Showing posts with label Libya. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Libya. Show all posts

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Benghazi -What really happened? "The Truth About Benghazi" - Videos from CNN's better-late-than-never Benghazi special examining the terrorist attacks on the U.S. Consulate that killed four Americans; U.S. Mainstream Media's suck-up of White House narrative and hands-off attitude towards Hillary Clinton looks even worse in retrospect as more facts emerge and cover-up falls apart





CNN video: Benghazi timeline: "We are under attack"

John King: Why Benghazi matters
By John King, CNN Chief National Correspondent
updated 1:23 PM EDT, Wed August 7, 2013
Additional information and videos at:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/06/politics/king-benghazi/index.html


CNN video: Political fallout from Benghazi attack







CNN video: Why didn't the U.S. military respond in time in Benghazi


CNN video: Paying the political price for Benghazi

Recent Benghazi-related news























— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) August 1, 2013






Friday, October 19, 2012

Vacillating Obama: Washington Post's Jackson Diehl zeroes-in on fundamental weakness of Obama's dithering Mid-East policy and multilateralism: Obama’s greatest failure - "His miscalculations on Syria have led to a wider war" that threatens to bring in more dangerous players and more unpredictability, NOT more stability and democracy; @JacksonDiehl, #syria


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I've been wanting to post this excellent analysis by The Washington Post's veteran foreign policy hand Jackson Diehl since reading it online early, early Sunday morning, while listening to some hard news online via the BBC.
Soon thereafter, I sent it out to a couple dozen well-informed friends and acquaintances across the country and around the world, who follow U.S. foreign policy as closely as I do, and who also like me, shake their head at what President Obama is doing. 

Though we all disagreed on lots of matters whenever we were together, we're all in agreement about this Diehl column -it's spot-on analysis from the get-go about Barack Obama's unwillingness to stop digging the foreign policy hole he has put the United States in.
He just keeps digging, utterly convinced that he's right and that everyone else is wrong.

I suspect that in about a dozen years or so, people who voted for Obama in 2008 will actually shake their head in wonder that they ever allowed themselves to willfully ignore his inexperience and weaknesses and elect someone as president who was foolish enough to convince himself -and them- that his carefully-constructed personal/media narrative would somehow allow him to solve longstanding problems.
It hasn't and it doesn't and it won't.

Despite all the accumulated evidence on U.S. foreign policy that shows he has made already bad situations worse, sometimes, much worse, Obama still remains utterly convinced that the sheer star power of his personality will lead to positive results.
It's the ultimate act of -and sign of- his amazing hubris.


The Washington Post
How Obama bungled the Syrian revolution
By Jackson Diehl
October 14, 2012
Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans are doing their best to portray the assault on the U.S. mission in Libya and its aftermath as a signal foreign policy disaster for Barack Obama. But my bet is that when historians look back on Obama’s mistakes in the last four years, they will focus on something entirely different: his catastrophic mishandling of the revolution in Syria.
The deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi were a calamity — but those losses were mainly the result of poor security decisions by mid-level State Department officials, not policy choices by Obama. The president’s handling of Syria, on the other hand, exemplifies every weakness in his foreign policy — from his excessive faith in “engaging” troublesome foreign leaders to his insistence on multilateralism as an end in itself to his self-defeating caution in asserting American power.
Read the rest of the column at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/jackson-diehl-how-obama-bungled-the-syrian-revolution/2012/10/14/13c492d2-13b2-11e2-be82-c3411b7680a9_story.html


Read previous Diehl columns at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/jackson-diehl/2011/02/24/ABccMXN_page.html
I subscribe to his RSS feed and get his columns as sson as they go online.
http://feeds.washingtonpost.com/rss/linksets/opinions/jackson-diehl

Also see his Twitter page: https://twitter.com/JacksonDiehl

The National Journal
Obama’s Quagmire: Syria and the Islamist Arc, Hammered on leadership, the president struggles for a Middle East policy.
By Michael Hirsh
Updated: September 21, 2012  1:55 p.m., 
September 21, 2012  1:07 p.m.
U.S. and Western diplomats are concerned that the longer Bashar al-Assad hangs on to his failing regime in Damascus, the more likely it is that the aftermath of the Syrian rebellion will be dominated by Islamist elements, completing an arc of newly empowered radical groups along the southern half of the Mediterranean from Libya to Syria. 
Read the rest of the column at: http://nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/obama-s-quagmire-syria-and-the-islamist-arc-20120921?mrefid=site_search

As I've noted here several times over the past two years with videos of him speaking forthrightly about Syria, Florida Senator Marco Rubio has been much more realistic than Hillary Clinton's dog-chasing-its-tail State Dept. on the reality of what has been going on the Middle East and what is likely to happen if President Obama's dithering foreign policy is given four more years to make things worse.

