RUTHFULLY YOURS

Do failures and lies matter any longer? If you are a prominent Democratic politician, what exactly is the level of wrongdoing that will end your career?

Reading the long-awaited report from the House Select Committee on Benghazi and the associated media coverage, I was struck by the sheer scale of the failures and the deceptions surrounding the terror attack on the Benghazi compound, and by the mainstream media’s dismissiveness. Here’s the opening paragraph of the New York Times’s story on the report:

Ending one of the longest, costliest and most bitterly partisan congressional investigations in history, the House Select Committee on Benghazi issued its final report on Tuesday, finding no new evidence of culpability or wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton in the 2012 attacks in Libya that left four Americans dead.

And here’s the Washington Post on the report:

A final report issued by the Republican majority that investigated the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, found fault with virtually every element of the executive branch response to the attacks but provided no new evidence of specific wrongdoing by then–Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

This is an extraordinary response to a report that comprehensively details one of the most shameful episodes in recent American diplomatic and military history.

Clinton’s State Department failed to adequately protect its diplomats in Libya, with the Obama administration so intent on avoiding “boots on the ground” in the aftermath of its Libyan air war that it left Americans dangerously exposed even as the jihadist threat was plainly and clearly ramping up. The report details at least ten previous terror attacks in Benghazi, including two IED attacks on the American compound, yet the State Department had decreased its security there in the months before Ambassador Chris Stevens and four others were killed.

Obama’s Pentagon failed to mobilize assets to protect those same Americans even as they endured an hours-long assault on September 11, 2012. One of the most painful elements of the report is its description of exactly how difficult it was for the Pentagon to ramp up even the quick-strike elements of the most powerful military in the history of the world. Fighters were in one location, tankers in another. Ground assets were in one place, air transport in another. It took hours for clear commands from the White House and Pentagon to filter sufficiently far down the ranks to spur actual military activity.

This month, mosquitoes capable of transmitting Zika start biting in Florida, the Gulf states and southern California. It’s the “virus from hell,” warns Peter Hotez, Dean of Baylor University’s School of Tropical Medicine.

Hotez is urging women to delay getting pregnant. He worries expectant mothers in these states are already being bitten and next spring they’ll “start giving birth to brain-damaged infants.” Doctors are investigating whether infants – up to age 1 – are in danger from these mosquito bites because their brains are still developing.

Meanwhile, New Yorkers face a different threat: sexual transmission. It’s unknown whether local mosquitoes will spread the virus. But even without mosquitoes biting, New York already has more Zika infections than any other state.

The virus is being brought here by immigrants and travelers exposed in infested areas like Puerto Rico, Brazil, Honduras and El Salvador. Their sex partners need to know the virus can survive in semen for six months or longer and also possibly spread through deep kissing.

Dating tip: Ask to see his passport.

The gravest danger is to women who can get pregnant, but taxpayers will also feel the impact. Area hospitals, including Mount Sinai and North Shore University Hospital, are preparing for a surge in Zika maternity cases. Health officials refuse to disclose how many will be uninsured immigrants whose health bills will be paid by taxpayers.

Any pregnant woman – here legally or not – can get emergency Medicaid to cover prenatal care and child birth. Babies born in the United States are automatically eligible for lifetime care if disabled, which, in the case of Zika-caused ailments, could cost $10 million per child.

Anticipating public outrage, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is hiding the issue. The agency labels all Zika infections brought into the United States as “travel related” – lumping together Americans who caught it on a trip and migrants coming here for care.

Texas clinics are already seeing pregnant women from Central America with Zika.

“Clock Boy,” the 14 year old Muslim student who was arresting for causing a bomb scare at MacArthur High School in Irving, is coming back to Texas. Apparently, Ahmed Mohamed is leaving Dubai due to “homesickness.”

You probably remember the overblown incident last year (that animated Barack Hussein Obama) in which Ahmed perpetuated a hoax by bringing a beeping countdown clock with dangling wires to school for no apparent reason. (This was NOT part of a science assignment as reported by the co-opted media). When the clock began to beep in class, an alarmed teacher sent Ahmed to the principal’s office; a perfectly reasonable action in light of the epidemic of Muslim jihadist incidents in the U.S. (For the uninformed, this is NOT Islamophobia. This is REAL and LEGITIMATE fear CAUSED by the actions of Muslims since at least 9/11).

Some background: Ahmed Mohammed’s father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, is a well-heeled Sudanese immigrant who ran for president of Sudan. He was the spiritual leader at an Islamic center in Dallas, an ardent fighter against so-called “Islamophobia” and a member of the infamous mosque in Irving that created a tribunal to establish shariah law over the Constitution in Texas. When Ahmed was charged by law enforcement, his family threatened to sue the City of Irving and school district for civil rights violations and physical and mental anguish unless they received a written apology and $15 million.

Following the bomb hoax, Ahmed’s father worked closely with CAIR (a Muslim Brotherhood front group that was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Hamas funding trial that concluded in 2009) to broadcast his son’s story of being “tortured” by school officials and experiencing “anti-Muslim” discrimination.

