Friday, October 12, 2012

The Benghazi Shuffle

Comment courtesy of GracelessLand.wordpress.com

THE BENGHAZI SHUFFLE

You move it to the left
And you go for yourself
You move it to the right
Yeah if it takes all night
.
Now take it kinda slow
With a whole lot of soul
Don't move it too fast
Just make it last
.
You scratch just like a monkey
Yeah you do real cool
You slide it to the limbo
Yeah how low can you go?
.
Now come on baby
Don't fall down on me now
Just move it right here
To the Benghazi shuffle
.
Yeah yeah yeah to the Benghazi shuffle
Yeah yeah yeah to the Benghazi shuffle...


(With apologies to the Rolling Stones as well as the rest of America)

From Dictionary.com:   shuf·fle  [shuhf-uhl]
 


1.  to walk without lifting the feet or with clumsy steps and a shambling gait.
2.  to scrape the feet over the floor in dancing.
3.  to move clumsily (usually followed by into ): to shuffle into one's clothes.
4.  to act underhandedly or evasively with respect to a stated situation (often followed by in, into,  or out of ): to shuffle out of one's responsibilities.


The Benghazi Shuffle

On September 11, 2012, the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya was attacked and four U.S. citizens were murdered by Terrorists.  As I type this post one month later on October 11, 2012, EVERYONE knows this, right?

Well, everyone who 'had an attention span greater than a goldfish' knew that the September 11th attacks meant something other than a mere coincidence of a calendar date... 

The Heritage Foundation has put together a timeline which sums up the past month's 'Shuffle' by the Obama Administration...

Dance with them now:


The following chronological timeline excerpted from Heritage:



September 11: Protesters attack the U.S. Cairo embassy. U.S. Embassy releases statement and tweets sympathizing with Muslim protesters/attackers.


September 11: U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya is attacked, Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans are killed.


September 12: Secretary Clinton and President Obama issue statements condemning both the video and the attacks.


September 12: U.S. intelligence agencies have enough evidence to conclude a terrorist attack was involved.


September 13: Press Secretary Jay Carney condemns video and violence at a news conference.


September 14: Carney denies Administration had “actionable intelligence indicating that an attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi was planned or imminent.”



September 14: The bodies of slain Americans return to Andrews Air Force Base. President Obama again blames the YouTube video.


September 16: U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice appears on Sunday talk shows and says the attacks were provoked by the video, exclusively.


September 16: Libyan President Mohamed Magarief says, “no doubt that this [attack] was preplanned, predetermined.”


September 17: State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland refuses to call attacks an act of terror.


September 19: CNN reports having found Ambassador Stevens’s diary, which indicates concern about security threats in Benghazi.



September 19: Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Matthew Olsen tells Congress the attack in Libya was “terrorism.”


September 20: Carney tries to back up Olsen, says it was “self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.”


September 20: Obama refuses to call attack terrorism, citing insufficient information.


September 21: Secretary of State Clinton, at meeting with Pakistani Foreign Minister, says, “What happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack.”


September 25: On ABC’s “The View,” Obama says, “we don’t have all of the information yet so we are still gathering.”


September 25: To the U.N. assembly, Obama blames “A crude and disgusting video sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world.”


September 26: Libya’s Magarief on the “Today” show says, “It was a preplanned act of terrorism directed against American citizens.”


September 26: Published reports show U.S. Intel agencies and the Obama Administration knew within 24 hours that al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist were involved.


September 27: Innocence of Muslims filmmaker Mark Basseley Youseff (aka Nakoula Basseley Nakoula) is arrested and denied bail on the charges of “probation violation.”


September 28: Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, Jr., issues a statement backing the Obama Administration’s changing story about the Libyan attack. Says facts are evolving.


October 2: Carney declines to  comment on reported requests from diplomats in Libya for additional security, citing the State Department’s internal investigation.


October 10:  "(State) Department officials were asked about the administration’s initial—and since retracted—explanation linking the violence to protests over an American-made anti-Muslim video circulating on the Internet. One official responded, ‘That was not our conclusion.’ He called it a question for ‘others’ to answer, without specifying.” 


During the Democratic National Convention supporters of the Obama Administration cheered 21 times as it was announced that President Obama "killed Bin Laden".  (And lest we forget, he also saved General Motors, then he gave it to the Unions to be eaten alive...)  


