This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: “The Floggings Will Continue Until Morale Improves”

  • Same Old Song and Dance – Part III

    Remember Benghazi?  You know, that little incident in North Africa that left a US Ambassador and three others dead?  The one that the current Administration tried initially to blame on an “inflammatory Internet video” that nobody had ever heard of?  The incident about which someone famously later asked, “At this point, what difference does it make?”

    Well, the House Select Committee on Benghazi has finally released its report on Benghazi.  And here’s the “money quote”:

    “None of the information coming directly from the agents on the ground in Benghazi during the attacks mentioned anything about a video or a protest. The firsthand accounts made their way to the office of the Secretary through multiple channels quickly . . . ,” the report concluded.

    That’s not all.  Apparently the SECSTATE e-mailed her daughter that the attack was due to an “al Quaeda-like (sic) group”.  So yeah – she knew “up front” that Benghazi wasn’t about any damn film.

    However, the beginning of the “spin campaign” regarding Benghazi started that very evening.  A White House meeting held that day – roughly 3 hours after the attack – focused on tying the attack to the famous video blamed for it.  Fully half (5 of 10) of the action items from that meeting referenced the video alleged later to have spurred the attack.

    Now that seems kinda strange to me, considering that no one on site mentioned a protest or a video in their SITREPs.  You’d think they’d have mentioned something like that – if it occurred.

    In fact, it almost looks like they were already looking for an excuse to blame the film for something – and Benghazi provided the excuse.  But maybe that’s just me.

    And yeah – the SECSTATE was at that meeting.

    Fox News has a good article giving more details concerning the report.  IMO It’s worth a read.

    Or, if you like, you can read the House Select Committee Report here.

    Yep – your leg’s wet.  And regarding Benghazi, it’s been wet since 2012.

  • Same Old Song and Dance

    Well, for the     gang of fools in DC     current Administration, this is . . . inconvenient.

    Remember the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting?  You know, the incident where an adherent of Islam became radicalized, was investigated twice by the FBI for potential ties to terrorism, pledged his allegiance to Daesh, and shot up an Orlando nightclub frequented by the LGBT crowd – killing 49 and injuring 53?

    You know, that obvious terrorist attack that the Administration has insisted on investigating as a possible “hate crime”?  Because a number of people claimed the shooter had frequented gay clubs and inquired about gay dating apps?

    Well, it seems that those pesky things called facts are looking a bit “inconvenient” regarding the Administration’s      blatant propaganda and “spin”      thesis that this may have been a hate crime vice terrorism.  Per officials familiar with the investigation, the FBI has found no hard evidence supporting that thesis.  Specifically, they can’t seem to corroborate the accounts concerning the shooter that might lead one to believe he may have been gay or bi.

    Still, the investigation into the shooter’s possible sexual orientation continues.  And last week, in an interview the US Attorney General declined to rule out the possibility that the shooter was secretly gay – but that investigators are still trying to determine why the shooter picked a gay nightclub.

    Hmm.  Daesh has been targeting gays for death for the past 2 years.  The shooter chose a gay night club during a special event (when it would be more crowded than usual) as his target.  Daesh is a radical Islamic terrorist organization.  The shooter pledged his allegiance to Daesh, and was a radicalized Muslim.  And he committed a suicide attack.

    I’m not LE.  But I think maybe I’m seeing a pattern here that rather clearly supports one conclusion regarding the shooter’s motive.

    Or, to phrase it differently:  looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, smells like a duck.  Damn, ya think maybe it might be a duck and not a squirrel?

    Fox News has an article this morning giving more details.  It’s worth a read.

    Yeah, it looks like our legs are wet yet again.  And it’s not raining.

  • “Follow the Money.”

    We’ve all heard rumors of Clintoon’s . . . interesting financial dealings.  And we’ve heard rumors that her campaign has received money from overseas donors who aren’t US expatriates – which would in general be against US election laws.

