Monday, October 29, 2012

Hero Ty Woods betrayed by DO NOT SHOOT order from WH. Benghazi terrorists tracked & mortared him via Woods' Laser Designator

 
Hero Ty Woods betrayed by DO NOT SHOOT order from WH. Benghazi terrorists tracked & mortared him via Woods' Laser Designator

The standard protocol for military operations utilizing laser designation is:

1) First establish communication between:
    a) the asset who is 'painting' the target with a laser designator, and
    b) the weapons system which will fire at the target with laser guided bombs or laser guided 50 caliber guns

2) Turn On Laser Designator beam for shortest time possible, until reflected energy is acquired by the weapons platform.

3) Destroy the designated target.

The reason for this protocol is that as soon as the laser is turned on, the designator itself is 'lit up' and very visible to the enemy via the radiation which it emits. The designator then becomes very very vulnerable. Because the enemy can easily detect the illuminating laser beam, and to save itself, will try to destroy the laser, before it is hit. Timing is vitally critical:  there is laser 'ON' time, then acquisition by the weapon system, and then killing of the target, and this must happen just as fast as possible. So as not to give time to the enemy to destroy the designator.

Former Navy Seal Ty Woods was an experienced war-fighter and knew all of the above. So he established communications with a Hercules C-130 gunship flying over the CIA Annex in Benghazi, after the attack has started. Ty Woods then located the mortar team that was firing on the CIA Annex. He informed the Hercules that he was ready to designate. He was given permission to laser designate the target. And then, inexplicably, or something, the Hercules failed to fire on the target, leaving Ty Woods twisting in the breeze, exposed to the enemy.

Ty Woods's laser was turned on, and he was as exposed as a deer in the headlights. The terrorist mortar team immediately focussed on him, and it may be that they even used Woods own laser beam to guide the mortar round in on Woods. Which killed him.

What happened?

Woods was betrayed. The protocol was violated. The Hercules C-130, instead of killing the target, witheld fire.

Why?

The military team manning the guns and bombs on the Hercules would never ever betray a comrade whose life was at risk, and leave him in mortal danger exposed to the enemy.

They were ordered to stand down by the White House, after Ty Woods had become exposed via his laser beam. The WH order was DO NOT FIRE. This order killed Ty Woods as surely as the mortar round which landed almost on top of him.

Dereliction of Duty? Timidity? Cowardice in the face of the Enemy? Impeachable offences.

YEs, Yes, Yes, and Yes.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Political calculation gone very very bad: Outrageous denial of life-saving help to comrades under fire. Court martial responsible Commanders.

Political calculation gone very very bad: Outrageous denial of life-saving help to comrades under fire. Court martial responsible Commanders.

 Obama was informed of Benghazi terror attack by military aide, who is never more than steps away from President. The message was verbal, face to face. Obama knew the truth within an hour of start of attack. The decision to deny life-saving help to US people under fire was Obama's. Not CIA, not Patreus, not Hillary. Court martial offense. Cowardice under fire.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/26/cia-operators-were-denied-request-for-help-during-benghazi-attack-sources-say/#ixzz2AUjU39Uh

Urgent requests for military back-up from the Benghazi CIA annex during the attack on the U.S. consulate... WAS DENIED by the CIA chain of command -- who twice told the CIA operators to "stand down" rather than help ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi Sept. 11.

Former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods and at least two others ignored those orders...they called again for military support because they were taking fire.The request was denied...A special operator on the roof of the CIA annex had visual contact and a laser pointing at the Libyan mortar team that was targeting the CIA annex. The operators were calling in coordinates of where the Libyan forces were firing from.

The fighting at the CIA annex went on for more than four hours -- enough time for any planes based in Sigonella Air base, just 480 miles away, to arrive. Fox News has also learned that two separate Tier One Special operations forces were told to wait, among them Delta Force operators.

A Special Operations team, CIF (Commanders in Extremis Force)...were never told to deploy...they could have flown to Benghazi in less than two hours.

There were two military surveillance drones over Benghazi shortly after the attack began. Both were capable of sending real time visuals back to U.S. officials in Washington, D.C. Any U.S. official or agency with the proper clearance, including the White House Situation Room, State Department, CIA, Pentagon and others, could call up that video in real time on their computers.

Tyrone Woods was later joined at the scene by fellow former Navy SEAL Glen Doherty. They were both killed by a mortar shell at 4 a.m. Libyan time, nearly seven hours after the attack on the consulate began -- a window that represented more than enough time for the U.S. military to send back-up from nearby bases in Europe.

The team inside the CIA annex had captured three Libyan attackers and was forced to hand them over to the Libyans (by Libyan authorities).





Wednesday, October 24, 2012

New Book Blames Bernanke's Fed Policy (not W, not Wall Street) for causing Great Recession of 2008-09

New Book Blames Bernanke's Fed Policy (not W, not Wall Street) for causing Great Recession of 2008-09

Senior Fed economist Robert Hertzel writes: “Restrictive monetary policy rather than the deleveraging in financial markets that had begun in August 2007 offers a more direct explanation of the intensification of the recession that began in the summer of 2008.”

In his book "The Great Recession: Market Failure or Policy Failure", Hetzel pins the blame squarely on the Federal Reserve and Team Bernanke.

