Friday-Free- For All: Fox Hosts Slam MSM Media Hacks For Helping Regime Cover Up Benghazi Scandal

   Via Mediaite:  The Five Hosts Blast ‘Media Hacks’ Maddow, Stewart, Colbert For ‘Covering Up’ The Benghazi ‘Cover-Up’

One day after accusing the media of acting as President Obama’s “scandal condom” on the Benghazi story, The Five’s Greg Gutfeld was at it again, this time calling MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert “media hacks” for their highly critical commentary on Fox News’ coverage.
“People died, but what difference does it make?” Gutfeld said sarcastically, echoing Hillary Clinton’s infamous Benghazi hearing question. “The story will probably die, like the four in Benghazi with the lapdog media standing down, making these so-called journalists co-conspirators in the Benghazi cover-up, and that’s comedy when you’re winning.” He summed up the position of Maddow, Stewart and Colbert like this: “They refuse to actually cover the story. Instead, they want to cover people who care about the story, because then that kind of absolves them from having to deal with the ugliness.”

Via Mediaite: O’Reilly And Bernie Goldberg Tear Into Benghazi Media Bias: MSNBC Is White House’s ‘Public Relations Firm’:

Bill O’Reilly brought on Bernard Goldberg tonight to analyze how much the media has covered Benghazi in the aftermath of yesterday’s big hearing. O’Reilly noted how Fox News gave it the most coverage, the nightly newscasts gave it a few minutes of coverage, and MSNBC pretty much ignored it. Goldberg said that MSNBC ignoring the story basically makes the network no more than a “public relations firm” in the employ of President Obama and the Democratic party.

O’Reilly cited statistics showing that Fox News covered the hearing live for almost two hours, CNN for roughly fifteen minutes, and MSNBC for absolutely no time at all. He pointed out that all of the network newscasts led with the big news story from Cleveland, but the CBS Evening News had the most coverage, clocking in at almost five minutes. The morning shows had similarly minimal coverage.

Here’s Goldberg’s oped: Jodi Arias, Cable TV, and a Nation Fascinated by Shiny Objects:

There are times, not many thankfully, when I get depressed, brought down by the sorry evidence that we live in a country fixated on shiny objects.  This is one of those times.

A jury in Phoenix has found Jodi Arias guilty of first-degree murder.  That’s not what gets me down.  What I find so depressing is our collective fascination with trivia, with anything that we can follow without having to actually think.

Media Mash Mainstream Media Spin – The Propaganda Networks – Hannity – Ted Cruz:

Jack Cashill wonders Has Hillary Told One Lie Too Many? Or will the MSM help drag her over the finish line in 2016?

By 2012, the major media had become so comfortable with Clinton lies that not a single one among them pointed out the grotesque irony of having an unrepentant sexual predator keynote a Democratic Convention whose theme was the “Republican war on women.”

So accustomed had Hillary grown to having her lies glossed over that she grew increasingly indignant even at the timid questions Congress threw her way at the January 2013 Benghazi hearing.

When asked by Senator Ron Johnson about her version of events, Hillary exploded in an outburst destined to be at least as famous as her “vast right wing conspiracy” jeremiad.

Said Hillary, summing up the state of public integrity in 2013, “What difference at this point does it make?” Say what you will, but as recently as January that was a legitimate question.

To be sure, Benghazi will damage Hillary, at least in the short run. But come the Iowa Caucus in 2016, look for the media to champion version 2.0 of the “Comeback Kid.” They have too much emotional equity invested in Hillary to do otherwise.

NRO: Krauthammer called the State Department response to the Benghazi hearing, “pathetic”:

Charles Krauthammer called State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell’s response to the Benghazi Hearing “pathetic.” Ventrell told reporters earlier today, ”We don’t believe that new information was necessarily presented that hadn’t been already either entered into the public record through congressional testimony or investigated by the ARB or otherwise looked at.”

Thursdays With Michelle Malkin – Benghazi Whistleblowers Speak Out – Fox & Friends – 5-9-13:

The Right Scoop: “A disgrace!” – Mark Levin says Hillary Clinton was NOT sworn in at House testimony in January:

Mark Levin says that Hillary Clinton was NOT made to take the oath back in January when she appeared before a House committee to testify on Benghazi and he says it’s a disgrace and a crying shame.

Ted Cruz: Benghazi Eight Months Later:

“What difference at this point does it make?” Secretary Clinton responded in January to questions about the nature of the Benghazi attack. “Let’s put this behind us,” Secretary of State John Kerry complained last month. Last week, White House spokesman Jay Carney dismissed press inquiries about the attack by saying, “Benghazi was a long time ago.”

But many more questions remain. Here are a dozen:

• Why was the State Department unwilling to provide the requested level of security to Benghazi?
• Were there really no military assets available to provide relief during the seven hours of the attacks? If so, why not? During the attacks, were any military assets ordered to stand down?
• If the secretary of defense thought there was “no question” this was a coordinated terrorist attack, why did Ambassador Susan Rice, Secretary Clinton, and President Obama all tell the American people that the cause was a “spontaneous demonstration” about an Internet video?
• Why did the State Department edit the intelligence talking points to delete the references to “Islamic extremists” and “al Qa’ida”?
• Why did the FBI release pictures of militants taken the day of the attack only eight months after the fact? Why not immediately, as proved so effective in the Boston bombing?
• Why have none of the survivors testified to Congress?
• Why is the administration apparently unaware of the whistle-blowers who have been attempting to tell their stories? Is it true that these career civil servants have been threatened with retaliation?
• Did President Obama sleep the night of September 11, 2012? Did Secretary Clinton?
• When was President Obama told about the murder of our ambassador? About the murder of all four Americans? What did he do in response?
• What role, if any, did the State Department’s own counterterrorism office play during the attacks and in their immediate aftermath?
• Why was Secretary Clinton not interviewed for the ARB report?
• And why, if all relevant questions were answered in the ARB report, has the State Department’s own inspector-general office opened a probe into the methods of that very report?

The All American Blogger: New Video: The Truth About Benghazi Matters:

On to other subjects…

The Other McCain: Hope and Chains: #WarOnWomen Kidnapper Is Cuyahoga County Democrat:

“If any of the brothers were a Republican, this news would have been trumpeted by the mainstream media as tangible proof of the Republican War on Women — a narrative invented by Democrat strategists and maintained by the media in a successful effort to defeat Republican candidates in the 2012 election cycle.
“However, when a real act of war on women is perpetrated by a Democrat voter in the manner that even the most zealous Democrat strategist couldn’t have dreamed up in their worst nightmares — involving abduction, imprisonment, rape, torture, malnutrition, beatings while pregnant, and killing babies — the media doesn’t think the party affiliation is relevant.”
– Oleg Atbashian, American Thinker, “Ariel Castro, Cleveland Kidnapper, Is a Registered Democrat”

Let’s be clear: The fact that Cleveland “house of horrors” suspect Ariel Castro is a registered Democrat does not mean either:

1. That all Democrats have rape dungeons in their basements;
   or
2. That every resident of Cuyahoga County is a sexual predator.

These are illogical inferences, and quite possibly harmful stereotypes. Some violent sex offenders might sue you for libel if you accuse them of being Cuyahoga County Democrats.

Fox News: Missouri lawmakers pass bill to nullify federal gun control laws:

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. –  The Missouri Legislature sent the governor a bill Wednesday that would expand gun rights and declare all federal gun regulations unenforceable, in a response to President Obama’s push for gun control legislation.