And seriously, how does U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice still even have a job? 
Is there no penalty for her abject failure, serial lying to the American public and Congress and her calculated and willful ignorance?
Rice's performance the past month has validated all the criticism of her as nothing more than a political hack with foreign policy pretensions, not a serious foreign policy professional, no matter what her actual experience is.
Susan Rice is the female version of Rahm Emanuel -a fixer.
And a Grade B fixer at that.

How can we reasonably expect representatives of other countries to trust her and take her seriously if average Americans have learned from watching her for themselves, after paying attention to her own words and actions, NOT to trust her?


SenatorMarcoRubio video: U.S. Senator Marco Rubio on Foreign Aid to Libya, Egypt and Pakistan and what America and American taxpayers have a right to expect from these countries in exchange for U.S. dollars. Uploaded September 20, 2012. http://youtu.be/SFOBW7xkz7g Reminder, this video is a month old.

Articles and columns on Syria in The Washington Post, in chron order:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/newssearch/search.html

By the way, if anyone reading this post knows anyone at Foreign Policy magazine, tell them that their YouTube Channel is the very picture of irrelevant.
One original video in the past nine months during a presidential election year?
That's embarrassing!
http://www.youtube.com/user/ForeignPolicyTV

Sunday, September 30, 2012

More useful clarity on President Obama's Libyan Lies, Misrepresentations & Misadventures: Obscure film was NOT responsible for riot there, security was lax in Benghazi, U.S. Marines were NOT there during consulate attack, and FBI agents are still NOT there two weeks later, a fact that ABC News' Friday evening newscast continued to neglect to mention



senatorcorker video: Appearing on Fox News Channel, Tennessee Senator Bob  Corker, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sounded-off on the lack of information and cooperation the Comm. is receiving re the Benghazi attacks on September 11th. Corker believes the Obama administration's response to Libya consulate attack is "Nothing Short... of Benghazigate." "Both Democrats and Republicans want answers to what happened." Uploaded September 27, 2012. http://youtu.be/wLk6o3N8cB8 
More useful clarity on President Obama's Libyan Lies, Misrepresentations & Misadventures: Obscure film was NOT responsible for riot there, security was lax in Benghazi, U.S. Marines were NOT there during consulate attack, and FBI agents are still NOT there two weeks later, a fact that ABC News' Friday evening newscast continued to neglect to mention
And on Friday, sixteen days after the death of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christoprher StevensABC News national newscast devoted ZERO time to Obama's serial lies about what happened in Libya, not mentioning Libya even once.

No, instead, the lead story was on TSA agents pilfering airline passenger goods. Really?
Yes, nothing at all about no FBI agents being in the country more than two weeks later to investigate.


The Washington Post

In Libya, security was lax before attack that killed U.S. ambassador, officials say
By Ernesto Londoño and Abigail Hauslohner
September 29, 2012 at 2:12 PM
On the eve of his death, U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was ebullient as he returned for the first time in his new role to Benghazi, the eastern Libyan city that embraced him as a savior during last year’s civil war. He moved around the coastal town in an armored vehicle and held a marathon of meetings, his handful of bodyguards trailing discreetly behind.
But as Stevens met with Benghazi civic leaders, U.S. officials appear to have underestimated the threat facing both the ambassador and other Americans. They had not reinforced the U.S. diplomatic outpost there to meet strict safety standards for government buildings overseas. Nor had they posted a U.S. Marine detachment, as at other diplomatic sites in high-threat regions.
Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-libya-security-was-lax-prior-to-deadly-attack/2012/09/29/a56ffca0-0992-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_story.html


The Weekly Standard

Our Fearless Misleader
By Stephen F. Hayes
October 8, 2012, VOL. 18, NO. 04
After more than two weeks of obfuscation and misdirection from the Obama administration, the American public is coming to understand what the U.S. intelligence community learned in the 48 hours immediately following the September 11 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Among the important new details:
Read the rest of the post at
https://www.weeklystandard.com/print/articles/our-fearless-misleader_653228.html


