He Doesn’t Even Make the Effort Anymore…

Obama Fails to Salute Marine

I guess once they’ve held an umbrella over your head, the Pres feels you’ve lost your credibility.

Nobel Peace Prize Update…

Is The White House Outsourcing It’s Kill And Capture Operations Against Certain Terror Groups?

“Outsourcing” is a dirty word in Washington these days. But officials are strangely silent when it involves targeted killings. This column has repeatedly focused on the scope, distinction, legality, and strategic effectiveness of America’s Third War of non-battlefield targeted killings in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and the Philippines. Among the most widely promulgated criticisms of U.S. drone strikes is the absence of any transparency in decision making, limited congressional and judicial oversight, and the potential for civilian harm without any apparent corrective action. Policymakers and analysts have offered suggestions for how — over 10 years after they began — the Obama administration could comprehensively reform its targeted killing policies. Finally, President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder promised some reforms related to transparency “in the months ahead.” That was several months ago. Given the Obama administration’s refusal to provide witnesses to recent congressional hearings on drones — or answer clarifying questions posed by journalists and policymakers — it is likely that forthcoming announcements will fall short of the president’s repeated goal of making his, “the most transparent administration in history.”

Who’s history? The Soviet Union’s?

And I Think You Need To Retire, McCain

McCain Defends Obama Against Impeachment For Benghazi, Will ‘Give President Benefit Of The Doubt’

Senator John McCain, who famously defended his then presidential opponent Barack Obama against an islamaphobic supporter during a 2008 campaign rally, defended President Obama once again on ABC’s This Week Sunday, cautioning his Republicans colleagues to cool it with talk of impeaching the President over the Benghazi attacks and its aftermath.

In response to Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) invoking the “I word,” McCain called for caution:

“With all due respect, I think this is a serious issue,” McCain told guest host Martha Raddatz. “I will even give the president the benefit of the doubt on some of these things. We need a select committee.”

What Could Go Wrong?

Pentagon Paying China — Yes, China — To Carry Data

The Pentagon is so starved for bandwidth that it’s paying a Chinese satellite firm to help it communicate and share data.

U.S. troops operating on the African continent are now using the recently-launched Apstar-7 satellite to keep in touch and share information. And the $10 million, one-year deal lease — publicly unveiled late last week during an ordinarily-sleepy Capitol Hill subcommittee hearing — has put American politicians and policy-makers in bit of a bind. Over the last several years, the U.S. government has publicly and loudly expressed its concern that too much sensitive American data passes through Chinese electronics — and that those electronics could be sieves for Beijing’s intelligence services. But the Pentagon says it has no other choice than to use the Chinese satellite. The need for bandwidth is that great, and no other satellite firm provides the continent-wide coverage that the military requires.

“That bandwidth was available only on a Chinese satellite,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Doug Loverro told a House Armed Services Committee panel, in remarks first reported by InsideDefense.com. “We recognize that there is concerns across the community on the usage of Chinese satellites to support our warfighter. And yet, we also recognize that our warfighters need support, and sometimes we must go to the only place that we can get it from.”

Beat to a Pulp By a Girl

US sailor thwarts Dubai bus driver rapist after putting him in strangehold with her thighs and then beating him into submission

An off-duty US navy sailor wrestled a bus driver to the ground and beat him into submission after he attempted to rape her at knife point, a court heard yesterday.

Prosecutors said that she knocked the knife from his hand, broke it in two, bit him in the hand, forced him to the ground and locked him between her thighs.

The woman, 28, was on 24-hour shore leave in Dubai and was attacked as she returned to the port where she was based after a day shopping.

 

Inside the Battle of Hoth

Wired

How did the Galactic Empire ever cement its hold on the Star Wars Universe? The war machine built by Emperor Palpatine and run by Darth Vader is a spectacularly bad fighting force, as evidenced by all of the pieces of Death Star littering space. But of all the Empire’s failures, none is a more spectacular military fiasco than the Battle of Hoth at the beginning of The Empire Strikes Back.