"A moderate recession became a major recession in summer 2008 when the [Federal Open Market Committee] ceased lowering the federal funds rate while the economy deteriorated. The central empirical fact of the 2008-2009 recession is that the severe declines in output that in appeared in the [second quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009] … had already been locked in by summer 2008."

Not only did the Fed leave rates alone between April 2008 and October 2008 as the economy deteriorated, but the FOMC “effectively tightened monetary policy in June by pushing up the expected path of the federal funds rate through the hawkish statements of its members. In May 2008, federal funds futures had been predicting the rate to remain at 2% through November. By mid-June, that forecast had risen to 2.5%.

Herzel's analysis is supported by two charts - Figure 1 shows the passive tightening by the Fed, referred to above.

The second chart, Figure 2, shows that the economy was weathering the housing collapse up until the Fed passive tightening began, which created expectations of a sharp downturn and long-term drop in wealth. It was only at that point that the economy tanked and the Great Recession began.

"In early fall 2008, the realization emerged that recession would not be confined to the United States but would be worldwide. That realization, as much as the difficulties caused by the Lehman bankruptcy, produced the decrease in equity wealth in the fall of 2008 as evidenced by the fact that broad measures of equity markets fell by the same amount as the value of bank stocks … Significant declines in household wealth have occurred at other times, for example, in 1969–1970, 1974–1975, and 2000–2003. However, during those declines in wealth, consumption has always been considerably more stable, at least since 1955 when the wealth series became available. This decline in consumption suggests that the public expected the fall in wealth to be permanent."

Accoring to economist Hertzel, Obama has been inaccurately blaming the policies of the previous Bush years for the Great Recession, which his analysis debunks and disproves.

Politicians can continue blame to Bush and the banks and free-market capitalism for the Great Recession, just as some folks still blame Hoover and Wall Street for the Great Depression. But in both cases, it was the Fed.

Fiscal Cliff (Sequestration): Where The Cuts Are - Obama In Denial



Fiscal Cliff Coming, Where the Cuts Are - Obama in Denial

Where The Cuts AreBillions of $   %  of Total Cuts
Defense$49245%
Non-Defense$32230%
Interest on Debt$14213%
Medicare $858%
Other Mandatory Cuts$414%
PPACA Exchange Subsidies$71%
Totals$1,089100%



































Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Obama's Louis XIV moment: "..THIS NATION, ME.." ("I am the State")

 Obama's Louis XIV moment: "..THIS NATION, ME.." ("I am the State")

Obama obsessing on himself. Self referential, self absorbed use of the word "I" in the October 22 Debate:

"...this nation, me, my administration,..."

"...Now with respect to Libya, as I indicated in the last debate, when we received that phone call, I immediately made sure that, number one, that we did everything we could..."

"...Keep in mind that I and Americans took leadership in organizing an international coalition ..."

"...the world needs a strong America, and it is stronger now than when I came into office..."

"...what I now want to do is to hire more teachers,..."

"...And what I did was work with our joint chiefs of staff to think about, what are we going to need in the future..."

"...I will stand with Israel if they are attacked...."

"...as long as I'm president of the United States Iran will not get a nuclear weapon. I made that clear when I came into office...."

"...I always understand that that is the last resort,..."

"...about the Iranian revolution, I was very clear about the murderous activities that had taken place..."

"...when I was a candidate for office, first trip I took was to visit our troops. And when I went to Israel as a candidate, I didn't take donors. I didn't attend fundraisers. I went to Yad Beshef ..."

"...And then I went down to the border towns of Storok ..."

"...And I was reminded of what that would mean if those were my kids...."

"...I've used my travels, when I travel to Israel and when I travel to the region...."

"...when you were a candidate in 2008, as I was, and I said if I got bin Laden in our sights I would take that shot,..."

"...after we killed bin Laden I was at ground zero..."

"...When I came into office, we were still bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan ..."

"...You know, I was having lunch ..."

 "...I think Americans should be proud of, when Tunisians began to protest, this nation -- me, my administration -- stood with them earlier..."

"...veterans' unemployment is actually now lower than general population. It was higher when I came into office...."

"...Al Qaeda is much weaker than it was when I came into office...."

"...I set up a trade task force to go after cheaters..."

"...U.S. exports have doubled since I came into office,..."

"...I am not wrong. I am not wrong...."

"...I want to build on our strengths. And I've put forward a plan ..."

"...I want to make sure we've got the best education ..."

"...I want to control our own energy by developing oil ..."

Monday, October 22, 2012

Why this Recovery is Different (Worse) than All the Others?

Why this Recovery is Different (Worse) than All the Others?

The good news for the last 3 ½ years has been that the “Great Recession” of 2008, the deepest economic hit to America since the 1930’s Great Depression, has actually ended. Yes it really did, Bubba. Really. In June of 2009, according to every living breathing economist still alive, and also some who have died since.

So why are we still in a Jimmy Carter style economic “malaise”? 

· With Q3 GDP growth at a pitifully anemic 1.3%?
· With GDP in 2012 weaker than 2011?
· With GDP growth in 2011 weaker than 2010?
· With unemployment at 7.8%, after being above 8% for 43 consecutive months?
· With 23 million Americans unemployed or under-employed?
· With $6 Trillion debt added in 3 ½ years, more debt than added by all previous presidents?
· With a $16 Trillion national debt looming?
· With the “Fiscal Cliff” looming January 1, 2013, including massive defense cuts?

