CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: New Benghazi testimony in Congress sharply critical of Obama administration.
Archive for 2013
May 8, 2013
STONEWALL: GOP chairman denied Benghazi files. “Pentagon officials have denied a request from a House Republican chairman for access to documents on last year’s terrorist attack in Benghazi.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE: 13 Ways to Have an Epic Make Out Session.
BRYAN PRESTON: Seven Things We Learned from the Benghazi Whistleblower Hearing.
UPDATE: J.D. Johannes emails:
I’m not going to second guess the military HQ that cancelled the rescue op.
There are plenty of reasons to cancel an op, especially if the rescuers will likely need to be rescued.
What I can’t understand are the lies. There is nothing in the fact pattern that would be very damaging. Islamists attacked, brave ambassador was killed in the line of duty. Rescue mission was too dangerous. That does not damage the President or State.
My big question is who was in the conference room when the idea to blame it on a YouTube video was brought up and who said “yeah, that is a good idea?”
And what was the calculus that the facts were too dangerous?
Yes, I wonder about that too. Either (1) there are much, much bigger secrets here (I have no idea what) such that the Administration would rather look both inept and dishonest than talk about them; or (2) people focused on domestic politics, but not very slick, were running the show. And filmmaker Nakoula is still in jail.
UPDATE: Speechwriters as experts: it’s all about the words. “The president seems to prefer to have people around him with even less experience and expertise than he has, which is saying something. . . . So it occurs to me that maybe the simplest way to describe what happened in Benghazi is that, from start to finish, nearly everyone in charge and everyone who was a close and trusted advisor to those in charge was a political operative. Everyone. This of course includes Obama and Hillary Clinton, and all the supposed national security advisors such as Rhodes.”
NATIONAL JOURNAL: The High Cost to the White House of Stonewalling on Benghazi. “When asked about the upcoming hearing, White House spokesman Jay Carney largely deflected. Curiously, the Obama administration also won’t talk about the footage that they have from the compound – video that some people who have seen it argue could clear up questions about whether the incident was a premeditated terrorist attack or something less. They just really don’t want to talk about this. But the last time the administration played keep-away on a security issue was drones, and that didn’t work out so well for the White House. Benghazi has already cost the president his first choice for secretary of State. What could stonewalling cost the White House this time?”
UPDATE: Hicks: Higher-ups at State told me not to talk to GOP congressman about Benghazi; Update: “Effectively demoted.” “Cheryl Mills is no run-of-the-mill State Department apparatchik, even among the top tier. She’s been one of the Clintons’ right-hand men for decades. She worked in Bill’s White House legal office, then as counsel to Hillary’s presidential campaign, then became chief of staff at State when Hillary was appointed secretary. If she’s the right-hand man, what other conclusion is there than that Hillary’s the one who wanted Hicks to keep his mouth shut when meeting with Chaffetz?”
(Bumped.)
TRANSPARENCY: One hospital charges $8,000 — another, $38,000. “Consumers on Wednesday will finally get some answers about one of modern life’s most persistent mysteries: how much medical care actually costs. For the first time, the federal government will release the prices that hospitals charge for the 100 most common inpatient procedures. Until now, these charges have been closely held by facilities that see a competitive advantage in shielding their fees from competitors. What the numbers reveal is a health-care system with tremendous, seemingly random variation in the costs of services.”
You could do more for real cost control by requiring hospitals to publish fixed prices for most procedures than from any amount of bureaucratic fiddling — though such an approach would provide disappointingly few opportunities for graft.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Antibiotics could cure 40% of chronic back pain patients. “Specialists who deal with back pain have long known that infections are sometimes to blame, but these cases were thought to be exceptional. That thinking has been overturned by scientists at the University of Southern Denmark who found that 20% to 40% of chronic lower back pain was caused by bacterial infections.”
GALLERY: Awkward Prom Photos.
AT AMAZON, top deals in Groceries.
BRYAN PRESTON IS LIVEBLOGGING THE BENGHAZI HEARING. “Rep. Elijah Cummings used his opening statement to attack Issa and assail the as yet undelivered whistleblowers’ testimony. Cummings in effect filibustered their testimony by wasting time, while he claimed to be a champion of whistleblowers. Disgraceful.”
It’s also streaming live on C-SPAN. Also, live-tweeting at Pop Mech Defense, and you can follow everything on Twitter at #Benghazi.
EMPLOYMENT AND THE DANGERS OF CATASTROPHIC SUCCESS. “Imagine the kind of disruption which has occurred in the music business over the past decade and a half applied to manufacturing, agriculture, and energy production. The elimination of infrastructure, businesses, and employment will be staggering.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Women judged faces with heavy stubble as most attractive.
LIVING IN A FALLEN ANGELS WORLD (CONT’D): Too Cold for a Cold One? Big Beer Companies Blame Mother Nature for Slumping Sales. “Unseasonably cold weather in Brazil, Europe and the U.S. is being blamed as one of the reasons sales are down in early 2013 for Bud Light, Miller Lite, Heineken and other mass-produced brews favored at picnics and tailgates.”
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Are Millenials Lazy? “A new study implicates the Millennials as the least likely to want to work hard — by their own admission.” I don’t know. They may just feel that hard work doesn’t pay off like it used to.
Related: The Idled Young Americans. “The idle young European, stranded without work by the Continent’s dysfunction, is one of the global economy’s stock characters. Yet it might be time to add another, even more common protagonist: the idle young American. For all of Europe’s troubles — a left-right combination of sclerotic labor markets and austerity — the United States has quietly surpassed much of Europe in the percentage of young adults without jobs.”
A LOOK AT COLD WAR PLANS to relocate the Supreme Court to the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina in the event of a nuclear attack. The Grove Park Inn is a nice place; they might want to just relocate there anyway. . . .
(Via The Volokh Conspiracy).
GAGGED: Fourth Benghazi witness gagged by red tape. “Obama administration officials are finally letting the attorney for a Benghazi whistle-blower get a security clearance — but the clearance is at such a low level that it will probably slow the congressional probe of how the administration handled last year’s terrorist attack on the embassy in Benghazi, Libya.” Suspicious.
VIDEO: Mother of Slain Benghazi Victim: ‘I Blame’ Hillary Clinton for Son’s Death. Benghazi was a pathetic display of ineptitude and ass-covering.
I’d also like to know who decided to scapegoat Nakoula. Note that Hillary was still pushing the lame video excuse at the memorial service, by which time everyone knew it wasn’t true.