First, I'm off to the airport to fly down to HQ of my new employer. I'll be spending the next day and a half getting the paperwork filled out, learning the ropes, and getting my marching orders. I'm very excited to get my feet wet, and start working again. It's been nice to have the last month off to "recharge", but those that know me, know I can't sit still very long.
I've also added a new advertiser to the blog, right near the top of the page. It's Newsmax, and they have a nice collection of stories/reports that you might not find in other places. Here's an interesting perspective on the money Romney has given up to chase his goal of having a DC address:
A recent Forbes magazine article by Nathan Vardi headlined, “Mitt Romney: The Most Expensive Political Career in American History.”
As Vardi observes, “Lots of people pay a high price for getting into politics, but no one has likely given up more, at least financially, than Mitt Romney.”
Just how much?
Well, Forbes estimates Romney would be worth around $2 billion if he had stayed at Bain Capital rather than run for office.
Romney decided to leave his thriving private-equity firm Bain in 1999 to rescue the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. He went on to pursue a political career that led him to the governorship of Massachusetts and now the GOP presidential nomination.
And while Romney is today worth an estimated $230 million, it is indisputable he could have accumulated a far greater fortune had he not left Bain.
Forbes calculates that had he remained at Bain, Romney’s stake in the company would be worth $1.5 billion today. Bloomberg has come to a similar conclusion, estimating that his stake would be worth $1.32 billion.
By leaving Bain when he did, Romney missed out on a decade of lucrative performance fees and the ability to claim some of the firm’s most profitable deals, which all told could have brought in another $500 million.
Had he remained at Bain, then, Romney would “probably be worth $2 billion by now,” Vardi writes, adding that Romney “has consistently shown that he is willing to sacrifice huge sums of money in order to chase his political dreams.”
That amazing sacrifice shows Mitt Romney is clearly on a mission, and that is to make America stronger.
Please check out some of the links at Newsmax, as every click you make helps keep the lights on!
Sandy has helped provide the President with some cover in regards to what happened in Benghazi. Before the storm hit the East Coast, and Media attention was diverted towards that story, a few troubling questions were bubbling to the surface.
We;ve heard a few things that don't quite make sense, the most troubling being Obama's statement that he gave the order for the Military to "secure our personnel" while the two SEALs were holding an armed mob at bay.
Our ambassador to Libya was killed in our own consulate in Benghazi on the night of September 11. For the next six weeks, President Obama repeated the same talking point: The morning after the attack, he ordered increased security in our embassies in the region.
Suddenly, on the campaign trail in Denver on October 26, he changed his story. “The minute I found out what was happening . . . I gave the directive,” he said, “to make sure we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to do. I guarantee you everybody in the CIA and military knew the number-one priority was making sure our people are safe.”
Notice the repeated use of the present tense, implying that he gave the order during the attack. Mr. Obama met with his national-security team, including the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at 5:00 p.m. Washington time. For over an hour, the consulate staff had been constantly reporting that they were under assault by terrorists and Ambassador Chris Stevens was missing in action. In the White House, group-think leads to the mistaken assumption that the attackers are a spontaneous mob.
An hour after the attack has begun, the president orders the CIA and the military to do “whatever we need to do.”
If that is indeed the case, a few things should be easy to uncover:
Where is the physical order the President gave? There should be a paper trail, outlining the action ordered, whom it was directed toward, and the time it was given.
If the order was given, someone along the way decided to ignore the directive from the President of the United States. That person should be easy to identify. One would think that if the Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces, having given an order to "secure our personnel", upon learning his orders were not only ignored, but resulted in the death of Americans on foreign soil, would be incredibly pissed off. Toss in that this ignoring of his orders happened in the middle of a tightly contested re-election campaign, causing unfavorable views of his leadership.
And yet the President has done nothing to indicate an order was ever given. Reminds me of a scene from a popular movie in the 90's:
The reality is that the President of the United States did nothing while brave American citizens fought to their death, protecting other American lives. The battle was watched in real time, the SEALs "painted" targets (which certainly helped the enemy to identify their positions), repeatedly called for help, and waited for the calvary that was never sent.
The same President who waited three times before giving the order to take out Osama bin Laden, waited and waited while brave Americans fought for their lives.
We know that the mortars firing at the roof of the CIA annex, where former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were still fighting six hours into the attack, were "painted" with a laser targeting device as the two repeatedly requested backup support from an AC-130 Specter gunship. AC-130s are commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to support Special Operations teams involved in intense firefights. They are deadly accurate, with little risk of harm to civilians.
The fighting at the CIA annex went on for more than four hours, more than enough time for any planes based at Sigonella Air Base in Italy, just 480 miles away, to arrive. According to Fox News, two separate Tier One Special Ops forces were told to wait, among them Delta Force operators. So who told them to wait?
Curiously, Gen. Carter Ham, head of U.S. Africa Command, has been relieved of his post after only a year and a half on the job. According to James S. Robbins in the Washington Times, Ham got the same emails regarding the terrorist attack by the al-Qaida linked Ansar al-Sharia and immediately began organizing a rescue attempt.
Gen. Ham is said to have told the Pentagon he had a rapid response team ready and was told to stand down. Ham then reportedly said screw it, he was going to send help and was promptly told he was being relieved of his command.