New York Times
Security Fears Hobble Inquiry of Libya Attack
By David D. Kirkpatrick, Eric Schmitt and Michael S. Schmidt
Posted online September 27, 2012
BENGHAZI, Libya — Sixteen days after the death of four Americans in an attack on a United States diplomatic mission here, fears about the near-total lack of security have kept F.B.I. agents from visiting the scene of the killings and forced them to try to piece together the complicated crime from Tripoli, more than 400 miles away.
Investigators are so worried about the tenuous security, people involved in the investigation say, that they have been unwilling to risk taking some potential Libyan witnesses into the American Embassy in Tripoli. Instead, the investigators have resorted to the awkward solution of questioning some witnesses in cars outside the embassy, which is operating under emergency staffing and was evacuated of even more diplomats on Thursday because of a heightened security alert.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Newt Gingrich on President Obama's curious choices and what they mean -placing more importance on meeting the hosts of ABC's 'The View' than practicing traditional U.S. statecraft and actually meeting other countries' leaders -like Netanyahu- at the U.N. And even elements of the MSM are upset

Video at: http://video.foxnews.com/v/1861429922001/

Fox News Channel video: Gingrich's take: Obama at UN, snubs, 'bumps' and more.
Newt Gingrich appeared on Greta Van Sustern's "On the Record" TV show on Tuesday night, September 25th, and opined on all manner of things, most notably, Obama's curious speech before the United Nations General Assembly, his continued use of "the video" as an excuse for what happened to four Americans being murdered in Libya, inc. our Ambassador, his public snub of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, and what Mitt Romney needs to do for the rest of the 2012 campaign. 

Long story short: Newt Gingrich and many other Americans believe that actions STILL speak louder than words, so using that as your guide, President Obama has decided that running for re-election as president and appearing on various TV chat shows where he will get softballs lobbed at him, is more important than actually acting doing the duties expected of a U.S. president. 
He is not going to worry what high-minded people think, he's going after the yentas!

Which is why he is the first sitting U.S. president in over twenty years to come to the U.N. for this annual event and NOT actually meet any representatives from other countries. 
He's left that task to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

#MUSLIMRAGE - 2010 video is perfect follow-up to my last post on problems associated with Muslim immigration to Sweden, inc. inability or unwillingness to adopt Western norms re free speech, are proven in video thru use of heckler's veto to stop performance, attack caricaturist Lars Vilks in Uppsala


BeTheBalls video: The Muslim attack on noted Swedish caricaturist Lars Vilks in Uppsala, Sweden 2010 - "the Entire Event". Uploaded May 27, 2010. http://youtu.be/lbpyk1uHNWY
Be sure to watch the woman in the second row wearing the multi-colored sweater, holding cell phone. This was captured by the TV operation of newspaper Upsala Nya Tidning in Uppsala.


I knew that I had the links to this video somewhere saved in Draft on my Gmail account, it's just that it wasn't yesterday when I really needed it to buttress my points in my blog post that eventually got around to the subject of Muslim immigrants' assimilation in Sweden, which is not going so well, owing mostly to the fact that many new refugees, mostly male, think they can out-smart the system that demands they make an honest effort to do several things, including adopting the norms of the country they're now living in, not being held hostage to the ones of the country they left behind in the rear-view mirror.
re Fouad Ajami's Washington Post essay: Why is the Muslim world so easily offended?; What Muslim "moderates"?; Målmo as the European canary-in-the-coal-mine doesn't auger well for the success of Muslim "moderates" or assimilation efforts; #MUSLIMRAGE
http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/re-fouad-ajamis-washington-post-essay.html

This 2010 video of a rather shocking display of anti-democratic behavior by Muslims attending an event in Uppsala that I heard about a day or two after it first happened, serves as a friendly yet-chilling reminder that unlike authoritarian regimes in Muslim-controlled countries around the world, when you live in a real democracy, like the U.S. or Sweden, it doesn't mean that you have a right to NOT have your personal feelings or religious sensitivities hurt, nor do you have a right to prevent other citizens from exercising their guaranteed rights, like freedom of speech.