HUH?
WTF!
LOL?
 
Why is this happening? We’re supposed to be in a RECOVERY.

Well, there’s a whole lot of wringing of hands goin’ on. You know. Whimper, whimper. Bleat, bleat. We now get adenoidal explanations like: 

1) “Hey dude, it’s the new normal. You know. Like Camus in The Stranger, we have to surrender to the cosmic sphinx - like incomprehensible forces of the great unknown. “

2) The Great Recession was soooo bad, that NOBODY, not even Bill Clinton could have fixed it.

3) It was all W’s fault.

OK. All right. FINE…But excuse me for just a cotton pickin’ moment. How ‘bout we look at previous recoveries from recessions? Even as far back as 1893 and Chester A. Arthur?

Well, Figure 1 (above) shows, (in red) the “potential GDP” historical trend lines, along with (in blue) the GDP growth that actual that occurred after: 
(a) the infamous Chester A. Arthur recession of 1893-94
(b) the catastrophic Teddy Roosevelt recession of 1907-08
(c) the Ronald Reagan recession of 1981-82, and finally 
(d) the Barack Obama recovery from the Great Recession of 2008-09. 

As Big Bird would say: “Which of these things is not like the other?”

Recovery means returning to a trend (red lines in Figure 1) that was present before the recession occurred. But the Obama recovery is unique in that “return to trend” is just not happening after the Great Recession of 2008-09 recession! Very unusual compared to historical recessions. The actual GDP recovery line in blue for the dismally anemic Obama recovery has stayed below the red trend line, and there is no sign that it will ever again rise to meet the red historical trend line. This is unique among all recorded previous recessions, all of which recoverd to again join the historical trend line. The Obama recovery has gapped down releative to the trend line, and remains down.

In addition, as can be seen in the Figure, every single previous recession was followed by vigorous period of  GDP growth of 7% - 8%, sufficient to bring the GDP growth back to historical trend levels. Except the Great Recession. So the question becomes: “Why is the recovery from the Great Recession under Obama so dismally poor?”.

Well, let's review just what things have the most impact on GDP? The most important of these are:

· Available capital for investment
· Available labor force
· Labor productivity
· Fiscal and Government Policy

The current recovery is weak across the board, including for example construction, housing, and labor participation rate (i. e., the fraction of the working age workforce that is working), and the savings rate. Unemployment in the Reagan recession of ’81-’82 reached 10.8%, which was actually worse than the Great Recession. But it recovered much much quicker after 1982 than after 2009. It is also worth noting that the Great Recession was in no way unique with regard to being financial in nature – all the other recessions shown in Figure 1 were also financial crises. 

So what is the answer?Why is this recovery differenent from all the others?

According to Stanford University economist John Taylor, by far the most significant factor which impact the strength of economic recoveries is Fiscal and Government policy. of the Obama administration, mucking up what would have been a much much better recovery after 2009. For example, in the Great Depression of the 1930’s, the policies of FDR and the Federal Reserve made things worse and actually hampered the recovery. Specifically:

Great Depression Policies Which Hampered Recovery

· Federal Reserve tight money Policy, which reduced the country’s money supply by about 30%, reducing
  business investment.

· Snoot-Hawley Tariffs, reducing exports and business activity

· Tax Increases by both Hoover and FDR, reducing business investment.

· FDR’s Retained Earnings Tax, reducing business investment.

· Federal Reserve increased Bank Reserve Requirements, reducing business investment.

The case that Stanford University Professor John Taylor makes is:

-> bad government policy helped create the mess of the Great Depression, and 

->  bad government policy compounded the problem by hampering the recovery.

Turning his attention to the recovery post the Great Recession, Professor Taylor identifies specific government economic and fiscal policies responsible for the uniquely anemic and poor recovery of the last 3 ½ years. Specifically, these are as follows:

· The Stimulus Packages of Bush ($160 Billion, March 2008) in the form of a tax rebate, had almost no
  effect, and even worse, the Stimulus Packages of Obama ($865 Billion, February 2009) most of which was
  massive government spending to fund state governments, had very little effect.

· Obama’s “Cash for Clunkers” program had none or detrimental effect.

· Obama’s Subsidizing of First Time Home Buyers had no effect.

Professor Taylor (who is the odds on favorite to become Federal Reserve Chairman if Romney is elected), summarized the reasons for the failure of the above policies as follows:

· Discretionary temporary government measures have a negative impact on a recovery, because they create uncertainty, and at best only have a short term impact. Such measures do not create a sustainable recovery, but make businesses worried about investing, and reduce business activity and business investment.

· Uncertainty is a very important factor, since it makes it harder for business people to make long term decisions when the economic environment is uncertain.

This is the answer to why and how:
 
-> Obama has made the current recover uniquely worse than any other recovery in the 19th and 20th century. 

-> With policies which created nothing but uncertainty. 

