NPR’s Counter-terrorism "Expert" Reviews Richard Clarke’s new book “Sting of the Drones” and Reinforces NPR’s Ignorance of All Things National Security Related!

In the Sunday, 25 May 2014 Washington Post I had the “pleasure” of reading the book review of Richard Clarke’s new book “Sting of the Drones” reviewed by Dina Temple-Raston, NPR’s counter-terrorism correspondent who cites as her bona fides: “spending decades covering terrorism” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/book-review-sting-of-the-drone-by-richard-a-clarke/2014/05/23/83302ec8-d487-11e3-95d3-3bcd77cd4e11_story.html).

I believe this passage in the review tells you all you need to know about Dina and NPR’s knowledge of drones, counter-terrorism, and National Security in general: “the fictitious Creech Air Force base outside Las Vegas, where the drone pilots are based ….” This just reinforces the fact that using “NPR” and “Counter-terrorism expert” in the same sentence yields an oxymoron. I suspect the 3000+ service members stationed at the 2300 acre Creech AFB in Indian Springs, NV, would be surprised to learn they work at a “fictitious” base.

The fact that Dina doesn’t know about the existence of the base that hosts the 432d Air Expeditionary Wing, comprised of 2 groups with 6 Operational Squadrons and 3 Maintenance Squadrons of Unmanned Areal Vehicles (or drones) that fly both MQ-9 Reapers and MQ-1 Predators, is breathtaking. Not only is the base the home of the Joint Unmanned Aerial Systems Center of Excellence but it’s the location where UAV pilots and aircrews are trained and is even the location from which pilots coordination, direct and conduct combat sorties halfway across the world.

So much for establishing Dina’s (and NPR's) “terrorism bona fides!”

The Washington Post Again Awards President Obama Four Pinocchios, Its Highest Accolades for Lying, for his Incredibly Preposterous Statement About Republican Filibusters.

This morning the Washington Post Fact-Checker Glenn Kessler busted President Obama (again) for playing fast and loose with the truth for his “false facts on Republicans’ filibusters.” This is the statement that earned Obama Glenn’s highest award for lying, the coveted Four Pinocchios:

“Here’s what’s more disconcerting. Their [Republicans’] willingness to say ‘no’ to everything — the fact that since 2007 they have filibustered about 500 pieces of legislation that would help the middle class just gives you a sense of how opposed they are to any progress — has actually led to an increase in cynicism and discouragement among the people who were counting on us to fight for them.”

—President Obama, remarks at a DCCC dinner, May 7, 2014

This past week the President was in Los Angeles addressing a fund raiser of the only collection of idiots dumb enough to believe his ravings, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, where he made this claim so ridiculous that it had even some of the Hollywood crowd attending this dinner chocking on their rubber chicken: “Senate Republicans have filibustered 500 pieces of legislation that would help the middle class.”

Even the Washington Post (WaPo), certainly no bastion of Conservative thinking, couldn’t believe the president’s claim made any sense, no matter how he worked the numbers.

The WaPo went on to lay out these facts:

For the slow witted Democrats they began by providing the universally accepted definitions of filibuster and cloture: “A filibuster is an extended debate that delays a vote on a pending matter, while cloture is the device to end debate. Filibusters are used by opponents of a nominee or legislation, while cloture is filed by supporters.”

The WaPo pointed out that since 2007 (while Senator Obama was still a Senator I might add), there have been 527 cloture motions filed which is probably where Obama got his “about 500” figure but most of those cloture motions were dropped, never voted on, or in senatorial vernacular “vitiated.” To support his lie, Obama counted every cloture motion as a filibuster but in fact since 2007, there have only been just 133 successful filibusters where a final vote could not take place. Even this 133 number is misleading because Obama referred to “legislation” in his 7 May statement while most of these cloture motions involved judicial and executive branch nominations. In the 113th Congress, 83 of the 136 cloture motions so far have involved nominations, not legislation. Even Obama would be hard pressed to explain how any of these confirmation cloture votes were aimed at “legislation that would help the middle class.”

Another major flaw in Obama’s “500 pieces of legislation” calculation is the same bill can be subject to as many as three cloture motions, further inflating his numbers. On a single bill there could be cloture on the bill, cloture on a substitute bill (when a lawmakers is using an unrelated bill as a vehicle for passage), and cloture on the underlying bill -- all these votes taking place close together – but for Obama that would be three filibusters. So far in the 113th Congress, 36 pieces of legislation were subject to a cloture motion — and 12 actually were filibustered. That isn’t even close to the 136 that Obama counts to get to his 500 number.

