LFTC - Letter From The Capitol

CAN FBI SAVE IRS?

Will Congress be stymied by an FBI coverup?

Although the Obama administration's official position is that too much is being made of unfolding scandals, the A-G ordered an instant FBI investigation.  New disclosures show the IRS intruding like Big Brother on private thoughts, reading lists, etc.  The agency faces a class action lawsuit alleging it improperly seized medical records of 10 million Americans.  NRO's Kevin Williamson exposes nine lies told by Lois Lerner, who directs IRS regulation of tax-empt organizations.

Tea Partier & Sen. Marco Rubio calls out Team Obama for its political "culture of intimidation" (14:02).

 

So an FBI probe sounds great.

Or does it?

What if Congress subpoenas witnesses to testify, and the witnesses demur due to FBI investigation?

And then there is the case of True the Vote, a nonpartisan group whose laudable aim is to see that no one votes who is not eligible to vote, and that no one votes fraudulently.  No less than five agencies have gone after TTV, including multiple surprise audits.  Also, the EPA has been caught treating information requests discriminatorily, favoring those of lefty groups over righties.

The president tossed the acting IRS chief to the wolves (he was asked to resign and did, facing firing otherwise), and promises a full investigation.  But do not trust the White House on this.

Put simply, it is hard to believe that a government agency--even one as uncharming as the IRS--would embark on a blatantly illegal, unconstitutional and (most important) politically toxic course by openly selectively harassing administration opponents.

More likely is that the White House played a role in this.  Put simply, bureaucrats who abuse power normally make sure their rear ends are covered; they make sure the boss approves.  And the IRS top brass would not likely let this go forward without at least a firm belief in having tacit WH and or congressional (in this case, senatorial) approval.  This kind of thing no one with brains and political savvy risks without strong political cover.  House Tea Party Caucus director Michelle Bachmann, a former federal tax litigation attorney who handled civil & criminal cases, said on Greta's On the Record last night (6:04) that it is "impossible" for IRS underlings to "go rogue", as they are very closely supervised all the way up the IRS managerial food chain.

Bottom Line. Look for more surprises, unless the coverup succeeds.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Conservative Politics

OBAMA's IRS PIT BULL BITES

IRS audit keywords: "tea party" & "patriots"....

The NRO editors highlight three separate major issues in IRS abuses--which take place after a long, dismal history of same:

There are at least three separate categories of wrongdoing here. The first is the targeting of groups that were believed to be critical of the Obama administration or the federal government in general. The second is the demanding of information that was irrelevant to the tax-status questions at hand, which would have been wrong even if the practice had been applied evenhandedly across the political spectrum. The third is the misleading of Congress and the public about these practices.

Kevin Williamson's NRO piece captures IRS abuses perfectly:

BENGHAZI BETRAYALS

How Obama & Hillary betrayed Chris Stevens....

Mark Steyn perfectly captures the obscene betrayal of Amb. Stevens by his two superiors, the president & secretary of state, as reported by radio host Hugh Hewitt:

Steyn said that the late U.S. ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was a true believer of President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s view of the Arab Spring, that it was a positive movement and was trying to make the best of it. Clinton and senior State Department officials, he said, let Stevens die, meaning that he was “sacrificed for the Obama-Clinton fiction of the Arab Spring.”

“All the players involved in this are Democrats,” Steyn said. “Chris Stevens is in fact the poster boy for the Obama-Clinton view of the Arab Spring. He’s one of their guys. I mean, as chaps like me look on it, he was in large part deluded about the nature of the Arab Spring, but he was a personally courageous and brave man who was on the front line of the Obama-Clinton narrative about the Arab Spring.”

“And Democrats, liberals should ask themselves about that — if they are willing to, that’s, no right-wingers, no Republicans, no conservatives are involved in this. They did that to one of their own. And as you say, the three elements of this story all got moved slightly further on in the course of the testimony yesterday. … He was there in Benghazi on a symbolic day at the personal request of Sen. Clinton. In a sense, he not only died for the Obama-Clinton fiction, he was sacrificed for the Obama-Clinton fiction of the Arab Spring.”

Steyn's sharpest dart: “They let him die, and then told lies over his coffin.”

Bottom Line.  With friends like these....

Letter from the Capitol. LFTC, Foreign Policy, National Security, Terrorism, Conservative Politics

BENGHAZI INVADES MSM

Mainstream media, long pro-Obama, wake up....

At last, ABC News joins the Benghazi story.  ABC News White House correspondent Jonathan Karl's May 9 evening news report (1:39) could be a game-changer.  Karl's report reveals: (1) there were 12 revisions to the original CIA-supplied talking points (some made inside the CIA); (2) State Dept. Victoria Nuland successfully lobbied for all removal of all talking-point references to al-Qaeda & CIA warnings of threats, lest it give ammunition to Congress; (3) that the Obama original story of only a single word having been changed from the first draft was false.  WH flack Jay Carney said at his Nov. 28, 2012 press briefing, that the WH had made only a single word change, from "consulate" to "diplomatic facility" in order to reflect properly the legal status of the building:

MR. CARNEY:  No, I don’t.  The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two -- of these two institutions were changing the word "consulate" to "diplomatic facility," because "consulate" was inaccurate.  Those talking points originated from the intelligence community.  They reflect the IC's best assessments of what they thought had happened.

And I would refer you to numerous reporting -- numerous pieces of reporting by serious journalists and serious publications that demonstrate that people who participated in the assault on Benghazi were aware of what was happening in Cairo and were partly motivated by what was happening in Cairo.

So that obsession here on what Ambassador Rice said on a Sunday show is simply non-material to the key question of why four Americans died in Benghazi.

(Italics mine.)

At TWS Steven Hayes punctures Carney's lawyerly evasions:

In response to a question about the scrubbing of the CIA talking points for references to al Qaeda and Ansar al Sharia, Carney reiterated his claim that the White House only made “one change” to CIA talking points. That may be literally true, but it’s highly misleading. According to internal Obama administration documents and emails, other senior Obama officials suggested deep and substantive revisions to the talking points. When a reporter asked whether the White House had a role “not just in making but directing the changes,” Carney dodged.

Such semantic gymnastics work in some contexts, such as lawyers representing clients in a lawsuit.  But they work less often in politics.  Carney's refusal to answer the "make" versus "direct" reportorial query leads to the inescapable inference that the WH directed others to make the changes.  Even the liberal New Yorker decries WH semantic antics.  CNN's Gloria Borger sees editing the talking points into something "totally ... in fact untrue" (4:23).  And BTW, whistleblower Gregory Hicks, whose testimony exploded the administration's story, is a registered Democrat who supported Hillary in the 2008 primary and voted twice for Obama in the general election.

Right Turn's Jennifer Rubin defends Nuland by providing explanatory context: Nuland felt that airing CIA points would prejudice the FBI investigation; Nuland, writes Rubin, neither accepted nor aired the "hateful video" or "spontaneous demonstration" fairy tales promoted by the White House & top officials like Hillary.  On Fox, James Rosen reported that the FBI did not share Nuland's concerns re the investigation.  Ace terror prosecutor Andy McCarthy informs us that the phony video narrative undercut Libya's moderate provisional leader, by making him appear a stooge for Uncle Sam when he blamed al-Qaeda.

At TWS Steven Hayes updates CIA post-Benghazi involvement, and the role of ex-DCI David Petraeus, who decided to allow the false narrative to go forward, on the iffy rationale that explaining things to the public is not the CIA's role.  Also at TWS, Bill Kristol laments Team Obama's all-talk, no-action policies.  Post-Benghazi this meant:

One of the many interesting subplots of the Benghazi saga involves the State Department’s Accountability Review Board, which was asked by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to review State Department decisions before, during, and after the spontaneous demonstration—oops, terrorist attack—on the night of September 11, 2012. The board managed to conduct a review in which it chose not to interview several key figures in the Benghazi decision-making process, including—to take two rather obvious examples of people whom you’d think a review board might want to talk to—Secretary Clinton and Mark Thompson, the senior counterterrorism official at State. Thompson even volunteered to meet with the board, which decided not to take him up on the offer.

Having failed thoroughly to review what happened, the board produced a report that was somewhere between radically incomplete and positively misleading. It also—no surprise—failed to hold any high-ranking political appointees accountable for anything, while assigning culpability to four midlevel career civil servants. The board’s performance was so egregious that it’s now being investigated by the State Department Inspector General.

At CB Jonathan Tobin speculates that if Benghazi gets worse it may endanger Hillary's chances of winning the presidency in 2016.  Recall her brazen "the video did it" lie at the service for Amb. Stevens, and her phony straw men--protesters, or guys just out for a stroll--paraded before the Jan. 23 Senate panel, leading up to the plaintive, absurd "What difference does it make?" (perhaps calculated) outburst:

"Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk last night who decided to kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator."

Of course, it makes all the difference in the world, if you are trying to craft measures to prevent a recurrence.

Worse, the CIA had issued a warning on Sept. 10 as to Cairo: that demonstrations plus a possible effort to breach the embassy wall were on tap, and that the reason was not the infamous anti-Islam video, but jihadist demands that the blind sheik, architect of the 1993 WTC bombing, be released.

Finally, a State Dept. employee penned a satirical poem that captures the stomach-turning hypocrisy and cowardice of top officials in foisting off blame on underlings while protecting themselves.

Bottom Line.  They lied--and got away with it long enough to ward off a possible threat to Pres. Obama's re-election.  And that, in the end, likely will be the most fateful consequence of the administration's cold-blooded duplicity.  We face four more years of destructive policies.