    Well, how much are we talking about?  Glad you asked.

    According to Zero Hedge, maybe 20% of her campaign funds – from that liberal democracy called “Saudi Arabia” alone, according to the Saudi Crown Prince.   And that doesn’t include possible other foreign “donations”.

    Well, what about while she was SECSTATE?  Did the Clintoon Foundation receive any foreign donations then that might be questionable during that time frame?

    Glad you asked about that, too.  It seems that the Clintoon Foundation has recently revised its Federal income tax filings for the period 2010 to 2013 three times – with two of those revisions occurring within the past 8 months.

    The last revision was in January of this year.  And it included a curious addition:  a new line of text stating that “All other government grants came from foreign governments.”

    The text appears on each of the 4 years Federal tax returns.  The amount apparently referenced by that line?  Oh, a mere pittance – “only” $17.7M per year.

    Interestingly, while the Clintoon Foundation’s tax filings were updated in January to show the above foreign donations, the Clintoon Foundation website still doesn’t reflect that fact.  Go figure.

    Yeah, nothing to see here, folks.  Just more      apparently corrupt wheeling and dealing        business as usual for the Clintoons.

    Now, maybe I’m just unduly suspicious.  But to me, it certainly sounds like either “pay for play” or “payment for services rendered”.  And I’d love to hear the Clintoon’s explanation regarding the Saudi Crown Prince’s claims.

    Still:  the money is good.  Nice work if you can stomach it I guess.

  • Yet More ObamaPhone “Good News”

    I’ve written previously about the “Lifeline” program, AKA “ObamaPhones”.   Short version:  the program today is poorly conceived, badly run, and rife with fraud.  You can see my previous articles about it here and here.

    Well, here’s some more news about Lifeline.  And as before – if you pay taxes or pay for your own phone service – and thus pay for stupid crap like this – the recent news concerning the program kinda . . . sucks.

    For those who might not be familiar:  “Lifeline” provides subsidies so that “low income” households can have a phone for emergency essential communications.  The program is theoretically limited to one phone per “independent economic household (IEH)”.

    When the program was landline-only, that was fairly easy to enforce.  Then in 2005, cell phones were allowed under the program.

    Now, Stevie Wonder could have seen that was a bad idea from a fraud perspective.  But the program was changed to allow cells anyway.

    Theoretically, Lifeline enrollees are still required to give a valid address.  Also theoretically, multiple enrollments at the same address are a “no go”.  Except . . . they’re not, really.

    You see, telecom companies are allowed to “override” the IEH (e.g., one subscriber per address) requirement.  The override is designed to be used for places like homeless shelters, where conceivably multiple persons who qualify might reside.

    However, recent reporting from telecom companies participating in indicates that over 1/3 of Lifeline subscribers last year used this “override” – e.g., a second (or third/fourth/fifth/whatever) line at an address already having a Lifeline subscriber.  And there’s no telling how many more covert fraudulent ones were issued (multiple subscribers in one household, but not all using their actual residence address on their application).

    There is no way in hell all of those overrides were legit.  I’d be surprised if even 2% of them were.

    It gets even better.  In one company’s case – Total Call Mobile – 99.8% of their Lifeline subscribers were approved using the override (the overall average was 35+%).  Yeah, Total Call Mobile is the same company that recently got fined $51M by the FCC for program violations – and as I noted here, likely still came out nearly $40M ahead on the deal.  Nice gig if you can stomach the work, I guess.

    Further, employees at Total Call Mobile said they learned how to do that from employees at other companies participating in the program.  So some of the other Lifeline providers are doubtless doing the same, albeit certainly not on the same scale.

    The aggregate cost of this apparent fraud to taxpayers?  Try around $476M annually – or nearly half a billion dollars.  And that’s likely a low estimate.

    The Washington Examiner and Washington Free Beacon each have recent articles describing this latest Obamaphone fishiness.  They’re worthwhile reading, even if they might turn your stomach.