The election will come and go, the mess left by Sandy will be cleaned up, and there will be inquiries on Capitol Hill into what happened in Benghazi. We'll soon find out it Obama gave an order, and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta ignored it, or if there was never an order given in the first place.
Secretary of Defense Panetta later explained that this passivity was in keeping with a rule of warfare. “A basic principle,” he said on October 25, “is you don’t deploy forces into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on — without having some real-time information about what’s taking place.”
Rarely has a spontaneous mob so thoroughly intimidated our nation. And so much for sending our squads out every day in Afghanistan on patrol, when they don’t know what’s going on. The next time a platoon is told to take an objective, some corporal will say, “SecDef says we don’t have to go into harm’s way without knowing what’s going on.”
Apart from the questionable philosophy of turning battle into a poker game where all cards are face up before anyone places a bet, Mr. Panetta ignored the fact that the former SEAL on the ground was giving real-time information to everyone listening in at least eight operations centers (the embassy in Tripoli, State, White House, Pentagon, CIA, Special Operations Command, Africa Command, and the National Ops Center).
The SecDef and the president have issued contradictory explanations. Either Mr. Obama ordered the Secretary of Defense to “do whatever we need to do,” or he didn’t. And either the secretary obeyed that order, or he didn’t. And he didn’t.
It is also not clear whether the SecDef countermanded the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who is the direct military adviser to the president. Did the president as commander-in-chief issue an unequivocal order that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs received but chose not to execute? Or did the chairman reply that he would do nothing?
It won't be too hard to go down the line, and ask if the various commanders along the way received an order or not.
My money is on the theory the order was never given in the first place.
A well-organized attack by radical Muslims was planned specifically targeting the temporary U.S. embassy building. The Libyan security force that was in place to protect our people deserted their post, or joined the attacking force. Either way, our people were in a real fix. And it should be noted that Ambassador Stevens had mentioned on more than one occasion to Secretary of State, “Hillary Clinton”, that he was quite concerned for his personal safety and the welfare of his people. It is thought that Ambassador Stevens was on a “hit list.”
A short distance from the American compound, two Americans were sleeping. They were in Libya as independent contractors working an assignment totally unrelated to our embassy. They also happened to be former Navy SEALs. When they heard the noise coming from the attack on our embassy, as you would expect from highly trained warriors, they ran to the fight. Apparently, they had no weapons, but seeing the Libyan guards dropping their guns in their haste in fleeing the scene, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty snatched up several of these discarded weapons and prepared to defend the American compound.
Not knowing exactly what was taking place, the two SEALs set up a defensive perimeter. Unfortunately Ambassador Stevens was already gravely injured, and Foreign Service officer, Sean Smith, was dead. However, due to their quick action and suppressive fire, twenty administrative personnel in the embassy were able to escape to safety. Eventually, these two courageous men were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers brought against them, an enemy force numbering between 100 to 200 attackers which came in two waves. But the stunning part of the story is that Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty killed 60 of the attacking force. Once the compound was overrun, the attackers were incensed to discover that just two men had inflicted so much death and destruction.
As it became apparent to these selfless heroes, they were definitely going to lose their lives unless some reinforcements showed up in a hurry. As we know now, that was not to be. I’m fairly certain they knew they were going to die in this gun fight, but not before they took a whole lot of bad guys with them!
Last year, my Sun Devils leapt out of the gate, got to 5 wins, then crashed and burned the rest of the season. The game that turned the tide for ASU? UCLA, who beat the Devils on a last-second field goal to steal the win.
Fast-forward to the 2012 season, ASU hosts the Bruins with a 5-2 record, looking to avenge the loss from last year. ASU takes the lead 14-0, and then UCLA comes back. The game was fun to watch, both teams having periods of success and failure, with ASU taking the lead late in fourth quarter to seemingly seal the win at home, avenge the loss, and become bowl eligible in one fell swoop.
There were some other surprises in the conference this week, with USC losing to Arizona, Washington beating Oregon State, and Colorado "only" lost by 56 to Oregon.
And yet he lied, lied, and lied some more about it for about two weeks. The e-mail trail shows they knew the cause within two hours after the attacks began:
The emails, obtained by Reuters from government sources not connected with U.S. spy agencies or the State Department and who requested anonymity, specifically mention that the Libyan group called Ansar al-Sharia had asserted responsibility for the attacks.
The brief emails also show how U.S. diplomats described the attack, even as it was still under way, to Washington.
U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the Benghazi assault, which President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials ultimately acknowledged was a "terrorist" attack carried out by militants with suspected links to al Qaeda affiliates or sympathizers.
Administration spokesmen, including White House spokesman Jay Carney, citing an unclassified assessment prepared by the CIA, maintained for days that the attacks likely were a spontaneous protest against an anti-Muslim film.
While officials did mention the possible involvement of "extremists," they did not lay blame on any specific militant groups or possible links to al Qaeda or its affiliates until intelligence officials publicly alleged that on September 28.
There were indications that extremists with possible al Qaeda connections were involved, but also evidence that the attacks could have erupted spontaneously, they said, adding that government experts wanted to be cautious about pointing fingers prematurely.
U.S. intelligence officials have emphasized since shortly after the attack that early intelligence reporting about the attack was mixed.
Spokesmen for the White House and State Department had no immediate response to requests for comments on the emails.
I guess Chris Matthews doesn't get his news from Reuters.
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