And do not count Hillary out for 2016.  She has proven several times that, aided by MSM allies, her political Teflon is formidable.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Foreign Policy, National Security, Terrorism, Conservative Politics

FBI STIFFS BOSTON

Feds kept local authorities in the dark, again....

The central consensus policy insight of the post-9/11/2001 attacks was that federal, state & local officials needed broad & deep access to intelligence as well as law enforcement information on potential and/or actual suspects, to maximize the chance that a terror plot be stopped in advance.

So you'd think that all ducks were in a row after more than a decade.  Guess again.

The FBI did not share with state & local Boston officials potentially significant information it had gathered on deceased bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev.  Thus the butcher's bill paid by Boston victims in the Marathon bombing may be have been avoided, had information been properly shared.  Retired senator Joe Lieberman so testified before Congress yesterday.

Bottom Line.  We never seem to learn certain harsh lessons.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Homeland Security, National Security, Terrorism, Conservative Politics

HILLARY's 2 AM CALL: UPDATE

THE QUESTION HILLARY NEGLECTED TO ASK....

When Hillary called Libyan charge d'affaires Gregory Hicks at 2 AM on 9/12/2012, shortly after the Benghazi attacks had ended, she called when the unambiguous reporting from the scene had been that the incident had been a terrorist attack carried out by an Islamist group, and not a spontaneous demonstration.

Hillary did not even directly ask the senior surviving US diplomat re Libya what the cause of the attack had been.  Why?

The inescapable inference: Hillary already knew the cause of the death & destruction visited on the Benghazi mission.

It would surely have been in her interest, as the ultimately responsible supervising senior official, to know whether the incident had been a demonstration or a terrorist attack, if only to gauge her future actions.  Only if she knew already would she have had no need to ask again.

Bottom Line.  Hillary was already in political coverup mode.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Foreign Policy, National Security, Terrorism, Conservative Politics

BENGHAZI COVER BLOWN

What did yesterday's hearing show?

Begin with a shocker: the co-chairs of the panel that assessed State's performance, ex-Amb. Thomas Pickering & ex-Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, declined to appear before the hearing. Any chairing panelists worthy of their names would have appeared to defend their work product--even though it is now under investigation for failure to interview key witnesses.  There is, after all, no legal liability for such administrative failings.

Here is the unclassified version of the State Dept. Accountability Review Board report on Benghazi.  The ARB report found that "systemic failures" led to facility security "inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate for the attack that took place."  The reviewers declared themselves "humbled by the courage and integrity" of personnel in Tripoli & Benghazi on Sept. 11 & 12. Their assessment of Washington officials was tart:

But given the threat environment and with very little operational oversight from more experienced, senior colleagues, combined with an under-resourced security platform, these agents were not well served by their leadership in Washington.

They noted 20 security incidents in the six months immediately prior to the fatal attack, that took place in a climate of political violence, assassinations, lawlessness and lack of central governing authority.  The Board interviewed over 100 people, but not SecState Hillary.  They found no evidence of "misconduct" or "willfully ignoring" responsibilities, on the part of any individual employee.

The kindest explanation is simple bureaucratic incompetence at State's & Defense's highest levels, plus the White House.  Hasn't Team Obama figured out that Islamists love anniversaries?  The 9/11-2001 attacks came on the 318th anniversary of the date in 1683 when the Ottoman siege of Vienna was lifted, ending the second great thrust of the Sword of Islam into the heart of Europe (the first ended in 1492). 

And here is the "smoking gun" on the failure of the ARB panel to interview Hillary: the senior surviving diplomat, deputy to murdered Amb. Chris Stevens, spoke directly to Hillary (3:13) & senior staff at 2 AM on 9/12--shortly after the attack had ended--in a phone call Hillary initiated:....

CHINA: CYBER UPDATE

Team Obama changes tune, blames PRC military....

Cyber Activities Directed Against the Department of Defense. In 2012, numerous computer systems around the world, including those owned by the U.S. government, continued to be targeted for intrusions, some of which appear to be attributable directly to the Chinese government and military. These intrusions were focused on exfiltrating information. China is using its computer network exploitation (CNE) capability to support intelligence collection against the U.S. diplomatic, economic, and defense industrial base sectors that support U.S. national defense programs. The information targeted could potentially be used to benefit China’s defense industry, high technology industries, policymaker interest in US leadership thinking on key China issues, and military planners building a picture of U.S. network defense networks, logistics, and related military

capabilities that could be exploited during a crisis. Although this alone is a serious concern, the accesses and skills required for these intrusions are similar to those necessary to conduct computer network attacks. China’s 2010 Defense White Paper notes China’s own concern over foreign cyberwarfare efforts and highlighted the importance of cyber-security in China’s national defense.

Cyberwarfare in China’s Military.

Cyberwarfare capabilities could serve Chinese military operations in three key areas. First and foremost, they allow data collection for intelligence and computer network attack purposes. Second, they can be employed to constrain an adversary’s actions or slow response time by targeting network-based logistics, communications, and commercial activities. Third, they can serve as a force multiplier when coupled with kinetic attacks during times of crisis or conflict.

Developing cyber capabilities for warfare is consistent with authoritative PLA military writings. Two military doctrinal writings, Science of Strategy, and Science of Campaigns identify information warfare (IW) as integral to achieving information superiority and an effective means for countering a stronger foe. Although neither document identifies the specific criteria for employing computer network attack against an adversary, both advocate developing capabilities to compete in this medium.

The Science of Strategy and Science of Campaigns detail the effectiveness of IW and CNO in conflicts and advocate targeting adversary C2 and logistics networks to affect their ability to operate during the early stages of conflict. As Science of Strategy explains, “In the information war, the command and control system is the heart of information collection, control, and application on the battlefield. It is also the nerve center of the entire battlefield.”

In parallel with its military preparations, China has increased diplomatic engagement and advocacy in multilateral and international forums where cyber issues are discussed and debated. Beijing’s agenda is frequently in line with Russia’s efforts to promote more international control over cyber

activities. China and Russia continue to promote an Information Security Code of Conduct that would have governments exercise sovereign authority over the flow of information and control of content in cyberspace. Both governments also continue to play a disruptive role in multilateral efforts to establish transparency and confidence- building measures in international fora such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), ASEAN Regional Forum, and the UN Group of Governmental Experts. Although China has not yet agreed with the U.S. position that existing mechanisms, such as international humanitarian law , apply in cyberspace, Beijing’s thinking continues to evolve.

Source: Pages 36 & 37 (boldface italics in text above added), in 

Annual Report to Congress:

Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2013

A Report to Congress Pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000

Which tells us:

That Team Obama is now naming China's government as a cyber-intruder.

Bottom Line.  Team Obama likely knew this all along, but did not wish to say so six weeks ago, when a major report identified China's military as the leading cyber-spy on the planet.  Why they made the policy shift now is unclear.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Foreign Policy, National Security, Homeland Security, Terrorism, Conservative Politics

RED LINES & SYRIA: WHOSE?

Israeli or American red lines drawn?....

Syria crosses two red lines, and one nation steps up to enforce its line.  Not us.  President Obama has "reset" his chemical weapons red line, as Russia aids the Syrian regime in blocking a meaningful UN investigation.  the red-line enforcer is ... Israel.

Here is background on Israel-US Syria-red-line dealings:

In a series of high-level meetings between U.S. and Israeli officials over the last year, the Israelis explained in detail the conditions that would lead them to attack targets inside Syria. Israel’s “red lines,” articulated in private and public, include the shipment from Iran of advanced anti-aircraft weapons, advanced missiles, and chemical or unconventional weapons to the Lebanese militia and political party Hezbollah, according to public reports and U.S. officials.

In effect, Israel is doing Obama's dirty work, while O sits on the sidelines.  Israel's recent air-strikes show that Syria's air defenses are less formidable than advertised by the regime, and by those opposing aerial action against the regime.  As AEI Mideast maven Danielle Pletka puts it:

AMERICA PARALYZED BY P.C.

Can we fight an ideology without naming it?....

Persuasive voices answer that we cannot.  The latest example is that reluctance to investigate mosque influence on Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev may well have prevented authorities from stopping the plot in advance.

Lee Smith argues that we are "putting ourselves in lockdown": this "political, moral and now actual lockdown is more threatening that Islamic terrorism":

It was not two immigrant brothers—“losers,” their uncle called them—who closed down Boston, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, put military vehicles in its streets, and sent men in helmets and flak jackets into peoples’ homes. It was our elected leaders: our local, state, and federal political officials and law-enforcement authorities. If any Bostonians objected to having their civil liberties trampled on, they were drowned out by their cheering neighbors who massed in the streets to celebrate the authorities who had turned their city into something resembling Fallujah under American military occupation.

Only the NYPD sees the danger clearly:

We might as well accept the truth here: If the safety, stability, and economic welfare of our cities depend on the thin, furry line of bomb-sniffing dogs, we’re in trouble. Similarly, much has been made of the fact that the FBI was warned by Russian intelligence that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a potentially dangerous character. But if we have to depend on the ability and willingness of foreign-security services to tell us about the activities, beliefs, and capabilities of people who live and work in major American cities, we’re in trouble.

Or rather, everyone is who doesn’t live in New York. Since 9/11, officials in New York have chosen to play offense rather than defense, by actively collecting intelligence about individuals and groups that might target their city. The NYPD has offices and liaison officers worldwide, including Paris, London, Amman, and Tel Aviv, but its most important collection work takes place in the five boroughs of New York, especially in those places most likely to know about or, worse, incubate potential Islamic terrorists: the city’s Muslim communities....

