It's a Secret

Exclusive: CIA Honored Benghazi Chief in Secret Ceremony

by Eli Lake May 21, 2013 4:45 AM EDT

Part of why the State Department has taken the brunt of the political blame for the Benghazi attack, writes Eli Lake, is that clandestine services by definition have very little public oversight.

The operation was so successful, we gave someone a medal for it. But we can't tell you who or why, cuz its secret.

OBTW, It isn't the next president of the United State's fault, but we can't tell you why. cuz its secret.

YouCut bumpkiss

The myriad scandals besetting the administration have put sequestration and budget battles on the back burner for a little while. But as federal employees actually begin to see their pay cut, and as the news cycle clears up a bit, the budget butter battles will begin again.

When they do, the Administration and their apologists for Big Government will once again bleat about grandmothers thrown from Head Start and children denied their arthritis medicine and undocumented workers losing their free cell phones and Native American Transgendered Women's Studies majors being denied their subsidized student loans.

Every government expenditure is vital to this country's prosperity.

And if you believe that, you are a Democrat.

Or maybe a Republican.

Truth is, the one place where bipartisan agreement can be found in Washington is in the avoidance of real spending cuts - or even tangential, largely symbolic cuts to programs that everyone knows are superfluous, wasteful and counter-productive.

The House Repubs have been running a gimmick called YouCut. You get to pick the wastful government expenditure that will be introduced to oblivion. It seems to play on the human characteristic of baseless hope.

Many months ago, the then-new House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor introduced YouCut with great fanfare.

You may have missed the launch, if you get your news from ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, NPR, Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post or Orlando Sentinel, etc.

In a nutshell, the YouCut web page invites people to vote on which of three federal expenditures ought to be cut. The winner is then introduced as a bill in Congress.

This week, the three candidates for the 32nd week of the 112th Congress are:

Reduce U.S. Contributions To The United Nations By 10 Percent. Potential Savings over 10 Years: $4Billion

Terminate Environmental Protection Agency Grants For Community Organizing.  Potential Savings Over 10 Years: $10Million

Eliminate Federal Agency Purchases Of High-End Office Chairs. Potential Savings over 10 Years: $1Million

I think all three are more than worthy of implementation.

As of today, there are 58 expenditures listed. As best as I can tell, none of them have passed Congress and become law. If they had, we, the beleaguered taxpayers would be saving

$259,673,000,000 over the next ten years. Nearly $26 Million per year, every year, for the next 10 years. And remember, that's only one of three choices presented each week. Given that every expenditure nominated is as worthy of cutting as the three presented this week, the real questions are:

1. Why aren't we looking at $779,019,000,000 in proposed savings and

2. Why have NONE of these blindingly obvious examples of unconscionable waste been cut?

Here is the list:

