Listening

    In yesterdays speech, President Obama replied to a comment to not shut down Gitmo by telling a person who commented that in a Democracy, you have the right to free speech, but you also need to listen. He was implying that it was time for her to listen. As if he is listening himself. And the crowd applauded.

The implications of listening is that you end up compromising in some way. I struggled with this for most of my life, and I still do. This must be list a ex-smoker. They tend to be really sensitive when someone else lights up. I feel that I can spot a poor listener a mile away, and President Obama is a classic example.

President Obama is a really poor compromiser. He is nothing like a stereotype Republican deal maker. We would have seen far more deal making throughout his Presidency if this was not the case. He is not alone. The classic example is when the Speaker of the House said that we had to pass the Health Care bill so that the American public can find out what is in it. This is not listening, and President Obama signed the bill the next day. In another example, President Obama said that he did not know all the facts, but the police acted stupidly. Yes, this is really listening and it is typical.

President Obama is “Fundamentally CHANGING” America. And he is not listening to you or I about it. He stated that is what he is going to do and he is doing it. No butts about it.

President Obama must go

Fast and furious, the government seizing records from the AP and the IRS going after conservative organizations are excellent examples of government exceeding its accepted limits of power. The consistent attacks on whistle blowers is an excellent way to stop transparency. A good example of how President Obama is doing the opposite of what he told us before he became President. And then we have Benghazi.

Our President lied to us when he attempted (so far, successfully) to persuade us that the spark for the attack in Benghazi and Egypt were spontaneously generated from an obscure video, instead of the planned, coordinated acts of war by an external enemy that resulted in the murder of our ambassador and the raising of enemy flags over our country's sovereign territory. Hardly being the most transparent administration ever. In fact, Benghazi can be argued to have been treason, covering up an overt attack by an external enemy upon our country for your own political gain. If President Obama was a Republican, he would most likely be removed from office. But this is not the case.

If President Obama survives this, we are done. The CHANGE that he wanted to implement would be permanent. Placing your own personal gain over that of our country, at any level, leave alone the Presidency, is a pattern of decline that is at such a point that our basic ability to defend ourselves will be determine by political advantage instead of national interests. This was a trait of the late Roman Republic and of the Roman empire. This, along with exposure of unwanted babies on the mountainside were major indicators of the decline of the Republic and the growing need for authoritarian power.  

IRS failure and AP were caused by low-level bureaucrats?

The new scandals with the IRS targeting conservative groups and the AP scandal with information that should not have been available are being blamed on “lower level bureaucrats”. This is a lose – lose reply by the Obama administration.

Bureaucrats are not risk takers. If they were, they would be employed in the private sector where risk taking is much better rewarded. The private sector is where the real risk takers go simply because they can prosper there. It is BS to state that low level bureaucrats went out on a limb like this. It goes against the institutional nature of bureaucrats in government. But lets take President Obama at his word.

At the very best, the idea that this type of decision making is being made and implemented without oversight by the highest levels of ANY organization is indicative of very lax and poor management. This demonstrates a serious lack of control of some of the most powerful organizations within the entire United States, private or public. In either case, the responsible party is the President.

This blaming of lower level 'management' for these major policy initiatives is just more proof that private organizations are much better at managing just about ANY financial function than government. And this is the BEST CASE scenario? The worst case or even the middle case (And the most probable) imply that President Obama encourage and approved of these actions.

Benghazi: It does matter

Despite my view that without the U.S. Senate, the Benghazi hearings will likely come to nothing, Benghazi DOES matter.

Secretary of State Clinton, in response to attacks about how she handled Benghazi, said that it did not matter if some people walked around and decided to attack Americans or reacted to a video. The people were still dead. Yes, Mr. Secretary, it does matter. Because it was neither and both you and President Obama knew it. In other words, you lied about it. And are still attempting to lie about it.

No wonder she became angry. Anger is all she has left to defend herself with. I guess it was OK for her husband to lie to her about all the affairs that he had. I have always felt that was between the two of them. And I understand how much people give up to be public figures. Politics is a tough life, and I get that too. But this was an attack upon the sovereignty of our country while she was on duty and she lied about it. And her boss is no less culpable.

Only three days before the attack, President Obama had proudly announced that our enemies were on the run. Their leadership had been 'decimated'. It would look badly on him if only a few days later that very same enemy launched a coordinated attack upon the government of the United States. So they lied about it to blame some obscure video. For something like two weeks they claimed that this was the source of the attack when they knew better. Our ambassador was killed and our enemy raised their flag over our sovereign territory. Well, maybe it does not matter to our Secretary of State the events that actually led up to it, but it matters to me. It was on her watch.

