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• Rep. Jason Chaffetz: Ambassador Stevens Called for Help During Benghazi Attack

  November 1, 2012 at 10:43am

  Two facts of importance not reported (so far as I can determine):

  1. Where are the survivors of the attack? Early reports indicated that a dozen or more survivors were evacuated to the Annex and from there to the airport the next morning. Where are they now? What do they have to say about the events that awful night? With a few days remaining before the election, is it not reasonable to assume that, if their accounts reinforce the WH narrative, they would have been paraded onto CNN by now?

  2. Look closely at the video above. These are unhurried, professional-looking, well composed and steady images of the facility and vehicles on fire, at night, and not on fire in the daytime. Who filmed this? Put another way, who knew far enough in advance to securely position professional-grade cameras at the scene while the fires were still burning, and who felt comfortable enough to stand out in the open filming the footage from which this is drawn. For example, in one shot, you can clearly see two individuals casually walking around undamaged pickup trucks at the right side of the shot while the building burns fiercely on the left. These men do not appear to be armed, and are clearly not taking fire or expecting to take fire. What does it mean? I do not know, but it certainly supports the notion that whomever is responsible for the attack is also responsible for the video, and that that person or persons had nothing to fear from the 17th February Brigade Militia.

• We Asked Security Experts to Help Explain the Libya Debacle — Here’s What They Said: ‘We Are Being Used’

  October 26, 2012 at 10:43am

  Here is another theory for your consideration: Suppose those who stormed the compound sought to capture, but not kill, Ambassador Stevens, as has been suggested elsewhere? According to a very fine Special Report Bret Baier aired on FNC, the so-called “safe room” at the Consulate was little more than a small space with a steel grate separating it from the rest of the building. During the attack, RPG’s were reportedly used, as were small arms. If killing Stevens were the object, the safe room would have crumpled like a saltine under that firepower.
  According to one of the survivors, described as a Diplomatic Security agent, the place was set on fire, and the smoke prevented the DS agent from leading Stevens to (relative) safety outside the building. Despite that, though, the other reporting, including from the present Libyan government, was that “good” Libyans rescued Stevens alive and took him to the hospital, where he died of smoke inhalation. That was offered to explain the video of his body being dragged around, half clothed. Of course, the USG has not shared anything about the autopsy almost certaing performed on the four victims after their bodies were recovered.
  So – why work so hard to capture him alive? Was it an attempt a trade for him for jihadi prisoners? Possibly. You may recall that Israel traded many prisoners for one soldier. Ws it to torture him for what he knew? Again, possibly. Or punish him for aiding a rival faction?

• Is Newly Appointed Libya Investigator an Islamist-Sympathizer With Ties to CAIR?

  October 24, 2012 at 11:11am

  “Perhaps there are no coincidences.”

  See also, Rule 39.

  .

• Wanna Bet? Odds Reveal Amusing Theories on Trump’s Big Wednesday ‘Announcement’

  October 23, 2012 at 3:38pm

  I could not get past the first three words: “Donald Trump’s coy . . .” I do not think I have ever seen that phrase in a sentence. I just threw up a little bit in the back of my throat. What did I miss?

• 140 Anti-Voter Fraud Billboards in Ohio & Wis. to Be Taken Down Amid Cries of ‘Voter Suppression’

  October 22, 2012 at 10:43am

  Fraud remains popular because it is occasionally effective and comes at little to no risk to the fraudster. Consider the “election” of the washed-up comedian (and that is generous – was he ever funny?) Al Franken to the United States Senate in 2008 in time to provide a 60th vote for Obamacare. Was anyone ever punished for that, or for any voter fraud-procured election? My research and recollection agree – Franken is certainly a senator, and Obamacare was passed, and 177 felons have been convicted – so far – of fraud in that specific election. These were felons, remember, who had little left to lose from an additional conviction apart from a potential additional jail sentence. Did one of them serve a day?

  http://washingtonexaminer.com/york-when-1099-felons-vote-in-race-won-by-312-ballots/article/2504163

• ‘My Son Is Not Very Optimal — He Is Also Very Dead’: Mother of State Dept. Official Slain in Libya Blasts Obama Remark