You can always choose to not attend events that will be upsetting, but you get the sense in watching the video that the whole thing was almost pre-meditated if not pre-ordained, given the reaction that you can see for yourself.

Unfortunately, as we have seen for the past week with respect to the protests/riots in Egypt and Libya, and the premeditated murder of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, this concept of tolerance continues to elude both many Muslims who leave the Middle East, as well as ones who stay there and who seem to go out of their way to continuously be outraged.

That's made worse by many in the American Mainstream Media who ought to know better, but who instead of dealing with them realistically, and call them on what they say and do, instead, coddle them, like ABC News' Christiane Amanpour, wife of a former Clinton State Dept. spokesman, Jamie Rubin, now an executive editor at Bloomberg News.


Breitbart's Big Journalism
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: WEST IS EXTREME, NOT ISLAMISTS
by William Bigelow  
15 Sep 2012 




ABCNews video: Christiane Amanpour, Martha Raddatz, and Brian Ross join guest host Jake Tapper to discuss political issues sweeping across the Middle East. Uploaded September 16, 2012. http://youtu.be/A0wPXV-BL5k



ABCNews video: Muslim Violence, Anti-American Protests, Fallout From Middle East: 'This Week' Roundtable. Uploaded September 16, 2012. http://youtu.be/miqHPq5l3SE

Friday, September 14, 2012

Mounting public anger & criticism of Obama & Hillary's dithering foreign policy failures in aftermath of Cairo & Benghazi attacks; Facts finally starting to penetrate MSM's pro-Obama narrative and defense shield on this story even while ABC's "World News With Diane Sawyer" lays one egg-after-another


publiusforum video: CNN's Nic Robertson Interviews Brother of Blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman in Cairo on September 10, 2011. Uploaded September 13, 2012. http://youtu.be/tPszLCEyu-I
Story at: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/09/13/Cairo-Riots-Were-Not-Over-Offensive-American-Movie-Freedom-of-Blind-Sheik-The-Goal

*FYI: CIA Director David Petraeus will be meeting with House Intelligence Committee members this morning*


Though it's the newscast that I always watch and prefer, Thursday night's "ABC World News with Diane Sawyer" was one of the worst in quite some time, more noteworthy for what they neglected to say than anything they actually reported -never a good sign.

This case of collective hysterical amnesia at the alphabet network seemed especially curious in light of interesting news reports that emerged over the course of the day that only gathered steam as the day went on, as they made even more preposterous many of the Mainstream Media's claims of the day before and that morning's daily newspapers.

The facts simply wouldn't cooperate and fit their assumptions. 

These were all "facts" that that you reasonably expected to see mentioned at some point in a national newscast when the subject of the riots and murder in Benghazi and Cairo came up

and yet...

Yes, sometimes even when Diane Sawyer is standing right there in the middle of it, the absence of evidence is evidence itself, and so is the refusal of her news program to mention these inconvenient facts when it goes against the Mainstream Media narrative of that morning.

Here's just a small list of what WASN'T mentioned on Thursday night's "ABC World News with Diane Sawyerhttp://abcnews.go.com/WN/


1.) Libyan government announced that organized and heavily-armed groups used the so-called film protests as a cover to stage coordinated attacks.

Yes, the rocket-propelled grenades are always a tip-off that civic discourse is not at the top of someone's agenda.

[And why so much reluctance by ABC News and the rest of the Mainstream Media in the U.S. to mention how often variations of "Osama, we are with you" was heard a week at the protests one week  after the DNC mentioned Osama Bin Laden 21 times with respect to their famous hunter Obama practically killing Bin Laden himself. 


TV and print reporters in other countries who speak Arabic and who are there on the ground are mentioning it, so why aren't U.S. reporters mentioning how often the words "Osama" and "Obama" are mentioned in the same sentence, and not in a positive light?

Speaking of speaking the language of the place you are reporting from, how's Barbara Raddatz's Arabic? 
Perhaps Paul Ryan will ask her at the October 11th Vice-Presidential debate she is moderating. 


No need to do that, I can answer that question for you.

ABC News reporter Barbara Raddatz, like so many other American A-list reporters routinely go to countries where they don't speak the language -like Arabic- and have to be totally dependent on others to explain what in the hell is going on. 
So, why do we need to hear from her then? 
Good question.

