Who Is Responsible For The Mess In Libya?

Washington Times
Judge Andrew Napalitano

How many times have you heard the truism that in modern-day America the cover-up is often as troubling as the crime? That is becoming quite apparent in the case of the death of J. Christopher Stevens, the former U.S. ambassador to Libya.

Stevens and three State Department employees were murdered in the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last month, on September 11th. About an hour before the murders, the ambassador, who usually resides in the U.S. embassy in Tripoli but was visiting local officials and staying at the consulate in Benghazi, had just completed dinner there with a colleague, whom he personally walked to the front gate of the compound. In the next three hours, hundreds of persons assaulted the virtually defenseless compound and set it afire.

Around the same time that these crimes took place in Benghazi, a poorly produced, low-grade, 15-minute YouTube clip was going viral on the Internet. The clip shows actors in dubbed voices portraying the prophet Mohammed and others in an unflattering light. The Obama administration seized upon the temporary prevalence of this clip to explain the assault on theconsulate. Indeed, the administration sent U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice to represent it on five Sunday morning TV talk shows on September 16th, to make the claim that the attack on the consulate was a spontaneous reaction to the YouTube clip, that it could not have been anticipated, and that the perpetrators were ordinary Libyans angry at the freedom moviemakers in America enjoy.

Soon, U.S. intelligence reports were leaked that revealed that the intelligence community knew the attack was not as described by Ms. Rice. The intelligence folks on the ground in Libya reported before September 16th that the attack was well organized, utilized military equipment and tactics, and was carried out by local militias with ties to al-Qaida. In response to these leaks, the State Department, for which Ms. Rice works, acknowledged that the assault was an organized terrorist attack.

The Obama administration has publicly rejected the intelligence leaks and insisted as recently as last week during the vice presidential debate that “we” did not know the assault was an act of terrorism against American personnel and property. The word “we” was uttered by Vice President Joseph R. Biden, whose credibility hit a new low when he insisted that the government did not know what we now know it knew. A day after the debate, the White House claimed that the “we” uttered by Mr. Biden referred to the president and the vice president, and not to the federal government or the State Department. This is semantics akin to Bill Clinton’s “it depends what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”

Earlier this week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in one of her rare forays into domestic politics, backed up the White House. She actually claimed that the White House was kept in the dark by the State Department.

What’s going on here?

What’s going on here is the unraveling of a value-free foreign policy and its unintended consequences. The whole reason that the streets in Libya are not safe and the country is ruled by roving gangs of militias is because the U.S. bombed the country last year. In an unconstitutional act of war, the president alone ordered the bombing. It destroyed the Libyan military, national and local police, roads, bridges, and private homes. It facilitated the murder of our former ally Col. Gadhafi and ensured the replacement of him by a government that cannot govern.

The consulate attack defies the claims of the president, articulated loud and long during this presidential campaign, that because he killed Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida is dead or dying, and the terrorists are at bay. Thus, in order to be faithful to his campaign rhetoric, the president has been unfaithful to the truth. I personally have seen excerpts from intelligence cables sent by American agents in Libya to Washington on September 12th, the day after the attack and four days before Ms. Rice’s TV appearances, acknowledging the dominant role played by al-Qaida in the attack.

So, who is to blame here? The president. He is responsible for destroying the government in Libya, and he is responsible for the security of U.S. personnel and property there. He is accountable to the American people, and he is expected to tell the truth. Instead, he has leaked the possibility of more bombings in Libya. These bombings would be more than a month after the Benghazi consulate attack and would attack the very government that Obama’s 2011 bombs helped to install.

Is it any wonder that Bill Clinton, in an unguarded private moment, referred to Obama as an “amateur”?

Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. He is author of “It Is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom” (Thomas Nelson, 2011).

Biden gives Israel the green light on Iran in speech to rabbinical convention

Mondo Weiss

Nima Shirazi

 

Speaking to an international assembly of 1,600 conservative rabbis in Atlanta  today, self-proclaimed Zionist Joe Biden said that Israel still had time to attack Iran if it so chooses.

"The window has not closed in terms of the Israelis if they choose to act on their own militarily," the Vice President told the congregation.  "I would not contract out my security to anybody, even a loyal, loyal, loyal friend like the United States."

