Still Waiting

Last month, we commented on the fact that the Secretary of State had still not appeared before a congressional committee to explain her department's handling of the Benghazi fiasco which resulted in the death of the American Ambassador and three other  Americans on September 11, 2012. To cut to the chase, it hasn't happened yet.

Yes, she was hospitalized at one point and it would be crass to suggest that her illness was just a touch too convenient. Of course it might also be considered out of line to release a misleading explanation of the Benghazi affair, even as it became clear that the truth lay elsewhere.

But if any questions linger as to the Secretary's physical fitness, we all might well have been re-asssured to read in this morning's Wall Street Journal, the following quote regarding this weeks' hostage taking at an Algerian gas field:

"It is absolutely essential that we broaden and deepen our counterterrorism cooperation going forward with Algeria and all countries in the region," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday.

I am sure that it was not lost on the Secretary that Libya is Algeria's next door neighbor.

So, in spite of her statement that she had the responsibility, it does not appear that an official explanation of the lack of response and misleading explanation of the Benghazi attack is forthcoming, even though, it would appear that the secretary is, indeed, back at the helm at State. Moreover, with John Kerry's confirmation hearing scheduled for this week, it is now apparent that the Mrs. Clinton intends to retire to Chappaqua without shedding any light on the governments bungling of the Benghazi affair.

As was predicted in our last post, the clock is now running on the timing of the emergence of the "we turned that page" riff.

  

Still Waiting for Answers

For those of us that are calendar-impaired, it is now nearly four months since the awful events at Benghazi, Libya unfolded, leaving four Americans, including our Ambassador, dead at the hands of Islamic terrorists. Were it not for this terrible toll suffered in conjunction by a total destruction of diplomatic respect and protocol. the lack of response by the American Government would be laughable.

While many Americans think that this chain of events certainly raises to the highest level of governmental concerns, the president has chosen to push what little responsibility he has taken down the chain of command. The head of the CIA has been sacked, but not for any malfeasance related to his responsibility for the Benghazi deaths. Apparently several mid-level State Department drones were fired, but on further investigation, it seems that they haven't really lost their jobs after all.

All of which leaves us with Hillary, who is still(?) head of the State Department. While she did accept "responsibility" albeit phoned in from Peru, she has gone from being silent to, as of late, being invisible as well. Her strategy here seems to be to keep running out the clock until her replacement is sworn in.

This strategy should come as no surprise to those of us who remember the Clinton White House years with its chains of unanswered questions regarding Whitewater and those Rose Law Firm billing records. Assuming that she continues to be a no-show at the Congressional hearings on Benghazi, there is really only one last touch stone left in this saga. Hillary obviously subscribes to the Leona Helmsley school of social responsibility which might counsel: Hearings? Hearings are for the little people.

So now, the last remaining question is the over and under on the exact date that Hillary will turn the final page on responsibility. This would be the date on which some intrepid questioner will ask herself about the 9/11/2012 fiasco. The response will be a quick look of disbelief, followed by something along the line: We've been over and over that and it is, frankly, old news. We think the American people want to turn the page and put that behind us. When this happens, the campaign for 2016 will have officially begun.



 

Give Up or Fight On?

Dr. Larry P. Arnn

It has occurred to us that in spite of the millions of words written about last month's election, we may be looking in the wrong place for answers to many of the questions it produced.

By structure, we were forced to chose between two individuals, each representing a political party, one of whom emerged victorious, but by a small enough margin that some now speak of the United States as a House Divided. While the Democrats have retained the Presidency and a majority position in the Senate, Republicans continue to lead the House. As we creep ever closer to the fiscal Cliff, the dividing line is at the same time both stark and obscured.