112th Congress, 2nd Session		Potential 10 year savings ($millions)
Week 29	Eliminate the Department of Energy's Vehicle Technology Program	2,800
Week 28	Terminate Federal Payments for the District of Columbia Public Defender's Service	372
Week 27	Terminate the Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation	5	Introduced
Week 26	Eliminate the Energy Star program	627	Introduced
Week 25	Terminate a program that funds community organizing among tenants of public housing	100	Introduced
Week 24	Reduce the number of TSA agents by increasing the efficiency of airport security screening	1,000	Introduced
Week 23	Reduce Census Bureau data collection that is beyond the Constitutional mandate	2,400	Introduced
Week 22	Terminate loan guarantees for speculative alternative technology ventures like Solyndra	380	Introduced
Week 21	Reduce funding for poor performing grantees in the Community Services Block Grant program	3,200	Introduced
Week 20	Terminate a Department of Labor office that focuses on labor problems in foreign countries	665	Introduced
Week 19	Reduce the number of non-essential vehicles purchased or leased by federal agencies	500	Introduced
Week 18	Terminate a program that pays farmers for making conservation improvements on their land	10,600	Introduced
Week 17	Stop mine cleanup payments to states that have already completed the cleanups	4,200	Introduced
Week 16	Stop rewarding States for recruiting additional Food Stamp recipients	180	Committee
Week 15	Terminate Federal Programs That Pay People to Volunteer	11,500	Introduced
Week 14	Terminate HUD's HOPE VI Program	1,000	Introduced
Week 13	Suspend Federal Land Purchases	2,300	Committee
Week 12	Terminate the Weatherization Assistance Program	2,100	Introduced
Week 11	Terminate the National Science Foundation Grants for Arctic Research	250	Introduced
Week 10	Eliminate the Ready to Learn Television Program	273	Introduced
Week 9	Enforce Restrictions Excluding Illegal Aliens from Refundable Tax Credits	40,000	Passed by Committee
Week 8	Eliminate the Science to Achieve Results Program	650	Introduced
Week 7	Repeal the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Program	2,500	Introduced
Week 6	Eliminate Cell Phone Subsidies in the Universal Service Fund	5,000	Introduced
Week 5	Refocus National Park Service Spending on National Parks	157	Introduced
Week 4	Terminate Funding for So-Called Comparative Effectiveness Research at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality	1,000	Introduced
Week 3	Reduce the Number of Federal Employees by 10 Percent Through Attrition	139	Passed by Committee
Week 2	Terminate the Federal Railroad Administration's Funding of High-Speed Rail Projects	3,800	Introduced
Week 1	Terminate U.S. Contributions to the United Nations Population Fund	400	Passed by Committee
	Total Savings Over 10 Years ($ Millions)	98,098
112th Congress, 1st Session	For some reason there is no dollar amount or status for these items.
Week 6	Repeal The $17 Billion "Prevention And Public Health Fund Created In The 2010 Health Care Law	17,000
Week 5	Reduce Printing And Reproduction Budget By 10%
Week 4	Terminate The Neighborhood Stabilization Program
Week 3	Obtain Refund Of Funds Owed To The U.S. By The U.N. Tax Equalization Fund
Week 2	End The Presidential Election Fund
Week 1	End Duplicative Government Printing
111th Congress
Week 13	End Taxpayer Funding Of National Public Radio (Tens of Millions of Dollars)	45	Voted on House Floor
Week 12	End The TARP Program Prohibiting Any Additional Bailouts (Several Billion	7,000	Voted on House Floor
Week 11	Reduce Government Employment To 2008 Levels	35,000	Voted on House Floor
Week 10	Require Collection Of Unpaid Taxes From Federal Employees	1,000	Voted on House Floor
Week 9	Bipartisan Proposal To Terminate Advanced Earned Income Tax Credit AEITC	1,100	Voted on House Floor
Week 8	Prohibit Sleeper Car Subsidies On Amtrak	1,200	Voted on House Floor
Week 7	Prohibit Stimulus Funding For Promotional Signage ($10s of Millions)	30	Voted on House Floor
Week 6	Taxpayer Subsidized Union Activities	1,200	Voted on House Floor
Week 5	Prohibit Hiring New IRS Agents To Enforce Health Care Law	15,000	Voted on House Floor
Week 4	Sell Excess Federal Property	15,000	Voted on House Floor
Week 3	Reform Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac	30,000	Voted on House Floor
Week 2	Eliminate Federal Employee Pay Raise	30,000	Voted on House Floor
Week	Cut The New Non-Reformed Welfare Program	25,000	Voted on House Floor
Total Savings over 10 Years ($ Millions)		161,575
Total Total Savings over 10 Years ($ Millions)		259,673

		259,673

Oh What a Tangle Web We Weave...

When we try to deceive ourselves.

Convoluted language is never in the service of clarity. In the case of "pro-choice" reporting of a subject touching on the abortion debate, the avoidance of clarity is usually intentional. But they've been at it for so long, that it seems to have caused a deficiency of clarity in the way pro-abortion advocates and reporters actually think.

This otherwise informative article by Niraj Chokshi in the National Journal is a typical example.

Why Might the Cleveland Kidnapper Get Charged With Murder?

The article sheds valuable light on how it is that prosecutors in Cleveland may charge Ariel Castro with murder under current Ohio law for causing the miscarriages of his captives. The law was carefully written to permit the prosecution of those who cause the death of a child in the womb through violence or during the commission of another crime. It thereby cuts out space for those who cause the death of a child in the womb, with the mother's consent, for money.

But the author can't get past the sub-title without running into linguistic trouble: "The gruesome case of Ariel Castro raises questions about the rights of fetuses but don't look for this to change the law."

"...rights of fetuses..."

Actually, the article doesn't really address whether children in the womb have rights. When it veers from the question of how the law has been written to enable the prosecution of violence against children in the womb, regardless of their moral status, that's were it gets confused. And here, before the by-line, it wades into that dark water.

