"In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.” Napoleon Bonaparte
March 4, 2015
By: Linda Case Gibbons
It’s tough to listen to the news nowadays.
One more of Obama’s speeches about not being at war with Islam. One more of Holder’s speeches about Ferguson.
And having to watch John Kerry as he bumbles his way through our foreign policy, continuing Obama’s apology tour in the guise of negotiating.
Now Hillary has come out of hibernation to defend another of her cover-ups, and, as true presidential material, to address urgent business. No, not to discuss her position on ISIS, beheadings or Iran, but to plug for Net Neutrality.
Missing e-mails, phony e-mail names, recovered e-mails, destroyed hard drives, phony racial tensions and "folks” being kept from the voting booth, this is what our news has become.
Unfortunately it’s not anything new. Scandal isn’t just the name of a popular TV show. And it’s not just Hillary. Not just Lois Lerner. And all the nameless folks at the IRS, the VA and the State Department.
Remember Lisa Jackson? She was an administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency in the Obama administration. She set the stage for the "Oops, I Did It Again” Obama policy that we’ve seen for the past six years.
Jackson preferred to do business by e-mails under the name Richard Windsor! We can only surmise why. And, in a weird little twist, "Windsor” took training classes and even won the "scholar of ethical behavior” award three years running!
Did Jackson get fired? No. Neither did the "folks” in the State Department under Hillary’s Benghazi tutelage, or Lois Lerner or other notables at the IRS.
No, now Jackson works as an administrator at HUD. I don’t know what her new e-mail name is.
It’s the Play Along to Get Along Plan. If you do it right, you live to play another day and usually get a promotion.
Gen. David Petraeus wasn’t as fortunate. He was charged with sharing classified information with his biographer and communicating information with her in his e-mails. This came on the heels of his changing his testimony on Benghazi, testimony which differed from the administration’s.
He bargained it down to a misdemeanor.
It’s frustrating for ordinary people. We have a preconceived notion about laws and elected officials doing their jobs, but things don’t work that way anymore. It’s more the China/Communist model. And it’s frightening, like a train out of control.
The scandals and executive orders come so fast and furious that the old scandals are swiftly replaced with new ones in our minds. It’s hard to keep track.
And the real news stories? They simply fall between the cracks. You need a score card to remember the unconstitutional executive orders that shocked, the hits taken by our Constitution and it looks like we’re losing that war.
Newswise here are a couple of gems you might have missed.
- Illegal immigrants can receive back Earned Income tax credits even though they didn’t pay any taxes;
- Churches in Lake Worth, Florida are being forced by the city council to get a business license to practice religion;
- Students in the University of California Irvine were keen on voting to ban the American flag, so as to make the school more "culturally inclusive” to foreign students;
- The good news was the president says,"You can keep your guns.” The bad news the president says, "We’re gonna’ ban the bullets.”
- And if you thought illegal immigrants are called "illegal immigrants” you’d be wrong. The administration has decided they should now to be called "Americans in Waiting.” It’s called "New Speak.”
If it makes you scream at your TV, "Tell the truth! Ask the question! Stop talking!” maybe you’d like to play a little game. It won’t get you anywhere, but it might be good for a few laughs.
I bet you have a slew of questions you’d like to ask your "leaders,” questions the mainstream media never has the nerve to ask. The kind of questions investigative reporters used to ask when there were reporters investigating.
So let’s make believe we are journalists that are actually journalists and make a Wish List of the questions we’re dying to ask the people whose salaries we pay. It’s okay. It’s only make believe.
PRESIDENT O: "Did you remember to add into your jobs numbers the guys who got their jobs back with al-Qaeda after they were released from Guantanamo?”
VEEP BIDEN: "Why are you so snuggly with the wives of guys getting sworn into office, Joe?”
SECRETARY JOHN KERRY: "You recently mocked Prime Minister Netanyahu’s foreign policy credentials and said his judgment is flawed, unlike your own, because of his support of the Iraq War. Didn’t you vote for the invasion of Iraq? And what are your foreign policy credentials?”
SEN. MENENDEZ (D-NJ): "Have you considered having a talk with Dinesh D’Souza and Catherine Engelbrecht regarding your recent troubles with the Department of Justice? You know. Just to see how it all works.”
PRESIDENT O: "What federal laws will you enforce?”
THE NEW YORK TIMES: "What’s the name of the guy in your paper that cropped the picture of the Anniversary March in Selma? I think he left out somebody important.”
HILLARY: "We know you’re fond of ‘self-policing,’ so while you’re doing that with the e-mails you wrote during the time you were secretary of state, on your personal server, can you check to see if there’s anything in there about where the president was those some-12 hours during the attack in Benghazi?”
HILLARY: As an attorney, did you know that the Federal Records Act is a law?”
HILLARY: As an attorney, did you know that a violation of the Federal Records Act is a violation?
PRESIDENT O: "Who was it that dubbed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address before Congress ‘controversial?’ Boy, that sure made him look bad!”
PRESIDENT O: "Speaking of Netanyahu, how many standing ovations have you gotten?”
MAYOR DE BLASIO: "Did you and President Obama ever consider chipping in for a couple of clock radios to wake you up on time so you can do the ‘important work of the people’? By the way, Mayor, happy St. Patrick’s Day.”
PRESIDENT O: "I’ve listened to your recent speeches and I’m confused. Were there any Chinese and Irish workers working on the construction of America’s Transcontinental Railroad or just Muslims?”
PRESIDENT O: "When you said you didn’t have time to listen to Netanyahu’s speech before Congress, I thought it was cool! It was like the teenager who doesn’t get invited to the prom and says, ‘The prom? It was on Saturday? Oh, I didn’t know.’ Do you think the prime minister got your message?”
HILLARY: "How are the reconstruction efforts going in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake there? I heard there were some money mismanagement problems, something to do with yours and Bill’s Foundation.”
AG HOLDER: "When you nationalize the state and local police forces, will the president issue an executive order to change the state police powers provision in the Constitution?”
PRESIDENT O: "When you are writing to your pen pal, Iran’s Ayatollah, what do you call him when he calls you ‘President of the Great Satan?’”
GOV. CUOMO: "We heard you are implementing a policy to wipe your e-mails clean every month. Did you get this idea from Hillary Clinton and did you get it after you cancelled the Moreland Committee that you set up to root out corruption in government?”
But even if we were able to get real answers. Even if we were able to hear more than, "I read it in the paper same as you did,” "I didn’t know,” and "What difference does it make?” we’re not investigative journalists and shouldn’t have to be.
And while our questions are important, the real question we should ask these people, John Kerry, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Boehner, et al, is "Whose side are you on?
Hold the line, America.