The Republican-led Legislature passed the measure hoping to shield the state from federal proposals that would ban assault weapons and expand background checks. But the U.S. Senate’s defeat of a background check expansion three weeks ago did nothing to assuage the fears of Missouri Republicans who pressed forward with their legislation.

The Missouri House voted 118-36 Wednesday to send the bill to Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon. The Senate passed the measure earlier this month.

The Right Scoop: MUST LISTEN: ICE Union president exposes Obama admin LIES on immigration enforcement:

This is huge. ICE Union president Chris Crane was invited on the Mark Levin Show tonight to explain how the Obama administration is cooking the books on immigration enforcement. What he said was pretty shocking.

According to Crane, ICE agents can no longer make street arrests of people they suspect to be an illegal aliens, illegal alien gang members or illegal alien criminals, despite having the authority to do so by laws enacted by Congress. He says they are under orders to wait until the illegal alien commits a crime, gets arrested by law enforcement and booked into a jail before they can even intercede.

Then they must wait until the illegal alien is convicted of 3 or more criminal offenses before they can put them in deportation process.

When it comes to cooking the immigration books, Crane says the record number of deportations that the Obama administration touts is a complete fraud. He calls it a shell game, saying what really happens is illegal aliens caught crossing the border by the Border Patrol and then sent back across are now added to ICE’s numbers of deportations, thus inflating the numbers immensely. Crane said last year over 50% of the deportations in ICE’s numbers were from those the border patrol agents caught and sent back across.

In reality, Crane says they now have the numbers to show that since 2008, the actual number of ICE deportations has plummeted since 2008.

Fast and Furious President Blames U.S. For Gun Violence In Mexico

Image via The Washington Post

Two and a half years after one of his administration’s Fast and Furious guns killed border patrol agent, Brian Terry, and even as the guns continue to kill Mexican citizens, Obama used his trip to Mexico as a pretext to push for gun control, blaming our lax gun laws for gun violence in Mexico.

No one ever accused him of lacking in audacity.

“Most of the guns used to commit violence here in Mexico come from the United States,” President Obama said during a speech at Mexico’s Anthropology Museum. “I think many of you know that in America, our Constitution guarantees our individual right to bear arms. And as president, I swore an oath to uphold that right, and I always will.”

“But at the same time, as I’ve said in the United States, I will continue to do everything in my power to pass common-sense reforms that keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people. That can save lives here in Mexico and back home in the United States. It’s the right thing to do,” Obama added.

Watch the video at RCP.

Are we all supposed to have forgotten about his crooked administration’s Fast and Furious gun running scheme, already? Really?

Well, I haven’t forgotten, and if this president is going to be brazen enough to go to Mexico and blame the US for their gun violence, I’m happy to remind people.

Sharyl Attkisson of CBS reported in December on one of the latest Fast and Furious gun seizures.

Another weapon from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agency’s controversial Operation Fast and Furious was recently recovered at a Mexican crime scene, CBS News has learned. Congressional investigators say the crime scene was likely where a recent shootout took place between reported Sinaloa drug cartel members and the Mexican military, in which Sinaloa beauty queen Maria Susana Flores Gamez and four others were killed.

According to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the Justice Department did not notify Congress of the Fast and Furious firearm recovery in November, even though Grassley has requested an accounting of weapons that surface from the case. During Fast and Furious, ATF allowed more than 2,000 weapons, including giant .50-caliber guns, to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels and other criminals. Other so-called “gunwalking” operations by ATF let hundreds more guns hit the street. Most of them have never been recovered.

  Brian Terry family sues ATF officials in Fast and Furious

Mexican beauty queen killed in shootout

The latest known recovery is a Romanian AK-47-type WASR-10 rifle. It was picked up at a crime scene Nov. 23 in Ciudad Guamuchil, Sinaloa, Mexico. That’s the same area and weekend of the shootout involving Flores Gamez’s death. A trace report shows the rifle was purchased by Uriel Patino, the Fast and Furious suspect who allegedly bought more than 700 weapons while under ATF’s watch.

Here’s a common sense reform that I think could go a long way toward keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous people.

Fire Atty General Eric Holder.

Infographic: A Quick Guide to Obama’s Budget

Via the Heritage Foundation, here’s a helpful infographic guide to explain Obama’s budget proposal:

Heritage experts immediately went to work analyzing the mounds of new spending on education, manufacturing, “clean energy,” infrastructure, and small business.

But the President didn’t stop at more of the same failed stimulus and Solyndra-type policies. He also piled on the tax increases—including on seniors, the poor, and the middle class.

Race-Baiting Joan Walsh Beclowns Herself At Salon

Bloggers like Matthew Boyle and Daniel Halper have noticed that the Obama family’s been on an extravagant vacation binge since the beginning of the year. Last year, the Obamas avoided going on  their usual exorbitant vacations for the good of the country because it was an election year. But now, they’re making up for lost time.

“In the first three months of the year, members of the first family have been on three vacations, averaging a vacation a month. And now it’s being reported that the first daughters are on a spring break vacation in the Bahamas,” Daniel Halper reported at the Weekly Standard.

The Obamas began the new year in Hawaii. Then Michelle and the First daughters vacationed in Aspen over President’s Day weekend. While the rest of the family was in Colorado, Obama flew to Florida for a golf weekend with Tiger Woods.

And now it’s being reported that the first daughters are on Spring Break in the Bahamas. “Sasha and Malia Obama are quietly vacationing at the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, Breitbart News has learned,” a report reads.

At Big Government, Boyle noted;

Earlier this month, the White House canceled public tours as a result of the recent budget sequester, citing Secret Service staffing costs.

According to Judicial Watch, Malia Obama’s trip to Mexico last spring break, during which she was apparently accompanied by Secret Service protection, cost taxpayers $115,500.87. Sasha did not accompany Malia on that trip.

And that’s the deadly part of the report. Obama’s sequester demagoguery – with the closing of the White House tours (ostensibly because of the Secret Service expense) which the Regime desperately wanted to blame on Republicans, (even though they tried to send Obama a bill that would have given him as much flexibility as he needed to make prudent cuts, and it was rejected by Democrats……so they could blame Republicans), is flopping badly. And this story isn’t helpful, especially in light of the fact that the Regime insisted on keeping the White House doors closed to the public, even as families traveled to Washington on Spring break, and many others will be in Washington in April to see the cherry blossoms. It doesn’t look good.

Enter shrill race-baiter, Joan Walsh, shrieking raaaaaacist to anyone who mentions this very inconvenient (to the Regime) narrative.

Arguing that Boyle’s reporting has a racial undercurrent, Walsh’s post is entitled: “How not to seem like a racist: A tip for right-wingers angry about charges of racial bias: Try treating the Obama daughters with decency.”

Walsh’s general theme, and explicit advice she repeats, is: “Try treating his [Obama's] daughters with respect.”

Walsh goes on to decry various recent reports concerning the First Daughters, noting that “[r]eporters don’t write about minor first chidren except when they’re attending ‘official or semi-official events’.” She then quotes the Washington Post‘s Paul Farhi’s writing on the subject last year:

The ban on such coverage has existed through many administrations by informal agreement with the White House Correspondents’ Association, which represents the interests of journalists who cover the president.

“There’s a general feeling among the press corps that it wants to be respectful” of the president’s children, said Caren Bohan, the White House reporter for Reuters who is president of the WHCA.

In the viciously worded article, Walsh not only refers to Boyle as “untalented” but quotes Esquire‘s Charles Pierce’s recent post describing Boyle as “that pudgy little monster.”