    We need to make major changes to this fraud-filled abomination of a Federal program.  IMO it needs to go back to landline-only – pronto.

  • Just Another Refugee Making A Living In the USA

    Just Another Refugee Making A Living In the USA

    Yusuf Abdi Ali
    Isn’t it great?  We have a wonderful  story today from the DC Metro area.

    It’s a story of a man fleeing chaos in Somalia.  He moved to America decades ago, around the time that Somalia descended into chaos.  He’s now a lawful permanent resident.  He’s made a wonderful life for himself here in America.

    In fact, he’s been working as a security guard at a DC area airport for several years – Dulles, to be precise.  If you’ve flown in/out of Dulles in the past few years, there’s at least a small chance you’ve seen him inside the security perimeter at that airport.

    Sounds nice, doesn’t it?  Heartwarming, even.

    Until you find out that the man involved – Yusuf Abdi Ali – is a former official of the brutal Mohamed Siad Barre regime in Somalia.  He was named in 2006 as a defendant in a lawsuit alleging serious human rights violations – specifically, of overseeing torture, as well as personally conducting it.  The acts Ali has been accused of committing may well qualify as war crimes under both US and international law.

    And it gets even better.  Apparently the US government has been aware of the allegations against Ali for “years”.  However, per his employer somehow Ali passed all required security background checks to work at Dulles.  He was only recently suspended from duties and placed on administrative leave.

    Fox News has an article giving more details.  IMO it’s worth reading.

    But don’t worry.  We’ve got a good handle on refugee vetting, and on controlling who is allowed entry into the USA!

  • More “Good News” for Ms. Clintoon

    We now have a couple more news items related to the Clintoon email scandal.  And as usual, for “the ‘Wonder Woman’ of Benghazi” (e.g., you wonder what in the hell she’s been smoking every time she talks about Benghazi), the news isn’t at all good.

    First:  it seems the State Department IG will shortly release its investigative report concerning the Clintoon email issue.  It says that Clintoon (1) knowingly disregarded DoS email policy while serving as SECSTATE by using a private email server for public business without proper authority; (2) that her private email server was effectively unsecured and was attacked on at least one occasion; and (3) failed to turn over official records to the government as required by law on departing office.

    In short, it says pretty much exactly what I’ve been saying here previously – less the potential criminal aspect of the conduct.  However, there’s a good reason the State Department didn’t cover that part.  That aspect is doubtless being examined in detail as part of the FBI’s ongoing and parallel investigation into the same issue.

    But don’t take my – or the media’s – word for it.  Read the DoS IG report for yourself here.

    Second:  in a separate but related matter, the hacker “Guccifer” pleaded guilty in Federal court the other day to two counts of computer crime.  This is the same guy who claimed that he’d broken into Clintoon’s effectively unsecured email server – the same server later determined to have stored over 2,000 classified items, some at the TS/SAP and/or TS/compartmented level.

    This also isn’t exactly good news for Ms. Clintoon.  Why?  Because apparently Guccifer made a plea deal which requires him to cooperate with Federal LE authorities concerning his hacking activities.  I’m guessing that hearing about that deal did not exactly “make her (Clintoon’s) day”.

    Hmm.  Wonder how Ms. Clintoon looks in black & white stripes?  Or an international orange jumpsuit?

  • Read ‘Em and Weep

    Isn’t it great that the world is so safe and peaceful these days?

    Army has fewest active-duty soldiers since 1940, report says

    I hope the sarcasm in the intro above was obvious.  Gee thanks, Mr. President.

  • And In the “YGBSM!” Department . . . .

    . . . these headlines say it all.

    DOJ to nix ‘felon,’ ‘convict’ terms deemed stigmatizing

    and

    Cops cancel ‘insensitive’ Cinco de Mayo checkpoints

    Geez.  GMAFB.