S. KOREA: OUR ALBATROSS?

Why South Korea is our Asian Achilles' heel....

Strategist Edward Luttwak explains why South Korea's security & economic policies undercut America's efforts to contain North Korea:

To feed the palace system, North Korea must also extract payoffs from the outside world: some from enabling NGOs (food aid from which allows domestic food production to be used for army rations), some from the United States and Japan in exchange for Pyongyang's nuclear promises (never kept), but most from the fellow Koreans of the South (whose payoffs are won by sheer intimidation). South Korean President Kim Dae-jung won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for his unprecedented reconciliation summit with Kim Jong Il, a moment when peace and even unification seemed imminent. Only later did the truth leak out: The summit had been purchased for $100 million in cash. Unsurprisingly, it led to nothing.

Unwilling to deter North Korea -- which would require a readiness to retaliate for its occasionally bloody attacks and constant provocations, thereby troubling business and roiling the Seoul stock market -- South Korea has instead preferred to pay off the regime with periodic injections of fuel and food aid, but most consistently by way of the North-South Kaesong industrial zone, in which some 80,000 North Korean workers are paid relatively good wages by South Korean corporations. The workers themselves receive very little of their salaries, of course, the majority of which gets funneled back to Pyongyang and makes up the North's largest consistent source of foreign currency. Even under supposedly "hard-line" South Korean presidents, the Kaesong transfer has continued. It was not shut down when the North sunk South Korea's Cheonan warship, killing 46 sailors; nor when the North opened artillery fire on a South Korean island, killing two soldiers and two civilians; nor when the North tested a nuclear device and launched a long-range ballistic missile. Even as the present crisis has unfolded, it was the paying South that feared an interruption of production at Kaesong, not the North, which reaps the benefits. And when media in South Korea noted with much relief that Kaesong was still open, the North Koreans promptly shut it down.

Having successfully extracted payoffs so consistently through threats and occasional attacks, the North is naturally at it again. Even though another nuclear test and the threatened launch of a mobile long-range ballistic missile appear imminent, a payoff from the South, not war on the Korean Peninsula, is the likely outcome. And Pyongyang knows this.

Meanwhile, South Korea has matched the North's bellicosity with its own strategic perversity: It remains obsessed with an utterly unthreatening Japan and has been purchasing air power to contend with imagined threats from Tokyo as opposed to the real ones just north of the demilitarized zone. Seoul is simply unwilling to acquire military strength to match its vastly superior economy. Instead, it spends billions of dollars to develop its proudly "indigenous" T-50 jet fighters, Surion helicopters, and coastal defense frigates -- alternatives for which could be much better, and cheaper, imported from the United States. Meanwhile, gaping holes remain in South Korean defenses (and thus we see the ridiculous spectacle of last-minute scrambling for missing equipment and munitions in the present crisis). And the cycle continues: Because the South allows itself to remain so vulnerable, it cannot react effectively against North Korea's perpetual threats and periodic attacks. Instead, Seoul checks its bank account and gets ready for the next payoff.

Luttwak calls upon the US to press South Korea to adopt a stronger defense policy, to close the joint industry project & end financial subsidies of any kind to Pyongyang.  A Wall Street Journal editorial details how the Kaesong project underwrites the North's aggression....

BENGHAZI UNRAVELS

House GOP report shows rank deception, deceit....

On April 23 House Republicans released a 43-page interim progress report on the Benghazi debacle, with more House hearings on Benghazi in the works.  Michael Barone excerpts key points. He notes as well that while partisanship plays a role in all single-party reports, the Democrats declined to issue one of their own, suggesting they'd rather the issue went away.  Jed Babbin sees a Benghazi + Syria + Boston link, that being Team Obama's resolute denial that Islamist terror is alive & all too well--despite a president supposedly iconic to Muslims around the world.

Here is the executive summary:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

An ongoing Congressional investigation across five House Committees concerning the events surrounding the September 11, 2012, terrorist attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya has made several determinations to date, including:

•  Reductions of security levels prior to the attacks in Benghazi were approved at the highest levels of the State Department, up to and including Secretary Clinton. This fact contradicts her testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on January 23, 2013.

•  In the days following the attacks, White House and senior State Department officials altered accurate talking points drafted by the Intelligence Community in order to protect the State Department.

•  Contrary to Administration rhetoric, the talking points were not edited to protect classified information. Concern for classified information is never mentioned in email traffic among senior Administration officials.

  These preliminary findings illustrate the need for continued examination and oversight by the five House Committees. The Committees will continue to review who exactly was responsible for the failure to respond to the repeated requests for more security and for the effort to cover up the nature of the attacks, so that appropriate officials will be held accountable.

And here are the report's specific findings & policy considerations, well worth a read:

Findings

This progress report reveals a fundamental lack of understanding at the highest levels of the State Department as to the dangers presented in Benghazi, Libya, as well as a concerted attempt to insulate the Department of State from blame following the terrorist attacks. The Committees’ majority staff summarizes findings to date as follows:

Before the Attacks:

•  After the U.S.-backed Libyan revolution ended the Gadhafi regime, the U.S. government did not deploy sufficient U.S. security elements to protect U.S. interests and personnel that remained on the ground.

•  Senior State Department officials knew that the threat environment in Benghazi was high and that the Benghazi compound was vulnerable and unable to withstand an attack, yet the Department continued to systematically withdraw security personnel.

•  Repeated requests for additional security were denied at the highest levels of the State Department. For example, an April 2012 State Department cable bearing Secretary Hillary Clinton’s signature acknowledged then-Ambassador Cretz’s formal request for additional security assets but ordered the withdrawal of security elements to proceed as planned.

•  The attacks were not the result of a failure by the Intelligence Community (IC) to recognize or communicate the threat. The IC collected considerable information about the threats in the region, and disseminated regular assessments to senior U.S. officials warning of the deteriorating security environment in Benghazi, which included threats to American interests, facilities, and personnel.

•  The President, as Commander-in-Chief, failed to proactively anticipate the significance of September 11 and provide the Department of Defense with the authority to launch offensive operations beyond self-defense. Defense Department assets were correctly positioned for the general threat across the region, but the assets were not authorized at an alert posture to launch offensive operations beyond self-defense, and were provided no notice to defend diplomatic facilities.

  During the Attacks:

•  On the evening of September 11, 2012, U.S. security teams on the ground in Benghazi exhibited extreme bravery responding the attacks by al-Qa’ida-affiliated groups against the U.S. mission.

•  Department of Defense officials and military personnel reacted quickly to the attacks in Benghazi. The effectiveness of their response was hindered on account of U.S. military forces not being properly postured to address the growing threats in northern Africa or to respond to a brief, high-intensity attack on U.S. personnel or interests across much of Africa.

After the Attacks:

•  The Administration willfully perpetuated a deliberately misleading and incomplete narrative that the attacks evolved from a political demonstration caused by a YouTube video. U.S. officials on the ground reported – and video evidence confirms – that demonstrations outside the Benghazi Mission did not occur and that the incident began with an armed attack on the facility. Senior Administration officials knowingly minimized the role played by al-Qa’ida-affiliated entities and other associated groups in the attacks, and decided to exclude from the discussion the previous attempts by extremists to attack U.S. persons or facilities in Libya.

•  Administration officials crafted and continued to rely on incomplete and misleading talking points. Specifically, after a White House Deputies Meeting on Saturday, September 15, 2012, the Administration altered the talking points to remove references to the likely participation of Islamic extremists in the attacks. The Administration also removed references to the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa’ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya, including information about at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi. Senior State Department officials requested – and the White House approved – that the details of the threats, specifics of the previous attacks, and previous warnings be removed to insulate the Department from criticism that it ignored the threat environment in Benghazi.

•  Evidence rebuts Administration claims that the talking points were modified to protect classified information or to protect an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Email exchanges during the interagency process do not reveal any concern with protecting classified information. Additionally, the Bureau itself approved a version of the talking points with significantly more information about the attacks and previous threats than the version that the State Department requested. Thus, the claim that the State Department’s edits were made solely to protect that investigation is not credible.

•  The Administration deflected responsibility by blaming the IC for the information it communicated to the public in both the talking points and the subsequent narrative it perpetuated. Had Administration spokesmen performed even limited due diligence inquiries into the intelligence behind the talking points or requested reports from personnel on the ground, they would have quickly understood that the situation was more complex than the narrative provided by Ambassador Susan Rice and others in the Administration.

•  The Administration’s decision to respond to the Benghazi attacks with an FBI investigation, rather than military or other intelligence resources, contributed to the government’s lack of candor about the nature of the attack.

•  Responding to the attacks with an FBI investigation significantly delayed U.S. access to key witnesses and evidence and undermined the government’s ability to bring those responsible for the attacks to justice in a timely manner.

Policy Considerations

•  The events in Benghazi reflect the Administration’s lack of a comprehensive national security strategy or a credible national security posture in the region. The United States continues to maintain an inadequate defensive posture in North Africa and the Middle East as a result of the Administration’s under-appreciation of the threat that al-Qa’ida and related terrorist groups pose in the region.

•  This singular event will be repeated unless the United States recognizes and responds to the threats we face around the world, and properly postures resources and security assets to counter and respond to those threats. Until that time, the United States will remain in a reactionary mode and should expect more catastrophes like Benghazi, in which U.S. personnel on the ground perform bravely, but are not provided with the resources for an effective response. As those opposed to U.S. interests will continue to take advantage of perceived U.S. weaknesses, the United States will continue to lose credibility with its allies and face the worst of all possible outcomes in strategically important locations around the world.

