Where the Libyan Buck Stops

Where the Libyan Buck Stops :: SteynOnline
...Hugh also brought up the latest Hillary Clinton emails in relation to Benghazi.
Yet Benghazi, as appalling as it was, was the logical endpoint of a broader Libyan problem:

MS: You understand from these emails that Libya was supposed to be Hillary Clinton's pet project, that she would knock off this harmless, old, past his sell-by date, pock-marked desert transvestite, and she would end up with a big foreign policy feather in her cap, that it was easy to do. 
And instead, in effect, because she gave it no further thought, except in those shrunken terms of political benefit to her, she left a failed state in Libya, which has resulted in the Libyan ports being under the control of ISIS, and them now being used as the main jumping off point for this flood of refugees that are remorselessly landing on the shores of Italy every day, every day, every day, and destabilizing Italy and other European Union countries.
That's Hillary Clinton's Libya. Libya is Hillary's failed policy.
That's what she did.
That was supposed to be her great accomplishment as Secretary of State.
Instead, she turned it not only into just another failed state, but a failed state that is destabilizing American allies.
And nobody is saying a word about that.
HH: And also, nobody is saying a word about Mike Morell told me, that our enemies knew she had this server, and almost certainly were following her every move and reading her every email at the same time that they were being sent...
MS: Right, right... At some point, the media do have to decide whether they're just going to be court eunuchs, because there's a great story here.
And if this had been, if the Woodward and Bernstein self-mythologizing of what's left of the American media had any grain of truth to it, this would be a great story for a crack investigative unit at one of the big newspapers to make their bones and win the Pulitzers on...
Most of Hillary's emails are one word answers. 
They're either 'yes' or 'please print', which is a two word answer, in that she understands that the reason she has this private email server is because she doesn't want to be caught at anything by what she perceives as her enemies.
Well, she's not working for herself.
She's working for the people of the United States.
And the problem is that the United States' enemies around the world in Tehran and Moscow and Beijing and everywhere else, are reading all this stuff. 
And they're getting all this information in real time, because she put her own interests before that of the United States.
How can someone like that be president?
You can find the full interview here: http://www.hughhewitt.com/mark-steyn-on-the-threat-stream-indicators-of-john-kerrys-iran-deal-hillarys-libya-legacy-and-4th-of-july-concerns/

A Look at Oregon’s Program to Tax Drivers by the Mile | Video | TheBlaze.com

A Look at Oregon’s Program to Tax Drivers by the Mile | Video | TheBlaze.com:

“We’re trying to make up for a growing deficit, really, because inflation’s eating away at our ability to buy asphalt and rebar and the things we need to maintain the roads,” Tom Fuller of the ODOT told Fox News.

More from Fox News:
According to a national usage fee alliance, 28 states are in various stages of following down the same road. However, there are also privacy concerns. Two of the three OReGO systems track and store a car’s every move.
“To put a GPS monitor in everybody’s car, the government already knows too much about us as it is,” Jeff Kruse, a Republican lawmaker told Fox News."

IT Boss at IRS ‘Blown Away’ After Learning What Happened to Backup Tapes Likely Containing Lerner Emails: Report | Video | TheBlaze.com

IT Boss at IRS ‘Blown Away’ After Learning What Happened to Backup Tapes Likely Containing Lerner Emails: Report | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"When the chief technology officer at the IRS learned the backup tapes likely containing emails to and from Lois Lerner were destroyed, he was “blown away,” according to a 1,600-page report prepared by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration that was leaked to Fox News.

Lerner, the ex-IRS official at the center of the scandalous targeting conservative groups, has maintained that her hard drive “crashed” and many of her emails were simply lost. This was after congressional investigators asked her to turn the emails over."