Obama also includes at least a half-dozen times when Democrats used a filibuster to block Republican initiatives. Further, Obama reached back to 2007 in making his claim which includes two years when he was still a senator and on eight occasions he voted against ending debate and extending the filibuster, the very thing he’s condemning Republicans for doing.

Thankfully, Obama is not counting as filibusters against Republicans the favorite tactic of Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid’s (D-NV.) where he extracts a unanimous consent agreement of a 60-vote threshold for passage to even allow a Republican-backed piece of legislation to come up for a vote. The WaPo found this to be the Democrats equivalent of a threatened filibuster and just last week Reid demanded a 60-vote threshold agreement to even allow a vote to come up on an energy-efficiency bill that included approval of the XL Pipeline. This negotiated 60-vote threshold is the Democrats method of avoiding the lengthy mechanics of the cloture process, but still thwarts a simple majority rule so is the equivalent of a filibuster.

When the WaPo confronted Obama’s White House about their “filibuster lie,” they couldn’t defend it so declined to provide an on-the-record response.

After unanimously winning the 2013 “Lie-of-the-Year” honors from almost all the major news organizations for his “if you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance; if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” whopper, Obama grabs another Four Pinocchio and “Lie-of-the-Week” honors for this Republican Filibuster doozey.

The WaPo found Obama’s statement to be ridiculous on just about every level. The WaPo noted he had served in the Senate so should be familiar with its terms and procedures and should know the definitions of “filibuster,” “cloture” and “legislation.” Hence, he might have been able to make a case that Republicans have blocked about 50 bills he supported but instead contorted the numbers to such an extent that he even blamed Republicans for filibuster votes he made as a senator.

This is what earned President Obama his Four Pinocchios but don’t take my word for it, here is the actual article as it appeared in the WaPo Sunday, 11 May 2014 edition.

A_COL's Academy Award Predictions .... and the Oscar goes to:

THE PUBLIC HAS ALREADY VOTED WITH THEIR WALLETS!

I truly appreciate the critics picking best movie of the year and winners in all the other categories but in the ONLY category that really counts – MONEY MADE - appears Gravity wins hands down and by a wide margin bettering the next nearest competitor, Wolf of Wall Street, by over two to one.

When it comes to picking movies, I normally "trust the mob" so here is how the movie going and paying public ranked this year’s movies:

Rank, Movie, Box Receipts
1 Gravity $972M
2 Wolf of Wall Street $450M
3 American Hustle $360M
4 Captain Phillips $324M
5 12 Years a Slave $117M
6 Philomena $114M
7 Dallas Buyers Club $54M
8 Her $32M
9 Nebraska $16M

No contest; ….and the winner is, bank statement Please: GRAVITY

2013 District of Columbia Homicide Rate Once Again Inches Out Maryland But Far Out Paces Virginia!

Each New Years Day I anxiously await the Washington Post article exposing the homicide stats for the District of Columbia, our Nation’s Capital, and the surrounding suburbs. For some reason and unlike past years, this year the article was relegated to the Metro Section rather than the Front Page but the full article by Peter Hermann and Lynh Bui “Get in the Street and Hear Our Pain” is available at this link.

Like past years, the WaPo curiously makes no attempt to compare the rates among the various jurisdictions but even a cursory analysis of the stats in the article might reveal a motive for why the Liberal WaPo NEVER attempts any analysis; could it be because it would clearly demonstrate the dramatically inverse relationship between homicide rates and restrictions on gun ownership.

My detailed analysis of the 2012 stats can be found here on my Blog at: http://old-soldier-colonel.blogspot.com/2013/01/district-of-columbia-homicide-rate-has.html but here is the detailed math for the 2013 numbers using the most recent population figures from the US Census Bureau and the Stats in the article:

DC population = 632,323
2013 Homicides = 104 (*Corrected from 103 in WaPo 3 Jan 14)
2013 Homicide Rate = 16.45 / 100,000 people.

Maryland DC-suburbs of Montgomery & Prince George’s Counties
Population = 1,885,847 (Montgomery = 1,004,709; PG = 881,138)
2013 Homicides = 66
2013 Homicide Rate = 3.50 / 100,000.

Virginia suburbs of Alexandria City, and Arlington and Fairfax Counties
Population = 1,485,941 (Alexandria = 146,294, Arlington = 221,045, Fairfax = 1,118,602)
2013 Homicides = 14 homicides
2013 Homicide Rate = .94 / 100,000.