•  Congress must maintain pressure on the Administration to ensure the United States takes all necessary steps to find the Benghazi attackers. It has been more than seven months since the FBI investigation began, and there is very little progress. The risks of treating the Benghazi terrorist attacks as a law enforcement matter rather than a military matter are becoming increasingly clear. The failure to respond more assertively to the attacks and to impose meaningful consequences on those who planned and perpetrated them has contributed to a perception of U.S. weakness and retreat. Al-Qa’ida grew emboldened when the U.S. failed to respond forcibly and effectively to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (1993), U.S. Embassies in East Africa (1998), and the U.S.S. Cole (2000). Active terrorist organizations and potential recruits will also be emboldened to attack U.S. interests if the U.S. fails to hold those responsible for this attack accountable.

•  Congress must also provide an effective counterweight to the Administration’s failure to adequately communicate the nature and the extent of the threats our country faces today. The Administration must do more to develop a coherent and robust national security strategy, and Congress must hold it accountable to do so.

So the administration effectively ran out the pre-election & post-election clocks, by asking the FBI to begin a lengthy investigation, and claiming it therefore could not comment.  Such by itself is not a bad way to go as to the full picture, provided readily available information about administration handling during the election campaign were not held up.  Info was in fact held back, protecting the presidential narrative as to the president being on top of things, and the attack coming virtually without any advance warning signs, and so on.

Bottom Line.  Team Obama punted the Benghazi affair far enough down the road--now, 7-1/2 months & counting--that political fallout from this report will be minimal to non-existent.  And that, fans, was precisely Team Obama's goal.  Or, as George W. Bush might have said, "Mission accomplished."

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Foreign Policy, National Security, Terrorism, Conservative Politics

OBAMA FALLS, BUSH RISES

The FAA sequester el-foldo is O's latest flop....

Two indicia:  Several recent reversals of Obama policy by courts & Congress, noted by George Will:

Last week the Federal Aviation Administration promoted chaos in travel by furloughing air-traffic controllers, supposedly because the cuts from the so-called sequester — amounting to 4 percent of its budget — cannot be otherwise implemented. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) notes that the FAA says its 15,000 air-traffic controllers must be furloughed in the same proportion as its 32,000 other employees, who include librarians, historians, speechwriters, PR people, congressional and White House liaisons and many others perhaps less essential to the FAA’s primary mission than are people in O’Hare’s control tower.

On Friday, the eve of its recess, Congress fixed this problem, explicitly granting the FAA flexibility it already had. Then the legislators dashed to Washington’s airports. Amazing, the dispatch with which the government acts when its stupidities inconvenience the rulers as much as the ruled.

The rest of the sequester will still be administered so as to make the government as painful as possible to the public, in the hope that the public will support more spending by and for the government. Obama may think his powers of persuasion can convince people that as chief executive he is a mere bystander in this executive-branch sadism. But about those powers . . .

Will then cites several Obama oratory duds, notably trying to win the 2016 Olympics for Chicago & selling ObamaCare to skeptical voters.

Peggy Noonan contrasts O's fall with rising fortune for his immediate predecessor:

In all his recent interviews Mr. Bush has been modest, humorous, proud but unassuming, and essentially philosophical: History will decide. No finger-pointing or scoring points. If he feels rancor or resentment he didn't show it. He didn't attempt to manipulate. His sheer normality seemed like a relief, an echo of an older age.

And all this felt like an antidote to Obama—to the imperious I, to the inability to execute, to the endless interviews and the imperturbable drone, to the sense that he is trying to teach us, like an Ivy League instructor taken aback by the backwardness of his students. And there's the unconscious superiority. One thing Mr. Bush didn't think he was was superior. He thought he was luckily born, quick but not deep, and he famously trusted his gut but also his heart. He always seemed moved and grateful to be in the White House. Someone who met with Mr. Obama during his first year in office, an old hand who'd worked with many presidents, came away worried and confounded. Mr. Obama, he said, was the only one who didn't seem awed by his surroundings, or by the presidency itself.

Mr. Bush could be prickly and irritable and near the end showed arrogance, but he wasn't vain or conceited, and he still isn't. When people said recently that they were surprised he could paint, he laughed: "Some people are surprised I can even read."...

 Mr. Obama was elected because he wasn't Bush.

Mr. Bush is popular now because he's not Obama.

The wheel turns, doesn't it?

Noonan then compares O's weak performance at the G. W. Bush Presidential Library dedication ceremony with those of his predecessors, all of whom--Clinton & Carter included--spoke generously:

President Obama was more formal than the other speakers and less confident than usual, as if he knew he was surrounded by people who have something he doesn't. "No matter how much you think you're ready to assume the office of the president, it's impossible to understand the nature of the job until it's yours." This is a way of seeming to laud others when you're lauding yourself. He veered into current policy disputes, using Mr. Bush's failed comprehensive immigration reform to buttress his own effort. That was manipulative, graceless and typical.

PN opines that Obama fatigue has set in, as Bush fatigue fades.

Charles Krauthammer calls the Bush 43 legacy the Bush policies Obama adopted to carry on the war against Islamist terror.  Bush did more than improvise policies after 9/11; he created the post-9/11 security infrastructure to ward off most terror attacks:

Clare Boothe Luce liked to say that “a great man is one sentence.” Presidents, in particular. The most common “one sentence” for George W. Bush is: “He kept us safe.”

Not quite right. With Bush’s legacy being reassessed as his presidential library opens in Dallas, it’s important to note that he did not just keep us safe. He created the entire anti-terror infrastructure that continues to keep us safe.

That homage was paid, wordlessly, by Barack Obama, who vilified Bush’s anti-terror policies as a candidate, then continued them as president: indefinite detention, rendition, warrantless wiretaps, special forces and drone warfare, and, most notoriously, Guantanamo, which Obama so ostentatiously denounced — until he found it indispensable.

Quite a list. Which is why there was not one successful terror bombing on U.S. soil from 9/11 until last week. The Boston Marathon attack was an obvious security failure, but there is a difference between 3,000 dead and three. And on the other side of the ledger are the innumerable plots broken up since 9/11.

CK notes that the Afghan & Iraq wars had been originally bipartisan.

N.B., a new video juxtaposing a Rand Paul filibuster clip on domestic security with scenes of mayhem in Boston shows why post-Boston has not been a good period for the senator, whose rising GOP presidential star may fade as a result.

Two top Google execs see a digital revolution transferring power from leaders to activist public agitation.  Balancing privacy against super-capable facial & biometric recognition software will be one challenge.  Dealing with agitated publics demanding instant results from leaders unwilling or unable to deliver will be another.  This comes as we enter a period of protracted economic stagnation, what Robert Samuelson calls "the twilight of entitlement"--inability to meet poplar demands in full, thereby sharpening political conflicts.

'Twill be a bumpy ride.

Bottom Line.  Class, style & wisdom eventually show, as does lack of same.  Future leaders will need lots of smarts, plus a fair amount of class & style to effectively address emerging challenges.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Conservative Politics

FAA FRAUD: CUT TO HURT!

Sequestration frustration deliberately inflicted....

Begin with the good news: last night the Senate moved to give the FAA more flexibility in allocating sequester cuts, so as to maintain air traffic control service at close to pre-sequester levels.  The House is expected to follow suit today, and President Obama is expected to sign the bill.

The FAA cuts arose out of the sequester law having narrowed traditional agency authority to shift funds around.  Traditionally, agencies all have "transfer authority": within each macro-level "budget account" they can redistribute funds among micro-level "PPA accounts"--"programs, plans & activities."  But the sequester law, with few exceptions (see below), narrows agency discretion.   Funds can be redistributed within each micro-level PPA, but not between different PPAs.  (So-called "reprogramming authority"--shifting among macro-level budget accounts--is given only to a few agencies.)

Letters to the Federal Aviation Administration from two former Solicitors-General debunk the idea that the FAA lacks legal authority to allocate its 4 percent sequester cut so as to avoid furloughs for air traffic controllers.  The delays affected millions of passengers across the nation, but not the Washington airports--the preserve of Beltway politicians.

Bush-43 S-G Paul Clement's March 7 letter & Clinton S-G Seth Waxman's April 10 letter (each written to Ben Hirst, general counsel of Delta Airlines) both show how phony the FAA's position was.  Clement & Waxman are two very highly respected lawyers, among the finest S-Gs in recent memory.

Collectively, the two letters make several broad points:

BOSTON + 10

What matters, ten days later....

The charges, what went right, what went wrong, and what we do not know:

CHARGES.  The federal government's criminal complaint (11 pages) charges Dzokhar Tsarnaev with two counts under Title 18 of the federal statutes: (1) Use of a Weapon of Mass Destruction, per 18 U.S.C. sec. 2332a(a); (2) Malicious Destruction of Property Resulting in Death, per 18 U.S.C. sec. 844(i) (you will have to scroll down to read subsection (i)).  The WMD charge is a capital crime under federal law.  (Massachusetts law does not permit imposition of the death penalty; hence the filing of federal charges.)  Here is the arraignment hearing transcript (9 pages) of the proceeding held Monday at Beth Israel Hospital.  The suspect was advised of his Miranda rights, informed of the two pending criminal charges he faces, and remanded to custody without bail.  Denial of bail was based upon the suspect being charged with a capital crime, considered a flight risk and also in view of the possibility that he might intimidate witnesses.  Fox News reported on air today that the suspect was "singing like a canary" until the judge showed up; the FBI wanted to continue interrogation.