-> And uncertainty killed the recovery.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Brain Scans Reveal Why Mitt and Obama Think So Differently


The Nose Knows: Timeline of Lying Statements In Bhengazigate Coverup Conspiracy

1. Sept. 14, 2012
We don't have and did not have concrete evidence to suggest that this was not in reaction to the film, but we're obviously investigating the matter. Jay Carney, White House spokesman

2. Sept. 15, 2012
The way [al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb] has been discussing this strongly suggests they were involved in the plotting. Former U.S. official

3. Sept. 16, 2012
[O]ur current best assessment based on the information that we have at present is that, in fact, what this began as was a spontaneous, not a premeditated, response to what happened transpired in Cairo. Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

4. Sept. 17, 2012
I don't think we know enough. And we're going to continue to assess… We're going to have a full investigation now, and then we'll be in a better position to put labels on things. Victoria Nuland, State Department spokeswoman

5. Sept. 18, 2012
Ambassador Rice was speaking on behalf of the government with regard to our initial assessments. I don't have any more details.... [A]ll of the information is going to go to the FBI for their investigation, and when they're completed, then we'll have more information. Victoria Nuland, State Department spokeswoman

6. Sept. 19, 2012
I would say yes, they were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy... a number of different elements appear to have been involved in the attack, including individuals connected to militant groups... Matthew Olson, U.S. Counterterrorism Director

7. Sept. 20, 2012
It is, I think, self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack ... we have no information at this point that suggests that this was a significantly preplanned attack, but this was the result of opportunism, taking advantage of and exploiting what was happening as a result of reaction to the video that was found to be offensive. Jay Carney, White House spokesman

8. Sept. 21, 2012
What happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and we will not rest until we have tracked down and brought to justice the terrorists who murdered four Americans. Hillary Clinton, U.S. secretary of State

9. Sept. 25, 2012
Well, we're still doing an investigation. There's no doubt that the kind of weapons that were used, the ongoing assault, that it wasn't just a mob action. Now, we don't have all the information yet and so we're still gathering it. President Obama, Remarks on ABC's 'The View'

10. Sept. 28, 2012
[W]e revised our initial assessment to reflect new information indicating that it was a deliberate and organized terrorist attack carried out by extremists.... [S]ome of those involved were linked to groups affiliated with, or sympathetic to al Qaeda. Shawn Turner, Spokesman for the Director of National Intelligence

11. Oct. 11, 2012
We weren't told they wanted more security there…. We will find and bring to justice the men who did this. Joe Biden, U.S. Vice President, vice presidential debate.

12. Oct. 15, 2012
I take responsibility. I'm in charge of the State Department's 60,000-plus people all over the world (at) 275 posts. The president and the vice president wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals. Hillary Clinton, U.S. secretary of State, Comments to CNN in Peru.

US Imprisons More People (% of Population) Than Any Other Country, In History of the World

US Imprisons More People (% of Population) Than Any Other Country, In History of the World

Even if people in prison inb US on drug charges (~40%) are not counted, US still leads. And if the people on supervision (parole, probation, etc.) are included, the percentage is about 2%. Highest of any country in the world, highest ever in the history of the world, including Nazis, Stalin, Mao, etc.

Clearly we are turning into a police state, and the worst police state ever, by criminalizing too many things. Like the lady in Nevada who was arrested for watering her lawn when not authorized.

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Top 16 Obama Disastrous and/or Lawless Acts - a partial list...

Top 16 Obama Disastrous and/or Lawless Acts - A Partial List

1. $6.05 Trillion Added to US National Debt

2. 23 Million Americans unemployed or under-employed

3. 6 million homes in foreclosure or seriously delinquent on mortgage payments

4. $4,500 drop in median household income

5. Takover of 1/6 th of US Health Care Industry with Obamacare, a totally partisan action, not one Republican vote

6. 2000 dead Americans in Afghanistan

7. Waste of US sacrifice in lives and treasure in Iraq, leaving NO US presence in country

8. Coverup of death of US Ambassador and 3 other Americans in Benghazi, Libya

9. Fast and Furious responsible for 23,000 Mexican deaths, and 1 American death Brian Terry

10. Violation of 1st Amendment, Religious Expression, by forcing churches to provide monring after pill and birth control

11.  Lawless illegal executive action -> on recess appointments

12. Lawlwss illegal executive action -> granting amnesty to illegals under 32 years of age

13. Lawless illegal executive action -> creation of unsupervised Consumer Protection Agency

14. Lawless illegal executive action -> committing US forces in a war on Libya without congressional approval

15. Lawless illegal legislative action -> Falsely forcing Obamacare through Senate under budget reconciliation rule after loss of 60th votes Senate vote, January 2010 (Sen. Scott Brown elected in Massachussetts)

16. Failure to stop Iran from enriching weapons grade fissile materials





Obama's Stupid, Corrupt Trade war over "Green" energy - Corrupt Government Gone Wild

Obama's Stupid, Corrupt Trade war over "Green" energy - Corrupt Government Gone Wild

Some 80% of companies receiving Department of Energy backing, according to the Hoover Institution's Peter Schweizer, are "run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers."

Al Gore, is worth an estimated $100 million, thanks to $2.5 billion in federal loans, grants and tax breaks, according to the Washington Post.

By Obama's own arithmetic, the $21 billion spent so far on green energy should have delivered 700,000 jobs. Actual count: 28,854, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

The cynical phony green initiative doesn't just stop with wasteful handouts to Solyndra and one dozen other bankrupt green-energy companies. The money being wasted is borrowed money. Both the U.S. and China are using China's money to fight their green subsidy war. And while China might be prepared to write off its own losses, it won't write off ours.