This is not the first time Biden has made such a comment.  During an appearance on the ABC's "This Week," Biden told George Stephanopoulos, “Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination — if they make a determination — that they’re existentially threatened and their survival is threatened by another country.”  Biden comments were immediately walked back by the Obama campaign.

The claim that Iran somehow poses an "existential threat" to Israel is of course a long-running propaganda line often employed to fear-monger about Iran's nuclear energy program.  This view, however, is not shared by numerous Israeli officials including former IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz, former Mossad head Ephraim Halevy, and current Mossad head Tamir Pardo.  Even Israel's hawkish Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who is leading the push toward an Israeli attack on Iran, said in 2009, "I am not among those who believe Iran is an existential issue for Israel.  Israel is strong, I don't see anyone who could pose an existential threat."

Still, Biden declared, "We will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuke by whatever means necessary, period."  A strong claim, to be sure, but one that rings a bit silly considering that accordingto the United States, the IAEA, and Israel - Iran isn't building nuclear weapons.

The Jewish Telegraph Agency reports that, during his speech today, the "vice president also called efforts to delegitimize Israel 'the most significant assault' on Israel since its independence."  In an effort to burnish the Obama administration's Zionist credentials, Biden insisted, "At every point in our Administration, at every juncture, we have stood up for the legitimacy of the state of Israel."

Secret service agents sent home after Colombia prostitution allegations

Guardian

Members of president's security detail recalled from Cartagena following claims of heavy drinking and use of prostitutes

Barack Obama arrived in Cartagena for the Summit of the Americas
the day after the secret service agents were sent home.

The US secret service, the elite suit and earpiece-wearing bodyguard unit responsible for presidential security, is embroiled in scandal after 12 members were reportedly recalled amid accusations of prostitution in Colombia.

The dozen had been among US security officials carrying out intensive preparations ahead of a summit visit by President Barack Obama to Cartagena, a coastal city popular with tourists.

The allegations broke in the Washington Post, which was alerted to the story by Ronald Kessler, a former Post reporter and author of a book on the secret service. Kessler said the secret service agents had been recalled after at least one had become involved with prostitution which is legal in some areas of the city.

"One of the agents did not pay one of the prostitutes, and she complained to the police," Kessler told cable news channel CNN. "This is clearly the biggest scandal in secret service history," Kessler added.

A statement issued by a spokesman for the secret service, Edwin Donovan, declined to comment on the specifics of the allegations but confirmed a redeployment of staff. "There have been allegations of misconduct made against the secret service in Cartagena, Colombia, prior to the president's trip.

"Because of this, those personnel are being relieved of their assignments, returned to their place of duty, and are being replaced by other secret service personnel. The secret service takes all allegations of misconduct seriously," the statement said.

The scandal is a major blow to the secret service, which prides itself on discretion and professionalism and has a reputation for taking no chances with presidential security.

SOLYNDRAGATE: Huge Email Dump Implicates Obama And Rahm In Bankruptcy Scandal

Business Insider
Grace Wyler

The White House released a bunch of emails related to the Solyndra bankruptcy scandal to Congressional investigators today, in what has become a regular Friday evening email dump.
The emails, obtained by several news organizations, implicate the most senior levels of the Obama administration in the scandal, which has tainted the White House since the solar company went bankrupt last month, leaving taxpayers on the hook for a $534 billion federal loan.

Here are the highlights:

One email, obtained by the Washington Post, suggests that Obama and/or his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was actively involved in trying to get Solyndra's loan application approved in time for a September 2009 press conference.

“Ron said this morning that the POTUS definitely wants to do this (or Rahm definitely wants the POTUS to do this?),” one White House staffer told an Obama scheduler on Aug. 17, 2009, referring to Ron Klain, former chief of staff for Vice President Joe Biden.

Steve Spinner, an Obama fundraiser who worked in the DOE loan department, repeatedly pushed the chief loan officer to expedite approval of Solyndra's loan — despite the fact that his wife worked for the law firm representing Solyndra. The firm received at least $2.4 million in fees related to the loan, according to the AP.  DOE officials have previously stated that Spinner did not "actively participate" in Solyndra's application.

“How [expletive] hard is this? What is he waiting for? Will we have it by the end of the day?” Spinner wrote on Aug. 28, 2009. “I have OVP [Office of Vice President] and WH [White House] breathing down my neck on this. They are getting itchy to get involved if needed. I don’t want that.”