What explains rapid Mirandizing and Team Obama's focus on filing criminal charges?  Former CIA Director R. James Woolsey was interviewed by the WaPo (5:20).  He said that the administration is committed to a narrative that the war on terror is one against al-Qaeda and that we have already won it.  This motivates them to avoid terrorism as an explanation for violent acts and treat them as crimes only.  Recently Congress had mandated that the FBI conduct a review of its efforts to deal with the domestic radicalization of terrorists.  Then there is the overseas factor: the radical incubus of the Caucasus, from where the brothers came.  Recall Chechen barbarity (3:22) in the 2004 Beslan massacre of 181 schoolchildren--in all, 331 people died & over 700 were injured.

The defendant has told interrogators that his older brother got him to do it.  ABC reported that the defendant's last pre-custody words were "Mama, I love you."--according to ... the mother.  But he ran over his brother in the SUV they had carjacked, as cops were putting handcuffs on the brother.  Though not charged in federal court for this, the defendant could be charged with murder, a state-prosecuted crime.

THE (BIG) ONE THAT GOT AWAY.  America's hyper-legalist view has carried a steep price tag: allowing Osama bin Laden to escape custody in 1996, as reported by WaPo's Barton Gellman on Oct. 3, 2001:....

GREENER BANKS

Better than "Green" Energy are flush financials....

Greener Banks.  Currently, bank assets are valued more highly if they represent derivative positions than if they are fully collateralized, according to a former top banking regulator.  A Federal Reserve Board president explains how banks can be made flush with green, and financial risk distributed away from "too big to fail" (TBTF) banks, to top dozen megabanks that hold nearly 70 percent of all financial assets in the US--the flawed model at the heart of Dodd-Frank:

GREEN ENERGY

Cars, & gas....

Greener Cars.  Enviro-skeptic Bjorn Lomborg explains why, taking all associated life-cycle costs into consideration, green cars are nowhere near the bargain they have been advertised as being: 

...[T]he production of the electric car has already resulted in sizeable emissions—the equivalent of 80,000 miles of travel in the vehicle.

So unless the electric car is driven a lot, it will never get ahead environmentally. And that turns out to be a challenge. Consider the Nissan Leaf. It has only a 73-mile range per charge. Drivers attempting long road trips, as in one BBC test drive, have reported that recharging takes so long that the average speed is close to six miles per hour—a bit faster than your average jogger.

To make matters worse, the batteries in electric cars fade with time, just as they do in a cellphone. Nissan estimates that after five years, the less effective batteries in a typical Leaf bring the range down to 55 miles. As the MIT Technology Review cautioned last year: "Don't Drive Your Nissan Leaf Too Much."

If a typical electric car is driven 50,000 miles over its lifetime, the huge initial emissions from its manufacture means the car will actually have put more carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere than a similar-size gasoline-powered car driven the same number of miles. Similarly, if the energy used to recharge the electric car comes mostly from coal-fired power plants, it will be responsible for the emission of almost 15 ounces of carbon-dioxide for every one of the 50,000 miles it is driven—three ounces more than a similar gas-powered car.

Even if the electric car is driven for 90,000 miles and the owner stays away from coal-powered electricity, the car will cause just 24% less carbon-dioxide emission than its gas-powered cousin. This is a far cry from "zero emissions." Over its entire lifetime, the electric car will be responsible for 8.7 tons of carbon dioxide less than the average conventional car.

Lomborg sees a truly economical electric car as being at least two decades away.

GREEN ENERGY.  At WSJ, James Taranto sees an "Otter policy" from progressive quarters, as to the Keystone XL Canada-US pipeline, channelling the anti-hero figure from the satirical classic Animal House (1978): "I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part!"  Given that Canadian pipelines already supply 590,000 barrels of oil per day, the illogic of opposing Keystone XL's 830,000 added barrels of oil appeals only to militant Greens.  More illogic: Canadian oil being shipped by freight train instead of pipelines, despite higher risk of spillage.....

GREEN CLIMATE

As we celebrate the 43rd anniversary of Earth Day....

From Green cars that are not so Green, to a warming climate that is not warming as of late, the Greens are finding that setting "Chicken Little" warnings against emerging climate data makes for a waning cause.

GREEN CLIMATE.  Figures since 1970 (the year of Earth Day), show immense improvement in environmental indicators, as noted by historian John Steele Gordon:

In 1970 31 million tons of sulphur dioxide, a prime contributor to smog, was emitted into the atmosphere. In 2008 it was 11 million tons. In 1970 34 million tons of volatile organic compounds were emitted. In 2008 it was 16 million. In 1970 204 million tons of carbon monoxide; in 2008 it was 72 million. The EPA recently declared carbon dioxide a pollutant (which means we pollute the atmosphere every time we exhale). And the only major country in the world where carbon dioxide emissions are declining? The United States. We emitted less CO2 in 2012 than in 1992. Water pollution has similarly abated. Unhealthy air days in major U.S. cities these days are a rarity. Even Los Angeles had only 18 in all of 2011. Manhattan had exactly none.

And this despite the fact that the population of the country has doubled, the GDP has more than tripled in real terms, and the number of cars and trucks hugely increased.

And why don't mainstream media broadcast this far & wide?  It'd cut viewer anxiety and, hence, their felt need to tune in.  Mostly forgotten is this 1977 cover of TIME from 40 Aprils ago, warning of the coming Ice Age.

Meanwhile, more evidence emerges that global warming has stalled since 1997.  Even the Economist, long a promoter of global warming alarmism, is hedging its bets (full article text, h/t Michael Barone) in light of the past 15 years of temperature stall:

SENATE HONORS THATCHER

Minority Leader McConnell's version by voice vote....

Here is the text of the Senate Resolution (3 pages) honoring Margaret Thatcher, passed by unanimous voice vote yesterday.

Sen. Robert Menendez, NJ Democrat, tried to water down the language, but McConnell prevailed.  It is an eloquent tribute.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Foreign Policy, National Security, Conservative Politics

TERROR IN BOSTON

Bombs amidst innocents....

Preliminary thoughts--necessarily so, as the perpetrator(s) remain(s) unknown.

The terrorist mantra is: You have to stop every attempt; we need only be lucky once.

Boston's horror show attests to this strategic & tactical asymmetry, presaged at the Athens airport in 1973.

A now-global event--the Boston marathon--50 years ago the province of track fans only--violated by explosions spreading evil.

We must await investigation to tell us if this was domestic or transnational terror.

"4/15" will no longer be remembered solely as Income Tax Day.

Bottom Line.  Securing the homeland requires "eternal vigilance"--and luck.  Yesterday, America was not lucky.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Homeland Security, Conservative Politics

DEM. BUDGETS: RED INK PARTY

Dems' first Senate budget in 4 years explodes....

As Income Tax Day slams income-tax payers, with the president & first lady paying 18 percent federal tax on $608 grand of income, the Democrats look to spend about $6 TRILLION more over the next decade than does the GOP. 

President Obama once again embraces a "rosy scenario" ("Rosy" is a gal who appears in mainstream media only during GOP administrations).   Making matters worse is that on top of the $3.7 TR the president proposes for the next fiscal year, states spend another $2.25 TR.  Over the decade the president's budgets would spend $46.5 TR, with a paltry $600 billion in deficit reduction--1.3 percent--all via tax hikes.  The president's "chained-CPI" proposal would save $230 billion over a decade; he regards it as a concession to the GOP, although it merely is an attempt to rectify budgetary inflation adjustment calculation.

More to the point: the combined federal + state spending total is just under $6 TR annually.  And this equates to a staggering $50,074 for each of the nation's 118.7 million households.  Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) cites a Small Business Administration study estimating that compliance with government regulations costs Americans $1.75 TR annually.  Johnson notes that amounts to 10 percent of the US GDP.  It is equal to Canada's GDP.

Economics maven David Malpass sees President Obama's budget as a runaway "tax & spend" budget:

MARGARET THATCHER, R.I.P.

A great friend of freedom passes on....

I met the formidable figure that Mikhail Gorbachev dubbed the "Iron Lady" once, at a reception & lunch in 1993.  Contrary to MG's description, the Baroness Thatcher proved warm & gracious in person.  Then again, I had not been head of what Ronald Reagan called the "Evil Empire."  America had no better friend.  She stands alongside such legendary friends of America as the Marquis de Lafayette & her illustrious mid-century predecessor as prime minister, Winston Churchill.

For Churchill his affection for the former Thirteen Colonies was, however, partly familial lineage: his mother, Jennie Jerome, was American, daughter of an American tycoon.  The grocer's daughter who studied chemistry had wartime memory of America as staunch World War II ally, but no direct familial connection.  As prime minister she disagreed at times with President Reagan, usually in private, as even the best of friends at times do.  But when the chips were down we could count on her--even though during the Falklands War, when she sought undiluted American support, the Reagan administration was divided, and thus a tepid supporter at best.  She prevailed anyway.

When in April 1986 President Reagan sought bases in Europe to launch an air attack against Libya's Gaddafi, in retaliation for Libya's sponsoring a Berlin terror bombing that killed American soldiers, among our NATO allies only Lady Thatcher responded.  Though her decision was far from popular at home she went ahead anyway, because she knew it was the right thing to do.