And, one might very well walk away agreeing at least with Walsh’s theme that reporters should all treat presidential “daughters with decency.” Fair enough. Except — oh, wait… there’s this:

Oh snap! Joan Walsh, you just got serrrrved by AJ Delgado of Mediaite.

Keep reading to fully appreciate how vicious the depraved and hypocritical Walsh was in her hit piece on the Bush girls. I remember hearing about it and thinking, good Lord, leave the girls alone. They’re in college!

But here on the right, no one is attacking the Obama daughters, personally. “Sasha and Malia Obama are quietly vacationing at the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, Breitbart News has learned” is not a personal attack. Nor is it raaaaacist.

 

We are questioning the First Family’s decision to take these expensive vacations when “we’re all supposed to be sacrificing a little.”

Since no one in the MSM wants to do it.

Related:

Speaking of race-baiters….you’ll love this via Watching the Watchdogs: SPLC — 2013 — Still No Minorities at the Top After 42 Years:

Last week, Watching the Watchdogs examined the Southern Poverty Law Center’s latest “hate map” fundraising tool and broke the amazing, astounding, unprecedented news that for the first time in history the number of alleged “hate groups” designated by the SPLC’s Public Relations chief, Mark Potok, (something even the FBI cannot do…), actually DECLINED!!

While this inconceivable turn of events left many investigators gasping in amazement, a quick head-count of the SPLC’s top executives reveals a caucus as Caucasian as it was the day Morris Dees opened the doors of the company in 1971. There are still some unbroken traditions that one can count on in this mad, mad world.

This seeming incongruity was brought to the attention of Mr. Dees 19 years ago by journalists Dan Morse and Greg Jaffe in their week-long exposé in the SPLC’s hometown newspaper, the Montgomery Advertiser, in 1994.

Hat tip: Weasel Zippers

Dingy Harry’s Long, Sordid History of Verbal Diarrhea

Harry Reid has a long, sordid history of obnoxious and offensive verbal diarrhea. It’s true that most people who spend any amount of time in front of a microphone will make the occasional verbal gaffe and often times it will be funny. But Dingy Harry’s gaffes are never funny.  They’re uniformly nasty and mortifying.

When he suggested that the horrific accident that killed eight Marines in Nevada, Monday was caused by Sequester cuts, Marines were livid.

A Marine Corps official told reporter Jim Miklaszewski at NBC that he considered Dingy’s words to be “nothing but pure political posturing on the backs of these fallen Marines.” Disgraceful.

Mark Levin unloaded on him on his show, Tuesday night.

But those who remember Reid’s borderline treasonous political posturing during the Iraq war, shouldn’t be surprised.

• He called President Bush a liar who betrayed Nevada and betrayed the country” in December of 2004.

• He called President Bush a “loser” to a captive audience, (high school kids) in a civics class a few months after his second inauguration.

• In April, 2007, he declared the Iraq War to be lost, before the surge was even fully operational. We would go on to win the war, proving Dingy’s  eulogy to be devastatingly premature.

• Last year, in one of the most egregious examples of  verbal diarrhea in political history, he told the Huffington Post that Romney’s “poor father must be so embarrassed about his son.” Reid then went on to claim, while providing no evidence,  that Romney went a decade without paying any taxes.

Saying he had “no problem with somebody being really, really wealthy,” Reid sat up in his chair a bit before stirring the pot further. A month or so ago, he said, a person who had invested with Bain Capital called his office. “Harry, he didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years,” Reid recounted the person as saying.

On the Senate floor two days after the Huffington Post story broke, Reid continued with his verbal antics and said “the word’s out that (Romney) hasn’t paid any taxes for ten years.  Let him prove that he has paid taxes, because he hasn’t.”  It is really odd that Reid argues that “the word is out” about a claim that he himself had made 48 hours earlier. Reid seems to be using himself as authority for declaring that “the word’s out” about a bogus claim that Romney dodged taxes for ten years.

Mitt Romney would go on to release enough taxes to prove that he had been paying them for the past ten years, demonstrating once again, that Dingy Harry is a contemptible liar. But as Hillary Clinton would say, “What difference does it make? The media has his back….even after slandering a Presidential candidate with spurious lies during the heat of an election – he is still the the Senate Majority Leader.

• In 2009, Sen. Reid Compared Obamacare Opponents To Supporters Of Slavery

• He called tea partiers “evil-mongers”.

• He expressed pleasure at the new Capitol Visitors Center because it meant he wouldn’t have to “smell the tourists” filling up the Capitol in the summertime.

“In the summertime, because (of) the high humidity and how hot it gets here, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol.”

• Reid also declared to the Reno Gazette-Journal in September of 2009 that Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death was “going to help” Democrats pass health care.

• He pronounced ObamaCare “The Most Important Thing We’ve Done For The Country And The World”

• In March of 2010, he cheerfully announced, “today is a big day in America. Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good.”

• He Threatened the Las Vegas Journal’s Director of Advertising at a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce luncheon.  While shaking his hand, he said “I hope you go out of business.”

• He described candidate Barack Obama as “light-skinned” with “no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.”

• He made this nasty and unsubstantiated  comment about Clarance Thomas: “I think that he has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. I think that his opinions are poorly written. I just don’t think that he’s done a good job as a Supreme Court justice.”

More foot-in mouth moments, via ABC News:

• ”You Know, Joe, I Can’t Stand John McCain.” (“Reid Shares Senate Ideas,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, 08/21/08)

• On Former Majority Leader Bill Frist: “I’ve Never Seen Such Amateurish Leadership.” (Jon Frandsen, “Senate GOP To Counter Dems’ Filibusters With 30-Hour Talkathon,” USA Today, 11/10/03)

• On General Peter Pace, Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs Of Staff: “Incompetent.” (John Bresnahan, “Reid Labels Military Leader ‘Incompetent,’” The Politico, 06/14/07)

• On Alan Greenspan, Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman: “One Of The Biggest Political Hacks We Have In Washington.” (CNN’s “Inside Politics,” 03/03/05)

• On A Member Of The Press: “Reid told one reporter she should ‘watch the [Senate] floor more often. … You might learn something.’ … Reid asked the reporter if she ‘spoke English.’ ‘Turn up your Miracle Ear,’ Reid added.” (“Reid Flares Over Media Coverage Of Energy Proposals,” FoxNews.com, 07/24/08)

• On His Republican Colleagues:  President Bush’s “49 Puppets He Has Here In The Senate.” “Everyone within the sound of my voice should understand, if that comes to be, it can go to 16th and Pennsylvania Avenue because that is what President Bush–he is the man who is pulling the strings on the 49 puppets he has here in the Senate. That is too bad for the country.” (Sen. Reid, Congressional Record, Congressional Record, S.14731, 12/04/07)

• McCain An “Old” “Snake Oil” Salesman. “But John McCain has a vision too, which in fairness I must address. When doctors screen out the quack nostrums and phony remedies we call snake oil, they use two fundamental principles: the maxim ‘first, do no harm’ and the question ‘is it safe and effective?’ In Congress, as in medicine, when we are offered snake oil as a remedy for the nation’s energy ills … kindly old Doc McCain would like to sell it to you anyway.” (Sen. Reid, Remarks To The Democratic National Convention, 8/27/08)

Linked by Doug Ross, thanks!