Here's One Rape Culture The Media Wants To Be Fake

Here's One Rape Culture The Media Wants To Be Fake | The Daily Caller
“They’re bringing drugs.
They’re bringing crime.
They’re rapists.
And some, I assume, are good people.”
With that colorful statement two weeks ago, Donald Trump declared his views on illegal immigrants. Since then, several media outlets have spent countless ounces of ink and innumerable seconds of air time raging at the real estate mogul for his comments — particularly his rape assertion.
Whenever The Donald is invited to defend his views for the umpteenth time, the questioning usually veers to the rape angle, as it did when Trump was interviewed by CNN’s Don Lemon Wednesday night.
During the interview, the presidential hopeful brought up a Fusion article that reported that 80 percent of women coming into the U.S. illegally are sexually assaulted.
Lemon — sensing a delightful bit of schadenfreude within his grasp — pointed out that the article referred to migrants being raped, not the other way around.
 Unfazed, Trump responded, “Who’s doing the raping?”
...This lack of an answer reflects how so many members of the media treat this awful rape epidemic. They find out that eight in ten female illegal immigrants are raped and all they want to do is mock Trump — the mere messenger of the statistic.
It’s a far cry from how mainstream outlets treat college sexual assault.
When it comes to campus rape, these same reporters deploy the old one in five trope ad nauseam to claim that it is a very serious problem. 
Pundits and commentators then place the blame on fraternities for fomenting a rape culture on campus and harboring predators in their midst. (RELATED: There’s More Than One-In-Five Things Wrong With Campus Rape ‘Facts’)...

History for July 4

History for July 4 - On-This-Day.com
Deaths

1831	James Monroe, 5th president (1817-25), dies at 73
1826	John Adams, 2nd president 1797-1801, dies at 90
1826	Thomas Jefferson, 3rd president (1801-09), dies at 83

Birthday!
Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804, Stephen Foster 1826, Calvin Coolidge (U.S.) 1872 - 30th President of the United States 


Mitch Miller 1911, Ann Landers 1918, Abigail Van Buren 1918, Geraldo Rivera 1943 


1776 - The amended Declaration of Independence, prepared by Thomas Jefferson, was approved and signed by John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress in America. 


1802 - The U.S. Military Academy officially opened at West Point, NY. 


1817 - Construction began on the Erie Canal, to connect Lake Erie and the Hudson River. 


1934 - Boxer Joe Louis won his first professional fight. 


1934 - At Mount Rushmore, George Washington's face was dedicated. 


1946 - The Philippines achieved full independence for the first time in over four hundred years. 


1960 - The 50-star U.S. flag made its debut in Philadelphia, PA. 


1966 - U.S. President Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act, which went into effect the following year. 


1976 - The U.S. celebrated its Bicentennial. 


2009 - North Korea launched seven ballistic missiles into waters off its east coast that defied U.N. resolutions.

Bombshell! Fox News’ Has Proof that Hillary Clinton is Guilty of Multiple Felonies! - Eagle Rising

Bombshell! Fox News’ Has Proof that Hillary Clinton is Guilty of Multiple Felonies! - Eagle Rising:

"I am convinced as are others who have looked at this -- and FOX aired this in a special Saturday night and several times over the weekend -- that a conspiracy existed between the president, and Mrs. Clinton, and Congressional leaders from both parties in both Houses others in the State Department, the Treasury Department and the Justice Department to get arms shipped to rebels in Syria and in Libya. And some of those rebels are members of organizations that are on the terror list and providing them with material assistance is a felony."

Bill O’Reilly Has a Dire Warning for Churches and Pastors Who Oppose Gay Marriage | Video | TheBlaze.com

Bill O’Reilly Has a Dire Warning for Churches and Pastors Who Oppose Gay Marriage | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"Fox News host Bill O’Reilly warned on Wednesday night that it won’t be long before churches and religious groups are likely sued in an effort to strip them of their tax-exempt status if they refuse to embrace gay marriage following last week’s Supreme Court ruling.

“It’s just a matter of time before lawsuits are filed against churches and religious organizations, trying to strip them of their tax-exempt status if they don’t toe the line on gay marriage and other progressive causes,” O’Reilly warned, noting that churches can’t afford the costly legal battles."