Among countless tributes, here are some stellar ones from those who knew her best: historian Paul Johnson, publisher Conrad Black and journalist & former top aide John O'Sullivan.  Claire Berlinski, author of a book about Thatcher, explodes five myths about her.  Polish hero labor leader Lech Walesa says in this remarkable 1989 Gdansk video (4:36) that without Thatcher's 1989 visit there would have been no triumph for the Solidarity movement.

And get a grand laugh at Lady Thatcher's refusal to jump--yes, jump--during a TV interview (h/t Peggy Noonan).  What passes for the idea behind the request was for her to demonstrate "another side" to her personality--which she (correctly) took as a kiddie side adults should not indulge in public.  Gorbachev fell for it as, apparently, had many other interviewees.

As America slides into the socialist, multicultural swamp that she tried without success to prevent a foolish Europe from sliding into, and as America withdraws from the world in a policy choice she would have counseled against, I can only wish she were reincarnated as America's current president.

Alas, we will not be that lucky.  And we will not see her like again.

Bottom Line.  Those who lived through the Thatcher Era can savor the memory of her greatness displayed on the world stage.  And even those not fortunate enough to witness her epic prime ministerial run should lament the lack of comparably great leaders, urgently needed to meet today's daunting challenges imperiling the free world at home and abroad.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, National Security, Foreign Policy, Economy, Conservative Politics

BAGHDAD'S MODERN BIRTH

In 1932, 81 years ago, Baghdad looked like this....

From the Library of Congress Matson collection, 23 photos of a post-Empire Baghdad from 1932, the year the post-Ottoman British protectorate become an independent nation.  The hope that Iraq would join the community of advanced nations was dashed for two generations by the radical revolutions of July 14, 1958 that installed Baathist tyrannies in Syria & Iraq.  The ousting of pro-British governance was accomplished by a claque including a young Saddam Hussein.

Saddam's rise to power culminated in his seizing the reins of the regime in 1976, in a bloody coup & aftermath that earned Saddam the nickname "Butcher of Baghdad."  Saddam established a hyper-brutal Stalinist dictatorship.  In 1980 he invaded Iran, triggering an 8-year war that claimed one million lives.  He used chemical weapons against his Kurdish subjects in 1988.

Which brings us to the nuclear story....

RULES FOR PRESIDENTS

A set of rules president's should memorize....

Ex-top Bush-43 official Elliott Abrams offers 11 rules. presidents would be wise to follow, if they wish to see their policies translated into action by an often recalcitrant bureaucracy whose members usually prefer their own agendas.

President Obama's self-delusions likely preclude his taking such sage advice--especially coming from a GOP stalwart.  And if the GOP hopes to recapture the White House, they'd do well to heed sage advice on making their party 21st century inclusive.

Bottom Line.  Personnel is policy, a politics maxim goes, and the devil is, per the proverb, in the details.  Else nothing gets done.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Conservative Politics

DERAIL HIGH-SPEED RAIL?

Once $100 billion, now a mere $68 billion....

Michael Barone provides historical context with the tale of how Carter-era deregulation worked very well for freight, but not for passenger rail.  Trucks & freight trains competed vigorously, due to parallel deregulation.  But passenger rail flopped, due to (predictable) political pressures by constituents on the feds to keep grossly uneconomic lines open regardless of perennial losses.

California can be Exhibit A in the case for curtailing high-speed rail, an example of insanely costly expenditure to create relatively few jobs while bankrupting the state fisc.

President Obama's high-speed rail plan is now scaled way back as to price and quality.  California just issued $8.6 billion in bonds to pay for a 130-mile Fresno to Bakersfield link, one that a formerly supportive legislator says cannot meet project standards:

TALE OF TWO CITIZENS

One a great giver, the other a cable windbag....

Check out this side-by-side of the respective resumes of Dr. Ben Carson versus some cable-TV idiot who slimed him.  The Wiki entry on Carson adds more great stuff.  It has details of Carson's neurosurgery wizardry and notes the scholarship fund that he & his wife started.  Omitted by Wiki is that the fund started by the Carsons has given out awards to some 5,000 recipients.

The Carson episode illustrates the downsides of 24/7 media.  First, there is such a huge need for content that quality inevitably suffers.  Second, in order to rise above the clutter of thousands of voices, the most extreme views tend to be favored.  Viewer intensity--for or against--is notoriously a better driver of audience size than is less emotionally compelling content.  Third, celebrities tend to dominate new media.  Even those that are talented as singers, actors, comedians, athletes and the like are neither by virtue of same necessarily role models, nor useful commentators on serious issues.

Stupid, vicious rants of celebs like Jim Carrey's recent trashy video on gun control, or the antic diplomacy of ex-jock Dennis Rodman in North Korea may not sway many minds.  But they add to the clutter for all of us, and effectively displace more serious people.  Thus, Rodman's comments got more play than did former president Jimmy Carter's praise for Venezuelan tyrant Hugo Chavez as being a friend of Venezuela's poor.

Quite apart from the fact that Chavez very nearly destroyed his country's economy, Carter's comments could conceivably affect the April 14 election.  That contest will decide whether a Chavez lackey or Chavez's most recent opponent becomes Venezuela's next president.  Venezuela provides nearly 6 percent of US oil, ranking fourth among US suppliers.  Who governs the country is no small matter for Americans.  Yet the news talk for days was about Rodman's trip, not Carter's possibly influencing a major foreign election.

Consider: Jim Carrey has over ten million Twitter followers.  Ben Carson has nearly 56,000 Twitter followers.  Carrey's total is 183 times that for Carson.  If this be a sign of the times, it is not a reassuring one.

Bottom Line.  We are drowning in a sea of celebrity twaddle, distracting us from the grave dangers--nuclear proliferation by the world's worst regimes, cyberwar, the debt bomb, shaky megabanks, a federal budget out of control--that should far more fully occupy our energies.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Conservative Politics

MIDEAST: JIHADI RISING

One huge win for Israel as storm clouds gather....

ISRAEL.  President Obama's visit last week signaled one major shift above all, flagged by Mideast expert Daniel Pipes: for the first time Obama insisted that Arabs recognize the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state.  In his Jerusalem speech the president said: "Palestinians must recognize that Israel will be a Jewish state."

True, as Charles Krauthammer noted in his column, Obama remains confused, having said in Israel: “I honestly believe that if any Israeli parent sat down with those [Palestinian] kids, they’d say, ‘I want these kids to succeed.’ ”  CK tartly asked if the president would tell Palestinians to want Israeli kids to succeed, instead of trying to kill them by the carload.  But Joseph Shattan at TAS sees O's charm offensive as designed to prevent an Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.

On the economic front there is more good news for Israel: Israel's new Tamar offshore natural gas field will begin supplying energy to Israel.  Since the Arab Spring began in 2011, Israel's Egyptian gas pipelines have been the target of serial sabotage.

JORDAN.  President Obama is ignoring warnings from Jordan's King Addullah, probably the most pro-US Arab leader in the Mideast.  Journalist Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed King Abdullah recently.  Beset by rising domestic discontent, and buffeted in the stormy winds of the Arab Spring, Abdullah spoke of how he would handle mass demonstrations:

JEN NAILS HILLARY

10 reasons why Hillary should never be president....

Jennifer Rubin at WaPo "Right Turn" lists 10 solid reasons why Hillary Clinton's SecState tenure was disastrous.

She concludes:

Any fair assessment of Clinton’s tenure in office would conclude that she was among the weakest and least successful secretaries of state in recent memory. It is only by virtue of Clinton’s PR machine and an ignorant, compliant mainstream media that she gets rock-star treatment.

So it is.  Add to JR's concluding note that a distracted, ill-informed public bombarded with hagiographic images may once again (as it did, twice, for The One) fall in (foolish) love once again.

Bottom Line.  Hillary's record should by all rights doom her prospects for high office.  But in early 21st century America second acts, given enough PR fluff & media tailwind, may once again win the day.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, National Security, Foreign Policy, Conservative Politics

LOSING IRAQ; MISSING SYRIA

Obama blows two key Mideast plays....

IRAQ.  Jihadists take off from Iran, via Iraqi airspace fly into Syria, to provide vital supplies for the Assad regime's bid to retain power.  Alas, America's early exit from Iraq undermined support there for the US, reducing to a near nullity America's say.  Obama failed to negotiate a status-of-forces agreement that would have enabled American troops to be stationed there and foster stability while freezing out Iranian influence.  So Iran is the geostrategic winner.  SecState John Kerry expressed public puzzlement at this Iraqi shift.  Were the US still controlling Iraq's airspace Iran's fleet would exist only at our sufferance.  Alas, Kerry simply does not appear to grasp that reality, hence his begging Iraqi leaders (h/t Jen Rubin) to stop Iran.

Adding insult to injury: Iraqis who helped the US face a sluggish visa-approval process in a program that is to end this year.

SYRIA.  Incredibly, our military lacks a plan to deal with a crisis involving Syrian chemical weapons.  According to the WaPo:

“If we had to go in tomorrow, I’d say we aren’t ready,” said an Obama administration official involved in preparations for securing Syria’s chemical weapons. “One thing we want to avoid is having one group securing the sites and another group bombing them.....

The CIA, the National Security Agency and other spy services have expanded their collection efforts against Syria over the past year. But U.S. officials said that the CIA has not established a presence in the country and that the scope of the conflict has precluded it from distributing sensors that could detect chemical attacks.
Asked whether such devices were being used, one senior U.S. official said, ”I wish.”

Yup: Team Obama does NOT have a plan in place.

