All About Politics – All About Optics – All The Time

Every single move our President takes is determined by political winds…..
Wow.  Just wow.   The speech by President Obama this afternoon was just staggeringly unreal.   Bizzarro World Type pretzel contortions.    The speech was short, but in a surprising twist Obama announced he will seek congressional authority on attacking Syria even though he believes he has the authority to go ahead with strike. (this really is must watch stuff – even if you find yourself challenged to stick with it through the absurd nature of what you are bearing witness to)

Following the speech Charles Krauthammer accurately captured several optical realities.
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….The issue at the time was American Independence, 230+ years ago. 

More on the historical context HERE

Having watched a media cycle it’s obvious.   President Obama is going to strike Syria;  Alone.
Imagine if George W Bush refused to consult congress, garner congressional (ie. the peoples’) support, proceeded without U.N. mandate, defied the U.N. Security Council, ignored the entire international community and also failed to secure any allied backing prior to attacking another nation.
Think about it?
Seriously.   Given the history of the U.S. media and military conflict – Think about it?
Our ally, “The” #1 Ally, America’s strongest EVER -in the history of EVER- ally, Great Britain says: “meh, nah, you’re on your own with this one mate“…   ENGLAND?  Bloody Hell?…. we can’t even get them?
This Presidential hypocrisy is larger than all other familiar, and frequent, hypocrisies yet from this leftist administration; and that is saying a lot – because there have been a bunch of them.   This one however, is so blazingly incredulous, the light from where incredulous hides would not reach this example for a lifetime. (more…)

I’m telling ya, this is de-ja-vu all over again…. As expected, the golfer-in-chief looks into his political 8-ball and says about Syria – pick the course of action that makes me look strong, makes me look good enough, not wanting to be mocked……   Nuf said.    He knows he’s turning this into a win for al-Qaeda, but he needs it to look like he’s magnanimous or something…. 
Remember in Libya, the Golfer even defied his own Office of Legal Council advice, and violated the central restrictions on his own executive power… 

Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon general counsel, and Caroline D. Krass, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, had told the White House that they believed that the United States military’s activities in the NATO-led air war amounted to “hostilities.” Under the War Powers Resolution, that would have required Mr. Obama to terminate or scale back the mission after May 20.  [2012 link]

President Obama ignored them, dispatched them for other advisors who would agree with his own pre-conceived Power/Rice/Clinton/Jarrett agenda.  So essentially, anything goes in his own mind – so long as the politics of it can be steered in his favor…
(Via LA Times)  The apparent poison gas attack that killed hundreds of Syrian civilians last week is testing President Obama’s views on military intervention, international law and the United Nations as no previous crisis has done. (more…)

Side Question:  How come the media has stopped using the word WMD now that President Obama is in office?   Oh well,…..

Some things are more reflective than others.   A famous person once said: those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, or something similar.   Well, this is one Obama Administration repetition worth highlighting.

On Wednesday of last week the United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting to discuss the recent chemical attacks being witnessed in Syria.   Those chemical and/or biological attacks have been a great source of international attention and concern.
However, our U.N. Ambassador, Samantha Power, was conspicuously absent from the Security Council meeting.   The Administration was questioned, and the White House mysteriously avoided answering where she was.   Why was the United States not present during the meeting?   Where was Samantha Power?
Today it is reported she missed the meeting in order to attend a Charlie Chaplin Film Festival.   No joke, this is the real reason.   It sure explains why the White House was dodging the question and refused to answer.
But here comes the historical context. (more…)

Major Nidal Hasan has been convicted of premeditated murder for the 2009 terrorist rampage shooting at Fort Hood.    He’s now eligible for the death penalty (link)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) figures are total baloney – so perhaps this Gallup report is beginning to bring some accuracy back to incredibly manipulated statistics. However, I highly doubt it. The employment and inflation numbers have manipulated by the administration since 2009; and its gotten worse. Now we know the federal deficit has intentionally stopped being recorded so that spending limits and statutorially required debt ceilings can be avoided.
All economic Key Performance Indicators are just fuzzy math and manipulated propaganda now.
(Via Breitbart)  Outside of the federal government’s Bureau of Labor statistics, the Gallup polling organization also tracks the nation’s unemployment rate. While the BLS and Gallup findings might not always perfectly align, the trends almost always do and the small statistical differences just haven’t been worthy of note. But now Gallup is showing a sizable 30 day jump in the unemployment rate, from 7.7% on July 21 to 8.9% today.
This is an 18-month high. (more…)

Regardless of what you think of him – REMINDER:  We would never know, nor be having this conversation, were it not for Snowden.
WASHINGTON DC – The National Security Agency’s (NSA) reach covers about 75 percent of all U.S. Internet traffic through a slew of partnerships with some of the largest telecom companies in the country, according to a Wall Street Journal report released late Tuesday.
According to the report, gathered from interviews with current and former government officials and telecom industry workers, telecom companies like AT&T filter the data for the NSA, but in looking for communications that begin or end outside of the country, often sweep up unrelated domestic communications.
In addition, the surveillance network at times retains the content of emails and phone calls sent between U.S. citizens as part of a dragnet meant to capture correspondences between foreign targets.
The NSA defended the practice, telling the Journal that if domestic communications are “incidentally collected during NSA’s lawful signals intelligence activities,” that the agency follows “minimization procedures that are approved by the U.S. attorney general and designed to protect the privacy of United States persons.” (read more)
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Via WeaselZippers who says:

“So it’s official, absolutely no one has been punished over Benghazi”.

Last December, Clinton’s staff told four mid-level officials to clean out their desks and hand in their badges after the release of the report of its own internal investigation into the Benghazi attack, compiled by the Administrative Review Board led by former State Department official Tom Pickering and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Ret. Adm. Mike Mullen. Those four officials have been in legal and professional limbo, not fired but unable to return to their jobs, for eight months… until today. (more…)

We know of only two certainties within the White House timeline during the night of 9/11/12:
1. That both Obama and Biden were on the phone with Benjamin Netanyahu between 6:30 and 7:28pm DC time.
2. That President Obama and Hillary Clinton talked around 10:00pm DC time about the event.
That’s it. The time between the call with Netanyahu ending at 7:30pm (1:30am Benghazi) and Hillary at 10:00pm (4am Benghazi), is a void. What happens after 10:00pm DC time is also a void.
Sharyl Attkisson, the only journalist with any intellectual credibility on the issue, has been trying to use FOIA requests to find out the rest:
https://twitter.com/SharylAttkisson/statuses/368480804633985024
https://twitter.com/SharylAttkisson/statuses/368480910217203712
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