But ABC News doesn't care that she doesn't actually understand what is being said all around here while she is supposed to be reporting. 

To them, the most important thing is that she's there -is showing the ABC flag.
That's NOT the most-important thing to me -facts are. 
(She was in washington on Thursday night)


2.) Why nothing at all about this f-ed up situation with Larry Schwartz at the U.S. embassy in Cairo? Guess they were too busy trying to find another Republican in DC to criticize Romney.
Anonymously, of course.

Foreign Policy magazine

The Cable blog
Inside the public relations disaster at the Cairo embassy
Posted By Josh Rogin
September 12, 2012 - 8:48 p.m.
One staffer at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo was responsible for the statement and tweets Tuesday that have become grist for the presidential campaign, and that staffer ignored explicit State Department instructions not to issue the statement, one U.S. official close to the issue told The Cable.
Two additional administration officials confirmed the details of this account when contacted late Wednesday by The Cable.
Read the rest of the post at:
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/09/12/inside_the_public_relations_disaster_at_the_cairo_embassy

3.) All Thursday morning and afternoon, credible reports emerged that despite what President Obama said about the Libyan security forces helping transport Ambassador Christopher Stevens to another building per their protocol, credible stories that members of the Libyan security forces had in fact signaled to the armed organized groups that were there to storm the consulate that the move was taking place.
The groups already knew that Stevens would be moved, they just weren't sure where.
Once they knew, it was easy to fire their rockets right at him.

It was literally like he was herded into the scene of his death.
This was not mentioned at all on ABC's newscast 

Uh-oh! Mira!
Here's something finally penetrating the MSM's invisible force field
Notice that this is being given a 6:45 am time stamp, even though I heard this yesterday before 1 p.m.

CBS News

September 14, 2012 5:23 AM
Official: Libyan insiders may have aided assault
Updated 6:45 a.m. ET


(CBA/AP) BENGHAZI, Libya — Heavily armed militants used a protest of an anti-Islam film as a cover and may have had help from inside Libyan security in their deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate, a senior Libyan official said Thursday.
As Libya announced the first four arrests, the clearest picture yet emerged of a two-pronged assault, with militants screaming "God is great!" as they scaled the consulate's outer walls and descended on the compound's main building.

Read the rest of the article at:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57512847/official-libyan-insiders-may-have-aided-assault/



4.) Surprise! Reports throughout the day emerged that U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson wouldn't allow U.S. Marines guarding the embassy compound to carry live ammunition.
http://nation.time.com/2012/09/13/whats-worse-no-marines-or-possibly-unarmed-marines/

With all their resources and personnel, how is ABC News unable to either confirm or deny this story by 6:30 p.m. Eastern? 

Or mention that she was in Washington at the time?
Really, how can that be?

If it turns out to be true, like you, I can hardly wait to hear the future interviews with the Marines and their leaders back in Washington on the fact that the very people most-responsible for the safety of U.S. personnel were reduced to playing the role of Barney Fife, who, lovable as he was, famously, wasn't allowed to have a loaded gun while he was on-duty in Mayberry.

And as if I even have to mention it, Ambassador Ann Patterson's name was never spoken on-air Thursday. Again.
Hmm-m...

Honestly, what is it about female U.S. Ambassadors posted to the creepy patriarchal Middle East, and their own feelings of protocol and or inadequacy, that actually cause them to threaten U.S.lives thru their queer policy pronouncements?


If true, unfortunately, Anne Patterson's bad decision-making will remind many of us that after the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, the last year of the Clinton Administration, the U.S. Ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodineimposed all sorts of rules on the U.S. officials sent to investigate the bombing that took place on her watch.

She seemed to be the very stereotype of a spiteful feminist who wanted to keep men at a distance even though they were the ones who had any power on the block she lived on.
Instead of letting common sense prevail, she said that allowing so many FBI and CIA agents -read assertive men- would send the 'wrong signals' about who really ran U.S. foreign policy.

She forgot that it wasn't her. 

She was the worker bee who works for us, not the other way around.

In case you forgot or never knew the exact details, Bodine was the stick-up-her-ass PC U.S. Ambassador to Yemen who tried to thwart the Cole investigation and famously took steps to revoke the visa of FBI Special Agent John O'Neill, the FBI's leading expert on al Qaeda and on-scene commander in Yemen after he arrived from New York with his team of counter-terrorism agents.
Yes, really.

