Fox News poll: Obama could have done more to help those in Benghazi

By Dana Blanton

Voters think President Obama could have done more to help the Americans at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya when it was being attacked, according to a Fox News poll. In addition, a majority says the Obama administration is trying to cover-up what happened there.

The new poll, released Tuesday, shows 62 percent of voters think Obama could have done more to help those at the consulate in Benghazi on the night of the attack.

Even Democrats are about equally likely to say the president could have done more (44 percent) as to say he did all he could (43 percent). Eighty-four percent of Republicans and 60 percent of independents think Obama could have done more.

Nearly two-thirds of voters who have served in the military think Obama could have done more.

The violent attack on the anniversary of September 11 killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

Overall, 27 percent think the president did everything he could to help.

In 2008, Obama pledged to have the most open and transparent administration ever. On Benghazi, voters say the opposite is true: A 60-percent majority says the administration is covering up what happened. That’s more than twice as many as the 28 percent who say the Obama administration is being open and transparent.

http://nation.foxnews.com

By JOHN PODHORETZ

The wheels came off the Obama administration yesterday.

We learned of a startling assault on freedom of the press by the Department of Justice, following the revelation last week of the unprecedented information-gathering foray by that department against The Associated Press.

Then, a few minutes later, the Justice Department’s inspector general released a report declaring that the US attorney in Arizona used the leak of a confidential memo to try to discredit a whistleblower in the notorious “gun-walking” scandal known as Fast and Furious (which got two federal agents killed). The leak was called “egregious.” The US attorney, Dennis Burke, was an Obama political appointee.

A few hours after that, we were told that everybody at the most senior levels of the White House knew about the report revealing the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service — everybody but the president, who maintains he learned about it from watching TV.

By far the most damaging of the stories has to do with the attack on press freedom.

In 2009, Fox News reporter James Rosen got a leak about North Korean policy and ran a story about it. Yesterday, White House press spokesman Jay Carney referred to the aftermath of that single leak nearly four years ago as “an ongoing criminal investigation.”

An ongoing criminal investigation? Into Rosen? Administrations investigate national-security leaks to find the leaker, not to hurl criminal thunderbolts at the reporter. Journalists have found themselves in legal jeopardy, to be sure, but for refusing to name a source in violation of a judge’s order. They are jailed for contempt of court, in other words. They are not punished for seeking or collecting or publishing information.

Until now.

The Obama Justice Department pursued a shocking and outrageous course by seeking and obtaining a warrant to search Rosen’s e-mails, phone calls and even the electronic passes that got him entry into the State Department.

In the request for the warrant, which came out yesterday, the FBI agent investigating the leak said he needed it because there was “probable cause” to believe Rosen had acted as “an aider and abettor and co-conspirator,” a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison!

And how had Rosen aided and abetted and conspired? By communicating with the leaker. By giving him an e-mail address for contact purposes, along with bits of code so Rosen would be able to identify him. By saying he wanted the information ahead of his competition.

The FBI agent said that Rosen had played on the leaker’s “vanity and ego,” and that Rosen had behaved “like an intelligence officer . . . running a clandestine intelligence source.” In other words, Rosen acted like a reporter. And how a reporter interacts with a source as a social matter is, to put it mildly, as far beyond the scope of an acceptable government inquiry as the moons of Jupiter are from the Earth.

Even more startling, the search warrant makes clear that the FBI already had everything it needed on the leaker, as the request for a search warrant features quotes from an interview that were tantamount to a confession. It asked that the warrant be sealed — in other words, that Rosen not be told — because knowledge might “cause subjects to flee”! Imagine it: Rosen, an on-air reporter on a national news channel with a wife and two small kids in DC, seeking refuge in Cuba . . .

The leak merited investigation, and the investigation was successful. So why go after Rosen? We don’t know, but we can speculate that someone was very mad about the leak, and someone wanted to see if there might be a way to take the reporter down by characterizing his work as a conspiracy that might lead him to flee the United States.