For more than a year President Obama, his senior foreign policy & military officials have stressed that use of WMD crosses a "red line."  And yet despite this, they do NOT have a plan.

Bottom Line.  It is hard to imagine the staggering cluelessness of the administration's Mideast policies--and its policymakers.  Did Team Obama really believe that Iraqis would continue to respect America's views when America precipitously left Iraq, instead of entering into a readily obtainable status-of-forces agreement?  Did the administration think that it could draw a red line re Syrian WMD and not even bother to create a set of contingency plans to deal with various WMD scenarios?

Apparently so.  Alas, we face four more years of this kind of feckless flailing.  It is said that God looks out for fools, drunks & the United States of America.

We'd better hope that He still does.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, National Security, Foreign Policy, Conservative Politics

MISSILE DEFENSE AT 30

What has stalled missile defense since 3/23, 1983?....

Despite President Ronald Reagan's March 23, 1983 speech (29:29)--SDI speech text--announcing the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, instantly branded by opponents as "Star Wars")--missile defense development has been stunted, relegated to old technology & extremely limited in scale & scope.  What has done this to Reagan's original vision?

Put simply: determined opposition to any form of missile defense by arms control theologians, aided most politicians--mostly Democrats.

A prime example is VP Joe Biden.

Just-retired Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ) explains, depressingly, how Team Obama is reneging on their New START ratification bargain by undermining missile defense--and force maintenance & modernization as well:

IRAN & THE OBAMA DOCTRINE

So where does our Iran policy stand now?....

IRAN AUGURIES.  President Obama's leak that US intel sees Iran within one year of a nuclear bomb, if true, informs Iran of our intel status.  Jeffrey Goldberg predicts Obama will press Bibi hard over Iran, to derail a possible Israeli strike, by promising an American strike (a promise utterly unenforceable). Israel feels that the West offered too many concessions to Iran in current talks.  A "shadow war" between Israel's Mossad & Iran is raising hackles at the CIA.

Two security experts see Obama courting "Finlandization" of allied Gulf states (sub. only) due to our Iran policy:

BARACK DOES ISRAEL

O's first presidential visit to an ally, & an enemy....

PALESTINIAN PERVERSITY.  With their US best friend coming to see what passes for Palestinian leadership, violence on Temple Mount prior to Obama's visit shows anew Palestinian intransigence:

Hamas officials have warned that Obama’s visit will further fracture its relations with the Palestinian Authority and have even stated that a presidential visit to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount will be viewed as a declaration of war.

Hamas official Mushir al-Masri “called for a third intifada [or uprising] and for Egyptian assistance in the ‘resistance’ if Obama chooses to visit the Temple Mount,” the site of Muslim places of worship, Arutz Sheva reported on Friday.

Former United States officials and Middle East experts said that the rising tide of violence is causing great anxiety in the final days before Obama touches down in Tel Aviv.

Worse: the Palestinians warned Obama not to visit Temple Mount, else they will interpret the president's visit as a declaration of war.  Even worse: Palestinians (h/t Jen Rubin) reach new heights of monumental self-absorption: they trash Obama's photo as they demand promised access to 3G wireless technology (offering, as usual, nothing in return). Gazans yawn at Obama's not visiting Gaza.  Gazans can buy M75 perfume, named after a Palestinian rocket fired into Israel.  "O" did do one good deed: urging Egypt to close the Gaza tunnels, which has been done.

Worse still:

GAZA TIFF; SYRIA WHIFF

Mideast burns anew, Obama dithers again....

EGYPT/GAZA: FAMILY TIFF.  Mideast Kramer (Muslim Bros.) v. Kramer (Hamas).  Barry Rubin reports on a new Mideast feud: Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood regime and Gaza's Hamas regime are at loggerheads, with Egypt continuing the practice of blocking tunnels at the border, and thus impeding the trans-shipment of arms to the Palestinians:

1973's BENGHAZI PREQUEL

Death of an envoy & rise of an arch-terrorist....

At TAS is the tale surrounding March 1, 1973, when PLO terrorist leader Yasser Arafat ordered the raid on the US Embassy in Khartoum, and the execution of four diplomats, including US Ambassador to Sudan Cleo Noel.  As recounted by a naval communications analyst directly involved in the US government's activities that fateful night & in the days after, it echoes Benghazi 2012:

CHINA'S CYBER-SPY COLD WAR

What to do about China's massive cyber-thefts....

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal published my article, Chinese "hackers" Is a Misnomer: They're Spies.

My piece explains why China's activities are akin to those of Soviet spies during the Cold War, and that using "hackers" as a term can lead to policy confusion between garden-variety crimes versus acts of war by a foreign power.  China's cyberwar is cold now, but also potentially preparatory for a hot one later.  I propose strong steps that the administration should take to address China's cyber-security threat.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, National Security, Homeland Security, Foreign Policy, Conservative Politics

DRONES & PRESIDENTS

Can a president kill US citizens on US soil?....

A fortnight ago Sen. Rand Paul captured national attention with a 13-hour filibuster over the administration's implied claim that presidents can order the summary killing of US citizens on US soil, without due process.  He demanded that the administration renounce such an asserted power.  Paul's focus on domestic strikes was widely criticized.  As many said at the time, a president who simply ordered a drone-launched missile strike on a suspected terrorist sitting in a Starbucks--inevitably causing collateral casualties among innocents sitting nearby--would immediately be impeached & removed from office.

The Attorney-General subsequently issued a two-sentence letter stating that the president claimed no such power, as to Americans "not engaged in combat" on US soil.  That qualifier leaves an open door for those engaged in combat on US soil.

Ace prosecutor Andy McCarthy cogently explains that at least under some circumstances the president would have such power.  He cited Alexander Hamilton's writings in Federalist Paper #23.  Titled The Necessity of a Government as Energetic as the One Proposed to the Preservation of the Union, here is the full excerpt from which McCarthy quoted in part:

RYAN'S BUDGET

Paul Ryan offers his $5TR solution w. no new taxes....

In a WSJ op-ed House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan offers a path towards fiscal sanity (no quoted-text offset due to format problems):

"America's national debt is over $16 trillion. Yet Washington can't figure out how to cut $85 billion—or just 2% of the federal budget—without resorting to arbitrary, across-the-board cuts. Clearly, the budget process is broken. In four of the past five years, the president has missed his budget deadline. Senate Democrats haven't passed a budget in over 1,400 days. By refusing to tackle the drivers of the nation's debt—or simply to write a budget—Washington lurches from crisis to crisis.

THE $5 TRILLION SOLUTION

A plausible path to saving $5 trillion over a decade....

Four simple steps (the first three from this WSJ mini-column):

1.  Freeze federal pay for 2013: $6.5 billion.

2.  Cut future federal pay 16%, to par with private sector: $32B annually.

3.  Eliminate redundant federal programs: $364B annually.

4.  Adopt new Simpson-Bowles tax reform: $240B lower deficit annually.

RE (4) the WSJ (link immediately above) reports:

DRONES: A STRATEGIST'S VIEW

The retired commander of drone operations speaks....

As Rand Paul ends his filibuster (1:04) of John Brennan's CIA nomination over his role in the possible use of drones inside US territory, raising moral & constitutional issues, a position concisely rebutted by legal ace John Yoo, ex-Gen. Dave Deptula explains why drone warfare is a vital solution for many military situations:

The media like to use it because it is only one word and they don't have to explain what a "Remotely Piloted Aircraft" is. But the word "drone" connotes a degree of autonomy that RPAs simply do not possess. It takes over 200 people to operate a MQ-1 Predator or MQ-9 Reaper RPA orbit for 24 hours. This little-known fact among the RPA naysayers is one of the reasons that the use of "drones" allows for more ethical oversight than any other weapon. Drones allow us significantly greater control, oversight, and review before a shot is fired than occurs using manned aircraft or other operations conducted by soldiers, sailors, airmen or Marines.

The persistence, situational awareness, and degree of control possible with an RPA allows for the immediate suspension of lethal engagement if circumstances change or questions emerge - even after a weapon has been released or launched. RPA are networked aircraft and their data can reach any spot on earth in less than two seconds.

Hence, in addition to the hundreds of operational, maintenance, and intelligence personnel, many lawyers and senior leadership are directly involved with RPA lethal engagements. That kind of oversight is rarely, if ever, the case with the use of manned aircraft or with boots on the ground or sailors at sea. The power of our intelligence networks allows RPA essentially to carry around their own command and analysis center and legal counsel as an integral part of their payload....

VENEZUELA AFTER CHAVEZ

Chavez dies; will Chavismo die with him?....

Hugo Chavez's ferocious fight to live ends--fittingly, on the 60th anniversary of the death of Soviet tyrant Josef Stalin, whose personality cult Chavez adopted (via Fidel Castro, Hurricane Hugo's mentor)--but will his considerable national, regional--even, in some measure, global--geopolitical influence survive?....

TWO OBAMA FABLES

President Obama's budget & politics fables....

FABLE ONE: Cutting government spending slows economic growth.

TRUTH ONE: Since 1945, countries that balanced their budgets and revived economic growth did so by cutting $5 to $6 of spending for every $1 of new tax hikes.

FABLE TWO:  President Obama wants to strike a compromise budget deal.

TRUTH TWO.  The WaPo reported that the president's goal is to return Nancy Pelosi to the House speakership in 2014 by destroying the Republican Party.  Then O's final two years would be a progressive blowout, entrenching progressive governance for the indefinite future.