This reveals that a person would be fortunate to live in Virginia where gun ownership is almost unrestricted because a DC resident, where guns are still almost impossible to own, is 17.5 times more likely to be a homicide victim then us Gun Tottin Virginians (16.45/.94 = 17.50). Even a Marylander, with moderately strict gun laws, was 4.7 times less likely to be a homicide victim than a DC resident (16.45/3.5 = 4.70). Much better than DC but a Marylander is still more than 3.7 times more likely to be a homicide victim than one of us Virginia Gun Totters! (3.50/.94 = 3.72)

Now I’m not opposed to registration and some reasonable limits on ownership such as terrorists, ex-cons and the mentally unstable but there should be no restrictions on ownership by average citizens – anywhere in the US. There is a “God-given” right of self protection, especially in one’s own home, and a gun is the only way to exercise that right. If you don’t believe me, just ask any Bostonian who was subject to the “hide in your home” order during the Boston Marathon Bomber manhunt this April. One has to go no further than right here in our own DC-area backyard to clearly demonstrate that contrary to liberal rhetoric, it is an “inconvenient truth” that “guns actually do make us safer.” Case in point, Virginia has by far the laxest gun laws and the least gun violence of any of the surrounding jurisdictions. Additionally, the DC homicide rate only began declining after the Supreme Court ordered the loosing of DC gun ownership laws in 2008. Is the fact that DC’s drop coincided with this landmark court decision coincidence or might there be a cause-effect relationship? Could it be criminals are not so anxious to attack law-abiding citizens if they might be "packing heat?"

The obvious message in these statistics - guns make us more and not less safe!

Here are a few other inconvenient FACTS I’ve mentioned in my previous articles:

In any given year in this country there is one child drowning death for every 11,000 residential swimming pools or 550 children under the age of 10 drown every year in our 6 million pools. Meanwhile there is one child killed by a gun for every one million (plus) guns in this country or with about 200 million guns, approximately 175 children under 10 die. This means a child is over 100 times more likely to drown in a pool than be killed by a gun. Hence, banning residential pools is a much more effective way of protecting children than banning fire arms.

In Switzerland, every male adult is issued an assault weapon for militia duty and required to keep it in his home. As a result, Switzerland has the highest per capita rate of guns in homes in the entire World yet is one of the safest places to live. Fire arm deaths in Switzerland is .56/100,000. Compare that to the United States where Assault Weapons are heavily regulated and automatic ones are outlawed and our rate of fire arm deaths is 2.97/100,000 per year. That means an American is 5.3 times more likely to be killed by a gun in the United States than someone in Switzerland where everyone and their brother has an automatic assault weapon. Go figure!

Remembering President Kennedy - 50 Years After His Assassination!

Back on 21 January 2011, on the fiftieth anniversary of his inauguration, I published my Blog article: Remembering President Kennedy - 50 Years Later! where I praised him for his courage to stand up to Communist aggression in Vietnam which in retrospect arguably saved all of Southeast Asia from falling under Communist domination. Here on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of his assassination I feel compelled to update and repost that article.

As a retired Army Colonel who was drafted into Secretary McNamara’s Army, commissioned out of OCS and had the privilege of serving an extended CIB earning Vietnam tour arriving as a new second lieutenant and coming home a seasoned captain, I don’t believe President Kennedy is given sufficient credit for his committed bi-partisan, anti-communist foreign policy and his principled defense of South Vietnam. By sending in U.S. Combat Forces and actually creating the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) on 8 Feb 1962 (as everyone that fought in Vietnam knows, MACV was the US Command that prosecuted the war right up until the end), President Kennedy provided most of the rest of Southeast Asia, and particularly Thailand, the “breathing room” to resist total Communist dominance.

President Kennedy was totally committed to stopping communist expansion and knew not acting decisively in Vietnam by committing US troops would fatally damage U.S. credibility with our allies. As Kennedy so eloquently stated "Now we have a problem in making our power credible... and Vietnam looks like the place.” He went on to reaffirmed his commitment to defend South Vietnam in his 11 May National Security Action Memorandum 52, which became known as "The Presidential Program for Vietnam." Its opening statement reads: “U.S. objectives and concept of operations [are] to prevent communist domination of South Vietnam; to create in that country a viable and increasingly democratic society, and to initiate, on an accelerated basis, a series of mutually supporting actions of a military, political, economic, psychological, and covert character designed to achieve this objective.”