  October 19, 2012 at 3:13pm

  “op·ti·mal ( p t -m l). adj. Most favorable or desirable; optimum” Merriam Webster Dictionary.
  This statement is a terrifying and probably inadvertant glimpse into the soul of the speaker, the ideological successor to the “you didn’t build that” moment of candor. Leaving aside for the moment the impropriety of having the President of the United States discussing a deadly serious subject like this terrorist attack on a comedy program hosted by a comedian on a channel that unashamedly calls itself the Comedy Channel, what he has to say to his snarky host is stunning: the loss of these four Americans was somewhat less than ideal, a bit disappointing perhaps, but otherwise not worthy of condemnation. Not al queda’s best effort; leaving room for improvement? And what was it, exactly, that disappointed the Great Leader? Too many killed, or too few? That they were all Americans, or would a mix of nationalities have been more to his liking? Perhaps a bit of both. The two of them were so disinterested in the heart of the topic I was afraid one might yawn.
  Here is a test: Substitute “Starbucks has momentarily run out of Pikes Peak Roast” for “If four Americans get killed”. Then, and only then, would Obama’s comments be appropriate: “That is not optimal. We will fix it.”
  My heart goes out to the families, colleages, and loved ones of those killed in this attack on our sovereign soil, and for their continued vicitimization as their sacrifice

• Here Are the 4 Surprise Signs That Obama Could Still Win the 2012 Election

  October 19, 2012 at 2:03pm

  For context, remember this from the Houston Chronicle of November 5, 2008?

  “The Pew Research Center and Rasmussen Reports were the most accurate in predicting the results of the 2008 election, according to a new [at that time in 2008] analysis by Fordham University political scientist Costas Panagopoulos. The Fordham analysis ranks 23 survey research organizations on their final, national pre-election polls, as reported on pollster.com.”

  “On average, the polls slightly overestimated Obama’s strength. The final polls showed the Democratic ahead by an average of 7.52 percentage points — 1.37 percentage points above his current [immediate post-election 2008] 6.15-point popular vote lead. Seventeen of the 23 surveys overstated Obama’s final victory level, while four underestimated it. Only two — Rasmussen and Pew — were spot on.”

  Although prognostication is risky, and political prognistication even more so, and even if Obama enjoyed today the levels of enthusiasm he inspired among his supporters in 2008, and even if there had not been his record of the past four years, we may hypothesize that the president’s polling overstates his eventual vote count by AT LEAST the same margin – 1.37%. He underperformed then, and that was compared to 2004′s turnout. Add 1.37% to Romney’s polling, or subtract it from Obama’s, and you may sleep better tonight and for the weeks to come.

  Source: http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2008/11/the-list-which-presidential-

• The Mainstream Media Is ‘Changing History’: Beck Blasts Handling of Debate Questions on Libya

  October 18, 2012 at 11:22am

  None of this will come as a surprise to those greybeards among us old enough and fortunate enough to have been educated before public schools became merely expensive and inefficient daycare stations. Just read (or re-read) some of the cautionary and visionary tales written fifty or sixty years ago, when the statist or collectivist regimes of all political persuasions were comparatively young. I commend “Animal Farm” as a shorter example, or “1984″ as a darker one, to your attention. From the former, it is sadly easy yet instructive to identify personalities and attitudes in the barnyard to those in the news. Napoleon? Certainly the current president. Snowball, upon on whom all problems are blamed, even long after exile? A former president, perhaps, or more broadly any idea outside the current orthodoxy. Squealer, of course, is the original propagandist who must spin lies into truths and then back, relying equally on his gift of misdirection and upon the intellectual density of those misdirected. Poor Squealer was relegated to climbing a ladder at night to edit and expand upon the seven core principles, painted on the barn wall and upon which the collective was formed, to accommodate Napoleon’s “evolving” preferences, although in modern times we have traded the ladder and paint for the omniscient media. Is not Ms. Crowley Squealer’s natural and voluntary heir and successor, in function if not in form? Alas. . . she may have proven herself “more equal than