Honorable service and integrity are requirements for good government

The anniversary of the United States Constitution passed by relatively unnoticed last week, but politics as usual went along apace. That marvelous document – born of discontent that sparked revolution, and which was followed by discord, debate, trial and error, and ultimately yielded triumph – set forth a form of government unheard of in human history. It created a government empowered by the people, a government that expects and depends upon people of integrity following the rules, because doing so benefits the whole of the American people. It is a form of government designed to operate above the muck and mire of petty politics.

A nation so constituted is obligated to the people that empower it to operate efficiently, responsibly, honestly, and to identify its mistakes, own up to and bear responsibility for those mistakes and take steps to assure that those mistakes are not repeated. This element is never more important than when government failure results in the unnecessary loss of life of Americans serving their country.

Such a government and the people of integrity that operate it do not allow political considerations to prevent the truth from being found. It requires people in government, whether put there as an act of faith through the electoral process, or whether put there as hired hands, all work for the people, and all owe a duty to the people to act lawfully and with integrity. Anything less is treasonous, perhaps not by the letter of the law, but certainly in the spirit of the law.

As that revered date passed by, so did another: a date marking the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, and the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya in 2012.

We well remember the first of those dates, when Muslim terrorists hijacked four airliners and crashed two into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon, and passengers scuttled the fourth before it could reach its target, but these acts resulted in killing nearly 3,000 innocent people. Not since Pearl Harbor had the United States seen an attack of such magnitude.

On the latter date, Islamic militants attacked the Benghazi consulate. In that attack U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, a Foreign Service information officer, and Tyrone S. Woods and Glen A. Doherty, two former Navy SEALs working as security personnel at the consulate died. This is an event many want simply to forget, and move on. “Dude, that was two whole years ago!”

The Benghazi attack occurred on the watch of President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, neither of whom has any appetite for providing answers to the several serious questions about security failures that they are obligated to provide to their bosses, the American people.

The tragedy of Benghazi resulted from a grossly failed episode of government that puts some public servants in a very, very bad light. But people who put good government above sordid political concerns understand that the many unanswered questions of Benghazi deserve –require – answers. Honest and complete answers.  Mrs. Clinton’s shameful response to a Congressional committee, “What difference, at this point, does it make?” simply does not cut it.

And the longer Americans are left wondering which of the public servants in our government made decisions, or failed to make decisions, that led to the murder of four brave Americans serving their country, the more tawdry details leak out.

In a lengthy story for the Daily Signal online, Emmy award-winning investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson reported that as the House Select Committee on Benghazi prepared for its first hearing on the scandal last week, former State Department diplomat Raymond Maxwell alleged that confidants of Hillary Clinton took part in removing some damaging documents before they were turned over to the Accountability Review Board investigating the security lapses prior to and during the terrorist attacks on the consulate.

As Ms. Attkisson reported: “Maxwell says the weekend document session was held in the basement of the State Department’s Foggy Bottom headquarters in a room underneath the ‘jogger’s entrance.’ He describes it as a large space, outfitted with computers and big screen monitors, intended for emergency planning, and with small offices on the periphery.”

Mr. Maxwell said that he observed boxes and stacks of documents, and that a State Department office director, whom he said was a close advisor to Mrs. Clinton was there. The office director actually worked for Mr. Maxwell, but he said he was not consulted about her working on this weekend assignment.

The office director explained that the assembled staff were to go through the stacks of documents “and pull out anything that might put anybody in the [Near Eastern Affairs office] or seventh floor [where the Secretary of State and top advisers are] in a bad light.

 “I asked her, ‘But isn’t that unethical?’ he said. “She responded, ‘Ray, those are our orders.’”

These State Department employees were more concerned with following orders than with acting honorably and legally, something that should concern everyone. 

For that reason, and for the memory of those four brave Americans that died needlessly, we must pursue the truth about Benghazi.

Potpourri: government porn, federal lands, freedom of speech, etc.