At the end of last week, some hopeful Obama-backers in the media were saying the president’s troubles over the past weeks were a blip on the radar. Opined the liberal Pangloss of The Washington Post, Ezra Klein: “The scandals are falling apart.”

Oops.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/leaks_turn_to_deluge_for_reeling_98wAReXDfwgYcFiCmXHB3L

KRAUTHAMMER: Here’s why this has legs: Number one, as Kirsten says, everybody is outraged. Everybody knows what the IRA can do, and everybody’s afraid of it. Second, because you now have somebody that’s going to plead the Fifth, in a court of law, the jury is not supposed to interpret that as hiding something, but this isn’t a court of law, and we aren’t a jury.

Clearly there’s something happening here. Everybody understands there is a red flag. And last is the fact who was a member of Congress who was just up there? That was the Democratic head of the Senate Finance committee. Yes, the republicans are up in arms but Democrats are, too. And Baucus, who we saw, isn’t even up for re-election. Imagine the Democrats who are.

The fact that you have a committee headed by a Democrat and a Democratic senate who is leading all this who yesterday submitted over 40 questions about the IRS scandal, and said, ‘I have a suspicion there is a lot here we don’t know. This thing is going to go on and it could be fatal.

http://nation.foxnews.com

By Joe Newby

On Tuesday, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., blamed global warming for the tornado that struck Oklahoma, and called for a carbon tax in a speech on the Senate floor, The Daily Caller reported.

“This is climate change. We were warned about extreme weather: Not just hot weather, but extreme weather. When I had my hearings, when I had the gavel years ago — it’s been a while — the scientists all agreed that what we’d start to see was extreme weather,” she said, despite reports that global warming stopped in 1998.

“Carbon could cost us the planet,” she added. “The least we could do is put a little charge on it so people move to clean energy.”

“You’re going to have tornadoes and all the rest. We need to protect our people,” Boxer said, without explaining how an additional tax would end severe weather.

“That’s our No. 1 obligation and we have to deal with this threat that is upon us and that is gonna get worse and worse through the years,” she added.

Boxer is not the only Democrat to blame the tornado on global warming.

On Monday, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., railed against Republicans in a 15-minute speech blaming so-called “global warming deniers” and “polluters” for the giant twister.

But how would a tax on carbon mitigate weather patterns?

Michael Batacsh said that a bill introduced by Boxer and co-sponsored by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders would “put a gradually rising fee on carbon dioxide emissions to fund green-energy projects such as wind, solar, geothermal and biomass.”

The bill was introduced after Obama “threatened to use his executive authority to address global warming if Congress failed to act,” Batasch added.

But given the government’s track record with alternative energy, it is highly doubtful the tax would work, and there is little to no evidence to suggest such a tax would stop tornadoes.

“The dismal record of the U.S. government in implementing efficient climate change policies is hardly evidence in favor of a massive new carbon tax (or cap-and-trade program),” said Robert Murphy, a senior economist for the Institute for Energy Research.

“[S]uch a new program will be abused in the political process, and will not be tailored to the recommendations of climate scientists and environmental economists,” he added.

His analysis also found that unilateral action by the government “cannot significantly slow global carbon dioxide emissions.”

examiner

By: Dave Gibson

On Tuesday night, while the nation had its full attention on the heartbreaking images still coming out of Oklahoma, and the aftermath of yesterday’s devastating tornado, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the most far-reaching amnesty bill ever brought before Congress.

In a 13-5 vote, the committee passed the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (S. 744), which not only offers legalization to the untold millions of illegal aliens currently inside the United States, but also greatly increases the number of highly skilled foreign workers to be admitted into the U.S. annually…Thus, further displacing American workers.

Fox News reported:

Under the compromise, the number of highly skilled workers admitted to the country would rise from 65,000 annually to 110,000, with the possibility of a further rise to 180,000, depending in part on unemployment levels.

Firms where foreign labor accounts for at least 15 percent of the skilled work force would be subjected to tighter conditions than companies less dependent on H-IB visa holders.

All Democrats on the committee voted in favor of S. 744, with Republicans Lindsey Graham (SC), Orrin Hatch (UT) and Jeff Flake (AZ) joining them.