At the time of the incident, former U.S. Army Special Forces and counter-terrorist specialist Jim Hanson of the Center for Security Policy stated, “I don’t think there’s any question that this latest event was a PR stunt. It was a staged event where someone convinced this kid to bring a device that he didn’t build (it’s a Radio Shack clock that he put in a briefcase). You know how I know that? Because I have built briefcase bombs and blown them up. That’s what they looked like. So anyone who looked at that was reasonable in assuming it was a dangerous device. They did that to create the exact scenario that played out. They wanted people to react and they wanted to portray a kid as an innocent victim. I think he was a pawn…”

It is easy to see how such incidents can be useful in the stealth jihadist effort to destroy the law enforcement “see something, say something” policy allegedly put in place to prevent crimes and terrorist attacks.

DURBIN RANKS A + 5 ON THE ARAB AMERICAN INSTITUTE’S SCORECARD FOR LEGISLATORS INDICATING A VERY PRO-ARAB VOTING RECORD. HE RECENTLY GRATIFIED HIS SUPPORTERS BY ATTENDING A CAIR 10TH ANNIVERSARY GALA.
CAIR has been designated by the FBI and several in Congress as a supporter of U.S.-designated terrorist groups.
1dick_durbin“For more than 10 years, CAIR-Chicago has enhanced the understanding of Islam within our communities by facilitating dialogue, protecting civil liberties, empowering American Muslims, and building coalitions which promote justice and mutual understanding. I applaud your commitment to guaranteeing that our country’s ideals are fully respected and realized for all.”

– Dick Durbin
U.S. Senator, State of Illinois

Covering the Senate hearings on Islamic terror, Tuesday’s HuffPo headline read: “Witness At Ted Cruz Hearing Accuses Congress’ Two Muslim Members Of Muslim Brotherhood Ties.”
The teaser read: “This doesn’t normally happen on the Hill.” The teaser should have been: It’s about time.

I rarely venture over to the HuffPo, but I couldn’t resist reading their coverage:

In explosive testimony Tuesday, a witness before a Senate panel about Islamic terrorism accused the two Muslim members of Congress of having attended an event organized by the Muslim Brotherhood.

The charge was leveled by Chris Gaubatz, a “national security consultant” who has moonlighted as an undercover agitator of Muslim groups that he accuses of being terrorist outfits, and it was directed at Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and André Carson (D-Ind.). At the heart of his accusation is the attendance by those two members at a 2008 convention hosted by the Islamic Society of North America — a Muslim umbrella group, which Gaubatz claims is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood.

HuffPo was eager to smear Chris Gaubatz, whose impressive undercover work inside CAIR is chronicled in his book Muslim Mafia. (To learn more about him, The Clarion Project has a short interview, here.) The Huffpo continues:

“I attended a convention in Columbus, Ohio, in 2008, organized by Muslim Brotherhood group, ISNA, and both the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Prisons had recruitment and outreach booths,” Gaubatz said in his testimony. “Both Congressman Keith Ellison, MN, and Andre Carson, IN, spoke at the Muslim Brotherhood event.”

Allegations that Ellison and Carson are secret Muslim agents with extremist leanings are usually found among fringe groups online, often discussed in dire tones on poorly designed websites. Rarely, if ever, do such sentiments get read into congressional testimony, with the imprimatur that offers.

Wow, this is why, as a rule, I don’t read the HuffPo. But seriously, the excerpt noted above highlights how behind the curve we are regarding the Muslim Brotherhood. The MB should have been declared a terrorist organization ions ago. Instead, they have been operating through countless front groups that are legitimized and lauded by the leftist politicians and the media. As a result, no red flags are raised about anyone affiliated with these groups.

Writing over at Slate (h/t Joel Pollak), Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit states that he no longer desires the application of the United States Constitution within the American legal system:

And on another note about academia and practical law, I see absolutely no value to a judge of spending decades, years, months, weeks, day, hours, minutes, or seconds studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation (across the centuries – well, just a little more than two centuries, and of course less for many of the amendments). Eighteenth-century guys, however smart, could not foresee the culture, technology, etc., of the 21st century. Which means that the original Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the post – Civil War amendments (including the 14th), do not speak to today. David Strauss is right: The Supreme Court treats the Constitution like it is authorizing the court to create a common law of constitutional law, based on current concerns, not what those 18th-century guys were worrying about.

In short, let’s not let the dead bury the living.

This isn’t the first time Posner has embarrassed the judiciary, but it is certainly his most irresponsible public statement. It also proves, since he was appointed by former president Ronald Reagan, that conservatives have a terrible track record – perhaps worse than liberals – when it comes to the quality of their judicial choices.

How Posner has escaped impeachment this long remains a mystery, since his ongoing commentaries while remaining on the bench are a textbook example of bringing the administration of justice into disrepute.

In 2012, he said he has “become less conservative since the Republican Party started becoming goofy.” This, of course, openly mixes partisan politics with the judiciary, which is a very immature move. Furthermore, it should cause individuals who are known members of the GOP to feel that Posner will be biased against them if he is to preside over their case. For a sitting judge to declare a mainstream political party as “goofy” is truly reprehensible.

His pro-authoritarian police state views on the power of the government to intrude into all aspects of private life is frightening: