Lt. Col. Oliver North, USMC (Ret) has for quite some time been a journalist’s journalist, doing what the bulk of those mistakenly called “journalists” of the mainstream media should be doing but aren’t: reporting the truth rather than left wing political propaganda or omission/spin/whatever else is employed by the lying liars of the alphabet networks, the New York Times and the rest of that crowd.

In his latest column, he talks about the Benghazi cover-up which has become one of the banes of the Obama Administration’s left wing existence. I say “one of” because a few more have materialized of late, not least among which is the one involving the IRS in which those particular fellows and fellowettes have been putting in herculean efforts to single out conservative political groups for their dubious attentions.

But let’s stick to the issue at hand, which is Benghazi and what Col. North has to say about the events that transpired there in September, 2012. We try to copy and paste only a few key paragraphs when we link to articles and columns by others, but this one is homogeneously “key” from the first word to the last.

As published in Human Events.

We all know about the notorious Obama “Kill List.” CIA Director John Brennan proudly told us about that last year when he described how the O-Team decides which Americans should be executed by Hellfire Missile fired from remotely piloted aircraft (RPAs). Why hasn’t the White House used this capability to “take out” those who killed our diplomats in Benghazi, Libya last year?

Clip and save this column. Herein are some important events, names, places – facts your children and grandchildren will need to know about these perilous times:

Tuesday, September 11, 2012, Benghazi, Libya. The U.S. consulate and a diplomatic annex in this city on the Mediterranean coast are assaulted and destroyed by radical Islamic terrorists. Four American citizens: U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith and two former Navy SEALS, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, are killed during two attacks over a seven-hour period. Officials in Washington take no action to stop the attacks or save lives.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012. The President, standing beside Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, describes what happened in Benghazi as “an outrageous attack” and promises, “We will not waiver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done.” For weeks thereafter, White House officials, the Secretary of State and lesser government functionaries, reiterate Obama’s claim the attack was fomented by a crude anti-Muslim video posted on the Internet. It’s not true.

Thursday, October 4, 2012. Thirty-two days before the presidential election, and desperate to preserve the fiction that “al Qaeda is on the ropes” because “Osama bin Laden is dead,” the State Department announces formation of an “Accountability Review Board” (ARB) headed by former U.S. Ambassador Tom Pickering and a recently retired Joint Chiefs Chairman. Though the Reagan White House provided Pickering with extraordinary additional security when he was threatened by terrorists in El Salvador, the ARB report, delivered on December 20, 2012, found “mid-level State Department officials” were responsible for security lapses in Benghazi.

Wednesday, Jan 23, 2013. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies under oath before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In response to questions posed by Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) about who attacked the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi and why, she explodes: “What difference at this point does it make?”

Wednesday, May 8, 2013, three brave men testify before the House Government Reform Committee about the lies, misfeasance, and incompetence in the Obama administration’s handling of the jihadist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi. Gregory N. Hicks, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya, the highest-ranking American diplomat in the country during the attacks; Mark I. Thompson, a former U.S. Marine and operations coordinator for the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau; and Eric Nordstrom, formerly the senior diplomatic security officer in Libya, all testify about what really happened on 9-11-12. To avail themselves of legal protections against retribution, all three claim status as “whistleblowers.”

Their testimony indicts the President, the Secretary of State and Administration minions of incompetence and lying to the public about what happened before, during and after the Benghazi attacks. Supporters of the Obama regime describe the three as “politically motivated” and claim there is “nothing new” in what they said. That’s not true either. Herewith, a few important facts we now know thanks to the courage of these three men:

Though radical Islamists routinely use “anniversaries” to motivate adherents to violence, the Obama administration did absolutely nothing to anticipate such a possibility by pre-positioning quick-reaction military forces in the Middle East prior to the 9-11-12 attacks. Worse, instead of granting Ambassador Stevens’ repeated requests for additional security assets, the O-Team actually reduced U.S. security personnel in Libya. This abysmal failure reflects, inter alia, a near total deficit of human intelligence (HUMINT). The Ambassador and three other Americans paid for this misfeasance with their lives.

In the midst of the deadly attacks in Benghazi, bureaucratic inertia and infighting in Washington prevented any response which might have saved lives. In the aftermath, the Obama administration insulted the Libyan government by refuting their assertion that the perpetrators were radical Islamists. The result: more than two weeks before FBI agents could visit “the scene of the crime.”

Since 9-11-12, the Benghazi terror attack has been probed by five separate committees of Congress. The State Department’s ARB is at best a whitewash. Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA) and more than 140 of his colleagues have called for a bi-partisan select committee of both houses to fully investigate the matter. Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham support the proposal. It’s time – unless Congress wants to participate in a cover up.

It’s time – unless Congress wants to participate in a cover up…

Well said in the column and especially on that last; We here at Hard Astarboard have been wondering, for some time now, when it is that the Republicans in Congress are going to start remembering where their votes come from and start, as such, doing their job.

As is always the case, Thomas Sowell strikes right at the heart of the matter in this excellent column.

Words that replace thought

If there is ever a contest for words that substitute for thought, “diversity” should be recognized as the undisputed world champion.

You don’t need a speck of evidence, or a single step of logic, when you rhapsodize about the supposed benefits of diversity. The very idea of testing this wonderful, magical word against something as ugly as reality seems almost sordid.

To ask whether institutions that promote diversity 24/7 end up with better or worse relations between the races than institutions that pay no attention to it is only to get yourself regarded as a bad person. To cite hard evidence that places obsessed with diversity have worse race relations is to risk getting yourself labeled an incorrigible racist. Free thinking is not free.

Read On…

From One News Now

Poll: Voters blind to the truth about Planned Parenthood

A recent poll commissioned by the National Right to Life Committee shows that people need to be educated on the mission of Planned Parenthood. Because when that happens, they tend to change their view.

NRLC executive director David O’Steen tells American Family News the survey, conducted on 1,003 registered voters by the Polling Company February 28 - March 3, 2013, shows that the majority has a favorable opinion of the abortion giant. But that does not surprise him, as it is something that has been reported in previous studies.

“But it shows that this favorable image is really based on not knowing much about the organization,” O’Steen adds. “Eighty-eight percent of the population feels that they are familiar with Planned Parenthood, and 44 percent say they’re very familiar. But a majority doesn’t even know that Planned Parenthood performs abortions.”

vAlthough 63 percent said that they had a favorable opinion of Planned Parenthood, including 38 percent of those who identified themselves as pro-life, 55 percent of those polled did not know that Planned Parenthood performs abortions. But based on current figures, the truth is an estimated 27 percent of all abortions done in the U.S. are performed at Planned Parenthood facilities.

O’Steen contends the reason people do not know the truth about the abortion giant is the secular media does not report it.

“This is the nation’s largest chain of abortion clinics. We do have a job ahead of us in the pro-life movement and in the pro-life media of just telling the truth over and over and over again and breaking through this veil of secrecy that Planned Parenthood wants to hide behind,” the pro-lifer asserts

The article is here.

From Ron Capshaw via Human Events

For those who believe, like the administration that Second Amendment enthusiasms are expressed solely by the black-helicopter-fearing Right, I offer a decided socialist.

George Orwell, who Christopher Hitchens once wrote, was “conservative about many things but not politics,” nevertheless would be more in tune today with the anti-gun control crowd than any fellow socialists.

The easy riposte to this claim from the Left would be that it is only natural that a former coolie-crushing colonial policeman such as Orwell would be a gun enthusiast.

But Orwell viewed gun control through a socialist and not any law-and-order lens:

That rifle hanging on the wall
of the working-class flat or labourer’s cottage
is the symbol of democracy.
It is our job to see that it stays there.

These sentiments were not based on any theory, but hard worn experience. As a soldier on the Loyalist side during the Spanish Civil War, Orwell was aware that it was only the citizenry breaking into the armory that initially repelled Franco’s fascist rebellion. When Stalin sought to import his murderous purge trials into Spain, and thus kill off any leftist opposition, his first order of business was confiscating their weapons. Having the misfortune of belonging to a Trotskyite militia, Orwell engaged in street fighting with these gun confiscators.

This is one excellent article.

No, we haven’t developed any kind of symbiosis with Bill Maher, trust me on this one, despite a previous post in which the man expressed opinions regarding Muslims and terrorism that tended to agree with our own take on the subject.

However, here, he does bring up a point that pretty much jibes with the subject of my last post, involving, though from a different and more “direct” perspective, our liberty.

Again, the “what if…?” idea as far as an overly oppressive, liberty smothering government coming into power (gradually, of course) is concerned.

The Boston Police pics and some of Maher’s observations are indeed worrisome, especially to a guy like me who has served our nation in a more covert role at one time and another in countries where these scenes are the norm.

Also, the fusillade of gunfire that was directed at the brother who was allegedly simply laying down in the boat was patently ridiculous, especially if the goal should, indeed, have been to take the man alive.

No, no, don’t say the police fired that kind of a barrage to ensure their own safety from the a–hole possibly returning fire. Maher brought up a good point about that, about “contagious fire” versus the fact that the police involved should have had training.

Jeez, they should have, given the kind of weapons they’re entrusted with.

Wolf, myself or any of our old team mates would have had the guy alive and with less than a fraction of the noise or the destruction that occurred in that instance.

Visiting New York at the moment, I have actually seen squads of NYPD’s finest going around in full combat gear, toting assault weapons. Passing through Grand Central Station, I saw that there’s a sidearm equipped National Guard contingent on duty there.

Why?

Placebo! Neither the cops or the ‘Guard element accomplishes a damn thing in the way of protecting the people, they’re merely there, as has been said here before, to get the public accustomed to seeing a heavily armed, uniformed presence among us.