Brit Hume: “The President Seems Prepared To Let The Public Suffer Almost As Much As Possible As Long As He Can Blame Somebody Else”

FOX News senior political analyst Brit Hume has been making this crucial and very disturbing point for over a week: Obama is prepared to let Americans suffer needlessly as long as he can blame the GOP and and score propaganda points for Democrats.

Appearing on The O’Reilly Factor, last night, he called  Obama’s lack of leadership during the fights over the sequestration cuts,  “very unusual” which is putting it mildly.

Video via Charlie Spiering of the DC Examiner: Brit Hume: President Obama needs to ‘put his big boy pants on’:

Over at Big Journalism, John Nolte sayss that Obama’s blame game has backfired:

Thirty-eight percent of Americans place more blame on the Republicans in Congress for the failure, while 33 percent blame President Obama and the Democrats in Congress more. Nineteen percent volunteer that they blame both sides.

When you add up those numbers, you discover that 52% of Americans blame Obama for sequester, while 57% blame the GOP. In other words, all that campaigning and water-carrying by the media did next to nothing to help Obama. More than half the country blames Obama, and he’s only polling a measly 5% better than the GOP.

That’s what you call a backfire.

I would frankly need to see more Americans blaming  Obama than Republicans before I would call it a backfire, but given the fact that most of the MSM aided and abetted Obama in his hyper, weeks long, sequester blame game campaign, I would  agree that it was a narrative fail. It was certainly not everything the Regime had hoped for, thanks to a few brave journalists – Bob Woodward – first and foremost among them, who dared to speak the truth.

Meanwhile, Obama’s enablers apparently consider themselves Marvel comics superheroes when they rush to their boyfriend’s defense every time he’s criticized….

John Sexton at The Conversation introduces us to  The Progressive Left’s Marvel Team-Up Act:

Over the weekend, Bill Keller had the temerity to assign some blame for the sequester to President Obama. Within a day, the left’s commentariat had settled the issue in Obama’s favor, each linking to the other and repeating the claim that Keller was all wrong. Over at the Huffington Post, Jason Linkins summarized this group effort as a “Marvel team-up”:

It takes a Marvel team-up of three different reporters, from three different news organizations, to perform this elementary act of real-keeping. Meanwhile, Bill Keller can, in one column, undo the work of Harwood, his New York Times colleague.

Linkins actually mentions four reporters at three different news organizations, though three of the four–Klein, Sargent and Chait–are progressives who can reliably be counted on to side with the President. As far as a takedowns go, “Three Like-Minded Progressives Defend Obama” isn’t exactly red letter stuff, even if you throw in a tweet from a NY times reporter.

My response to that, here.

UPDATE:

Confirmation:

The Conversation: USDA Email: Don’t Contradict Us on Sequester’s Impact

Push-back:

The Conversation: Gohmert: No Federal Funds to Transport Obama to/from Golf Courses Until WH Tours Resume

 

 

Video: Hannity Tangles with Keith Ellison in “Waste of Time” Interview

I didn’t watch this contentious interview, live, but did hear my husband loudly reacting to it in the other room.

Right from the get-go, it seems, lefty congressman Keith Ellison launched into an angry tirade against Hannity, accusing him of being “immoral” and a liar.

He told Hannity he continuously says things that aren’t true, pointing to his consistently blaming the massive debt on President Obama. Hannity immediately stopped the interview at this point and told Ellison that having him on was a waste of time.
Ellison was on Hannity’s show to talk about the impending sequester cuts. In the midst of Ellison’s answer, Hannity cut him off to ask another question, but Ellison fired back, “No, wait a minute, you said I could rant, and I am.” Hannity said he’s had plenty of time to rant, but before he could get onto the next question, Ellison kept loudly talking. Hannity asked, “Why are you so angry?”

I’m not sure why I’m even posting this – the execrable Keith Ellison is a tough one to watch.

I really enjoyed his sycophantic mimicry of Obama Regime talking points, didn’t you? Especially the part about ending tax loopholes for yachts and jets.

Rush Limbaugh had a thing or two to say about the Regime’s plan to eliminate tax breaks for corporate and private jet owners a few days ago.

You’ve got Obama and the media and everybody running around trying to scare the hell out of people because these government people may lose their jobs.  These government departments may shut down.  This over here, that over there, it’s gonna be a disaster if we only spend $15 billion more.  Meanwhile, Obama has a tax change that he wants to implement that could literally throw thousands of people who manufacture corporate jets out of work.

I mean, this is real.  This is not some phony government sequester business.  If everybody in this sequester, if there is anybody, gets furloughed, they’re gonna get their back pay.  They always do, folks.  We had a federal employee yesterday who admitted it.  They get their back pay.  And the government shutdown of 1995, every federal employee who was laid off for a while, furloughed, got back pay as soon as they went back to work.  They get their Thanksgiving turkeys and all that.  So this is all smoke and mirrors.  But yet in the real world, where Obama’s policies are gonna cause people in the private sector to lose their jobs, well, that isn’t any big deal.

Jay Carney said, “‘I would say that making choices about budgets and deficit reduction always involves difficult choices.’  Carney then went back to the administration’s usual argument on how to avert the looming sequester — that the debate is a choice between ‘special’ tax breaks versus national defense, Head Start for children and jobs for teachers.”  That’s not what this is about.  There aren’t any special tax breaks anybody’s trying to defend here in the sequester.  The sequester’s all about government spending.

***

I’m tired of having my intelligence insulted.  What I want to focus on here is this.  This is the line from Jay Carney.  “When it’s a choice between laying teachers off or affecting our national security or, in the broader scheme, reforming our tax code in a way that eliminates these special interest tax breaks or subsidies … the question here is: What choices do we make? Do we choose to protect narrow special interest loopholes?”

So what Carney is saying here, the hell with private jet makers, the hell with the assembly line workers and everybody else involved in putting together and manufacturing, the hell with them.  We’re gonna side with teachers, and the federal government doesn’t even pay teachers.  We played this sound bite for you yesterday in a televised interview with KAKE TV Wichita.  Obama said paraphrasing, “Well, we want to give more tax breaks to all the aviation companies in Kansas so that they’re hiring here, producing there.  What we don’t want to do is give somebody who’s buying a corporate jet an extra tax break that ordinary people can’t get because they don’t need it.”

It’s none of his business who needs what.  It’s none of his business who needs or has what.  But he’s the world’s foremost authority.  He wants to determine who has enough and who doesn’t.  And then if somebody doesn’t have enough he’s gonna take from somebody he thinks does have enough, and he’s gonna give it away.  So if you happen to work at a company that makes jets, Obama is targeting your industry.  Again.  This is the second time.  The first time was shortly after he was inaugurated.  He’s doing it again.

SEE ALSO:

Twitchy: Rep. Keith Ellison has epic meltdown on Hannity, name trends worldwide:

We’ve seen a lot of politicians get angry on TV, but Rep. Keith Ellison’s “I know you are but what am I?” six-minute hissy fit on tonight’s “Hannity” is one of the worst ever — so much so it got the Democrat’s name trending.

Obama’s Organizing for Action Holds Massive Vigil Outside of NRA Headquarters (Up to 30 People)

We haven’t seen crowds like this since Sandra Fluke went on her Free Contraceptives tour, last Fall.

O the humanity:

Obama’s left-wing agitation group, Organizing for Action, called for a “Day of Action” on Friday to promote stricter gun laws and judging from this picture, about 15 people showed up. The LA Times reported that the protest drew “about 30″, which seems like a high estimate, but maybe some of the throng was off camera.