S & P Historical Trend and the Coming Fiscal Cliff Crash of 2013


No discernible rise in global temp, 1997 to 2012 - UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre

No discernible rise in global temp, 1997 to 2012 - UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre

The new data, compiled from more than 3,000 measuring points on land and sea, was issued  quietly on the internet, without any media fanfare, and, has not been previously reported. The regular data collected on global temperature is called Hadcrut 4, as it is jointly issued by the Met Office’s Hadley Centre and Prof Jones’s Climatic Research Unit.

Since 1880, when worldwide industrialisation began to gather pace and reliable statistics were first collected on a global scale, the world has warmed by 0.75 degrees Celsius.

At last week’s UK Conservative Party Conference, the new Energy Minister, John Hayes, promised that ‘the high-flown theories of bourgeois Left-wing academics will not override the interests of ordinary people who need fuel for heat, light and transport – energy policies, you might say, for the many, not the few’ – a pledge that has triggered fury from green activists, who fear reductions in the huge subsidies given to wind-turbine firms.

From the start of 1997 until August 2012, figures released last week show the rise in aggregate World temperature has been zero: the trend, derived from the aggregate data collected from more than 3,000 worldwide measuring points, has been flat.

Consumers have seen their energy bills going up because of the array of ‘green’ subsidies being provided to the renewable energy industry, chiefly wind.Subsidies will cost the average household about £100 this year. This is set to rise steadily higher. It  is being imposed based on the widespread conviction, shared by politicians of all stripes and drilled into children at primary schools, that, without drastic action to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, global warming is certain soon to accelerate, with truly catastrophic consequences by the end of the century – when temperatures could be up to five degrees higher.

Global industrialisation over the past 130 years has made relatively little difference. And with the country committed by Act of Parliament to reducing CO2 by 80 per cent by 2050, a project that will cost hundreds of billions, the news that the world has got no warmer for the past 16 years comes as something of a shock.It poses a fundamental challenge to the assumptions underlying every aspect of energy and climate change policy.

The computer models that have for years been predicting imminent doom, such as  those used by the Met Office and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, are flawed, and the climate is far more complex than the models assert.

A feature of this debate is that anyone who questions the alarmist, doomsday scenario will automatically be labelled a climate change ‘denier’, and accused of jeopardising the future of humanity.




Saturday, October 13, 2012

Death of Amb. Stevens, Abandoned in Benghazi by WH, State Dept. Timidity & Politics Uber Alles


Excerpts from State Department Background Briefing on Libya, October 9, 2012 (Fox News Not Invited)

Background Conference Call With Senior State Department Officials Washington, DC October 9, 2012

MODERATOR:
So joining us tonight are two Senior State Department Officials, … Senior State … and Senior State Department Official Number Two…just a reminder ... this is on background.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER ONE:
...Chris Stevens  – coming into Benghazi on April 5th, 2011, is the only U.S. Government ... in Libya at this time. They set up shop in a hotel… A few weeks later in June, a bomb explodes in the parking lot in front of the hotel. ...by August they settle on a large compound which is where the actual activity on 9/11 took place. 

The compound is roughly 300 yards long – that’s three football fields long – and a hundred yards wide. We need that much room to provide the best possible setback against car bombs. Over the next few months, physical security at the compound is strengthened. The outer wall is upgraded, its height is increased to nine feet.It is topped by three feet of barbed wire and concertina wire all around the huge property. External lighting is increased. Jersey barriers, which are big concrete blocks, are installed outside and inside the gate. Steel drop bars are added at the gates to control vehicle access and to provide some anti-ram protection. The buildings on the compound itself were strengthened.

The compound has four buildings on it, … Building C is a building that is essentially a large residence. It has numerous bedrooms and it is – it has a safe haven installed in it, …Building C ultimately is the building that the Ambassador was in. The Tactical Operations Center.. That’s where the security officers had their main setup, that’s where the security cameras are, a lot of the phones – it’s basically their operations center. So I’ll call it the TOC from now on. And then there was a barracks. …In that barracks is a Libyan security 

…Security on the compound consists of five Diplomatic Security special agents (i. e., Americans)and four members of the Libyan Government security force (i. e., Libyans), It is a … friendly militia, … deputized by the Libyan Government to serve as … our host government security. In addition …there is an additional security force at another U.S. compound two kilometers away… a rapid reaction force, a quick reaction security team 

… The Ambassador has arrived in Benghazi on 10th of September. He does meetings both on the compound and off the compound on that day, spends the night. The next day is 9/11. …because it is 9/11, out of prudence, he has all his meetings on the compound. He receives a succession of visitors during the day.

About 7:30 in the evening... his last meeting… is with a Turkish diplomat… the meeting is over, at 8:30 –all these meetings…(are) in what I call Building C… he escorts the Turkish diplomat to the main gate. There is an agent there with them. They say goodbye. They’re out in a street in front of the compound. Everything is calm at 8:30 p.m. There’s nothing unusual. There has been nothing unusual during the day at all outside.
…the Ambassador returns to Building C, where …Sean Smith… one of the victims – and four other Diplomatic Security agents are all at Building C. One Diplomatic Security agent is in the TOC, the Tactical Operations Center. All of these agents have their side arms.