In 2011, the Treasury Department warned the DOE about the questionable legality of Solyndra's refinancing deal, which put investors ahead of taxpayers in the event the company went under.
"In February, we requested in writing that DOE seek the Department of Justice’s approval of any proposed restructuring,” an assistant Treasury secretary wrote in an August 2011 memo to the OMB. “To our knowledge that never happened.”

Another email, obtained by TIME, suggests that Solyndra's bad finances and poor business model were well-known within the solar panel industry. A February 2009 letter from the CEO of Solyndra's main competitor, Nanosolar, basiclly asks what everyone in the country is asking now:

“In light of the DoE loan program application of a competitor of ours, Solyndra, and given the well-publicized rapidly deteriorating financial state of this company as well as its failure to secure new investors and maintain a balance sheet adequate for product introduction, I would appreciate clarification from you about whether the DoE loan guarantee program is suitable as a ‘bail-out’ program for failing private manufacturers."

Obama admin reworked Solyndra loan to favor donor

AJC
Matthew Daly

FILE - In this Aug. 31, 2011, file photo,
Solyndra workers leave Solyndra
in Fremont, Calif. Newly released
emails show that the Obama
administration was worried about
the financial health of a troubled
solar energy company even as officials
publicly declared the company in
good shape. An email from a White House
budget official to a co-worker
discussed the likely effect of a
default by Solyndra Inc. on
President Barack Obama’s
re-election campaign.

Administration officials defended the loan restructuring, saying that without an infusion of cash earlier this year, solar panel maker Solyndra Inc. would likely have faced immediate bankruptcy, putting more than 1,000 people out of work.

Even with the federal help, Solyndra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month and laid off its 1,100 employees.

The Fremont, Calif.-based company was the first renewable-energy company to receive a loan guarantee under a stimulus-law program to encourage green energy and was frequently touted by the Obama administration as a model. Obama visited the company's Silicon Valley headquarters last year, and Vice President Joe Biden spoke by satellite at its groundbreaking.

Since then, the implosion of the company and revelations that the administration hurried Office of Management and Budget officials to finish their review of the loan in time for the September 2009 groundbreaking has become an embarrassment for Obama as he sells his new job-creation program around the country.

An Associated Press review of regulatory filings shows that Solyndra was hemorrhaging hundreds of millions of dollars for years before the Obama administration signed off on the original $535 million loan guarantee in September 2009. The company eventually got $528 million.

Given the company's shaky financial condition, Republican lawmakers say the decision to restructure the loan raises questions about whether the administration protected political supporters at taxpayers' expense.

"You should have protected the taxpayers and made some forceful actions here after this analysis," Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., told a top Energy Department official this week. "Because you should have seen the problems. And you should have said, 'Taxpayers need to be protected and this has got to stop.' "
The loan restructuring is one element congressional investigators are focusing on as they look into the federal loan guarantee Solyndra received under the economic stimulus law.

Under terms of the February loan restructuring, two private investors — Argonaut Ventures I LLC and Madrone Partners LP — stand to be repaid before the U.S. government if the solar company is liquidated. The two firms gave the company a total of $69 million in emergency loans. The loans are the only portion of their investments that have repayment priority above the U.S. government.

Argonaut is an investment vehicle of the George Kaiser Family Foundation of Tulsa, Okla. The foundation is headed by billionaire George Kaiser, a major Obama campaign contributor and a frequent visitor to the White House. Kaiser raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for Obama's 2008 campaign, federal election records show. Kaiser has made at least 16 visits to the president's aides since 2009, according to White House visitor logs.

Madrone Partners is affiliated with the Walton family, descendants of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton. Rob Walton, the eldest son of Sam Walton, contributed $2,500 last year to the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The AP review also found that officials at Solyndra had been seeking a second round of loans from the Energy Department to expand the company's Silicon Valley headquarters. The request for a second loan was denied.

"We have incurred significant net losses since our inception, including a net loss of $114.1 million in 2007, $232.1 million in 2008 and $119.8 million in the first nine months of fiscal 2009, and we had an accumulated deficit of $505 million at Oct. 3, 2009," the company said in a December 2009 filing to the SEC. "We expect to continue to incur significant operating and net losses and negative cash flow from operations for the foreseeable future."

Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera said Friday that the company's financial losses were not uncommon for a high-tech startup and were a major reason Solyndra applied for the federal loan. The loan program is intended to help promising companies that cannot receive financing through private banks because of high risk.