From a military perspective, Hoth should have been a total debacle for the Rebel Alliance. Overconfident that they can evade Imperial surveillance, they hole up on unforgiving frigid terrain at the far end of the cosmos. Huddled into the lone Echo Base are all their major players: politically crucial Princess Leia; ace pilot Han Solo; and their game-changer, Luke Skywalker, who isn’t even a Jedi yet…

Inhofe Sees ‘Cover-Up’ in Benghazi

Hmmm…Ya think??

The ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday accused the Obama administration of covering up the true nature of last year’s fatal attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, amplifying yet another political proxy battle between the White House and Republicans.

James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma said his panel would focus on the military’s response to the assault. But, he said, “as bad as everything that I’ve stated is, what I think is worse is the cover-up.”

The Empty Chair In Practice

DaTechGuy

Major General Gunther Blumentritt:This is history. We are living a historical moment. We are going to lose the war because our glorious Führer has taken a sleeping pill and is not to be awakened. It’s unbelievable. Think of it Kurt. Don’t ever forget it. We are witnessing something that historians will always say is completely improbable, and yet it is true. The Führer is not to be awakened!  I sometimes wonder whose side God is on

The Longest Day 1962

Lt. Kaminsky:You wanted confirmation, Captain? Take a look! There’s your confirmation!

Tora Tora Tora 1970

Do you remember when Clint Eastwood did his empty chair bit at the GOP convention. The left berated him as an old senile weirdo.

Then came the Denver Debate and the New Yorker Cover, conservatives laughed and liberals panicked.

While some thought it a joke and some thought it a farce the true meaning of the empty chair was never clearer than it was at the Benghazi hearings.

Under questioning from South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta could not explain why President Barack Obama spoke with him only once on Sept. 11, 2012 during the Benghazi terrorist attack, and never called back for any updates for over seven hours.

The actual testimony is astounding:

Sen Lindsey Graham (R-SC)….And my question to you is during that eight-hour period, did the president show any curiosity about how’s this going, what kind of assets do you have helping these people? Did he ever make that phone call?

SEC. PANETTA: Look, there is no question in my mind that the president of the United States was concerned about American lives and, frankly, all of us were concerned about American lives.

SEN. GRAHAM: With all due respect, I don’t believe that’s a credible statement if he never called and asked you, are we helping these people; what’s happening to them?

he story is that on 9/11 during an attack on Americans in Benghazi (including a person he knew personally) the President of the United States was disinterested.

Yesterday Ace wrote a story titled: I always wondered what happened to that empty chair saying it was it Reince Priebus office.

He’s wrong.

The empty chair is in the White House, we as a nation put it there…

…and Americans were left to die.

The administration is banking on the fact that we have become a nation bent on never lingering long on any one thing. Look at Sesame Street, look at CNNs Headline News. If they throw new and shiny things our way, the remembrance of men dying will be just a blip on the radar before it fades into oblivion. Don’t let it. We did this by reelecting a man incapable of feeling anything that can’t garner him ratings on TV. “Never let a tragedy go to waste.” Remember Benghazi and those who died.

What Difference Does It Make?

Thank you, Hil, for clarifying that for us…

Nobel Peace Prize Update, Obama Style…

Court: Feds can keep drone legal opinions secret

The U.S. Government has no legal duty to disclose legal opinions justifying the use of drones to kill suspected terrorist operatives abroad, although doing so would contribute to “intelligent” public debate over the legality of that practice, a federal judge wrote in a ruling issued Wednesday.

In her decision, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen McMahon largely rejected lawsuits brought by the New York Times and the American Civil Liberties Union seeking to use the Freedom of Information Act to make public more details about the legal basis for the drone programs.

“There are indeed legitimate reasons, historical and legal, to question the legality of killings unilaterally authorized by the Executive that take place otherwise than on a ‘hot’ field of battle,” McMahon wrote in a 68-page public opinion filed along with a secret, classified appendix. She cited the Constitution’s guarantee of “due process,” the Constitutional provision regarding treason and a specific criminal statute that prohibits any American from killing another American abroad.