The protesters, dressed mostly in black, marched silently in front of the NRA’s glass-and-concrete building in a suburban Fairfax neighborhood, the quiet punctuated by the occasional honking of cars passing by. “2050 Gun Deaths Since Newtown,” read one sign. “Don’t Want Background Checks? What Are You Afraid Of?” read another.

“What we want to do is prove we’re not afraid of the NRA,” said Joanna Simon, a retired government consultant who organized the vigil as part of the Reston-Herndon Alliance to End Gun Violence, a group of former Obama campaign volunteers.

The small turnout underscores one of the challenges facing Organizing for Action as it gears up its efforts to promote Obama’s legislative agenda. The group, set up by top advisors to the president, is relying heavily on local volunteers to sustain its work.

Volunteers? They weren’t paid to picket? Oh – well that explains the poor showing, I guess.

Compare the pathetic death march above, organized by the president’s own top advisors,  to the Day of Resistance grass-root rallies that were held all across the nation, on Saturday.

Via Twitchy, this rally took place  in Concord, NH:

Via Doug Ross,  an even larger crowd attended a Day of Resistance rally  in sunny Phoenix:

Joplin,  MO:

Around 1000 rallied in Olean, NY:

What this guy said:

OUT GUNNED!RT ‏@nicedeb Obama’s Organizing for Action Holds Massive[30ppl] Vigil Outside of NRA HQwp.me/p4OSU-eSK #dayofresistance

— Chris Denhart (@ChrizDDv3) February 24, 2013

Don’t laugh too hard at Organizing for Action’s meager showing. I suspect that if we give them enough time, we’ll see larger crowds resembling the Occupy mobs. They’ll be the same people, too, with the same totalitarian goals as their Master.

RELATED:

Wanna see how popular Obama’s gun agenda is on Twitter?

See Stacy McCain: Hey, Nice Try With the #DemandAVote Spambots #p2! Jacked and Busted! #tcot

OK, so to push their gun-control agenda in Congress, Team Obama started the #DemandAVote hashtag, encouraging the Left to re-Tweet Obama’s message (i.e., demanding that Congress vote on the Democrats’ unconstitutional gun-control legislation).

That hashtag was instantly jacked by #tcot, but then @DefendWallSt discovered that many of the messages in favor of the Obama agenda were from spambots — phony sockpuppet accounts, usually with a blank “egg” avatar, evidently created by some Democrat P.R. operation to give the illusion that this message was more popular than it actually is. In a phrase, Twitter “Astroturf.”

FAILWHALE!

Linked by Doug Ross, The Real REVO and Hogewash, thanks!

Doesn’t Colorado Dem Rep. Joe Salazar Know “Rape is Unacceptable”?

Image via Zombie from the SF anti-rape dance/protest known as 1 Billion Rising

Democrats have their very own Todd Akin on their hands thanks to Colorado Democrat Rep. Joe Salazar. But you may not have heard about his gaffe because well – there’s a D after his name – not to mention the fact that he made his awkward rape statement while arguing in favor of something with which the media agrees:  The disarmament of law abiding college students:

“It’s why we have call boxes, it’s why we have safe zones, it’s why we have the whistles. Because you just don’t know who you’re gonna be shooting at. And you don’t know if you feel like you’re gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone’s been following you around or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop … pop around at somebody.”

I’m going to have to join my brave sistas on the left coast and speak truth to power! Because rape is unacceptable! Down with rape! Violence sucks!

Image via Zombie from the SF anti-rape dance/protest known as 1 Billion Rising

Rape should be heavily discouraged – that’s why women should be able to fight back with whatever means are available to them; in addition to “whistles” and “ballpoint pens”, that would include legally owned firearms.

Why? Because…..

Image via Zombie from the SF anti-rape dance/protest known as 1 Billion Rising

SEE ALSO:

Twitchy: Lefties freak over #LiberalTips2AvoidRape hashtag, silent on Dems who want women defenseless:

When Todd Akin suggested women have natural defenses against impregnation by rape-sperm, “women have ways to shut that whole thing down” became a punchline and political bludgeon for months. Dems insisted Akin was the spokesman for the entire GOP, Team Obama recruited Sandra Fluke to fundraise off of his remarks, and lefties targeted Akin with oh-so-civil rape wishes.

But when genius Colorado Democrat Joe Salazar insisted hysterical womenfolk can’t be trusted to accurately identify a rape threat, much less fend one off with anything more powerful than a 9mm whistle? Crickets from the For the Women™ crowd. Perhaps they agree with Salazar: It’s not “rape-rape” until a male Dem gives his stamp of approval, you dumb broads.

And when the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs issued tips for “passive resistance” to rape, like on-demand vomiting and fake menstruation? Chirp, chirp, chirp.

But somehow, the feminist pearl-clutchers found the strength to take up a new cause when they caught wind of @SooperMexican’s #LiberalTips2AvoidRape hashtag.

Can’t we all agree RAPE IS BAD?

Twitchy: Rep. Joe Salazar: Give women whistles, not guns; ‘You may actually not be’ at risk of rape; Update: Salazar apologizes ‘if’ he offended anyone:

Salazar Rape Kits viajRaiffie on Twitter:

 

MSNBC Busted AGAIN For Deceptively Editing Video To Make Conservatives Look Bad (Video)

What slimeballs. The projecting hypocrites of Obama’s media arm constantly do what they accuse others of doing.

Jim Treacher of the DC Trawler explained what happened:

Here’s footage that MSNBC has just released of Neil Heslin, whose son was murdered in Newtown, speaking at a public meeting on gun control. It’s presented with the headline, “Emotional father of Sandy Hook victim heckled by gun nuts”:

You can watch the MSNBC  video at the Caller. YouTube has many other examples of ObamaMedia wannabes posting  similarly  edited videos.  Here’s one of the sloppier ones.

Telegraph TV got into the act, as well.

Neil Heslin, whose six-year-old son Jesse was killed in the Sandy Hook massacre is heckled by gun activists as he begs for tighter firearms restrictions.

The unedited clip tells a completely different story – one that is actually of no use to the gun grabbing community.

Video via Say Anything

He wasn’t heckled AT ALL, as Treacher and everyone else on the planet who has seen the complete video, can see:

He asked the question and demanded an answer. There was complete silence. And only then, when he said that not one person could answer it — rather than remaining quiet out of respect for his feelings — did a few people answer it. You might not like their answer if you don’t like the Second Amendment, but that answer wasn’t unprompted. They were not heckling him.

How stupid do they think people are? Stupid enough to reelect Obama.

I guess I can see why they try this crap.

Previous MSNBC Hack Jobs:

MSNBC’s “Supermarket Scanner Moment”

How desperate are the ObaMedia to get their fubar candidate reelected?

How about this. They resurrect a tired old meme about rich Republican candidates being “out of touch” with the average American because the modern supermarket electronic technology befuddle and “amaze” them. Andrea Mitchell wants us all to remember poppy Bush’s “supermarket scanners moment”…Now all these years later, we find that Mitt too, is “confused and frightened” by modern technology because these “out of touch” Republicans are just like SNL’s Caveman Lawyer or something.

But MSNBC “selectively edited” the tape to make it look like Romney was bringing up Wawa’s touchtone ordering system for no other reason than to express surprise.

NBC Deliberately Skewed Travyvon Martin Story with Selective Editing

Reacting angrily to selective editing by NBC that suggested racial animus by George Zimmerman, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell complained to Fox News’s Sean Hannity last night that NBC News was engaged in an “all-out falsehood.” The story in question was a March 27 Ron Allen report on NBC’s ‘Today’ in which 911 audio was edited to make it sound like George Zimmerman said “he looks black” immediately after saying “this guy looks like he’s up to no good.”