… about 9 o’clock at night – the Ambassador retires to his room, the others are still at Building C, and the one agent in the TOC. At 9:40 p.m., the agent in the TOC and the agents in Building C hear loud noises coming from the front gate. They also hear gunfire and an explosion. The agent in the TOC looks at his cameras – these are cameras that have pictures of the perimeter – and the camera on the main gate reveals a large number of people – a large number of men, armed men, flowing into the compound. One special agent immediately goes to get the Ambassador in his bedroom and gets Sean, and the three of them enter the safe haven inside the building.

.. I should … describe what a safe haven is. A safe haven is a fortified area within a building. This particular safe haven has a very heavy metal grill on it with several locks on it. It essentially divides the one – the single floor of that building in half, and half the floor is the safe haven, the bedroom half. Also in the safe haven is a central sort of closet area where people can take refuge where there are no windows around. In that safe haven are medical supplies, water, and such things. All the windows to that area of the building have all been grilled. A couple of them have grills that can be open from the inside so people inside can get out, but they can’t be – obviously can’t be opened from the outside.

The agent with the Ambassador in the safe haven has – in addition to his side arm, has his long gun, or I should say – it’s an M4 submachine gun, standard issue. The other agents who have heard the noise in the – at the front gate run to Building B or the TOC – they run … to Building B, one to the TOC – to get their long guns and other kit. By kit, I mean body armor, a helmet, additional munitions, that sort of thing.
They turn around immediately and head back – or the two of them, from Building B, turn around immediately with their kit and head back to Villa C, where the Ambassador and his colleagues are. They encounter a large group of armed men between them and Building C. I should say that the agent in Building C with the Ambassador has radioed that they are all in the safe haven and are fine. The agents that encounter the armed group make a tactical decision to turn around and go back to their Building B and barricade themselves in there. So we have people in three locations right now.

… the attackers, when they came through the gate, immediately torched the barracks. It is aflame, the barracks that was occupied by the … armed host country security team. ……there is a loud alarm. He gets on the public address system as well, yelling, “Attack, attack.” Having said that, the agents – the other agents had heard the noise and were already reacting.

… So we have agents in Building C – or an agent in Building C with the Ambassador and Sean, we have two agents in Building B, and we have two agents in the TOC. …attackers penetrate … Building C. They walk …The building is dark. They look through the grill, they see nothing. They try the grill, the locks on the grill; they can’t get through. The agent is, in fact, watching them from the darkness. He has his long gun trained on them and he is ready to shoot if they come any further. They do not go any further.

They have jerry cans. They have jerry cans full of diesel fuel that they’ve picked up at the entrance when they torched the barracks. They have sprinkled the diesel fuel around. They light the furniture in the living room – this big, puffy, Middle Eastern furniture. They light it all on fire, and they have also lit part of the exterior of the building on fire. At the same time, there are other attackers that have penetrated Building B. The two agents in Building B are barricaded in an inner room there. The attackers circulate in Building B but do not get to the agents and eventually leave.

A third group of attackers tried to break into the TOC. They pound away at the door, they throw themselves at the door, they kick the door, they really treat it pretty rough; they are unable to get in, and they withdraw. Back in Building C, where the Ambassador is, the building is rapidly filling with smoke. The attackers have exited. The smoke is extremely thick. It’s diesel smoke, and also, obviously, smoke from – fumes from the furniture that’s burning. And the building inside is getting more and more black. The Ambassador and the two others make a decision that it’s getting – it’s starting to get tough to breathe in there, and so they move to another part of the safe haven, a bathroom that has a window. They open the window. The window is, of course, grilled. They open the window trying to get some air in. That doesn’t help. The building is still very thick in smoke.

… the agent I talked to said he could not see (3 feet) away in the smoke and the darkness. So they’re in the bathroom and they’re now on the floor of the bathroom because they’re starting to hurt for air. They are breathing in the bottom two feet or so of the room, and even that is becoming difficult.

So they make a decision that they’re going to have to leave the safe haven. They decide that they’re going to go out through an adjacent bedroom which has one of the window grills that will open. The agent leads the two others into a hallway in that bedroom. He opens the grill. He’s going first because that is standard procedure. There is firing going on outside. I should have mentioned that during all of this, all of these events that I’ve been describing, there is considerable firing going on outside. There are tracer bullets. There is smoke. There is – there are explosions. I can’t tell you that they were RPGs, but I think they were RPGs. So there’s a lot of action going on, and there’s dozens of armed men on the – there are dozens of armed men on the compound...the agent is suffering severely from smoke inhalation at this point. He can barely breathe. He can barely see. He’s got the grill open and he flops out of the window onto a little patio that’s been enclosed by sandbags. He determines that he’s under fire, but he also looks back and sees he doesn’t have his two companions. He goes back in to get them. He can’t find them. He goes in and out several times before smoke overcomes him completely, and he has to stagger up a small ladder to the roof of the building and collapse. He collapses.

At that point, he radios the other agents. Again, the other agents are barricaded in Building C and – Building B, and the TOC. He radios the other agents that he’s got a problem. He is very difficult to understand. He can barely speak.

The other agents, at this time, can see that there is some smoke, or at least the agents in the TOC – this is the first they become aware that Building C is on fire. They don’t have direct line of sight. They’re seeing smoke and now they’ve heard from the agent. So they make a determination to go to Building C to try to find their colleagues.