Here’s an example of what can happen when there are too many government employees with too much time on their hands.

A report says that an Environmental Protection Agency employee watches porn for up to 6 hours a day. He makes $120,000 a year, and still has his job.

Nothing epitomizes a government that is so big and inefficient that its left hand has no idea not just what the right hand is doing, but doesn’t even know what its own fingers are doing. Or, just doesn’t care.

When the number of employees in a department or agency exceeds the number of truly essential employees, bad things happen, as the EPA example shows.

Agencies like the EPA are regulators; they produce regulations. Too many regulations exist already, and those people are paid to create more. On second thought, maybe it’s less harmful if they watch porn.

An efficient government, the kind of government we expect, deserve and pay for, should have few enough employees that every one of them is busy 8 hours a day doing beneficial work, serving us to the best of their ability, and to our highest expectations.

One of the major reasons our government has grown so humongous and overbearing is because too many people don’t understand that government is limited in its scope by the supreme law of the land, the US Constitution, and haven’t been paying attention to what is happening, or haven’t protested it. Still others seem to like living under the federal boot or seek control over us.

Did you know that the federal government owns or controls nearly one-third of the land in the US? Do you imagine that the feds are making the most beneficial use of it?

Some of it is used for government installations, national parks and memorials and so forth, which is fine. But much of it either lies essentially unused, like the land where Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his fellow ranchers freely grazed their cattle for decades before the federal government took over the land on the fraudulent premise that a tortoise that lived there was a “threatened” species.

More than a few cited Mr. Bundy as being a law breaker, so they thought it was just fine when the Bureau of Land Management sent 200 armed Rangers to the area because Mr. Bundy has refused to pay grazing fees for many years.

Mr. Bundy’s critics apparently believe that “if government says so, we must do it.” Had our forebears had this attitude, hundreds of singers at sporting events would be badly singing “God Save The Queen” instead of “The Star Spangled Banner.”

Other federal lands imprison vast stores of natural resources that would unleash new jobs and prompt energy independence.

When it was announced that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had been invited to speak at the Rutgers University graduation and receive an honorary degree, some members of the faculty passed resolutions calling for her to be “disinvited.”  Students protested outside the office of the university president, some with signs calling her a “war criminal” because of her role in the Iraq War and the Bush administration’s use of waterboarding.

Showing she clearly has more class than those faculty members and students, Dr. Rice, withdrew her acceptance. “Commencement should be a time of joyous celebration for the graduates and their families,” she said. “Rutgers’ invitation to me to speak has become a distraction for the university community at this very special time.”

And so the tolerant and open-minded atmosphere of the university endures and the grand ideal of free and open debate of important, often conflicting ideas on campuses everywhere may continue for yet a while longer.

Then there is this: “I think that there are impulses in the government every day to second guess and look into the editorial decisions of conservative publishers,” warned Federal Election Commission Chairman Lee E. Goodman in an interview. “The right has begun to break the left’s media monopoly, particularly through new media outlets like the Internet, and I sense that some on the left are starting to rethink the breadth of the media exemption and Internet communications,” he added.

You have to admire the determination of the leftists to find a way to defeat contrary opinions when they cannot do so through the power of superior ideas and arguments. When they have control of government resources, they have no compunction about unleashing this power against their political enemies. “Well, we may not be right, but we will prevail.”

I’ve had an epiphany about Benghazi. I have adopted the Dem/lib philosophy: “Dude, that’s so yesterday.”

Since it happened on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s watch, and she is satisfied that all the questions have been answered, shouldn’t that be enough for anybody? What difference, at this point, does it make? Now I can focus on other liberal goals, like which of the 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights we should trash next.

Oh, have you heard that a new helicopter fleet to ferry the president for short distances is being considered, and that the Congressional Budget Office estimates it will only cost $20 billion?

