Tag Archives: Obama administration

Obama and the Benghazi Debacle

by Daniel Downs

The Obama administration’s poor judgment concerning both the nature of the Benghazi attack and security of our Consulates in Liyba is old news. From President Obama to Susan Rice, Americans were misled into believing the Benghazi attack was a mob action. It was determined earlier in the investigations that security personnel wanted more security personnel to address the increasing threat of Al-Qaida’s presence.

In his second debate, President Obama said he did call the attack on the Benghazi embassy an act of terror. Some commmentators claim he did say it was a terrorist attack, while others claim he did not. Those who deny the Obama’s claim do so because they did read the transcript of his Rose Garden speech on September 12, 2012. The President mentioned terrorist in the context of the attack of September 11, 2001, the sacrifice of American soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that proceeded in response to 9/11, and finally those who died in Benghazi.

In other words, his statement was vague concerning the nature of the Benghazi attack.

If President Obama actually knew or wanted Americans to know the attack was another act of terrorism against America, he would have continued to state that fact while being interviewed by David Letterman on September 18, 2012. However, he blamed the attack on extremists angered by anti-Mohammad video made by an American of questionable character. Obama did use the term terrorist but only in the context of all other attacks against American Consulates around the world that were a result of the film.

In an Foreign Policy article published on October 16, 2012, Christopher Stephen raise questions about the veracity of both a military style terroristattack and spontaneous mob violence. Locals consistenly claim seeing a group of 12 armed men. The gates to the embasssy were not breached, but there were 2 bullet holes in the front gate and 22 in the back gate. There were only two bullet holes anywhere in the compound. The only mortar penetrated the main building above the door. According to Stephens, the 3 embassy personnel who died were shot while escaping the compound and Ambassor Steven’s appears to have died of smoke inhilation as a result of the mortar.

As also noted during the Congressional Committee for Government Oversight and Reform hearings, Stephen’s article confirms the lack of any adequate security that could have prevented an attack.

It must be concluded that the Commander-in-Chief didn’t know the real nature of the attack, he prefers to view Muslim jihadic violence as merely extremism, or he was merely covering up a very embarrasing failure to provide even modest security.

Back Door Approach To Bail Out Funding

By Daniel Downs

Not long ago, the big news was Obama’s bailout of General Motors. In 2011, US Treasury reported that GM had paid back most of the large loan. However, the Treasury also notified the public that the federal government had become a permanent shareholder. The percent stock holdings amounted to something like 30 percent. Obviously, Uncle Obama and company wanted taxpayer-funded bailout to accumulate a long-term return on the investment.

It appears Obama is getting his way with the wealth. We could call it the back door method of taxing corporate profits.

Another interesting development recently reported by General Motors was the substantial increase of GM autos being sold to China markets. GM reported an 11.7% increase in sales in April and 9.4% for the first quarter in 2012. Total first quarter unit sales was 972,369. That’s nearly one million news vehicles cruising down Chinese pavement. If the trend continues, the federal government should see an increase of about 10-15% in revenues from GM net profits.

That is how our new schools should have always been funded. It would be a win-win for local taxpayers. Funding empire through back door taxation of corporate profits may only benefit the select few, most of whom are like Obama have a million plus portfolio of wealth.

Nevertheless, Chinese consumption is still underwriting a significant portion our government’s imperial spending spree.

US Bullying Angers Developing World and Leads to US Defeat at UN

By Timothy Herrmann and Stefano Gennarini, J.D.

(NEW YORK C-FAM) Negotiations for a final document at the UN Commission on the Status of Women were supposed to end more than a week ago. However, they dragged on for another several days and resulted in a stinging defeat for the Obama administration and anger on the part of the developing world.

The US was trying to impose its sexual and reproductive rights agenda and in a dramatic showdown, delegations scuttled a final document rather than accept the US proposal.

Delegations openly resented the US emphasis on sexual and reproductive rights, and were particularly offended at being strong-armed by the US during negotiations for the resolution on maternal mortality. However, the US was able to push that resolution through without toning down their sexual and reproductive rights emphasis.

In the maternal mortality resolution, the US delegation insisted on new language that delegations feared could advance a right to abortion. Delegates were also concerned about references to “age appropriate sexual education” that did not acknowledge the role of parents, as well as dubious references to “gender.”

Negotiations on the final document, called “agreed conclusions,” were extended a week longer than expected because consensus could not be reached. Delegations carried negotiations well into the early hours of last Thursday, when the commission concluded its session, but the US would not budge, causing the negotiations to fail.

Michelle Bachelette, the head of UN Women, spoke to the delegates at the closing of CSW. She was disappointed by the commission’s “inability to reach consensus.” Several delegations voiced their frustration with the ideological rigidity of the US and other delegations in the reproductive rights camp.

The delegate from Zimbabwe, speaking for the African Group, complained about the position of “only one delegation” that had caused the process to falter. She also clarified that the African Group believed the use of the word “gender” referred to male and female, as outlined in previous international documents, and emphasized the sovereign prerogative of African nations to do so.

The Iranian delegation made a statement lamenting that a “tender bridge (consensus) collapsed last night at around 1:00am…only because of the intransigence, hardball playing and lack of flexibility on the part of one side of the room over issues that were not germane to the text.” Iran reproached these parties for coming to the negotiating table with “a mindset of achieving all they want, with no flexibility.”

On the opposite side of the negotiating table was the ambassador from Norway, who bluntly criticized nations for not abandoning “moral values” or accepting radical versions of gender equality: “[W]e have seen how moral values have been evoked to deprive women of their human rights, their opportunities – and ultimately, for some – their lives! This is the real moral hazard of our time!” She later added that “Many will have to let go of some traditional convictions, also when they are based on religious belief or culture…That’s what’s called development.”