The agent in the TOC, who is in full gear, opens the door, throws a smoke grenade, which lands between the two buildings, to obscure what he is doing, and he moves to Building B, enters Building B. He un-barricades the two agents that are in there, and the three of them emerge and head for Building C. There are, however, plenty of bad guys and plenty of firing still on the compound, and they decide that the safest way for them to move is to go into an armored vehicle, which is parked right there. They get into the armored vehicle and they drive to Building C.

They drive to the part of the building where the agent had emerged. He’s on the roof. They make contact with the agent. Two of them set up as best a perimeter as they can, and the third one, third agent, goes into the building. This goes on for many minutes. Goes into the building, into the choking smoke. When that agent can’t proceed, another agent goes in, and so on. And they take turns going into the building on their hands and knees, feeling their way through the building to try to find their two colleagues. They find Sean. They pull him out of the building. He is deceased. They are unable to find the Ambassador.

At this point, the special security team, the quick reaction security team from the other compound, arrive on this compound. They came from what we call the annex. With them – there are six of them – with them are about 16 members of the … militia ….members were on our compound to begin with.

As those guys … move to the TOC, where one agent has been manning the phone… that agent …has been on the phone. He had called the quick reaction security team, he had called the Libyan authorities, he had called the Embassy in Tripoli, and he had called Washington. He had them all going to ask for help. And he remained in the TOC.
So at this point … the quick reaction team, … go to the TOC with the …Brigade. They get him out of the TOC…All the agents … are suffering from smoke inhalation. The agent that had been in the building originally with the Ambassador is very, very severely impacted, the others somewhat less so, but they can’t go back in. The remaining agent, the one that had come from the TOC, freshest set of lungs, goes into the building himself, though he is advised not to. He goes into the building himself, as do some members of the quick reaction security team.

The agent makes a couple of attempts, cannot proceed. He’s back outside of the building. He takes his shirt off. There’s a swimming pool nearby. He dips his shirt in the swimming pool and wraps it around his head, goes in one last time. Still can’t find the Ambassador. Nobody is able to find the Ambassador.
At this point, the quick reaction security team and the Libyans…are saying, “We cannot stay here. It’s time to leave. We’ve got to leave. We can’t hold the perimeter.” So at that point, they make the decision to evacuate the compound and to head for the annex. The annex is about two kilometers away. My agents pile into an armored vehicle with the body of Sean, and they exit the main gate.… they take fire almost as soon as they emerge from the compound. They go … toward the annex. …There are crowds. There are groups of men. They turn around and go the other direction. … They make another u-turn. … There is traffic in the roads around there. …they’re going at a steady pace … trying not to attract too much attention, so they’re going maybe 15 miles an hour down the street.
 
… At this point, they take very heavy fire as they go by this group of men. They take direct fire from AK-47s from about two feet away. The men also throw hand grenades or gelignite bombs under – at the vehicle and under it. At this point, the armored vehicle is extremely heavily impacted, but it’s still holding. There are two flat tires, but they’re still rolling. And they continue far down the block …another crowd where this road t-bones into a main road. There is a crowd there. They pass through the crowd and on – turn right onto this main road. This main road is completely choked with traffic, enormous traffic jam typical for, I think, that time of night in that part of town. There are shops along the road there and so on.
Rather than get stuck in the traffic, the agents careen their car over the median – there is a median, a grassy median – and into the opposing traffic, and they go counter-flow until they emerge into a more lightly trafficked area and ultimately make their way to the annex.

Once at the annex, the annex has its own security – a security force there. There are people at the annex. The guys in the car join the defense at the annex. They take up firing positions on the roof – some of them do – and other firing positions around the annex. The annex is, at this time, also taking fire and does take fire intermittently, on and off, for the next several hours. The fire consists of AK-47s but also RPGs, and it’s, at times, quite intense.

As the night goes on, a team of reinforcements from Embassy Tripoli arrives by chartered aircraft at Benghazi airport and makes its way to the compound – to the annex, I should say. And I should have mentioned that the quick reaction – the quick reaction security team that was at the compound has also, in addition to my five agents, has also returned to the annex safely. The reinforcements from Tripoli are at the compound – at the annex. They take up their positions. And somewhere around 5:45 in the morning – sorry, somewhere around 4 o'clock in the morning – I have my timeline wrong – somewhere around 4 o'clock in the morning the annex takes mortar fire. It is precise and some of the mortar fire lands on the roof of the annex. It immediately killed two security personnel that are there, severely wounds one of the agents that’s come from the compound.

At that point, a decision is made at the annex that they are going to have to evacuate the whole enterprise. And the next hours are spent, one, securing the annex, and then two, moving in a significant and large convoy of vehicles everybody to the airport, where they are evacuated on two flights.
So that’s the end …

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: The agent in the TOC heard the noise, heard the firing. Firing is not unusual in Benghazi at 9:40 at night, but he immediately reacted and looked at his cameras and saw people coming in, hit the alarm. And the rest is as I described it. 

QUESTION: ...When did you finally find Ambassador Stevens? And do you know now how he got to the hospital? Was it definitely Libyans? Were they the militia…

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: We do not know exactly how the Ambassador got to the hospital. That is one of the issues that we are – that we hope to resolve in the ongoing reviews and the information we are still seeking. We know he got to the hospital at some point. The hospital picked a cell phone out of his pocket, and we believe just started calling numbers that were on the cell phone that had received calls, and that is how we got the information that he was there.