Jonathan Silver, executive director of the Energy Department's loan program, said DOE officials faced a stark choice late last year and early this year: Refuse to allow the loan restructuring, "thereby ensuring that Solyndra would close its doors immediately" or allow the company to accept emergency financing, "thereby giving it and its almost 1,000 workers a fighting chance at success, and the government a higher expected recovery on its loan."

The decision by Energy Secretary Steven Chu was not an easy one, Silver told the House Energy and Commerce Committee, but appeared to be the right action at the time.

"Without DOE's agreement to restructure Solyndra's loan, the company likely would have faced bankruptcy much earlier — in December 2010" or soon after, Silver said. "Restructuring gave them a fighting chance to compete and succeed, and kept approximately 1,000 workers from losing their jobs."
Republicans were not impressed.

"If their model was weak to begin with, and then the market gets worse, doesn't that mean that maybe we should have just not thrown good money after bad?" asked Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va. "Because now we're in a worse position in the bankruptcy courts to get our money back."

GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann called the Solyndra loan an example of "crony capitalism" that benefited political donors.

"It's wrong to abuse executive authority with unilateral actions" Bachmann said at a campaign event Friday in California. "And of course the other problem with Solyndra is the fact that it appears there was crony capitalism, that there were political donors that benefited by this $535 million loan."
Newly released emails show the White House was worried about the likely effect of a default by Solyndra on Obama's re-election campaign.

"The optics of a Solyndra default will be bad," an OMB official wrote in a Jan. 31 email to a colleague.
"The timing will likely coincide with the 2012 campaign season heating up."

The budget official, whose name is blacked out in the email, wondered whether Solyndra should be allowed to restructure its loan.

"Questions will be asked as to why the administration made a bad investment, not just once (which could hopefully be explained as part of the challenge of supporting innovative technologies), but twice (which could easily be portrayed as bad judgment, or worse)," the email says.

Associated Press writer Gillian Flaccus in Costa Mesa, Calif., contributed to this story.

Follow Jack Gillum at http://twitter.com/jackgillum and Matthew Daly at http://twitter.com/MatthewDalyWDC

AIPAC: 'Thou shalt not recognize Palestine State'

Palestinian Cry

Here is the latest case of the power of Israel Lobby (AIPAC). Last week the US lawmakers passed ‘unanimously’ Resolution 1765 – condemning unilateral measures to declare or recognize a Palestinian state. Incidently, the democratically elected Hamas government has not declared an ‘Islamic State of Palestine’, but Bolivia along with Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Venezuela has recognized Palestine as a “free and independent state within its pre-war (1967) geographical status”.

According to former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and intelligence adviser, Philip Giraldi PhD, Resolution 1765 was drafted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and sponsored by Congressman Howard Berman, currently Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. There were 53 co-sponsors.

Benji Netanyahu government is notorious in rubbing Ben Obama administration, from insulting Zionist Vice-presiden Joe Biden to telling Obama to shove-off his 20 F-35 stealth military planes and plus – in return for stopping illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank for 90 days. Obama’s top Middle East adviser, half-Jewish Dennis Ross, and certainly AIPAC and the Democratic campaign committee must be behind this new bribe or “pretty please, with a cherry on top” as MJ Rosenberg called.

“Why would the Palestinians agree to negotiations under these conditions? They can’t. Or maybe they would for $3.5 billion, which they can sure use but would never be offered. Thanks to the Anthony Weiners, Steny Hoyers, Ileana Ros-Lehtinens, Eliot Engels and Brad Shermans of the world, what we invariably offer the Palestinians is not $3.5 billion but, to use a wonderful Yiddish term, bupkes — absolutely nothing or so little as to be an insult,” says MJ Rosenberg, senior foreign policy fellow at Media Matter Actions.

“Israelis and Palestinians need an “honest broker,” but that is not the role the Obama administration has decided to play. (Check out any speech on the Middle East by Vice President Joseph Biden, who always says, over and over, that there must be “no daylight, no daylight” between US and Israeli positions. Some honest broker!)”, wrote Rosenberg.

“If Obama is Israel’s friend, he’ll tell AIPAC and its cutouts in Congress that he will do what’s right for Israel, which, not so incidentally, is what is right for the United States,” says Rosenberg. However, what’s right for the future generations of the Jews, Muslims and Christians living in the Middle East And United States, would be a single democratic State of Palestine.