Timothy Hermann is a U.N. Representative of the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) and Stefano Gennarini is writer for C-FAM as well. The above new article first appeared in Friday Fax, an internet report published weekly by C-FAM, a New York and Washington DC-based research institute (http://www.c-fam.org/). This article appears with permission.”

Political Leaders Protect Marriage and Children from Homosexual/Transsexual Demands

By Wendy Wright

(New York – C-FAM) Resistance to the United States’ new foreign policy priority is emerging around the world for the same reasons it has been rejected within the U.S. Political leaders are holding the line against homosexual/transsexual demands when it comes to marriage and teaching children about homosexual/transsexual activity.

Leaders from the United Nations, UK and European Union have joined the U.S. in exerting pressure on countries to promote the homosexual agenda. Rather than advocating for human rights to encompass people identifying as homosexual, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s slogan of “gay rights are human rights” attempts to transform special preferences for homosexual persons into human rights.

Recently, France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy reiterated his opposition to homosexual marriage because it opens “the door to adoption.” France’s highest court has ruled that a marriage between two men was unlawful.

“In troubled times, when our society needs to keep its bearings, I don’t think that it is necessary to blur the image of this essential institution that is marriage,” Sarkozy told a newspaper. While there may be good parents who are homosexual, “they do not lead me to think that it is necessary to inscribe in law a new definition of family.”

In Russia, St. Petersburg became the latest city to pass legislation protecting schoolchildren by barring public actions that promote homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, transgenderism and pedophilia to minors.

Vitaly Milonov, who initiated the measure, explained, “The bill doesn’t touch upon the human rights of the LGBT community. It deals purely with the direct propaganda among minors. Such propaganda is banned on the federal level and we as a regional body are only imposing sanctions. We are only talking about propaganda as this information about sexual deviations affects our children.”

Orthodox Christian leaders asked lawmakers to bar the dissemination of “gay propaganda” among minors explaining, “We do not collect signatures in order to [harm] them. If they want to be like this, let them live.” A regional governor said the ban would “serve for the good of public morals.”

The bill describes homosexual/transsexual propaganda as “able to harm the health, moral and spiritual development of minors, including [forming] misconceptions about the social equivalence of traditional and nontraditional marriage. ” Also illegal are actions or information that would normalize “intimate relationships between adults and minors.”

The U.S. and the UK criticized the bill when it was introduced last November. The Russian response was to increase the fines to ten times higher than before the U.S and the U.K. intervened. A Russian Foreign Ministry Commissioner defended the legislation, noting that it is designed to protect children.

Homosexual/transsexual activists plan to complain to the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Human Rights Watch Europe called the bill a “blatant attack on freedom of expression.”

Last week the ECHR convicted four people in Sweden of “hate speech” for distributing literature prodding high school students to question homosexual/transsexual propaganda taught in schools. The Court said the leaflets were offensive to homosexuals and thus not protected by the freedom of expression guaranteed in the European Convention of Human Rights.

A bill in Tennessee would limit instruction in elementary or middle school to “age-appropriate natural human reproduction science.” The sponsor explained, “homosexuals don’t naturally reproduce.”

Wendy Wright is Interim Executive Director of the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute, a New York and Washington DC-based research institute. Her article first appeared in the Friday Fax, an internet report published weekly by C-FAM and is republished here with permission.

Follow-Up News About Iranian Pastor Nadarkhani

According to more recent news sources, Pastor Nadarkhani’s death sentence was annulled on Sunday. The Iranian Supreme Court sent the case back to the pastor’s home town and asked the pastor to repent, meaning to renounce his Christian faith.

Christian and human right organizations believe Pastor Nadarkhani is still in danger of losing his life. Even his lawyer was arrested for working with the Centre for the Defence of Human Rights. (See articles by the Christian Post and the Christian Telegraph, and on FarsiNet).

Pastor Nadarkhani’s letter issued in October 2010. Click here to read.

How to help Pator Nadarkhani, visit the website Prisoner Alert.

Citing President’s Christian & Muslim Heritage, Rutherford Institute Calls on Obama to Intervene in Execution of Christian Pastor in Iran

John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, has called on President Obama to intervene in the impending execution of Youcef Nadarkhani, a Christian pastor in Iran who was convicted of apostasy. In a letter to President Obama, which was copied to the Iranian ambassador, members of Congress and other key dignitaries, Whitehead urged the president to demand that Iran abide by its obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its own Constitution, which provides that “no one may be molested or taken to task simply for holding a certain belief.”

The Rutherford Institute’s letter on behalf of Youcef Nadarkhani is available at www.rutherford.org.

“If citizens in Iran cannot depend upon the protections of the most basic human rights provided in their own Constitution, then we must offer them the solace of a watching world that is willing to intervene politically,” stated John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute.

“Surely we cannot stand silently by as this man of faith is martyred. Youcef’s imminent execution presents the United States with an opportunity, and, I submit, a duty, as a beacon of liberty, to interpose its influence and authority on behalf of such inalienable human rights as are inherently beyond legitimate government sanction.”

According to reports by the Assyrian International News Agency, Christian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani was convicted of apostasy after protesting the government’s decision to teach Christian schoolchildren–including Youcef’s own 8- and 6-year-old sons–about Islam. Over the course of the past two years Youcef has spent in prison, he has allegedly suffered various forms of inhumane and irregular punishment, including a denial of access to his attorney, the arrest of his wife, threats to place his two sons in the custody of Muslim families, and the administration of drugs in an attempt to force him to recant his religious faith. Youcef’s sentence to be executed by hanging was recently upheld by the Iranian Supreme Court. It is reported that the death sentence may be carried out at any given time without advance notice. Youcef will likely be ordered once again to recant his faith, and if he refuses, he will be executed immediately.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about the Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.