During the election. the Left hammered away at the Republicans' purported lack of empathy for the needy of America. The charges were colorful, but not helpful in that they steered attention away from the key issues as they created the illusion of an infinitely wealthy upper crust refusing to help those less fortunate. Millionaires and Billionaires became the bogeymen of the day. If only those fattest of cats would pay their "fair share", all would be well. Would that it be so easy. The Federal deficit is ballooning to the point that even a 100% tax rate wouldn't help for very long. The focus, as of late, has been on tax rates, but the real issue is runaway spending. "Tax and Spend" has morphed into "Spend, Tax, Borrow and Print More Money." We don't have to look farther than some of our European neighbors to see where this strategy leads.

For his first two years in office, The President's party had full control of both chambers of the Legislature.  This period of free reign, that is, free, to some extent of the normal checks and balances provided by the government's design, produced several blockbuster bills, that might have, had there been more balance, emerged in a more effective form, or, perhaps, not at all. In spite of the stacked deck, the Affordable Care Act was passed only through parliamentary shenanigans that would have impressed Houdini. Many of us are still not sure exactly what it does, or what it might eventually cost.  Yes, there were, and still are, serious concerns regarding health care, serious enough to merit open debate and discussion and perhaps some carefully crafted remedies.

During the same two-year reign, a massive federal stimulus bill was also passed. This Keynesian handout failed miserably in its stated purpose of stimulating the economy as it was tightly aimed at the Left's special interests. These two acts were the headliners in a spending spree which threatens to push the Federal deficit to astronomical levels, where amounts of less than a $ hundred billion are now considered rounding errors. The effects of unfettered deficit growth are both real and frightening.

Many in both the government and the media are quick to point to the Republican-led House as the fly in the ointment. We would rather argue that the House is performing the exact role for which it was designed in demanding fiscal responsibility. John Boehner, for all his barnacles, stands as a colossus against  this rush to fiscal perdition.  Checks and balances are not just quaint antiques. Yes, the President won re-election, but the office to which he was elected was President, not Emperor. We suggest that he might dust off his constitutional law text books while he vacations.

A tip of the hat to Dr. Larry P. Arnn , president of Hillsdale College, for his comments in a recent radio interview with Hugh Hewitt. Click on the link to read a transcript as presented in the December issue of Hillsdale's publication, Imprimis. Dr. Arnn does an excellent job of putting the constitutional concerns stemming from the results of the November election into historical context. His resounding answer to the query: "Time to Give Up or Time to Fight On?" is a resounding call for a redoubling of effort by all right-thinking Americans.

The Shores of Tripoli

The Marine Hymn is a piece of music that quickly stirs up our patriotism. And while the lyrics are  familiar, their meaning sometimes becomes dulled by time for many of us. Just over a month ago, a United States Ambassador and three other Americans were brutally killed in Benghazi, yet another city in the tiny country of Libya, located just a few hundred miles east of Tripoli. These terrible events have brought the meaning of an old and familar refrain front and center once again.

As if the pain of losing four of our own is not painful enough, the fantastic charades being carried on by the O Bama administration has added an additional measure of torment to the grieving families and friends of these fine men whom we pray did not die in vain.

Writing in the National Review web site,  Missouri Republican Senator, ROY BLUNT, who sits on the Senate Select Committee on Inteligence, provides a concise review of the government's mishandling of the aftermath of this tragedy. If it weren't for the horrific nature of the attack and murders, the bumbling cocophony of explanations being put forth, as late as last night's debate, would be great comic theatre. This president and his band of political operatives, has a lot to answer for.

Finally, our thoughts and prayers continue to go out to Barbara Doherty of Winchester, MA, at the tragic loss of her son Glen, one of the former Seals, killed in the Benghazi terrorist attack on 9/11/2012. Glen was much too good a man to have his death tarnished by the amateurish ineptitude of the O Bama government.

R.I.P. Glen

Slaves, An Untold Story

Throughout the annals of human history runs a dark vein recording the epic of man's inhumanity to man. While some of these horrors are better known than others, the concept of human slavery seems to have been with us since earliest times. Today, not only do we continue to deal with the long-term effects of this heinous practice, but there is ample evidence that slavery continues in various parts of the world.