Maybe Hillary does not understand the meaning of this event, but I am certain that our enemy does. It mattered enough for them to plan it out and execute it while President Obama and she had the watch. I guess it does not matter to her who these people were or where they came from. In this case, her holding that post did not matter because she was certainly no worthwhile obstacle for them to overcome. It does not matter to her, but it matters to me. It matters to the United States of America when our ambassador is killed and our sovereignty is violated by an overt enemy attack. Killing is as loud a message as you can send and we are not listening. (What does it mater?) President Obama and his Secretary of State are not defending out country from external enemies. Instead they are covering up the real threat and inventing something else for personal political gain. This is called lying about winning the war when you are actually losing.

Our enemy in this case is an irregular one. Guerrilla warfare has been around since long before the Romans and the Greeks. Irregular forces typically do not match up well against regular troops. The overrunning of our embassies is an usually large and very real victory for them. This is symbolized by the raising of their flag on our sovereign territory. Obviously, these two embassies were not well defended. They could not have been in order for something like this to occur against an irregular enemy such as we have today. Even if they had surprise. It is a major sign that we are NOT winning the war like President Obama said that we were back in September.

Yes, Mr. Secretary, losing in war does matter.    

Benghazi is no Watergate

Despite the fact that what President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton did in the Benghazi cover up, no way is the final result going to be anything like the result of Watergate.

I have seen lots of arguments supporting this view, many of which are valid. However, one word says it all. Senate. Control of the U.S. Senate is NOT in the Republicans hands. I just do not see the Democrat party dumping the top two leaders that they have. No matter what they did or did not do. Without the Senate, Republicans are going to be stopped cold.    

Benghazi

Mr. President, you crossed a red line with Benghazi. Look, I get how you believe that government is more 'fair' than the private sector. I also disagree with you on firearms, but I get how you believe that restricting firearms is 'the right thing to do'. I disagree with you on just about everything political, but you are the President and I am not. However, my country comes first. Before my own self interests and as President, I certainly expect before your own self interest.

I thought that you believed that government employees were dedicated, selfless people? Well, I know human nature better than this. I disagree with you as I believe that government employees are still human and have all the weaknesses of everyone else. However, you deliberately misled the American public about Benghazi in order to further your own self interest of being re-elected as President of the United States.

The attack on our embassies in Benghazi and Egypt were NOT the spontaneous response to an anti-Islamic video and you knew it right from the start. It was a planned attack upon our country. However, it was not in your interests to have this made public, at least not right away while people are still fired up about it. Only a few days before at the Democratic National Convention, you had stated that the very same enemy who launched the attack had had it's leadership 'decimated' and was 'on the run'. To have the American public find out that you were wrong only three days later would jeopardize (As your message to Putin stated) YOUR election. Fine, I get your political interest here. But what about the interests of the United States?

On Sept 11, 2012, that very same enemy stormed two of our embassies, which are considered to be sovereign territory. They killed one of our ambassadors and raised their flag over our territory. This is a act of war by an external enemy. I understand how Democrats are my internal, political enemy. However, when an external threat occurs, we are supposed to pull together to ward off the common foe.

Many Americans (As well as in all other countries) have died fighting in wars that they personally did not believe in because they placed country first, even before their own lives. This is how it is supposed to work. Benghazi demonstrates to me, quite clearly, that this does not apply to you.

Your life was not involved. Only your political future. Even President Nixon did not go this far, not even close. Nobody died in the Watergate break in, nor was the spying upon the internal political enemy all that much out of the ordinary. I am not a believer in removing public figures from office as a general rule because it seriously undermines the strength of the office itself. I did not even want President Clinton removed from office and he committed perjury about events while he was in office.

Benghazi is different because the source of the attack does matter.

ANY attack upon my country from an external enemy matters. Acts of war committed upon my country matter, as does the source of those attacks. To point at a different source intentionally is to place other interests before those the country. It is even more revealing that the Secretary of State is the person who said that the source of the attack did not matter. So we have both the President and the Secretary of State placing some other interests before that our of country. THAT MATTERS, Mr. President. Enough to kick you and your entire administration out of office. Even if that weakens the office. Because MY country comes BEFORE you and your self interests.    

The war is CHANGING

Things are upside down right now. We restrict our own clergy from comforting the injured nor allowed to give last rights in the attack in Boston. While our enemy clergy is allowed to fund mosques while they are in jail. Not to mention how so many of their clergy (Imams) actually form combat units and militias. At the same time, the Pentagon has announced that they will court marshal those who attempt to bring up religion within the ranks. Specifically aimed at Christianity. They have since backed off, although this does give us a good indication of what our leadership would like to do.

We can expect things like the bombing in Boston to not just continue, but to increase. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were drawing in guys like this into a match up against our military. The order to repel the 'occupiers of Muslim land' has historically been one of the 'fundamental' strong Islamic causes for offensive warfare. This match up against our military does not favor them. Our soldiers are a lot harder to kill in the field not to mention in the desert, an ideal environment for mechanized warfare, which we excel at.

We are losing the war on just about every front that matters.

For all his faults, President Bush chose his wars well. President Obama has since promised us "Fundamental CHANGE". He is doing exactly that. We were fighting to keep the war 'over there'. We will now be fighting the war right here. President Obama never said that we would like the CHANGE that he promised.