And immediately dives into the deep end: "The government is wading into the murky waters of what constitutes a human life."
1. The laws have been on the books in Ohio for a couple years at least. So to say the government "is wading in" indicates that the author is a bit late to the party. "what constitutes a human life." Actually that is pretty darn clear. Biologically, there is no argument that the fetus is a human life. She is alive and she is human. Questions of personhood and ...

Never mind. Terry Mattingly and the smart people at Get Religion have done a far better job than I would have. Read his article.

Two Degrees from the President

Big news is actually a blast from the past:

FBI puts NJ trooper’s killer in 1973 on most wanted terrorist list; reward upped to $2M

"The reward for the capture and return of a fugitive member of a black militant group convicted of murdering a New Jersey state trooper was doubled to $2 million on Thursday, the 40th anniversary of the bloody gunbattle.

The FBI also announced it has made Joanne Chesimard, now living in Cuba as Assata Shakur, the first woman on its list of most wanted terrorists."

"Chesimard, a member of the violent Black Liberation Army, was convicted of the 1973 murder of state trooper Werner Foerster during a traffic stop. The BLA was responsible for killing more than a dozen police officers in the 1970s and ‘80s, said agent Aaron Ford of the FBI’s Newark division.

According to NJSP Superintendent  Col. Fuentes, Foerster and his partner stopped a car carrying Chesimard and two cohorts on the New Jersey Turnpike for a broken tail light. When the troopers approached the car, a gunfight ensued and both troopers were injured. Chesimard then took Foerster’s gun and shot him twice in the head as he lay on the ground.

She was convicted in 1977 but escaped from prison in New Jersey in November 1979 with the help of accomplices. She spent the next few years living in safe houses, two of which were in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, before surfacing in Cuba in 1984, Fuentes said."

I have some recollection of this, having grown up in NJ during the '70s.

But perhaps the FBI and the NJSP have the story wrong. Democracy Now! recollects the incident differently:

"Assata Shakur, the former Joanne Chesimard, was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army. She was convicted in the May 2, 1973 killing of a New Jersey police officer during a shoot-out that left one of her fellow activists dead. She was shot twice by police during the incident. In 1979, she managed to escape from jail. Shakur fled to Cuba where she received political asylum. She once wrote, "I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the U.S. government’s policy towards people of color."

No mention of her executing a New Jersey State Police Officer. I suppose Amy Goodman doesn't see that as germane. Or perhaps she things Officer Foerster shot himself twice in the head.

Back in the day, the cool kids in the BLA, the Black Panther Party and the Weather Underground had fun shooting police, robbing banks and bombing buildings. Today, those still living in the US who have been released from prison have found good gigs at US Universities. Angela Davis at UC Santa Cruz, for instance, or Bill Ayers at University of Illinois at Chicago or Kathy Boudin who is now a professor at Columbia. And naming their children after their old friends.

"Obama mentor Bill "Ayers and Bernardine Dorhn [have] raised three children. One is named Malik (the Muslim name of Malcolm X). Another is named Zayd (after Zayd Shakur, a Black Liberation Army revolutionary who was killed while driving the cop-killer JoAnne Chesimard — a.k.a. Assata Shakur — to a hideout)…"

So, Ayers, leader of the Weather Underground, named a child after Zayd Shakur, a leader of the BLA, who was killed helping JoAnne Chesimard, a cop killer escape. Ayers gang and Chesimard's collaborated in a hold up of a Brinks armored car in which two people were killed. An accomplice of Ayers helped Chesimard escape from prison.

More recently, Ayers has been teaching young people who aspire to be teachers. He has, however never disavowed his actions or beliefs.

He also helped to launch the political career of the President of the United States.

Hardly two degrees of separation.

But wait, there's more:

Common is a rapper, or poet or whatever. I can't say. But he must be pretty good for Michelle Obama to invite him to the White House to perform. Common joined a distinguised list of musical artists invited to perform in the White House, including such luminaries as, The United States Marine Band, John Philip Sousa, Scott Joplin, Al Jolson, The Metropolitan Opera,  Duke Ellington Van CliburnVladimir Horowitz, Leontyne Price, Mikhail Baryshnikov with Patricia McBride, Mstislav Rostropovich and Andres SegoviaMstislav Rostropovic, violinists Itzhak Perlman and Isaac Stern, and the Harlem Boys Choir.Aretha FranklinStevie WonderJustin Timberlake