I've had a couple of questions bouncing around in the back of my head since Charlotte's DNC Love Fest: 

  • Did the repetitive narrative during this event (backslapping the President on the 'killing of Bin Laden') contribute to Al Qaeda's desire to 'do something' in response?
  • Did the Obama Administration's laser-like focus on this 'once-virtually-unknown' video cause additional attacks at other embassies around the world by inciting more radical Islamists to commit additional acts of violence?
  • Did the Administration put the filmmaker, actors, and other participants of this video in the public eye to get the heat off the Administration?
  • Did the Obama Administration know that these people would be receiving death threats as a result of their 'outting' by the government and Media?
  • Did you know in 2012 you can be put in jail for making a 'really bad film', even if it only appears on YouTube? 
  • Did the Obama Administration consider the safety of private citizens related to this film, or was the Administration just 'too busy' covering their own 'exposed parts' that they weren't really concerned with other-people's-problems?

This evening I will watch the Vice Presidential debate between Paul Ryan and Joe Biden.  Will the Moderator from ABC News ask about Libya, dead Americans, the cover-up, and the Administration's Benghazi Shuffle?

Will Joe Biden answer the questions many of us want to know which all begin with a single word, "Why"?

"Why did you lie to us?"
"Why wasn't the embassy (or all embassies for that matter) secure on 9/11?"
"Why did you blame a Terrorist attack on a film no one saw?"
"Why haven't you given answers to the families of those left behind?"

Yesterday, on October 10, 2012, CNN's Anderson Cooper spoke with Pat Smith, the mother of Sean Smith, who died in the 9/11/12 Benghazi attack said the following:

Speaking to Anderson Cooper on CNN last night, she told how she cried on Obama's shoulder and how: 'Everyone of them, all the big shots over there told me - they promised me, they promised me that they would tell me what happened.
 

'I told them, please don't give me any baloney that comes through with this political stuff.
 

'I don't want political stuff. You can keep your political, just tell me the truth - what happened.
 

'And I still don't know. In fact, today I just heard something more that he died of smoke inhalation.
 

'I look at TV and I see bloody hand prints on walls, thinking: 'My God, is that my son's? I don't know if he was shot. I don't know - I don't know.
 

'They haven't told me anything. They are still studying it. And the things that they are telling me are just outright lies.'

She said: 'He was my only child. And he was good, he was good at what he did, he'd loved it.
 

'I begged them to tell me what happened.'
 

'I said I want to know all the details, all of the details no matter what it is, and I'll make up my own mind on it.'
 

'No one, not one person has ever, ever gotten back to me other than media people and the gaming people [her son was an avid computer game player].
 

Asked who told her she would be contacted, she replied: 'Obama told me. Hillary promised me. Joe Biden - Joe Biden is a pleasure. He was a real sweetheart.'

Time will tell if Mrs. Smith ever gets the answers she's looking for.  I hope that she does.  I also hope that the facts surrounding her son's death are not as gristly as the results from the ambassador's autopsy. 

Several days after the attack I saw Hillary Clinton on Television discussing photos released online that showed men 'carrying the Ambassador in an effort to seek medical assistance' for him.  Later it was revealed that Ambassador Stevens was already dead in the photos and the ghoulish procession his body took through the streets of Benghazi was a post-mortem victory lap for his assassins.

Here's a question for any of you still reading this:  If this administration will LIE so blatantly to us about issues which we / and they know to be untrue...  What else are they, or HAVE they, been lying about?

The United States has not had an ambassador murdered by Terrorists since 1979 when Jimmy Carter was President.

Welcome back Carter.



  Now go away.


Saturday, October 6, 2012

Barack Obama - The Burger King



America was stunned Friday, October 5th, 2012 as the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that unemployment dropped to 7.8% from the prior level of 8.1% the month previous (which, correspondingly, 'surprisingly' dropped .2% from August's number). 

Listening to coverage of this BLS report on television, radio, and reading 'Breaking News' alerts online you would have thought aliens (from space) arrived Thursday evening and began taking Americans away in vast numbers.

Which, in reality, they DID. 

Space Aliens?  Yes.  Space Aliens...  (If you believe the BLS Unemployment Rate for September is 'real', you most likely believe in Space Aliens.  Just for future reference, it MIGHT HAVE BEEN a weather balloon...)

Let's spend a few moments reviewing the EXCELLENT Unemployment data as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (the: "BS" - oops, dropped an "L". WHY do I keep doing that?):


FROM THE BLS 'GOOD NEWS REPORT FOR SEPTEMBER:

Number of Americans 'Participating in the Workforce':  63.6% (according to MoneyNews.com, this is the lowest 'participation rate' in the past 31 years!  It hasn't been this low since Jimmy Carter left Ronald Reagan with an economy in free fall...  Sound familiar?  Someone forward this post to Mitt Romney, just so he knows what he's up against next year...)

Meaning:  The BLS currently shows a SMALLER percentage of workers available to work in 2012 than it did when Ronald Reagan was President.

Reading between the lines: 
According to the US Census Bureau, the population in 1981 was 229 Million.  Applying the 63.6% participation rate means that roughly 83 Million Americans did not 'participate' in the workforce. 