Although initially totally supportive of the Vietnam Catholic minority administration of President Ngô Đình Diệm, the Kennedy administration grew increasingly frustrated with Diệm because his crackdown against protesting Buddhist monks that sparked a Buddhist Revolt where several monks committed self-immolation covered by the world press. Hence, on 1 Nov 1963, with the tacit approval of the Kennedy administration, Vietnamese military officers launch a coup d'état against Diem and on the next day he was assassinated. President Kennedy knew to be successful there needed to be a change in Vietnamese leadership and he was not afraid to make it. By the time President Kennedy was himself assassinated he had established the MACV Command and had 25,000 troops in country with plans for a significant escalation. Although President Johnson presided over the troop increases, he was following the Kennedy blueprint so President Kennedy is due the lion’s share of the credit for saving most of Southeast Asia from Communist domination.

As a student of the Vietnam War who strongly believes holding the line there until the mid 1970s (ground troops left in 1972 and Congress withdrew support allowing the South Vietnamese Government to fall in 1975) actually stemmed the tide of Communist aggression in Southeast Asia, I believe the contributions of President are often overlooked.

Much of the reason for President Kennedy not getting the credit he deserves is due to the works of some misguided liberal Kennedy biographers, most notably Theodore White and Ted Sorensen (neither of whom ever served in the Military although of prime draft aged during US conflicts). In their attempts to revise history after much of their Democrat liberal base turned against the Vietnam War, and without any basis for their assertion, they promulgate the false myth that if Kennedy had lived he would have withdrawn U.S. Forces in his second term and spared the country the agony of Vietnam.

Although no one could ever knows for sure Kennedy’s intentions for Vietnam during a second term, the best indication of his thinking on the subject was provided by the person in the best position to know, his brother Robert. In an interview some five months after JFK’s death, Robert Kennedy (RFK) told an oral-history interviewer that his brother “had a strong, overwhelming reason for being in Vietnam and that we should win the war in Vietnam.” Here was part of that exchange:

Interviewer: “There was never any consideration given to pulling out?”


RFK: “No.”


Interviewer: “. . . the president was convinced that we had to keep, had to stay in there  . . .”

RFK: “Yes.”

Interviewer: “. . . And couldn’t lose it.”

RFK: “Yes.”

President Kennedy himself telegraphed his Vietnam intentions even more strongly during his 12 September 1963 press conferences, just two months before his assassination. Responding to a question about Vietnam, he said his policy was: “to win the war there ….That is why some 25,000 Americans have traveled 10,000 miles to participate in that struggle…we are not there to see a war lost.”

From the beginning President Kennedy’s commitment to Vietnam never waivered and remained consistent. Even way back in a 1956 speech Senator Kennedy called Vietnam “the keystone to the arch, the finger in the dike,” adding: “This is our offspring — we cannot abandon it.”

The fact that President Kennedy established MACV and introduced combat troops into South Vietnam in sizable numbers providing the “breathing room” that kept most of Southeast Asia free should be a proud part of the proud Kennedy legacy and I am honored to have been one who was inspired to answer the President’s call “to ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.”

Gibson to Deputy VA Secretary and Rooney as Navy Under Secretary - President Appoints Two More Incompetents!

Slone Gibson as VA Deputy Secretary and Jo Ann Rooney as Navy Under Secretary, just what we need to “help” and “lead” our troops after we’ve been engaged in protracted combat for the past 12 years. A ’75 West Pointer that bailed at his first opportunity without ever even serving in a combat zone let alone hearing a shot fired in anger, Slone will have the requisite detachment to continue the VA’s absolute indifference towards Vets. As for Jo Ann, I’m sure her previous 9 month stent (11-12) starting at the top as the Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel & Readiness (before which she had never even heard of DOD) along with her years of experience as a college president, tax lawyer and managing director at scandal-ridden Huron (a company akin to Romney’s Bain Capital but with a real “history”) make her well suited to be Under Secretary of the Navy. Thanks Mr. President

WASHINGTON POST FACT CHECKER AWARDS OBAMA, CARNEY & REID EACH 4 PINOCCHIOS FOR SEQUESTER WHOPPERS

PRESIDENT OBAMA, SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY “My Invisible Friend Told Me” REID & WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY JAY “the Clown” CARNEY TIED WITH 4 PINOCCHIOS FOR SEQUESTER WHOPPERS!