The final version of the bill contains provisions making those here illegally immediately eligible for welfare benefits and free medical coverage under Obamacare, though it does not contain one so-called ‘trigger’ for border security.

When the committee announced that the measure had passed, a group of La Raza supporters began rythmically shouting “Si Se Puede!”

The chants raised many smiles among the committee members.

The bill will now go before the full U.S. Senate for a vote.

examiner.com

Records seized from 30 Numbers, at least five Fox News numbers, even 2 White House numbers. A CD of security badge records for media visits to the State Department for seven months was also grabbed.

The dams they be a-opening and more will be coming…

Update:

Bret Baier has now reported that in addition to records from James Rosen’s work phone, cell phone and email, the DOJ also seized the phone records of James Rosen’s parents.

Yes, his parents.

Read more at http://redflagnews.com/headlines/report-doj-seized-phone-records-of-fox-news-reporter-james-rosens-parents-yes-his-parents

by Joel Gehrke

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., asked two members of President Obama’s cabinet to suspend IRS implementation of Obamacare, citing the fact that the head of the health reform section of the agency used to lead the IRS section that improperly targeted conservatives.

Thune wrote Attorney General Eric Holder and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew about Sarah Hall Ingram, who led the office that subjected Tea Party groups to inappropriate audits.

“[P]lease confirm whether Ms. Hall Ingram is a subject of the Department of Justice’s investigation into whether IRS employees broke criminal laws by singling out conservative groups for special review and inappropriate questions,” Thune, the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, asked in the letter.

“Additionally, until there are sufficient answers as to her involvement, I request that the IRS refrain from issuing or enforcing any regulations that have been drafted under the supervision of Ms. Hall Ingram in her current capacity as director of the IRS’s Affordable Care Act office, which is responsible for implementing the health care law,” he continued. “The IRS should also immediately cease work on additional Affordable Care Act regulations until the Department of Justice confirms that Ms. Hall Ingram is not a subject of the criminal investigation, Ms. Hall Ingram is removed from this office, or Ms. Hall Ingram is exonerated by an investigation by the Department of Justice.”

The Washington Examiner reported last week that Hall Ingram received over $100,000 in bonuses between 2009 and 2012.

“Bonuses as large as those awarded to Ingram typically require presidential approval, according to federal personnel regulations,”

http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2530214

by Guy Benson

Simply stunning, via the Associated Press:

U.S. officials say they have identified five men they believe might be behind the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year. The officials say they have enough evidence to justify seizing them by military force as suspected terrorists — but not enough proof to try them in a U.S. civilian court as the Obama administration prefers. So the officials say the men remain at large while the FBI gathers more evidence. The decision not to seize the men militarily underscores the White House’s aim to move away from hunting terrorists as enemy combatants and toward trying them as criminals in a civilian justice system.

Consider the implications of this report: Our government/military/intelligence community has the information and capacity to haul in at least five of the suspected Benghazi terrorists, but eight months after the deadly raid, they remain free men entirely because of the Obama administration’s ideological obsession with furnishing foreign terrorists with civilian trials. Will the American people stand for this? Remember, this is the same White House that refuses to close the door on using drone strikes to kill US citizens on American soil even if they aren’t in the act of carrying out an imminent attack. They’ve already liquidated several Al Qaeda-linked US citizens on foreign soil. They’ve expanded “signature strikes” and changed the metric for calculating civilian casualties. In this case, we’ve identified five foreign nationals who we’ve determined to be responsible for participating in the sacking our Benghazi consulate and the murder of four Americans — including a sitting ambassador — yet they’re roaming the streets indefinitely while we try to build an airtight criminal case against them. President Drone’s double-standard here is completely baffling beyond the realm of political posturing. Obama feels the need to distinguish himself from his predecessor, even as he adopts and expands many Bush-era policies. So he’s doubled down on civilian trials for terrorists and banning certain harsh interrogation techniques. In fairness, such techniques are only useful in wringing actionable intel from captured terrorists. Obama’s policy essentially dictates that terrorists either be (a) summarily executed or (b) afforded the legal rights on US citizens. That’s insane. Entire books have been written about the perils of treating global jihad and terrorism as a routine law enforcement proposition, but this new development reads like dark satire.