Our friend Doug Mitchell has produced a marvelous book, Slavery, an Untold Story,  that in just its few hundred pages provides an incisive study into a subject that most of us would like to forget, and, we suspect, would like to think, is no longer practiced.

In the first part of Slavery, Mitchell traces the saga of Isaac Logan, a young Massachusetts sailor, serving aboard his family's merchant fleet in 1740. During a stopover in England, he is kidnapped and taken to Barbados and sold into the slavery-based sugar plantations. When he gets the chance to "escape" to a British navy ship and quickly learns that the forced labor of slavery comes in many forms. As we continue to follow Isaac's travails, we not only see the industrial brutality of the west African thugs who capture and sell their countrymen to the slave ships, but also, the many other routes into slavery including the jails of Britain and the troubled areas of Ireland and Scotland. Most of us think of slavery in terms of black Africans brought, as slaves, to the southern U.S. States, where the practice would one day nearly destroy our country. Sadly, the reality is much broader in terms of who is pulled into slavery's greedy maw, and where those slaves end up.

The second part of the book finds a present day Boston newspaper attempting to publish a declarative study of slavery. Owned by the descendants of Isaac Logan, the discussions around the editing table examines many of the issues still being dealt with as a result of slavery. When the newspaper sends reporters to Africa to do further research, they find that the practice of slavery, thought by many to be an evil of the past, is alive and well in parts of dark continent. The experience of one of the reporters is especially gruelling as it brings the modern face of slavery into startling focus.

Doug Mitchell writes with insight and clarity as he manages to bring a subject that most of us wishes locked into the far past into a stark, present-day focus. The one thing we found wanting was a bibliography of his sources. He has whetted our appetite and we would have liked to have some guidance as to where to seek more information.

Do yourself a favor and read this book. You will find it interesting and thought-provoking.

Click HERE to order a copy

Thomas Sowell on the Presidential Electorate

Writing on the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate in realclearpolitics, Thomas Sowell puts his finger on an interesting point regarding the electorate who will select the next resident of the White House:

"This election is a test, not just of the opposing candidates but of the voting public. If what they want are the hard facts about where the country is, and where it is heading, they cannot vote for more of the same for the next four years."

The chilling aspect of this observation, is the vast number of Americans who are prepared to do just that and demand a blind continuation of those spending programs, driving the deficit growth, that if left unchecked will threaten our American way of life, including those very programs. Paul Ryan brings, among other things, an expert grasp of fiscal reality. Whether enough people are willing to believe these facts remains to be seen. Ironically, the biggest challenge facing the Romney-Ryan ticket will be to convince enough voters to accept the stark truth. This will be no easy task.
As Sowell continues:

"There are no doubt voters who will vote on the basis of believing that Obama "cares" more about them. But that is a faith which passeth all understanding. The political mirage of something for nothing, from leaders who "care," has ruined many a nation."

It's a Romney - Ryan Ticket

A sleepy Saturday morning in August, what a great time to make some history.  By selecting Paul Ryan as his running mate, Mitt has helped cast the choice facing the American electorate as one of the clearest and best-defined in many years.

Those looking for more of the cliche-infested, blathering rhetoric emanating from the current administration will have to look elsewhere for more of the same. Paul Ryan brings a razor-sharp mind and an encyclopedic familiarity with the financial and economic intricacies of modern government. In case you haven't been paying attention, these are the skills that our current fiscal miasma is in dire need of.

The opposition is bound to label Paul Ryan as a cold, non-caring conservative. But while conservative he may well be, it will be his intimate knowledge of government finance that will help reverse the gloomy trend towards deficit-dominated socialism. he recognizes the fiscal realities necessary to ensure the viability of our American way of life.

There will be ample opportunity to drill down into the bedrock of the new ticket. The drive-by media will, I am sure, be playing catch up on this news, probably just on time for the Sunday papers and talk shows. In the meantime, it's back to our Saturday chores. Well done, Mitt