In the actual 911 audio, Zimmerman only described Martin’s race after the dispatcher asked, “And this guy: is he white, black, or Hispanic?” “To edit that out is so distorting,” Hannity complained. “Sean, it’s not distorting, it’s advancing a falsehood, it’s worse,” Bozell corrected the Fox News anchor. [see video below page break]

MSNBC: ObamaCare Protesters ‘Racist,’ Including Black Gun-Owner

On Tuesday, MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer fretted over health care reform protesters legally carrying guns: “A man at a pro-health care reform rally…wore a semiautomatic assault rifle on his shoulder and a pistol on his hip….there are questions about whether this has racial overtones….white people showing up with guns.” Brewer failed to mention the man she described was black.

Following Brewer’s report, which occurred on the Morning Meeting program, host Dylan Ratigan and MSNBC pop culture analyst Toure discussed the supposed racism involved in the protests. Toure argued: “…there is tremendous anger in this country about government, the way government seems to be taking over the country, anger about a black person being president….we see these hate groups rising up and this is definitely part of that.” Ratigan agreed: “…then they get the variable of a black president on top of all these other things and that’s the move – the cherry on top, if you will, to the accumulated frustration for folks.”

Not only did Brewer, Ratigan, and Toure fail to point out the fact that the gun-toting protester that sparked the discussion was black, but the video footage shown of that protester was so edited, that it was impossible to see that he was black. The man appeared at a health care rally outside of President Obama’s speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Phoenix, Arizona.

MSNBC’s Ed Schultz Selectively Edits Video To Make Perry Look Racist

GOP Presidential candidate Rick Perry calls President Obama a black cloud over our economy. MSNBC’s Ed Schultz edits the clip to make it look like Perry is calling Obama a “black cloud.”

SEE ALSO:

John Nolte, Big Journalism: NBC News Caught Using Deceptive Edit … Again

Twitchy: Outrageous: How the left-wing media lied about Newtown ‘hecklers’

Twitchy: Hours after heckling hoax was debunked, UPI posts selectively-edited video

Twitchy: Reuters editor who got Newtown ‘heckling’ story wrong goes on factually-challenged anti-Twitchy rant

Twitchy: Sick: Piers Morgan pimps interview with ‘heckled’ Sandy Hook victim’s father

UPDATE:

Folks, I just finished reading some of the Twitchy posts, and I highly recommend you do too, so you completely understand just what it is we’re dealing with.

-

It’s confounding how many libs are peddling obvious lies. The video was debunked this morning, yet some news outlets are continuing with the BS. Piers Morgan will interview the Sandyhook dad on his show, tonight. Time will tell if he plays along with the left-wing narrative, or do the honorable thing and tell the truth.

-

See, these progs come in two types – 1. the ringleading committed lefty hacks like Eric Boehlert and Piers Morgan who dupe people for a living and are proud of it because the ends justify the means. Every lie they tell takes us one step closer to their Socialist Utopia in their minds.  And 2. the mindless drones who follow them. They have been conditioned to think what their betters tell them to think, not to think things out on their own. The truth to them is like garlic to a vampire. It’s not easy accepting that you’re entire worldview is based on left-wing agitprop.

-

Twitchy is doing God’s work tracking the organized left’s antics and exposing their lies and hypocrisy on Twitter. Little by little, we’re chipping away at their effectiveness by shining the light of truth on their putrid BS.

UPDATE II:

Twitchy: Shock: A few lefty outlets acknowledge media were wrong about Newtown ‘heckling’; Piers Morgan ‘apologizes,’ sort of

Twitchy: David Frum doubles down on ‘heckling’ lie; Update: Triples down

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Linked by Maggie’s Farm, and iOWNTHEWORLD,  thanks!

Piers Morgan’s Massive Hypocrisy

I rarely watch CNN and I sure as hell don’t watch the treacherous, phone-hacking,  tabloid plagiarist, Piers Morgan. Lately, watching YouTube clips of his hysterical anti-gun antics has been hard to avoid, though, as he hectors conservative guest after  guest, chiding them, insulting them and talking over them, because demagogue that he is,  he understands that allowing the enemy to get their point across means death to his political argument. Better to interrupt and yammer on about tanks. The political strawman. What would left wing hacks do without it?

What fun Dana Loesch would have had if she had been privy to this information the other night, when Piers ridiculed her suggestion that the New York man who was viciously attacked by a gang of 7 might have defended himself with a gun had New York’s strict gun laws not been in place.

Via The Daily Caller:

In 2004 Morgan penned an op-ed for the Evening Standard headlined “I can’t be liberal on burglars,” in which he said he said a series of home invasions and robberies at his home made him wish for a gun. Britain, which had banned all guns, had seen a rash of break-in burglaries, one of which took the life of financier John Monckton.

If Monckton “had killed one of those burglars while defending himself … then he would now be facing a jail sentence for manslaughter or even murder,” Morgan wrote. “No part of my liberalism allows me to deem this fair.”

“I am now so liberal on most things that my army-officer brother likes to refer to me as a ‘wet, pinko, cheese-eating surrender monkey,’” Morgan wrote. “I’m antiwar, don’t like foxhunting, feel threatened by ID cards, and think cannabis should be decriminalised.”

Heads up there for the next conservative who goes on his show, (not that I recommend it.) The next time he claims to be knowledgeable about guns because of his army officer brother (he’s actually done this), respond with a giggle, “oh, the one who called you a ‘wet, pinko, cheese-eating surrender monkey?”  Just to knock him off his game, a little.

I wonder if that was before or after he resigned in disgrace from The London Daily Mirror for publishing fraudulent pictures of British soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq. Given that the Regiment’s Brigadier said the pictures severely damaged the reputation of the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment (QLR), and a former regiment commander of the QLR said the pictures actually put lives in danger, serving as a “recruiting poster” for al-Qaeda – it’s a wonder Piers’ brother didn’t have worse things to say about him. He got off easy with ‘wet, pinko, cheese-eating surrender monkey.’

But listen to  Piers as he argues that violence is sometimes necessary and excusable if it’s to protect oneself  and one’s property.

“I wouldn’t shoot anyone because, like most people in this country, I’m not licensed to carry a gun,” he insisted. “But if I woke up to find a thug in my house at 2am, stealing my hard-earned things, and posing a clear and present threat to my wellbeing and perhaps that of my children, then I wouldn’t hesitate to grab the hardest thing I could find and defend myself.”

“And if I killed a burglar in that situation, I would expect the law to be on my side, not the despicable little toerag defiling my life.”

Morgan applauded Sir John Stevens, then the commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, “for urging the law to better empower householders to defend themselves properly” because “for an elderly woman living on her own a burglary, violent or otherwise, must be a liferuining experience.”

It almost sounded like he would shoot someone breaking into his home – if guns were legal.

Who else would Piers Morgan shoot if he owned a gun? Oh, after he was fired from the Daily Mirror, he described for The Daily Mail  what he would do to his professional enemies, including Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson, writer A.A. Gill and editor Ian Hislop if he owned a fully automatic MACHINE GUN.

Video via The Independent Sentinel:

Hat tip: Ali Akbar, Viral Read.

Obama State Dept to Parents of Marine Jailed in Mexico: “Sorry, We Can’t Do Anything to Help” (Video)

John Hammar, like Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens – not a priority to our State Dept.