Schools Implant IUDs in Girls as Young as 6th Grade Without Their Parents Knowing

Schools Implant IUDs in Girls as Young as 6th Grade Without Their Parents Knowing | LifeNews.com:
"Earlier this month, LifeNews.com reported on a high school in Seattle, Washington that is now implanting intrauterine devices (IUD), as well as other forms of birth control and doing so without parental knowledge or permission.
The IUD is known as a long acting reversible contraception, and may even act as an abortifacient.
So, a young teen in Seattle can’t get a coke at her high school, but she can have a device implanted into her uterus, which can unknowingly kill her unborn child immediately after conception.
Or, if she uses another method, she can increase her chances of health risks for herself, especially if using a new method.
The high school, Chief Sealth International, a public school, began offering the devices in 2010, made possible by a Medicaid program known as Take Charge and a non-profit, Neighborcare. Students can receive the device or other method free of cost and without their parent’s insurance.
And while it’s lauded that the contraception is confidential, how can it be beneficial for a parent-child relationship when the parents don’t even know the devices or medication their daughter is using?
As it turns out, Chief Sealth isn’t the only school in Seattle doing this.
As CNS News reports, more schools are fitting young girls — as young as 6th grade — with the devices and doing so without their parents knowing."

Not Baking a Wedding Cake Leads to $135,000 Fine for Hurting Couple's Feelings

Not Baking a Wedding Cake Leads to $135,000 Fine for Hurting Couple's Feelings - Hit & Run : Reason.com:
The final judgment has come in for Aaron and Melissa Klein, the Gresham, Oregon, bakers who had been found guilty of discriminating against a lesbian couple by refusing to bake them a wedding cake.
They've been ordered to pay $135,000 to make up for the emotional damage they caused by telling this couple no.
From the Associated Press and KATU in Oregon:
“This case is not about a wedding cake or a marriage.
It is about a business’s refusal to serve someone because of their sexual orientation. 
Under Oregon law, that is illegal," the bureau's final order states.
...First of all, the state agency recommended, remarkably, that the Kleins also be required to pay for the emotional damages caused to the couple by media coverage and social media reactions to the case, because the Kleins appeared in the media a couple of times to defend and explain themselves.
They wanted the bakers to have to pay further because of the emotional toll of conversations and media coverage over much of which the Kleins had absolutely no control.
Fortunately, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries ruled against additional damages.
The $135,000 is based just on the result of the Kleins telling the couple they would not make them a wedding cake.
The second thing I want to alert folks to is the absurd way this order describes the emotional damage done to this couple...
Here's a chunk of the text, and there's a lot like it in the full order:
"Respondent's denial of service made her feel as if God made a mistake when he made her, that she wasn't supposed to be, and that she wasn't supposed to love, have a family, and go to heaven. ... [She] interpreted the denial to represent that she was not a creature created by god, not created with a soul and unworthy of holy love and life. 
She felt anger, intense sorrow, and shame.
 These are reasonable and very real responses to not being allowed to participate in society like everybody else..."

Next Step in Mass Hysteria: TV Land Stops Dukes of Hazzard Reruns

Next Step in Mass Hysteria: TV Land Stops Dukes of Hazzard Reruns:

"Our society is in a self-destructive rage where the most basic lesson—don’t kill and killers deserve to be punished—is being drowned out by fear of a pattern of colors and shapes.

You can’t satirize what is going on. It is too pathetic and unbelievable.

Already, as I’ve posted earlier, Warner Brothers has stopped allowing the sale of toys base in the General Lee car of the TV show, The Dukes of Hazzard."


We are turning into Nazi Germany.

When the Smoke Cleared at NYC Flag Burning Event, One Veteran Remained — You Need to Hear Why | Video | TheBlaze.com

When the Smoke Cleared at NYC Flag Burning Event, One Veteran Remained — You Need to Hear Why | Video | TheBlaze.com:

"A U.S. Army veteran attended Wednesday’s flag burning event in New York City to protest the desecration of the stars and stripes — and he vowed to stay until the very end to ensure “that at the end of the night there is a flag left standing.”