Administration stonewalling cheats Americans of the truth about Benghazi

A large number of Americans still believe we have been told too little about who did things they shouldn’t have done, and/or didn’t do things they should have done that would have prevented the September 11, 2012 attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The result was the brutal torture and murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, and the deaths of Information Officer Sean Smith, and two embassy security personnel, former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

The heat was turned up on this simmering issue last week when emails that should have been turned over when requested by congressional committees months ago were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Judicial Watch.

White House spokesman Jay Carney answered a press question on this development by saying that an email that discussed talking points really wasn’t about Benghazi, but about regional demonstrations, despite the fact that the FOIA request specifically asked for Benghazi documents.

This email from Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser to then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice, who used the talking points on Sunday talk shows, calls attention yet again to the story advanced by the White House and the State Department for far too long after the attack that it was the result of an anti-Islam YouTube video, not terrorism.

The administration has no one to blame but itself for the months-long effort to find answers to questions about the Benghazi attack. Had the White House and State Department responded appropriately to legitimate requests for answers to important questions, instead of stonewalling and dodging, we would know what mistakes were made, and by whom. But when you have something to hide, you stonewall and dodge.

The following events preceded the Benghazi attack:

• February: The US embassy is granted a four-month extension of a Tripoli-based “site security team” of 16 special forces soldiers who provide security, medical and communications support to the embassy.

• March: State Department Regional Security Officer Eric Nordstrom asked Washington for additional diplomatic security agents for Benghazi, and said he received no response. He repeated his request in July and again got no response.

• April 6: Two fired Libyan security guards throw an IED over the consulate fence.

• May 22: An Islamist attack on the Benghazi Red Cross office is followed by a Facebook post warning “now we are preparing a message for the Americans,” and another a month later highlights Ambassador Stevens’ daily jogs in an apparent threat. The Red Cross closed the office.

• June 6: Unknown assailants blow a hole in the British consulate’s north gate described as “big enough for 40 men to go through,” and four days later, the British ambassador’s car is ambushed by militants with a rocket-propelled grenade. The consulate is closed soon thereafter.

• July: The anti-Islam video “Innocence of Muslims” appears on YouTube.

• August. 14: The US security team leaves Libya, despite Ambassador Stevens’ desire that they remain, according to Lt. Col. Andy Wood.

• In the weeks before Sept. 11, Libyan security guards are reportedly warned by family members of an impending attack. On Sept. 8, the Libyan militia tasked with protecting the consulate warns US diplomats that the security situation is “frightening.”

•  September 10: Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri calls on Libyans to avenge the death of his Libyan deputy, Abu Yahya al Libi, killed in a June drone strike in Pakistan.

The American people deserve answers to the following questions:

• Why were the requests for additional security not granted, or even acknowledged?

• Why was the existing security team recalled when Ambassador Stevens asked that it remain?

• After violence against the Red Cross office and the British consulate forced their closure, why was the Benghazi consulate kept open?

• Why was Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi, given the rising violence and warnings of violence?

• Not knowing how long the attack would last (it lasted 7 hours), why were no US military assets dispatched to at least try to get to Benghazi in time to help?

• Why have those responsible for the attack not been hunted down and captured?

• Where was the president while the attack was being followed in the White House Situation Room?

Some administration supporters say that policies have been designed and put into place to see that a Benghazi-like event doesn’t happen again, so we don’t need another investigation. But doing so must be based upon knowing what went wrong, and if the administration knows what went wrong, why not come clean with the American people, as we expect from “the most transparent administration in history”?

That was Barack Obama’s pledge on the campaign trail, and WhiteHouse.gov reiterates that pledge: “My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government.  We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.”

The Obama administration is open and transparent, unless an election is coming up, or it will make someone look bad, or it will confound some aspect of its radical agenda. It apparently did not learn about cover-ups from Richard Nixon, whose scandal did not include dead Americans.