Looking forward to 2012, the population is 313.85 Million.  Applying the same 63.6% participation rate means that just over 114.2 Million workers are not currently participating in the workforce. 

The 'Just for Giggles' Calculation:  In 2009, the Labor Participation Rate the Year Obama took office was 65.7%.

With 306 Million in the US Census, there were 111.4 Americans NOT participating in the workforce.  

So, between 2009 and 2012, an additional (114.2 million - 111.4 million =) 2.8 Million Americans disappeared from the work force (according to the BLS and US Census Bureau). 

The question then becomes, "Where did they go?"

   
Yes, you knew we'd get here sooner or later... 

Space Aliens.

Oh, no, there's a much more plausible answer.  Meet Hilda Lucia Solis, US Secretary of Labor, her department made these workers simply 'disappear' from the ranks of the US Work Force with a happy wave of her dry-eraser on a White Board in a alien-proof bunker somewhere deep beneath the White House.

Hilda "The Terminator" Solis, US Secretary of Labor

In any event, American workers continue to 'disappear' at an alarming rate during the Obama Administration.  Not since the year following James Earl Carter's departure from the White House have we seen numbers this 'interesting', this 'consistently'.

Let's see, have I covered everything?

Oops, I see that I have NOT covered everything I wanted to touch on this morning. 

The name of the post, as well as the 'Racially Insensitive' photo which begins it?  This, of course, is in reference to the fact that according to the BLS, the economy added 600,000 part-time (remember the term 'Burger Flipping' jobs from the Bush Administration's Media coverage?) jobs in the month of September.  Yes, as of yesterday 860,000 Americans have taken part-time, under-employment jobs as 'real jobs' are no longer available in a 'Transformed Obama Economy'. 

Shoot, you'd think that with almost 3 MILLION Americans disappearing in the dead-of-night over the past four years that there'd be high-paying jobs on every street corner?  I wonder where all those job opportunities went since their prior inhabitants no longer exist in the work force?  I wonder...

[Sigh]

Hey, but wait, there's more REALLY GREAT NEWS FROM THIS MONTH'S JOBS REPORT!!!

According to the Huffington Post:
The September job gains were led by the health care industry, which added 44,000 jobs - the most since February [Moos Note:  ObamaCare at work, lowering our health care costs by adding medical staff?  Huh???]. Transportation and warehousing also showed large gains.

The revisions also showed that federal, state and local governments added 63,000 jobs in July and August, compared with earlier estimates that showed losses. 

[Moos Note:  State, local, and Federal governments are Growing again - woohoo!!!]

Still, many of the jobs the economy added last month were part time. The number of people with part-time jobs who wanted full-time work rose 7.5 percent to 8.6 million, the most since February 2009.

Yes, a lot has happened since 2009.  We've had a President referred to as the 'Food Stamp President' by Newt Gingrich.  Gingrich, of course, was condemned for this 'Racist' statement by the Media.  And as EVERYONE knows that if someone calls you the 'Food Stamp President' they are speaking about your RACE rather than your RECORD (because, according to Liberal Democrats, only Blacks get Food Stamps?  Weird, but that sounds like a really radically Racist assumption on their part...). 

The statement Gingrich made, however, IS factually correct, as President Obama has put a LOT more people on Food Stamps than his predecessors have during their equivalent time in office.

Check out the following chart which tracks the increases in Food Stamp benefits between the Bush and Obama Administrations (click on chart to enlarge): 


    

IF we were still using the 'Burger Flipping' terminology of the Reagan / Bush Years to describe an economy in which people are working 'below their prior employment level', I feel pretty good in referring to President Obama as 'The Burger King'.  

You get to have Health Care, Contraception, Employment, Business, Taxes... "His Way".

Please do not confuse the President with the actual 'Burger King', as they are NOT the same person and I cannot afford to defend myself against any alleged copyright infringements.

To confirm this, I offer you the fact-based photographic evidence that they are NOT the same guy:

The man loves to bow...
   

And please do not read any racial motivation into the following photo in which the President of the United States bows yet again...


To Colonel Harland David Sanders (The Kentucky Fried Chicken King):

"Uh, can I stand up now?"


 
Come on, that's funny, you know it is...

Have a nice weekend folks.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Madonna Endorses...

Photo:  YouTube
You know the old saying:

"With Friends like that, you don't need Madonna..."

Sure you do!  Don't 'cha?!?!?! 

And heeeeeeeeere she is!!!

{Please be aware that the following onstage rant includes foul language, takes historical 'liberties', and is offensive to most anyone, other than her audience who PAID to listen to her 'wax philosophically'}

 

Submitted for your approval:  A middle-age woman, onstage, wearing leather and holding a microphone.  She NEEDS to make a statement to express her support for the man she believes is the BEST possible leader of the free world and says... 