We are, as someone once said we had a choice in the matter thereof, opting for a decrease in our liberty as a trade for our security, even though the trade we’re making gains us no more security than we’d have without it!

On Sunday, 17 August 1975 on Meet The Press, Senator Frank Church made an interesting and, in view of today’s ill-concealed attempts to infringe on our liberty by the folks on the left side of our political equation, a matter of some concern, observation…

The chairman of the Senate panel probing U.S. intelligence agencies says the government has the technological capacity to impose “total tyranny” if a dictator ever came to power.

“There would be no place to hide,” Senator Frank Church. D Idaho, chairman of the committee, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”

Read On…

Given that this was over 37 years ago and that our surveillance technology has advanced exponentially since then…

Now, this politician was a Democrat, and as we know, the Democrats have generally been the usual suspects when it comes to this kind of paranoia, having as they do a twenty four seven number for the ACLU on speed dial, but in the meantime, it’s actually been those same Democrats, particularly since the far left took over their party, who have been chiseling away at our liberty at every opportunity under the transparently false guise of “respecting” the Constitution.

If any kind of dictator arises in America, he will certainly come from the left side of the aisle — just look, for example, what would happen if there were no Congress standing between Barack Obama and his egotistic pretense of monarchy.

Anyway, just thought I’d share that with you.

“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”

Which makes a lot of sense to me, as it apparently does to Ann Coulter, as well.

Now THIS is just plain CRIMINAL!

From Human Events

CONGRESS WORKS TO REPEAL OBAMACARE… FOR THEMSELVES

Is anyone truly surprised by this news, outside of a few dead-end Obama voters? There’s no way Congress was going to be part of the “train wreck” it inflicted upon the rest of America, to borrow retiring Democrat senator (and ObamaCare author) Max Baucus’ memorable phrase. The most urgent item on the American agenda is the full repeal of ObamaCare, but the political class is more interested in repealing it for themselves, as reported by Politico:

Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting lawmakers and Capitol Hill aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, sources in both parties said.

The talks — which involve Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the Obama administration and other top lawmakers — are extraordinarily sensitive, with both sides acutely aware of the potential for political fallout from giving carve-outs from the hugely controversial law to 535 lawmakers and thousands of their aides. Discussions have stretched out for months, sources said.

As has been suggested here before, perhaps it really is time a bill was passed to start stringing these Capital Hill sleazeballs up from the lampposts! Unlike their predecessors of yore, these filthy creatures don’t give a damn about the country they have been elected to serve, not at all; These corrupt lowlifes are only in it for themselves, and to hell with we, the people.

The whole story is here.

According to a poll of police officers, according to Richard L. Johnson writing at Human Events, the vast majority of police officers believe honest citizens should be permitted to own and carry firearms.

Seeing as the police are the ones who are most directly involved with enforcing the law and are in a position to be exponentially more knowledgeable about and experienced with addressing crime, if it’s okay with them, the anti-gun politicians really ought to consider keeping their mouths shut and keeping their corrupt, all politics all the time, greasy fingers off our Second Amendment rights.

Almost to a man, police officers think gun owners are dangerous. Cops strongly believe the best way to reduce crime is to ban “assault weapons,” high capacity magazines and small, concealable handguns. They also believe that the best way to solve crimes is to establish a comprehensive, national database of firearms and gun sales.

Or at least, that’s what anti-gun politicians and the media would like you to believe.

Truncating…

What is the truth? Cops trust citizens with guns. In a recent PoliceOne.com survey of more than 15,000 active duty and retired law enforcement officers, more than 90 percent surveyed believe that citizens should be able to carry concealed firearms “…without question and without further restrictions.” That’s not a typo: better than nine out of ten cops believe citizens should be able to carry concealed guns “without question.”

When asked what would be most likely to help prevent “large scale shootings in public,” the most popular response was “more permissive concealed carry policies for civilians.” Additionally, when asked what impact a legally armed citizen could have made at the spree killings in Aurora, Colo., and Newton, Conn., 80 percnet of officers responded that “casualties would likely have been reduced.”

More…

70 percent of officers are opposed to a national database of firearm sales.

Nearly 96 percent of officers do not believe magazine capacity restrictions will reduce violent crime.
Almost 80 percent believe that eliminating private transfers of firearms will not reduce violent crime.
More than 80 percent of officers believe that an “assault weapon” ban will have no effect, or will actually worsen, violent crime.
Similarly, more than 85 percent believe President Obama’s proposed gun control legislation would have either no effect, or will worsen the safety of police officers.
When asked their opinion on what is the biggest cause of gun violence in the United States, only 4.4 percent of officers responded that guns are “too prevalent and easy to obtain.”

The article is here.

Unbelievable coming from Bill Maher, but
completely believable in his argument! I never thought I would see that avowed lefty getting something like this right.

Watch this…

I can’t believe I actually have a reason to say this, but… Right On, Maher!