Among so many other things that seem contrary to U.S. interests, Bodine famously intervened and prevented his re-entry into Yemen after he'd flown back to New York for Thanksgiving 2000. 
O'Neill, of course, died ten months later in the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers

See PBS's Frontline "The Man Who Knew" 



PBS FRONTLINE: The Man Who Knew - Parts 5 of 8
http://youtu.be/s7T5gAD1SSI


Here is what PBS says on their Frontline website about that situation in October of 2000.
I usually would not put so much of that here, but it's important that you see what part of her decision-making rings familiar today, considering Patterson's orders.
Arriving in Yemen, O'Neill finds challenging field conditions. His agents confront 102-degree heat and a cramped, unsecured hotel for their quarters. O'Neill soon finds himself clashing with Barbara Bodine, the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, who is concerned about the number of FBI agents and military personnel flooding into the country after the bombing. O'Neill argues that the FBI needs resources to thoroughly investigate the attack. Bodine has different priorities, including maintaining good relations with Yemen. "I had to act as a cultural interpreter. They have endured first British colonialism, and then the Soviets. These people have only had foreigners telling them what to do. Now O'Neill and his men were coming in, doing essentially the same thing," Bodine later told Britain's The Sunday Times.
As relations between the two sour, the number of topics they disagree on multiplies. O'Neill wants a heavily-armed security presence; Bodine wants the agents to be unarmed. O'Neill wants to have direct access to Yemeni officials; Bodine feels she should supervise encounters. As O'Neill starts to seek support from Barry Mawn and other FBI officials back in the U.S., the cables sent by Bodine to the State Department become increasingly critical of O'Neill. It reaches the point where Louis Freeh and Janet Reno become personally involved in the dispute.
Meanwhile...
CNN IGNORES REAL GOAL OF CAIRO RIOTS: FREEDOM OF BLIND SHEIK
by WARNER TODD HUSTON  
14 Sep 2012, 2:47 AM PDT

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Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Senator Marco Rubio wows crowd at The Ronald Reagan Library, Simi Valley (CA); later appearance on Sean Hannity's Fox News Channel show


Florida's U.S. Senator Marco Rubio wows crowd at The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, CA. August 23, 2011.
The proper role of government, the singular objective of economic public policy, should be the growth and the creation of jobs and opportunity.

Best part come from 10:18 on... and when he gets rolling, about 16:05, and eventually talks about his Cuban-born, cigar-smoking grandfather, born in 1899 and a lover of history, forget about it, the crowd is putty in his hand.
It's a story that resonates with anyone who really knows their American history.

Rubio sounded just like this when I saw him in Hallandale Beach in June of 2009, talking about the proper role of government, the U.S. Constitution and the Founding Fathers' principles.
Of course, that's when all the experts in the Sunshine State, especially the local ones in the South Florida news media, the same ones who write about him today, were saying that he was destined to lose to the 2010 Republican nomination to then-Governor Charlie Crist.
The very same people who still daily under-estimate in their articles, columns and TV news reports, the logical appeal of Tea Party principles in this chaotic, poorly-run and myopic state.
Rubio ardently cares about ideas more than any other politician in Florida -by far.
It's not an act, it's who he is, which is why he is so unpopular among liberal Democrats in this state, who hate that his logic and reason so easily demolishes their longstanding house-of-cards.
It's why I knew after seeing him that warm 2009 night in-person that I would vote for him and that he would win come 2010.
I never doubted it and said so at the time.

You see even in South Florida, some of us still care about the ideas and dynamic principles that make this country unique.

Fox News Channel video: Sen. Marco Rubio speaks with Sean Hannity on "Hannity. August 23, 2011. http://youtu.be/hKF4VkjFPRY

Below are some of my Marco Rubio photos from his June 23, 2009 appearance in Hallandale Beach at the Southeast Broward Republican Club meeting, which I went to thanks to my friend, Arturo O'Neill, and my February 26, 2011 blog post titled, The show is Jeopardy! and the question is: "Can I have 'Midterms' for $2,000", http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/show-is-jeopardy-and-question-is-can-i.html.



That's Anthony Man of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel at the table.