When it comes to the Sequestration Whoppers Sweepstakes, it appears Senate Majority Leader Harry “My Invisible Friend Told Me” Reid just pulled into a dead heat with President Obama and White House Press Secretary Jay “the Clown” Carney when the Washington Post Fact Checker awarded him FOUR (4) PINOCCHIOS for his 31 July 13 World-class prevarication about sequestration already cutting 1.6 million jobs. Seems that in the Democrat “Crying Wolf” competition, every speaker tries to “out exaggerate” a previous one when it comes to the impact of sequestration. Unfortunately for them, we’re about 6 months into Sequestration and “the sky has not fallen”, airports and airplanes are still operating, and the government is still operating relatively normally (with the exception of the IRS I suppose.)

But it was actually President Obama that kicked off the Whopper competition when he uttered something so outlandish that even the Fact Checker was flabbergasted (See Below Graphic #1 - entire WaPo Obama Whopper article):

“Starting tomorrow everybody here, all the folks who are cleaning the floors at the Capitol. Now that Congress has left, somebody’s going to be vacuuming and cleaning those floors and throwing out the garbage. They’re going to have less pay. The janitors, the security guards, they just got a pay cut, and they’ve got to figure out how to manage that. That’s real.”
President Obama, news conference, March 1, 2013

Now this one was so absurd that the three people in charge of all the Capitol janitorial staff, Stephen T. Ayers, the Architect of the Capitol; Carlos Elias, the Superintendent of the Capitol Building; and Terry Gainer, the Senate Sergeant at Arms; all immediately issued statements contradicting the President to calm their workforce by assuring them that there would be NO pay cuts or furloughing for any of their staffs.

Once the President quickly earned his Four Pinocchios and especially after senior officials at the Architect of the Capitol (AOC), the federal agency that employ janitors on the House side, and the office of the Sergeant at Arms (SAA), which employs janitors on the Senate side, issued statements saying the president’s comments were NOT TRUE, Jay Carney and his White House Press Staff then went into “full damage control” mode and began issuing “clarification” but as each one was exposed as false by the Fact Checker, their narrative continually changed. Still, the White House kept up its spin offensive, finally claiming that there would be a cut in “overtime” and that was a de facto pay cut and thus the president was right — or at least not wrong – which turned out to be wrong also. Then again, I wouldn’t believe Carney “under oath.”  Here is some of how they began to “spin the story” which continually changed as they were caught in one lie after another (See Below Graphic #2 - entire WaPo Press Office Whopper article):

“On the issue of the janitors, if you work for an hourly wage and you earn overtime, and you depend on that overtime to make ends meet, it is simply a fact that a reduction in overtime is a reduction in your pay.” 
— White House spokesman Jay Carney, news briefing, March 4 

And

“You know, those Capitol janitors will not get as much overtime. I’m sure they think less pay, that they’re taking home, does hurt.”
— Gene Sperling, director of the White House economic council, on ABC News’ “This Week,” March 3, 2013

Then when the Fact Checker pointed out that the janitorial staff clocked almost NO overtime the story changed again saying they were talking about the contract janitors. Again, the Fact Checker pointed out that almost all the janitorial staff was Government employees and for the few janitors that were contractors, it would be more costly to cancel contracts than to allow them to continue working.

Realizing they had been caught lying, the White House PR Crowd finally just quite responding and here is how the Fact Checker summed up the fiasco: “… a clean-up brigade shouldn’t simply try to deflect and obfuscate. Apparently, the president assumed — incorrectly — that the janitors on Capitol Hill would get a pay cut. Rather than admit an error, White House aides doubled down on their talking points about overtime being essential to their livelihood, without actually knowing the truth.”

And finally, here is what Senate Majority Leader Harry “My Invisible Friend told Me” Reid (D-NV) chimed in with that scored him his FOUR PINOCCHIOS, enough to pull into a virtual tie with the President and his Chief flake Carney (See Below Graphic #3 - entire WaPo Harry Reid Whopper article):
:
“We have learned that the sequestration already has cut 1.6 million jobs. So we need job creation. We need to help the middle class by creating jobs.”

— Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), floor speech, July 31, 2013


And here is how the WaPo Fact Checker characterized Reid’s Whopper which he must have gotten from his same Invisible Friend” that told him about Mitt Romney not paying any Federal Income Tax.  This one was so bad his own staff would even defend it -- they just quit answering his Senate office phones!

“While the dust has not settled on the impact of the sequester on employment this year, the available evidence shows that Reid’s claim that 1.6 million jobs already have been cut this year appears wildly off course.”


This has just been the Reader’s Digest version which doesn’t do justice to the full story so I’ve included all three full Washington Post Fact Checker articles below.

Graphic #1 - President Obama

Graphic #2 - Carney & His White House Press Office Crowd

Graphic #3 - What Harry Reid's Invisible Friend (Harvey) Told Him