incentive to report never events because they may have to reimburse the cost of the procedure to the NHS as well as paying for the patients’ long-term care.
"He added: ‘The figures really are the tip of the iceberg.’"

Pelosi: Sequestration Preventing Me from Visiting Troops on Mother's Day

Weekly Standard   "Nancy Pelosi indicated she would be visiting troops this weekend but for sequestration:"

 

She is a real piece of work, but she was definitely not Miss Lube Rack of 1959 

Foreign press on the Benghazi investigation

UK Guardian;Whistleblower says Stevens went to Benghazi to prep for Clinton visit – as it happened
"The Obama administration has admitted misstatements on the part of UN ambassador Susan Rice and others in the immediate wake of the attacks, which were initially portrayed as a spontaneous raid when in fact they were multi-pronged and organized. But the administration has denied fault in the defense of the mission, saying that Benghazi was within a conflict zone, and denied any cover-up, saying Benghazi was a scene of distant chaos and it's natural that all the facts did not come out instantly. The state department has published an accountability review board report on the attacks that supports this view. Republicans call the report nonsense."

In their time line of the testimony, the Guardian gives an example of this administration's ineptitude:

Hicks takes on Clinton directly. Replying to her question of "what difference does it make" whether the attack was the result of a protest or was pre-planned, Hicks says, "I think the question is, 'what difference did it make.'"
He says it made a huge difference because by putting out the narrative of a protest gone wrong, the Obama administration undercut Libyan president Magarief, who was calling the attack a terror attack. That angered Magarief, who then put up bureaucratic blocks, Hicks says, to the FBI entering the country, securing the scene and investigating the attack.
Hicks:

President Magarief was insulted in front of his own people, in front of the world. His credibility was reduced. His ability to govern was [damaged]. He was angry... He was still steamed about the talk shows two weeks later. I definitely believe it negatively affected our ability to get the FBI team quickly to Benghazi.

 

Coulter: Beware of Liberals who come in Evangelicals’ clothing

Ann Coulter;  "One Evangelical after another told the Times that they no longer believe Americans should have control over who immigrates here on the basis of having met illegal aliens in their pews. The millions harmed by illegal immigration are left out of the equation. They don’t go to church here.
Similarly, the pro-choice crowd is brimming with compassion for girls who have gotten pregnant by accident. They’re in high school, their whole lives are ahead of them, it’s one mistake! The babies don’t count because they’re out of sight."
....
"They won't hear from hospitals and school systems in border states forced into bankruptcy because they have to provide free services to illegals. They won't chat with farmers and ranchers whose livestock and property are stolen or destroyed by illegal aliens."

Senator Lindsey Graham says Hillary Clinton’s management of the Benghazi crisis could cost her a “promotion” to the presidency.

Hot Air   "The hearing also showed the chasm between the culture of career civil servants ready to risk their lives and the vicious political culture of Washington. No doubt politics motivated some of the Republicans, but due to the nature of the hearing they were cast as investigators. Most Democrats appeared far more dedicated to defending Mrs. Clinton and the Obama administration than to finding out exactly what happened, and any criticism of Ms. Rice was rebutted. After all, Chris Stevens is gone but 2016 is just around the corner."

Hat tip to Rich Cutter Avallone

 

‘The Queen's Henchmen’  "Last December, Hillary Clinton's State Department famously threw four career officials under the bus for Benghazi (while of course exculpating all senior and political appointees). One of them was Raymond Maxwell, the deputy assistant secretary for Maghreb Affairs in the Near East Bureau. But Hillary didn't reckon on the fact that Maxwell was also an aspiring poet. He soon became a participant in National Poetry Writing Month, and Diplopundit has republished one of his efforts, a poem a clef about the former secretary of state called "Invitation.""  (23rd and C Street NW is the location of the State Department):

Read the entire poem

Imagine a generation protesting for MORE government!

http://terrellaftermath.com/

What difference does it make!?

The Difference It Made   The whistleblowers’ testimony is recounted here with little adornment, because to read it is to understand its import. It shows an administration characterized ex ante by incompetence and ex post facto by panic and cold calculation, willing to subvert national security for campaign-season politics. And it paints Hillary Clinton’s inner circle as eager to shift blame from political appointees to mid-level career employees, to intimidate foreign and civil servants into toeing the company line, and to punish those who refused (Hicks was demoted).

What difference does it make now, Hillary?
"What became crystal clear at today’s hearings is that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton knew immediately that Benghazi was a terrorist attack and not a protest."

That Clinton-Obama apology video Out of all this president's serial apologies, this one has to be the most reprehensible.

Hicks: Special Forces ‘Furious’ Upon Being Told to Stand Down

Hearings revealed that more questions are important, and necessary.
"Hicks said that administration lawyers had instructed him not to meet in Libya with a congressional delegation led by Representative Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah) in the wake of the attack — the first time in his career he had ever received such a request. Hicks took the meeting, but a State Department lawyer who tried to sit in was barred because he lacked a security clearance. Hicks later received an angry phone call from Mills demanding a report from the meeting. “A phone call from that near a person [to the secretary of state] is generally not considered to be good news,” Hicks said."

What came out of the Benghazi hearings today, May 8th, 2013

Bookworm Room found this on Facebook "One of my Facebook friends who is, like me, a refugee from the Left, put together a perfect summary of what came out of today’s testimony.  If you’re on Facebook, please share this article or just block and copy this summary and send it around:"....

....8. Greg Hicks – the top diplomat in Libya – is shocked and embarrassed by Susan Rice’s appearances. When he raises the issue with his superiors at State they turn hostile.
9. When a congressional investigation team comes to Libya, Greg Hicks – still the top diplomat in Libya – is ordered by State Department lawyers for the first time in his 22 year long career not to talk to a Congressional committee. A State Department lawyer is sent along with the committee to make sure Hicks is kept away.
10. When he does talk to the committee, a furious Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills, calls Hicks and demands an explanation and a report.
11. Gregory Hicks – a diplomat with a stellar record – has been harassed by the State Department and has not had an appointment since the Benghazi affair.

Diplomat Says Questions Over Benghazi Led to Demotion  "Mr. Hicks offered an unbecoming view of political supervision and intimidation inside the Obama administration. When Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah, visited Libya after the attack, Mr. Hicks said his bosses told him not to talk to the congressman. When he did anyway, and a State Department lawyer was excluded from one meeting because he lacked the necessary security clearance, Mr. Hicks said he received an angry phone call from Mrs. Clinton’s chief of staff, Cheryl Mills."
Hicks: ‘I’ve been demoted’ for challenging Susan Rice’s claims

Powerline; The Benghazi Hearing: Did It Matter?  "... For example, we now know that there were multiple instances when special ops would-be rescuers were told to stand down, leading Lt. Col. Gibson to tell Greg Hicks, “This is the first time in my career that a diplomat has more balls than somebody in the military.” Obvious questions remain to be answered: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton hide behind the military, saying or implying that doing nothing to try to save the besieged Americans in Benghazi was a military decision. But we don’t know that: who actually gave the order to give up on the Americans who eventually died? So far, there is no evidence on the record.

Whistleblower: “YouTube video was a non-event in Libya.” 

"Hicks gave a moving, harrowing account of the night of the attack, sometimes visibly overcome by emotion as he spoke.  Nothing in his account gave even the smallest hint of any “spontaneous video protest.”  He was very clear about discussing events with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that very night, at around 2 AM… and yet she, and the rest of the Administration, continued peddling a blatantly false narrative about a video protest for days afterward."