QUESTION: Hi, thanks so much for doing this. Do you have any response from the charge from Erik Nordstrom, the Regional Security Officer who left this summer, who is set to testify tomorrow to say that it was a mistake to begin to normalize security operations and reduce security resources in accordance with an artificial timetable? That’s from a letter he sent earlier this month to the oversight committee.

QUESTION: … You described several incidents you had with groups of men, armed men. What in all of these events that you’ve described led officials to believe for the first several days that this was prompted by protests against the video?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: That is a question that you would have to ask others. That was not our conclusion. I’m not saying that we had a conclusion, but we outlined what happened. The Ambassador walked guests out around 8:30 or so, there was no one on the street at approximately 9:40, then there was the noise and then we saw on the cameras the – a large number of armed men assaulting the compound.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: … as Official Number One said earlier, the Ambassador did events in the city on the 10th. He had plans to do events in the city later in the week. But on the 11th, he remained in the compound.

As in terms of the – of any kind of security threat, the – both ODNI spokesman and the DNI have been correctly quoted as saying that there was no actionable intelligence of any planned or imminent attack.

QUESTION: … before the attack, did the Ambassador request that security be increased in Benghazi? And if so, did anything ever come of it?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER TWO: The – when the Ambassador traveled to Benghazi, he traveled with two additional security agents over and above the complement of three who were assigned to post. So there were five agents with him there rather than the two who are normally assigned there – the three who are normally assigned. So they were up two.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER TWO: … since unfortunately we couldn’t fit everything on one compound, we had two – the principle compound and the annex. We … therefore, had our security … divided between the two compounds.

QUESTION: … I want to be clear on one thing. You said as soon as they heard the noises outside, they went to look and saw armed men assaulting the compound. That was the very first thing that they saw after hearing the noise outside?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER ONE: They heard noises, firing, and an explosion. The agent in the TOC looked at his camera and saw people coming through the front gate.

QUESTION: …I just wanted to …whether it is possible to now say clearly that this was very much a preplanned attack, and if so, whether you can explain why there was no actionable intelligence.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER TWO: This – that subject is now under review …

QUESTION: Can you at least explain the process by which if a request for more security comes in, how that’s – how you go about determining resources, so in the instance of the reports that more security was requested by the folks in Libya, can you sort of walk through how that process works?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER TWO: Certainly. The – this is sort of an iterative process, a discussion between the field and Washington, back and forth; the field identifying what their needs are, Washington working very, very closely with them. We always attempt to mitigate our risk. We cannot eliminate them. Sometimes the post – any post in the world might come in and say, “We need A, B, and C,” there would be a dialogue, and instead of sending them A, B, and C, we would send them B, C, and D because in this discussion process, we go to functionality, and when we determine the functionality that gets us the maximum – a maximum possible security, then we – that is what we deliver to the post.
 
QUESTION: … in view of … the attack and the intensity of it and the numbers of people involved, what – can you say what kind of security presence might have been needed to repel an attack like that? I mean, what – I mean, if the criticism is there wasn’t enough security, how much would you have needed to protect the compound from this attack?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL NUMBER TWO: …The lethality and the number of armed people is unprecedented. There had been no attacks like that anywhere in Libya – Tripoli, Benghazi, or elsewhere – in the time that we had been there. And so it is unprecedented. In fact, it would be very, very hard to find a precedent for an attack like that in recent diplomatic history.

PRN: 2012/1613

How To Deal With Failure - "To Thine Own Self Be True"


Who do you trust on Medicare and Medicaid?

Who do you trust on Medicare and Medicaid?

What can be done to keep Medicare and Medicaid coverage for all Americans at current levels (assuming that there is no free money).

1) Trust government bureaucrats to become efficiency experts?

2) Trust medical service providers? (Doctors, Hospitals, Researchers — to continue to do what they do for less and less money.)

3) Trust Washington to pay more? And tax more? (Need 2.25% per year tax increase to keep pace with current levels).

4) Trust competition and market forces to put the system on a fiscally sustainable path. (Like in the rest of the U.S. economy)

Sunday, October 7, 2012

The Worst Economic Recovery Since the Great Depression

The Worst Economic Recovery Since the Great Depression

Number of Americans out of work (4 years into recovery)---> 12.1  Million Americans out of work (23 Million including those who stopped looking for work)
Labor participation rate (down to 1981 level):-------------->   63.6 %
Of the 114,000 new September jobs, 104,000 were:--------> Private Economy
All of the 86,000 jobs in (July & August) upward revisions:--> Government Jobs.
Job growth:-------------------------------------------------> 146,000/mo (2012, Down from 153,000/month, 2011)
Manufacturing employment:---------------------------------> Down 38,000 (August & September)
Percent of America jobless for six months or more:----------> 40.1 %
GDP Growth '12 Q2 :------   ------------------------------> 1.3 % (In 1%-2% range for 2012)
September Employment:------------------------------------> Up by 873,000 jobs (582,000 part-time, Biggest jump in 30 years!)
Number of "part-time workers for economic reasons":--- ---> Up by 0.9 million since March.
Number of Jobs Created Since 2009:-----------------------> 5 Million (4.5 million jobs short of where it was in 2007)
Median household income since June 2009:-----------------> Down $3,040