[No, I'm not making this up]

"Now, it's so amazing and incredible to think that we have an African-American in the White House ... we have a black Muslim in the White House ... it means there is hope in this country, and Obama is fighting for gay rights, so support the man,"

Yup, as the gifted Grammy-Award Winning Songwriter, Randy Newman sings, "You've got a friend in me" so, apparently, does President Obama have a 'friend' in Madonna.

This being the case, I've taken the liberty to 'tweak' Madonna's very first hit as short homage to the "Best Black Muslim" we've ever had in the White House, President Barack Hussein Obama...

LIKE A MUSLIM

I made it through immigration
My mother got me through
Didn't know where I was born
Until I woke in Honolulu


I was a kid with no class
The other kids, they beat my ass
But the Prophet made me feel
Yeah, he made me feel
Holy, and not like a Jew


Chorus:

Like a Muslim
Praying for the very first time
Like a Muslim
Watching as the Embassies explode
But I'm gettin' to bed on time


Gonna give you all my ears, George
My approval is dropping, but
Somehow polling says that I'm ahead
And Romney's going down fast


The job is fine, and it's mine
I hear the Conservatives whine
Oh, the 47% will come out
Yeah, they will come out and
Give me four more years to tell you what to dooooooo


(chorus)

Oooh, oooh, oooh

The job is mine, only mine
I'll be President till the end of time
Cause I make you feel
Yeah, I make you feel
Like you're all swine


(chorus)

And I'm a Muslim
Praying for the very first time
Like a Muslim
Watching as the Embassies explode
But I'm gettin' to bed on time


Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, infidels
Can't you see my polling
I'm in the lead for the very last time...



Madonna came out following statement the appearance saying she was only being 'Ironic'.   [NOTE TO MADONNA:  'Ironic' and 'Moronic' are two different words - which one did you mean to say?] 

Oh yeah?  Well, me too...  The above liberties taken with Madonna's song from thirty years ago - I was being IRONIC too!

The real irony, of course, is that Madonna 'isn't exactly' one of the 47 percenters that Romney spoke about.  I'm thinking she's more like, um, what's the number?  Oh yeah, she's in the top 1% of all income winners in the U.S.! 

Huh, more irony, I guess?

Well, I'm off to work, in the meanwhile, please enjoy this encore presentation of the much better, much funnier , and much better written, Weird Al's, "Like a Surgeon"...




I don't know, but something tells me with so much of Hollywood, Media, and the News Networks coming out to bolster the President's reputation - maybe there's something the polling ISN'T telling us??? 

We'll see soon enough. 

Have a nice day folks!




Sunday, September 23, 2012

Theme Music

Drudge Landing Page - 09/23/2012
Yes, I'll 'own up to' adding the two blue 'thought bubbles' above, however, I need to fill in a bit of background information regarding the inspiration for today's post.  (For more detail on the verbiage below the photos above, please click on the image above.  The links below the Drudge Masthead are 'interesting'.) 

So I'm sitting alone, minding my own business on a blue-sky Sunday morning and the FM station I'm listening to tosses the following Neil Diamond standard out across their Frequency Modulated airwaves while I'm reading the Drudge page headlines above...

 
 
This, of course, got me thinking...  Thinking about songs which might sum up the relationship between the American People, President Obama, Congress, the Middle East, and other broken dreams since the 2008 election.

I wonder, which other songs might describe the current relationship between President Obama and the American People?  And once I get thinking, well, let's just say that it's hard to stand on the brakes once THAT begins.  Although, I will admit that it's a bit harder to 'begin thinking' than it used to be...

So in no particular order, I would like to nominate the following songs as theme music for our 2012 National Elections Soundtrack.  As we move through the 45-day homestretch of the November elections, take a moment to sit back, relax, and think about the NEXT four years.

Sing with me now as we take a moosical journey across America under the one, the only, the last, President Barack Obama.

Feel free to comment on your own soundtrack nominations in the Comment Section below (Good, Bad, or Ugly, it's still America, right?  You CAN have an opinion):

 
How many Americans view the Obama Presidency: 
"The Thrill is Gone" B.B. King, Eric Clapton, & Phil Collins




How the Media views the Obama Presidency (with a special guest appearance by Bill Clinton - wearing a 'big hat'!):
"Hosanna", Jesus Christ Superstar




 
How I feel some mornings when thinking about the state of our nation after viewing the morning news: 
"Dance Band On the Titanic", Harry Chapin




 
President Obama, I believe, never met a mirror he didn't like:
"You're So Vain", Carly Simon





ACTUAL Hope and Change (a.k.a.:  "God Bless America Again"):
"In America", Charlie Daniels






My hope for America:
"Won't Get Fooled Again", The Who


So, what do you think?  Comment, and send a link...

Have a nice weekend folks, Monday's coming!