The parents of Jon Hammar, the former Iraq and Afghanistan War Vet who is being held in Mexico on gun charges, were on with Bill O’Reilly, Tuesday night to discuss his plight.. The parents told O’Reilly that the State Department had told them”over and over”  that “they can’t do anything” to help them.

As I reported on Monday,  the 27 year old Hammar has been languishing in a Mexican prison cell in Matamoros since August, confined to solitary confinement and now is chained to his bed as our nation’s leaders do nothing to help him.

Bill O’Reilly has been on the case for weeks, determined to move authorities to act on his behalf. He was shocked when Mr. and Mrs. Hammar told him that they had been in contact with the State Dept. and had been told repeatedly that they couldn’t help them.

“Is that right?! O’Reilly exclaimed, “they said they can’t do anything?! Oh that’s a bunch of bull, he added, certainly they can do something! Certainly Obama can do something!”

Hills might want to get on this, ASAP, now that the cat is out of the bag. If this soldier Marine! ends up dying in a Mexican prison because once again,  her department failed to act – all the stomach viruses and fainting spells in the world won’t be enough to save her legacy.

Via Katie Pavlich of Townhall,  Greta Van Susteren makes an excellent point:

Last night Greta Van Susteren made the point that governments fight to get their people out of foreign countries all the time, pointing out the Lockerbie bomber’s release back to Libya after killing hundreds but in this case, the U.S. government has done very little to help.

What you can do to help:

Please sign the White House petition to exert pressure on the Obama administration to demand that Mexico Authorities release Hammar immediately.

Total number of signatures on this petition as of Tuesday night, 10:06 pm is 21,650 and counting. 25,000 signatures are needed by January 06, 2013 for the request to be taken up by Obama. Help bring Jon Hammar home.

God willing, this Marine could be home in time for Christmas.

UPDATE:

Jon Hammar’s mother told  KFI’s  John and Ken Show (LA) that he may be released from a Mexican jail later this week – possibly Friday.

Hat tip: Gateway Pundit

MSM: Go Away Conservative Media – We Have it Covered

Well they WOULD have it covered if conservatives weren’t constantly jumping in, politicizing stuff, making mountains out of molehills, and generally mucking things up with their silly, obnoxious conservative spin.

 Washington Post blogger, Erik Wemple explains why the media was justified in embargoing the Steven Crowder story:

… if folks are truly scandalized by the lack of generalized media outrage about Crowder’s treatment, they should take a second look at Crowder’s actions. Though he appears to have carried himself nobly while under attack, he’s gone buffoonish since then. He said on Twitter yesterday that this is “getting fun.” He challenged his assailant to a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fight. And he has generally sounded as if he’s enjoying this boost to his career prospects, in a way that his Halloween-candy-exposes-the-fraud-of-income-redistribution stunt did not.Given how Crowder has carried on, I, too, may well pass on the story of his beating, were I a network executive producer.

Of course, this is a standard applied only to conservatives – as Ace notes, Sandra Fluke also “engaged in a great deal of partisan political agitation with a strong component of self-promotion (hiring a PR firm, for example!)”

The media offered the same excuse for not covering Benghazi– Oh, we wanted to cover Benghazi, and would have covered it, but then Mitt Romney tried to raise it as an issue for us to cover, so we couldn’t of course cover it.

It’s important to note, here, that the conservative media did jump in right away and vigorously covered the Benghazi story, which had all the earmarks of a scandal, right from the beginning. The MSM used to be good at sniffing out scandals. But when there’s a hotly contested presidential race to win, and their Precious could be hurt by their reportage – not so much…

Ace continues…

Liberal sort of logic here, eh? If a conservative wants a genuinely newsworthy story covered (as Wemple admits this is, before these defend-the-media paragraphs), then the liberal media is required to shut that conservative out. The story becomes non-coverable simply because an important actor in it — a conservative — wishes it to be covered.

What liberals really want is for us to go back to the days before talk radio, and cable news, when their monopoly on the news business was complete. The  choice for conservatives apparently is to either shut up and wait for them to cover important stories (like Benghazi, or Fast and Furious) on their own (which presumably they’d do with the conservative media out of the way) – or we continue to shine a light on the stories we know they would embargo no matter what we did.

Because it’s not about us, at all. It’s about THEM and their need to spin stories that are helpful to their side, and ignore the ones that aren’t.

So cut the crap, Wemple.

Linked by Doug Ross, thanks!

Video: Obama Defends Susan Rice: “She’s Done Exemplary Work”

In case you missed it, Obama’s press conference went off just as predicted -  the lapdog media threw mostly softballs and didn’t challenge the president who gave his usual long winded answers.

This noteworthy exchange on Benghazi gave him a neat opportunity to demonstrate righteous anger at the way his loyal underling, Susan Rice is being treated by mean ol’ Republicans, transcript via NY Times Politics:

Q: Thank you, Mr. President. Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham both said today that they want to have Watergate-style hearings on the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and said that if you nominate Susan Rice to be secretary of state, they will do everything in their power to block her nomination. As Senator Graham said, he simply doesn’t trust Ambassador Rice after what she said about Benghazi. I’d like your reaction to that. And would those threats deter you from making a nomination like that?

Video via Weasel Zippers

OBAMA: Well, first of all, I’m not going to comment at this point on various nominations that I’ll put forward to fill out my Cabinet for the second term. Those are things that are still being discussed.

But let me say specifically about Susan Rice, she has done exemplary work. She has represented the United States and our interests in the United Nations with skill and professionalism and toughness and grace. As I’ve said before, she made an appearance at the request of the White House in which she gave her best understanding of the intelligence that had been provided to her. If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me. And I’m happy to have that discussion with them. But for them to go after the U.N. ambassador, who had nothing to do with Benghazi and was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received and to besmirch her reputation is outrageous.

You know what’s outrageous? No one followed up with the question; “okay then, who in your administration supplied her with the bogus intelligence?”

Oh, because that’s still “under investigation.”

They’re looking at the guy, for God’s sake.

And you know, we’re after an election now.

Nice – the same pissy thing he told John McCain during the ObamaCare summit in Feb, 2010, “the election is over, John.” Whenever someone questions this corrupt regime’s maneuvers, you see, it’s “politics.”  Pissant.

I think it is important for us to find out exactly what happened in Benghazi, and I’m happy to cooperate in any ways that Congress wants. We have provided every bit of information that we have, and we will continue to provide information. And we’ve got a full-blown investigation, and all that information will be disgorged to Congress.

Here’s some questions he could answer right now, but none of the lapdogs dared ask it: What did you, Panetta, and Biden talk about during your 5:00 meeting on 9/11? What were you doing on the night of 9/11? Did you watch any of the attack as it was being livestreamed in the situation room? Those answers might be interesting. But instead we get to hear twaddle like this:

And I don’t think there’s any debate in this country that when you have four Americans killed, that’s a problem. And we’ve got to get to the bottom of it, and there needs to be accountability. We’ve got to bring those who carried it out to justice. They won’t get any debate from me on that.

But when they go after the U.N. ambassador, apparently because they think she’s an easy target, then they’ve got a problem with me. And should I choose — if I think that she would be the best person to serve America in the capacity — the State Department, then I will nominate her. That’s not a determination that I’ve made yet.

I’ve got a problem with liars, and thus I have a problem with this entire regime.

And so does Lindsey Graham:

Lindsey Graham statement: "Mr. President, don’t think for one minute I don’t hold you ultimately responsible for Benghazi."