Obama criticizes Republican "phony scandals," "short-term thinking"

When questions arise about why four American foreign service personnel died at the hands of Libyan terrorists, or why a Border Patrol agent was murdered by Mexican drug cartel thugs possessing US-provided guns, or why the Internal Revenue Service improperly delayed action on some religious and conservative applicants for non-profit status, or any of the numerous other irregularities under this administration, Democrats and the agenda-driven media say, "That's old news. Move on," as if relevance depends upon the calendar, not the substance of the events.

And that is a pretty convenient modus operandi: They avoid coming clean with the American people on legitimate questions of competence for months on end, virtually never hold guilty parties accountable, and then complain that those asking the questions are living in the past and the answers they seek no longer matter. And they do so knowing that millions of people won't care.

All the while President Barack Obama blames every problem in the country on someone or something else, and calls the government's disgraceful handling of the aforementioned boondoggles a bunch of "phony scandals" manufactured by Republicans. It's a great game of Beat the Clock.

But honest Americans realize that their government failed miserably to do its job as dictated by the US Constitution and want to know who screwed up and what penalty they will pay for their gross incompetence and/or illegal behavior. So far, only lip service has been paid to accountability, and some of the most likely culprits have escaped reaping their just reward, while others have been promoted to higher positions.

Several months after Mr. Obama took office the Department of Justice's (DOJ) gun running operation known as Fast and Furious began. Intended to track gun sales to Mexican drug cartels, it backfired and Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was murdered in 2010 by people possessing two of those guns provided by the DOJ. The Obama administration's response was something like: "Ooops! Gawrsh, we didn't expect any o' them guns to be used against us. Sorry 'bout that. Nothing to see here; keep moving."

On September 11, 2012, after multiple requests to beef up security at the American diplomatic sites in Libya had been denied or ignored, terrorists attacked the facilities in Benghazi, resulting in the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens, foreign service officer Sean Smith, and former Navy Seals Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.

Politics demanded that 2 months before a presidential election no screw-ups be under investigation or terrorist activity be fresh in voters' memories, since President Obama had declared the War on Terror over, so the administration concocted a lame excuse that a video that hardly anyone in the entire world had seen, let alone in Libya, caused a spontaneous demonstration at the US consulate. That idiotic story was repeated for weeks by administration spokespersons, including President Obama himself.

Barack Obama, the “news” media, and millions of liberals showed little interest in the inconveniently-timed deaths of these brave Americans.

Unanswered questions persist, but instead of keeping these important events in front of the American people, the media most recently have focused on the shooting of a black high school student by a "white Hispanic" in Florida and the birth of a future monarch in Great Britain. Perhaps if the five murdered government employees looked like Trayvon, Mr. Obama and the media would give a hoot.

Not everyone is as cavalier about these tragic government failures as the administration, Congressional Democrats and the agenda-driven media. A group called Special Operations Veterans, the mission of which is to uncover the truths about the Benghazi terror attack, took its demands to Capitol Hill last week in the form of a 60-foot-long petition, which was unfurled near the steps of the Capitol. It demanded that the government “End the cover-up” of the attack. The petition was signed by more than 1,000 people and called for a special congressional committee to investigate the incident.

Each of us either believes that the deaths of the five government workers are important, or we don't. Apparently, most people don't, or are too-easily satisfied with the partial information provided that doesn’t explain what went wrong.

The Internal Revenue Service targeted scores of conservative religious and political organizations seeking non-profit status with improper questions, and denied action on their applications for up to two years, then tried to blame it on a couple of rogue agents in Cincinnati, Oh. It turns out there were 12 different IRS offices involved. Now the administration tells us that the targeting was actually non-partisan. That's a low threshold; even one liberal organization makes that technically true. But the reality is that 292 were conservative; six were liberal.

Each of us either believes that our government must operate honorably and follow the rules set forth for it in the US Constitution, or we don't. There is a shockingly large faction of Americans that apparently don't, because they are not demanding answers to these questions, or that people responsible for these events be disciplined, or that such dishonorable and un-American activities be stopped and government restored to functioning constitutionally.

Which side are you on: Honorable government or the status quo?