After the Boston bombings, we had a robust debate about the appropriate legal treatment for Dzokhar Tsarnaev, an American citizen arrested on US soil. Authorities decided not to treat him as an enemy combatant, which I thought was the right call, despite the deeply questionable and premature Miranda warning issuance. Here, we’ve apparently decided to not even detain a handful of foreign nationals believed to have participated in the 9/11/12 terrorist attacks because we’re skittish about “rights” and other legal niceties (that arguably shouldn’t even apply to foreign terrorists at all) that may complicate their run-of-the-mill civilian trials back home. Incredible. I’ll leave you with this irony: Even if you share the Obama administration’s view that foreign terrorists should be treated like Americans with a full panoply of legal rights, the goal of securing convictions from domestic juries was severely hampered by the Benghazi talking points flap. Because the State Department and White House contorted Susan Rice’s talking points beyond recognition for political reasons, she appeared on national television and directly contradicted Libyan officials’ (accurate) assessments with false information. This infuriated the Libyans, who proceeded to drag their feet on granting the FBI access to the attack site. Or the “crime scene,” depending on how you look at it. In other words, one of the administration’s political games (manipulating the talking points) ended up stifling the crucial evidence-gathering stage of any successful criminal investigation — which, in turn, is a central element of the White House’s highly political “criminal justice” approach to terrorism. Welcome to “accountability,” Obama style. It’s ad hoc, incoherent, politicized madness.

UPDATE – Allahpundit wonders if something’s up and floats an interesting theory:

The fact that O’s allegedly willing to ignore all that and demand criminal procedures suggests something else is up. Theory: The Libyan government is resisting U.S. officials’ requests to either authorize a drone strike or let special forces hit the ground to round these people up. Acquiescing in a heavy-handed American military action against the locals could be dangerous for a weak regime that’s surrounded (sometimes literally) by jihadists and various militias. If O ignores their warnings and attacks the Benghazi five anyway, and the government there is consequently destabilized, he’ll take all kinds of heat for that. If he holds off at their request and blames them for obstructing him via leaks to the media, he’ll take all kinds of heat for not insisting upon justice for the murderers of an American diplomat. So, possibly, he’s chosen the middle course — hold off on attacking but claim it’s because he’s building a criminal case, which at least promises future action.

And this is only half funny: “Imagine the subpoenas being prepared at this very moment to find out who leaked them this scoop on Benghazi.”

townhall.com

by Kevin Glass

A bipartisan Congressional panel yesterday released its findings regarding Apple’s international tax regime and, specifically, how it was able to pay a relatively low tax rate when the U.S. corporate statutory tax rate is 35% (the highest in the developed world). The investigation turned up no wrongdoing, and that Apple follows the letter of the law and pays every dime of its legally-required taxes.

Nonetheless, Congress summoned Apple CEO Tim Cook in front of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to testify on Apple’s tax compliance. The Congressional report found that, had Apple not shifted its profits to other subsidiaries around the word,

Over all, Apple’s tax avoidance efforts shifted at least $74 billion from the reach of the Internal Revenue Service between 2009 and 2012, the investigators said. That cash remains offshore, but Apple, which paid more than $6 billion in taxes in the United States last year on its American operations, could still have to pay federal taxes on it if the company were to return the money to its coffers in the United States.

Sen. Rand Paul, who is not the chair or ranking member of this morning’s committee, offered an unconventional opening statement for the record. “Frankly, I’m offended by the tone and tenor of this hearing,” Sen. Paul Said. “Tell me a politician up here that doesn’t try to minimize their taxes… Instead of Apple executives, we should have brought in here a giant mirror.”

read more at;

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/kevinglass/2013/05/21/rand-paul-goes-nuclear-on-spectacle-congress-hearing-on-apples-taxes-n1602375