…by government of one individual’s wealth to another? Hmm….
This is then-Illinois State Senator Barack Obama in a speech at Loyola University in October 1998.
[T]he trick is figuring out how do we structure government systems that pool resources, and hence facilitate some redistribution because I actually believe in redistribution.
On Sunday, our Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, made the rounds of the NLMSM’s Talk TV shows reciting State’s official understanding of the violent protests and murders around the Middle East, northern Africa, and now spreading to Indonesia.
What sparked the violence was a very hateful video on the Internet. It was a reaction to a video that had nothing to do with the United States.
Rice also said that “extremists” arrived with heavy weapons, yet
We don’t see any signs this was a pre-meditated, pre-planned attack.
Hmm….
Meanwhile, CNN has this on “premeditation:”
According to one of the Libyan security guards who was stationed at one of the gates armed with only a radio, the assault began simultaneously from three directions.
Heavy machine guns and rocket -propelled grenades were used, according to the guard. He said masked men threatened to kill him at gunpoint for ‘protecting the infidels. He declined to appear on camera for fear of repercussions.
Yeah, that’s not premeditated.
The Obama administration also has been insisting that it had no specific, actionable intelligence with which to do anything. Never mind a series of attacks and attempted attacks in Libya and Tunisia earlier this summer: an IED thrown at the perimeter of our Benghazi consulate (site of last week’s murders) early June, an RPG attack on the British ambassador’s motorcade in mid-June (injuring two security personnel), an attack the our Tunisian consulate, including burning our flag in late June, and . And on Aug. 5, five weeks before the assault on the U.S. Consulate, and RPG attack on the International Committee of the Red Cross’ Benghazi building in early August. No. No reason to act here. No reason to instruct our embassies and consulates to increase their security. No reason to increase their assets so they could increase their security state.
CNN had this, too, at the above link:
Three days before the deadly assault on the United States consulate in Libya, a local security official says he met with American diplomats in the city and warned them about deteriorating security.
Jamal Mabrouk, a member of the February 17th Brigade, told CNN that he and a battalion commander had a meeting about the economy and security.
He said they told the diplomats that the security situation wasn’t good for international business.
“The situation is frightening, it scares us,” Mabrouk said they told the US officials.
No actionable intel there. Move along, now.
Then there’s the position of the Libyan government. Also speaking Sunday, Libyan National Congress President Mohammed el-Megarif had this to say:
The idea that this criminal and cowardly act was a spontaneous protest that just spun out of control is completely unfounded and preposterous. We firmly believe that this was a pre-calculated, pre-planned attack that was carried out specifically to attack the US Consulate.
He also noted that the attacks were carried out by foreigners and that the attacks had all the indicators of an al-Qaeda attack.
And Senator John McCain (R, AZ), the ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Armed Services, and Congressman Mike Rogers (R, MI), House Intelligence Committee chairman (albeit Evil Republicans), said Sunday the administration’s foreign policy of “disengagement” in the Middle East had created a vacuum which made this type of attack inevitable.
The Middle East believes there is a disengagement policy with the US.
There’s more information here, at Power Line; follow the links.
This from Bret Stephens, in The Wall Street Journal [emphasis mine].
“Hasa Diga Eebowai” is the hit number in Broadway’s hit musical “The Book of Mormon,” which won nine Tony awards last year. What does the phrase mean? I can’t tell you, because it’s unprintable in a family newspaper.
[I]f you can afford to shell out several hundred bucks for a seat, then you can watch a Mormon missionary get his holy book stuffed—well, I can’t tell you about that, either….
The “Book of Mormon”—a performance of which Hillary Clinton attended last year, without registering a complaint—comes to mind as the administration falls over itself denouncing “Innocence of Muslims.” This is a film that may or may not exist; whose makers are likely not who they say they are; whose actors claim to have known neither the plot nor purpose of the film; and which has never been seen by any member of the public except as a video clip on the Internet.
No matter. The film, the administration says, is “hateful and offensive” (Susan Rice), “reprehensible and disgusting” (Jay Carney) and, in a twist, “disgusting and reprehensible” (Hillary Clinton). Mr. Carney, the White House spokesman, also lays sole blame on the film for inciting the riots that have swept the Muslim world and claimed the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his staff in Libya.
So let’s get this straight: In the consensus view of modern American liberalism, it is hilarious to mock Mormons and Mormonism but outrageous to mock Muslims and Islam. Why? Maybe it’s because nobody has ever been harmed, much less killed, making fun of Mormons.
RTWT. There’s more, about the assault on American free speech by this American government, and about the necessary mutuality of respect.
Stephens centers his article on the behaviors of liberalism and progressivism, but Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama is the head Progressive, and his silence on his movement’s hypocrisy is deafening.
The Chicago Teacher’s Union, which is unhappy and feeling rushed.
Using the children its teachers claim to teach as hostages, the union has decided to continue its strike for more money, more job security, and less stringent individual teacher performance evaluation. Of course, this leaves those children out of school and forces parents to lose income from taking time off from work or to incur additional child-care expenses to handle children who should be in school. That doesn’t matter, though, to teachers whose salaries already are some 50% higher than those of the parents whose children they’re not teaching. (On the other hand, what’s the downside for the kids, really? This collection of teachers does poorly by the students: a 60% high school graduation rate, generally, and a 44% rate for black high schoolers. Just 15% of fourth graders are proficient in reading. Just 20% of the students are grade level proficient in math.)
But faced with a generous offer from the city to come back to work, the CTU declined even to vote on the offer over the weekend.
CTU President, Karen Lewis, said teachers wanted the opportunity to continue to discuss that offer.
Our members are not happy,
she said.
They want to know if there is anything more they can get,
she said.
They feel rushed,
!? she said.
They want to squeeze more—as if their already failed performance should be rewarded. Talk about not hurting (teachers’) self-esteem. They feel rushed? They always could come back to work and study the city’s offer at leisure.
In the meantime, the kids are suffering. Or, maybe not so much.
These tweets are from the US’ State Department via the embassy in Cairo just prior to and during the initial rioting and American flag desecration at the embassy, and on the same day that American diplomats and staff were murdered in Libya:
We condemn the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims—
US Embassy Cairo (@USEmbassyCairo) September 11, 2012
and this:
U.S. Embassy condemns religious incitement ow.ly/dCxwY—
US Embassy Cairo (@USEmbassyCairo) September 11, 2012
Try that link. The material on the other end is “File not found.” Hmm….
And this:
This morning’s condemnation (issued before protest began) still stands. As does our condemnation of unjustified breach of the Embassy
—
US Embassy Cairo (@USEmbassyCairo) September 11, 2012
Which the Cairo Embassy deleted from its Twitter account. Except that tweets last a while, as Twitchy notes.
And this carefully deleted tweet:
@BrianGriffiths we did not apologize to anyone because we did nothing—
US Embassy Cairo (@USEmbassyCairo) September 11, 2012
Follow this Twitchy link to see more that the Obama administration has deleted.
And this Cairo Embassy statement—oddly, no longer found, also; try the link:
The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims—as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others
But not a word of condemnation for those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt us.
What else is the Obama administration covering up? What else have they tried to censor from the public’s eye concerning these despicable attacks and their timid response to them?
Can our nation afford four more years of this?