Mark Brummitt, who served for 13 years in the Army, told TheBlaze he would not leave until the smoke had cleared."

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac CEOs' massive pay raises spark anger on Capitol Hill

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac CEOs' massive pay raises spark anger on Capitol Hill - Washington Times
Over the objections of the Obama administration and key lawmakers, the CEOs of bailed-out housing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are getting massive pay raises, courtesy of the regulator appointed by President Obama himself.
Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Mel Watt defended his decision to approve the pay hikes, which will raise the Fannie and Freddie CEOs’ pay from $600,000 to $4 million, as vital to “promote CEO retention, allow reliable succession planning and ensure the continuity, efficiency and stability” now that both companies have returned to financial health.
But the move sparked anger at both ends of Capitol Hill...

BOOM: 27 States Just Took a Massive Stand Against Obama's Federal Power Grab

BOOM: 27 States Just Took a Massive Stand Against Obama's Federal Power Grab:

“The results of this rule will carry a tremendous cost to our state, our economy, and our families,” South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said in a statement. South Carolina was spearheading the latest round of lawsuits against the EPA and the federal government, according to The Hill.

“The EPA’s proposed expansion would bring many roadside ditches, small ponds on family farms, water features on golf courses, and storm water systems under extremely burdensome federal regulation,” Wilson added."


Here we go!!

Southern Flank

Southern Flank | Belmont Club:
John McCain warns there’s trouble brewing.
“U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) released the following statement today on new aerial footage released by the Ukrainian volunteer regiment Dnipro-1 showing a Russian military camp in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.”
“Two weeks ago, I traveled to eastern Ukraine and visited with the Dnipro-1 volunteer regiment, where I was shown and briefed on new video footage captured by a Ukrainian drone, which shows Russia’s continued buildup of tanks, armored vehicles, rocket launchers, and military personnel inside Ukraine.
This new evidence, now public, further demonstrates that the ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine is fiction, and that Russia is deepening its military involvement in Ukraine.
“Standing idly by and ignoring the mounting evidence of Russia’s duplicitous war on Ukraine signals weakness, potentially inviting the very aggression we seek to avoid.
The United States must take immediate steps to deter Russia by increasing the military costs of its aggression, starting with the provision of the defensive weapons and other assistance the Ukrainians desperately need.
Vladimir Putin must be forced to determine how long he can sustain a war he tells his people is not happening.”...

Barrack Obama Tells Another Whopper—–He Did Not Create 12.8 Million Jobs | David Stockman's Contra Corner

Barrack Obama Tells Another Whopper—–He Did Not Create 12.8 Million Jobs | David Stockman's Contra Corner:
America is better off when President Obama is out on the stump bloviating and boasting rather than in Washington actively doing harm.
But the whoppers he just told the students at the University of Wisconsin are beyond the pale.
Said our spinmeister-in-chief:
 "And the unemployment rate is now down to 5.3 percent. (Applause.) Keep in mind, when I came into office it was hovering around 10 percent. All told, we’ve now seen 64 straight months of private sector job growth, which is a new record — (applause) — new record — 12.8 million new jobs all told."
That’s a pack of context-free factoids.
There is still such a thing as the business cycle, and only economically illiterate hacks—-like those who work on the White House speech writing staff—-would measure anything from an all-time momentary bottom that happened to occur during Obama’s second year in office.
What counts is not that we’ve had a bounce after a terrible bust, but where we are now on a trend basis.
The answer is absolutely nowhere!
We are now 29 quarters from the pre-crisis peak and total non-farm labor hours utilized by the US economy are no higher than they were in Q4 2007. 
In other words, if you use a common unit of measure—–labor hours rather than job slots which treat coal-miners and part-time pizza delivery boys alike—–there have been no new units of employment at all. 
...In short, we have gone through two business cycles and have essentially added zero new employment inputs to the US economy.
And that marks a sharp and devastating reversal of previous trends.
In fact, the BLS’ own data convey an out-and-out crisis that the President should have been lamenting, not a cherry-picked simulacrum of growth based on born again jobs slots.
...When you get right down to it, however, even labor hours do not fully capture the actual jobs disaster happening in America.