Bottom Line.  Voters re-elected a president to whom economics is trumped by politics--O's goal is to transform the country into a progressive paradise.  Voters did this despite rating economics the most important issue last fall, and Mitt Romney better able to address the economy.  Voters thus also trumped economics with politics--O's politics of caring (or seeming to care).  That voters will be economically better off for so choosing might be thought of as FABLE THREE.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Economy, Conservative Politics 

OBAMA: NOT A DICTATOR!

Richard Nixon's "I am not a crook!" revised....

When during the midst of the Watergate scandal Richard Nixon told the press corps, on Nov. 17, 1973, "I am not a crook!" (0:37), it was clear he was in deep trouble.

President Obama's "I am not a dictator..." protest (0:34) last Friday hardly augurs comparable presidential ill-fortune, but signals he is feeling some public heat.  His full quote:

BUDGET: WHERE TO CUT FIRST

Aside from pricey conferences, start with these....

The guys at Saturday Night Live aired some ideas (4:05) that put the president's scare campaign--he does more campaigning than governing--in healthy perspective & nail a few deserving targets....

At NRO Mona Charen lists examples of wasteful program duplication flagged by the General Accountability Office:

Democrats like to pretend that every last penny of government spending is wise, benevolent, and essential. My guess is that perhaps 15 percent of discretionary spending meets all three of those criteria, but we’ll never know, because government programs are rarely evaluated for effectiveness, efficiency, or necessity. According to the Government Accountability Office, the government runs 50 different programs for the homeless across eight agencies, 23 programs for housing aid through four agencies, 26 programs for food and nutrition aid through six agencies, 27 programs on teen pregnancy, 130 programs for at-risk youth, ten agencies to promote exports, and 342 programs for economic development. The federal government runs 47 different job-training programs at a cost to the taxpayer of $18 billion annually. The GAO found that “only 5 of the 47 programs . . . examined had done detailed impact studies” and that among those “the effects of participation were not consistent across programs, with only some demonstrating positive impacts that tended to be small, inconclusive, or restricted to short-term impacts.”

Charen then adds entitlement fraud as well:

THREE SIGNS OF US DECLINE

Three articles reveal 21st century US decline....

Former publisher Conrad Black explains how prosecutors destroyed nominal constitutional protections for US criminal defendants.  One key paragraph:

...American prosecutors win 99.5 percent of their cases, a much higher percentage than those in other civilized countries; that  97 percent of them are won without trial, because of the plea-bargain system in which inculpatory evidence is extorted from witnesses in exchange for immunity from prosecution, including for perjury; that the U.S. has six to twelve times as many incarcerated people per capita as do Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, or the United Kingdom, comparably prosperous democracies; that the U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s population, 25 percent of its incarcerated people, and half of its academically qualified lawyers, who take about 10 percent of U.S. GDP; that prosecutors enjoy very uneven advantages in procedure and an absolute immunity for misconduct; that they routinely seize targets’ money on false affidavits alleging ill-gotten gains so they cannot defend themselves by paying rapacious American lawyers, most of whom in criminal-defense matters are just a fig leaf to provide a pretense of a genuine day in court before blind justice; that the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendment rights that are the basis of the American claim to being a society of laws don’t really exist in practice; and that far too many judges are ex-prosecutors who have not entirely shed the almost universal prosecutorial will to crucify.

Black's prosecutor numbers are the most salient.  Note that of the 3 percent of cases that actually go to trial prosecutors win 5 out of 6.  One would have to believe that prosecutors almost never bring bad cases to accept this result.  The defendants who fight no doubt have been advised by counsel that they have a strong case.  The government should not win 5 out of 6 of these, if due process rights are to mean anything in practice.

Freelance writer Jeanette Pryor frames the second sign of cultural decline, and explains the culturally lethal conjunction of governance & Hollywood:

OBAMA'S BUDGET MADNESS

Bob Woodward calls President Obama out....

Today Watergate legend Bob Woodward called "a kind of madness" (0:51) President Obama's threat that if sequester goes through on Friday he will be unable to protect the country.  Woodward noted that Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush & Bill Clinton would not have let a piece of paper stand between them & their duty to protect the country as commander-in-chief.

Today the Senate is expected to vote down two sequester substitute bills: a Republican alternative giving the president more flexibility to make cuts & Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's Democratic proposal to replace the sequester with fewer cuts plus new tax increases.  The GOP bill would, while ruling out tax hikes, allow only defense budget increases.  By reserving a congressional right of disapproval, said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: “The goal isn’t to hand over congressional authority.  It’s to make sure these cuts actually happen.”

At Commentary Blog ex-Bush WH staffer Peter Wehner labels O's threats as "a concoction of willful deceptions, hyperbole, demagoguery, mismanagement, and deliberate harm .... doing [incalculable harm] to our political culture."

The WaPo reports this incredible admission (h/t Peter Wehner] from an anti-sequester lobbyist:

MASS MURDER: PREVENTABLE?

As Congress returns to gun bills....

And the president speaks gospel truth in Chicago....

The sad truth may well be: rarely....

The horrific murder rampage of a renegade LA cop--wily, coldly determined, trained to commit mayhem & evade capture--is perhaps an extreme example.  But others less well-trained can be just as determined, and do great damage.  Such killers will not have trouble circumventing even the strictest gun laws--which grow increasingly problematic due to the emerging application of 3D printing technology.  And they may be able to evade early detection too.

Megan McArdle's absorbing interview with mass-killing expert James Alan Fox punctures many common misconceptions.

James Alan Fox: Mass murderers are extraordinarily ordinary.

Most mass killers kill people they know, with a clear-cut motive. They typically plan their crimes in advance, often weeks or months in advance. They are calm, deliberate and determined to get justice for what they perceive to be unfair treatment.

The idea that they suddenly snap actually makes little sense. They snap and just so happen to have 2 AK-47's and 2000 rounds of ammunition around for just such an occasion? Hardly.

Megan: We can see the evidence of planning, but how do we know their motive? Do they typically leave behind an explanation?

James Alan Fox: Yes, they often do leave behind an explanation, or articulate it if they survive. Or they make it clear while they are doing their shooting.

As for preventive remedies, the picture is bleak:

THE "OBAMOSCARS"

Tinseltown tarnishes the White House....

Oscar Night gave us a new cultural milestone: the First Lady announcing the Best Picture winner, and saying of Hollywood, as reported by the Washington Times:

Wearing a silvery art-deco-inspired metallic gown, Mrs. Obama showered affection on the Hollywood stars, writers and production teams and said they are setting a good example for the nation’s children because all the nominees demonstrated that “we can overcome any obstacle.”

That message is “especially important for our young people,” she said, thanking Hollywood for encouraging children “to open their imaginations.”

Roger Simon sees the Academy Awards and the leftist culture it promotes as quasi-officially representing one half (left of center) of the country.  Mona Charen sees "bread and circuses" in Barack & Michelle as celebrities-in-chief.

Worse, Jonathan Tobin writes that the Obamas have matched the Kennedys' "Camelot" hagiography:

GUNFIGHT AT "B.O." CORRAL II

The truth behind the budget numbers....

Defense Budget Realities.  Byron York inters the defense hawks' assertion that the sequester will devastate our military.  Projected defense numbers are:

For 2014, the figure is $593 billion.  For 2015, it is $597 billion.  For 2016, $611 billion.  For 2017, $619 billion.  For 2018, $628 billion.  For 2019, $648 billion.  For 2020, $663 billion.  For 2021, $679 billion.  For 2022, $702 billion.  And for 2023, $714 billion.

Now, factor in declining war spending, which distorts CBO figures:

GUNFIGHT AT "B.O." CORRAL I

Barack plays "budget sequester chicken"....

As Roll Call reports that Senate negotiators "are bracing for the Obama administration to ratchet up the pressure by front-loading the effects of the sequester during the month of March" WaPo superstar Bob Woodward unmasks the lies told by the president & his top aides, as to who proposed the sequester:

First, months of White House dissembling further eroded any semblance of trust between Obama and congressional Republicans. (The Republicans are by no means blameless and have had their own episodes of denial and bald-faced message management.)

Second, [former WH chief of staff, now Treasury Secretary-designate] Lew testified during his confirmation hearing that the Republicans would not go along with new revenue in the portion of the deficit-reduction plan that became the sequester. Reinforcing Lew’s point, a senior White House official said Friday, “The sequester was an option we were forced to take because the Republicans would not do tax increases.”

In fact, the final deal reached between Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in 2011 included an agreement that there would be no tax increases in the sequester in exchange for what the president was insisting on: an agreement that the nation’s debt ceiling would be increased for 18 months, so Obama would not have to go through another such negotiation in 2012, when he was running for reelection.

So when the president asks that a substitute for the sequester include not just spending cuts but also new revenue, he is moving the goal posts. His call for a balanced approach is reasonable, and he makes a strong case that those in the top income brackets could and should pay more. But that was not the deal he made.

The WSJ editors explain how President Obama is using the "Washington Monument ploy" to pressure the GOP to give in to higher taxes and impose far fewer spending cuts:

NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT PERIL

President Obama doubles a bad bet....

Yesterday Human Events posted my article: Obama Doubles Down on Nuclear Disarmament.

I assess why Obama's nuclear policies towards Iran, North Korea, China and Russia are failing.  Put simply, utopian nuclear-zero fantasies are driving the president's policies, and thus are making more likely a nuclear war or a nuclear terrorism catastrophe.

Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, Nuclear Proliferation, WMD, Terrorism, Homeland Security, National Security, Foreign Policy