—
Alexis Levinson (@alexis_levinson) November 14, 2012

Graham statement (cont'd): "I think you failed as Commander in Chief before, during, and after the attack. "

—
Alexis Levinson (@alexis_levinson) November 14, 2012

BOOM. And that’s what one of our biggest RINOs is saying.

SEE ALSO:

Ace: “Come After Me:” Obama Offers Rehearsed Tough-Guy Message on Benghazi, But Avoids Actual Answers:

Also: “the intelligence she received.” Passive voice. Why does he avoid saying who gave her the intelligence? It’s a shifty construction. If there was nothing amiss, he should have no problems specifying who gave her this “intelligence.”

You avoid naming names when you have something to hide.

He calls the exchange, “sick-making.” Everything about this President is sick-making.

Gateway Pundit: OBAMA CONFRONTED ON BENGHAZI – Says He “Gave Order” to Keep Our People Safe – But Dodges Specifics (Video):

WOW! Obama was confronted today by Ed Henry from FOX News if he “made an order” to save the heroes in Benghazi. —
He says he gave the order to “keep our people safe.”

** But he WOULD NOT ANSWER if he gave a direct order to save our men in Benghazi!!

It was the only meaningful question from the whole press conference.
The lapdog media was particularly timid this afternoon.

John Nolte, Big Journalism: Obama Presser: Chuck Todd Wins, Jessica Yellin and America Lose:

You would think that after eight months, the media would be loaded for bear when the opportunity finally arose to ask President Obama serious questions about something other than a campaign — especially in the wake of Libya, an anemic economic recovery, and the oncoming fiscal cliff.

You would think the media would want some — no — would demand some answers as to why for two whole weeks we were told Libya was the result of a video as opposed to a premeditated terror attack.

But if you think that, you don’t understand our media.

A few questions were asked about Libya — but really only two. One Libya question was really about the President’s willingness to stand by and support U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice after Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham’s said today they would oppose her being nominated for Secretary of State. Many, including myself, believe Rice was willingly trotted out on all the Sunday shows a week after the September 11 anniversary attack to lie about Libya not being premeditated.

To this question, Obama replied forcefully, challenging McCain and Graham to come after him instead of Rice. In other words, like he did during the debates, Obama used faux indignation as a defense against his dishonest mishandling of Libya, because this is something he knows his media pals will eat up. And eat it up they have.

Ben Shapiro, Big Government:  Obama Press Conference: Stonewalls on Benghazi, Petraeus, Pushes Tax Hikes:

Today, President Obama held his first press conference in five months. It was a bizarre mix of softball questions from his press sycophants, false righteous indignation from the president over his administration’s Benghazi failures and lies, and an oddly blustery position shift on tax hikes as opposed to tax loopholes.

Obama opened his press conference with his usual patter about class warfare and the fiscal cliff, insisting on raising taxes first and foremost. Then a reporter asked him about whether he knew about the Petraeus investigation – or whether he should have known. “I have no evidence at this point that classified information was disclosed … there’s an ongoing investigation, and I don’t want to comment on the specifics of that investigation.” Obama then threw the ball to FBI Director Robert Mueller.  Obama did say that “by his own assessment, he did not meet the standards” he needed to as director of the CIA. “It’s on that basis that I accepted [his resignation],” Obama added.

“We’re not supposed to meddle in criminal investigations, and that’s been our practice,” said Obama, ignoring his long history of meddling in criminal investigations including Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Trayvon Martin.

Washington Free Beacon: BEASTMODE: McCain: ‘That’s one of the dumbest questions I’ve ever heard’:

Sen. John McCain was asked Wednesday if there was a greater national security threat in the classified documents uncovered in the Petraeus scandal than in the Benghazi terrorist attack that killed four Americans.

Bear. not. happy.

RCP: Krauthammer: If Susan Rice Didn’t Know Anything About Benghazi, “Why The Hell Are You Sending Her Out?”

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: AYou called at it a show of passion, I would say it was his usual show of indignation, which is his default response whenever he feels defensive or backed into a corner. ‘How dare you attack my U.N. ambassador?’ And then he gives the strangest defense by saying she didn’t have anything to do with the Benghazi [attack]. Then why the hell are you sending her out there? Why didn’t you send out the Secretary of State, or the CIA Director, or [Secretary of Defense] Panetta or somebody, who did know?

And then he does play the sort of Lancelot defending the mistress in distress? It made Mitt Romney and the binders with women look positively feminist in comparison, this kind of patronizing attack on the two male Senators who would dare attack the girl, which what was intended in his tone. This is all the usual — you know, if you attack the pride, he’ll strike you on that. It was clearly defensive, and it was also a stonewall. I mean, after all, what she said was absolutely and completely misleading. Either inadvertently, in which case it’s complete incompetence or on purpose, in which case it’s deception. Then he basically, he took the bait on that and said, ‘Look, that wasn’t her speaking, that was me speaking. If you want to pick on somebody, pick on me.’

How can anybody pick on him or even question him, if he hadn’t had a press conference in eight months? You know, he clearly hasn’t been out there. He’s been hiding behind inquiries, behind investigations, and now behind Susan Rice. But now I think he’s out there, and he is vulnerable on this. I think he may regret having said that.

Video at link.

America Live with Megyn Kelly: Obama sends confusing message with Susan Rice comments:

President reveals White House sent out UN ambassador to address Benghazi attacks, but says she had ‘nothing to do’ with Libya probe

With Kirsten Powers who makes many of the same points Charles Krauthammer did-  video at link.

Powers  seems to have turned on this president over the Benghazi issue.

And you know….go back and read that statement from Lindsey Graham. Obama’s not getting any kind of honeymoon this time around. (Outside of his biggest fans – the MSM, that is.)

Linked by Michelle Malkin, and The Lonely Conservative, and Lady Liberty,  thanks!

BREAKING: Obama Refuses To Answer Repeated Questions On Whether Requests For Help In Benghazi Were Denied

Kyle Clark of 9 News in Denver, CO  asked his Twitter followers for questions to pose to the Commander-in-Chief in his interview with him today. Many respondents asked for him to ask about Benghazi – specifically, who denied the requests for help. Clark’s first question to the President was, “were the Americans under attack in Libya denied requests for help during that attack, and is it fair to tell Americans that what happened is under investigation and we’ll all find out what happened after the election?”

9News  reported:

KUSA – President Barack Obama would not directly address questions from 9NEWS on whether Americans under attack in Libya were denied requests for assistance during the September 11th terror attack.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Friday that the military did not send immediate help to the consulate in Benghazi because commanders lacked enough information about the ongoing attack to put troops in harm’s way.

President Obama discussed the situation in Libya during a satellite interview Friday afternoon with 9NEWS reporter Kyle Clark, who also asked if it’s fair for Americans to be told to wait until after the election to learn what truly happened in Libya.

“The election has nothing to do with four brave Americans getting killed and us wanting to find out exactly what happened,” President Obama said. “Nobody wants to find out more what happened than I do.”

President Obama was directly asked twice whether pleas for help on the ground in Libya were denied during the attack. Both times, he repeated his standard call for a thorough investigation.

You can watch the full interview of the President refusing to answer the questions at Colorado Peak Politics.

UPDATE:

Petraeus finally weighs in on this deal.

Ace of Spades HQ: David Petraeus: No One In the CIA Ordered Operatives To Stand Down

So hmmm. Who does that leave? It’s under investigation.

Hat tip: Sooper Mexican