That’s because we keep shedding high productivity hours in the full-time  jobs sector in favor of lower skill, low pay gigs in bars, restaurants, Wal-Marts and temp agencies.

So notwithstanding another month of 200,000 plus headline job gains, here’s where we actually are.
The number of breadwinner jobs—–full-time positions in energy and mining, construction, manufacturing, the white collar professions, information technology, transportation/distribution and finance, insurance and real estate—-is still 1.7 million below the level of December 2007; in fact, it is still lower than it was at the turn of the century

We gonna bai out the banks...AGAIN???-----Why The Puerto Rico Debt Crisis Is Such A Huge Threat To The U.S. Financial System

Why The Puerto Rico Debt Crisis Is Such A Huge Threat To The U.S. Financial System:
The debt crisis in Puerto Rico could potentially cost financial institutions in the United States tens of billions of dollars in losses.  
This week, Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla publicly announced that Puerto Rico’s  73 billion dollar debt is “not payable,” and a special adviser that was recently appointed to help straighten out the island’s finances said that it is “insolvent” and will totally run out of cash very shortly.  
At this point, Puerto Rico’s debt is approximately 15 times larger than the per capita median debt of the 50 U.S. states.  
Yes, the Greek debt crisis is larger, as Greece currently owes about $350 billion to the rest of the planet.  
But only about $14 billion of that total is owed to U.S. financial institutions.  
But with Puerto Rico, things are very different.  
Just about the entire 73 billion dollar debt is owed to U.S. financial institutions, and this could potentially cause massive problems for some extremely leveraged Wall Street firms.
There is a reason why Puerto Rico is called “America’s Greece”.  
In Puerto Rico today, more than 40 percent of the population is living in poverty, the unemployment rate is over 12 percent, and the economy of the small island nation has continually been in recession since 2006.

Yet all this time Puerto Rico has continued to pile up even more debt.  
Finally, it has gotten to the point where all of this debt is simply unpayable…

Jihad in the USA

Jihad in the USA:

"An American was assassinated in our own country for simply being an American. With the exception of one New Jersey radio host and Megyn Kelly, there has been little coverage of this heinous crime. I am so over the double standard that exists in our mainstream media and this administration."

Fisker is back, but taxpayer money is not

Fisker is back, but taxpayer money is not - Watchdog.org
"Another green tech company that got millions in federal dollars after the fiscal crisis only to declare bankruptcy is back in business.
But there’s no indication U.S. taxpayers will recover the $139 million loss.
Electric car company Fisker announced earlier this month it is coming back,...
The DOE was able to recover some money, although U.S. taxpayers lost $139 million.
...Fisker’s loan was a part of the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, which was created and funded at the end of the George W. Bush administration and accelerated during the first term of President Obama.

The program racked up a couple successes but also had its share of high-profile flops, including production shutdowns by Fisker, wheelchair van company Vehicle Production Group and solar panel maker Solyndra.
Taxpayers in Delaware watched millions go down the drain.
Delaware government officials including Gov. Jack Markell committed $21.5 million in economic development incentives in the hope Fisker would take over a former General Motors plant near Newport, Delaware and hire 2,500 employees within five years.
“This is seed money that will return back to the American consumer in billions and billions and billions of dollars in good new jobs,” Vice President Joe Biden said in 2009.
But that never happened, and Delaware officials were embarrassed to learn that in the event of bankruptcy the state’s $21 million was subordinate to the rights of other lenders to get their money back.
Delaware got just a fraction of the $21.5 million repaid.
...An investigation by Reuters reported Fisker burned through $1.4 billion in public and private funds before declaring bankruptcy.
One research firm determined Fisker produced fewer than 2,200 cars.
...A123 Systems also received an estimated $141 million in tax credits and subsidies from the state of Michigan.
The state agency in charge of the $141 million largess refuses to give details about whether any of the amount was repaid, saying contract details are private..."