Hallandale Beach Blog 1, Media Experts 0
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Channel 4 News (UK): Gaddafi could've used an underground escape route from his compound to airport says engineer who worked on its renovation


Channel 4 News video: Gaddafi could have underground escape route -engineer.
The battle for Gaddafi's compound, August 23, 2011. Foreign Affairs correspondent Jonathan Rugman reports.

Muammar Gaddafi could have an underground escape route from his military compound to Tripoli International Airport, an engineer who worked on plans to renovate its infrastructure told Channel 4 News.
Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.channel4.com/news/gaddafi-could-have-underground-escape-road-engineer

You're entitled to wonder why you aren't seeing these sorts of enterprising stories about the fighting in Libya in the U.S. news media.
Where are they?
Why do so few American-born network TV reporters actually speak passable Arabic?

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Catch-up -Watch Channel 4 News whenever you want and catch-up to past newscasts and segments:

LIVE BLOG: Rebels breach Colonel Gaddafi's Libya compound

World News Blog:

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Blimey! Two-thirds of the 1.9 million sports fans who applied for London 2012 Olympics tickets get shut out; one-third of events are already sold-out


Channel 4 News video: London 2012 -Two thirds of applicants left without tickets
June 17, 2011.

Complete story at
http://www.channel4.com/news/1-2m-bidders-for-olympics-tickets-left-empty-handed

Meanwhile, just when you thought you'd heard it all, guess who WAS given some tickets?
Yes, no matter how you spell it, the name Gaddafi still opens important doors...



ITN News video: Libya given London Olympic tickets, June 15, 2011



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Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Committee video: Jeret "Speedy" Peterson - "Cooking with Speedy"
"Go big or go home!"

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Ben Stein: "Arab Spring" is a fraud; David Rothkopf: Obamamandias: the great shrinking superpower in the Middle East



CBS News Sunday Morning video- Ben Stein: "Arab Spring" is a fraud. May 15, 2011.
"Arab Spring" is a fraud. Says street movements in Middle East mean U.S. is losing valuable allies - and Iran is reaping a "gigantic regional coup"
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Did you happen to catch Ben Stein's spot=on comments on Sunday's CBS News 'Sunday Morning' TV program?
It's long been a personal favorite of mine from the day it started due to its smart, lengthy essays on subjects and people that often received little public notice, but who were doing some very interesting things.
If you didn't catch it, the video above will correct that situation toute-de-suite.

Stein is largely right that President Obama's bewildering and feckless Mid-East policy seems to constantly profit Iran at the West's expense, and Israel in particular, as he channels Prof. Obama and lectures everyone, issuing threats to Libya and Syria to change their methods or consider leaving, threats that are completely ignored but which would've been mocked by the U.S. Mainstream Media if Bush 43 had made them.

The very same condescending crowd in the news media, academe and the foreign policy desk of Comedy Central who said that Bush & Co.'s contention that democracy would work in Iraq after the U.S. invasion, were crazy, but who now play the role of Obama sycophants and valets for his bewildering policies that never seem to quite result in anything positive or tangible for the people.
Or did you forget how quiet Obama was when there were genuine street protests for reform, democratic institutions and fair elections in Iran two years ago, and everyone, esp. The American Left, wanted to know why it took Obama so long to recognize what was happening and say something of substance?
I haven't.

Not that I was ever a fan of former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, per se, but he's undeniably a very, very smart and savvy guy who knows how to handle himself.
(I mean he wasn't a federal judge for nothing.)
Well, he's bailing out as Obama's Mid-East policy czar, trouble-shooter and general explainer of things that make no sense coming out of C Street, the U.S. State Dept.
Who's his replacement?

Don't expect to get that answer soon or even any educated guesses anytime soon in the Herald or Sun-Sentinel.

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Foreign Policy magazine blog
Obamamandias: the great shrinking superpower in the Middle East
Posted by David Rothkopf Wednesday, May 18, 2011 - 4:06 PM


Foreign Policy magazine blog
Another major policy speech on the Middle East? Yawn
Posted by Stephen M. Walt Thursday, May 19, 2011 - 10:44 AM


Foreign Policy magazine
Discord in the Rebel Capital
Benghazi may seem like an island in the storm, but beneath the surface lies confusion and disharmony.
By Portia Walker
May 18, 2011




New York Times video: New York Times Op-Ed columnist Roger Cohen's hopes for President Obama's Middle East peace efforts.