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Bill USA
Bill USA's Journal
Bill USA's Journal
May 18, 2013
Things your GOP toady of M$M won't tell you: GOP Busted Altering Benghazi Emails released by WH
... for those who just might have missed this important post over on Vid & Multimedia:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1017&pid=119438
I should point out that CBS News ... did report on this on their evening news broadcast, http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57584947/wh-benghazi-emails-have-different-quotes-than-earlier-reported/
Let their be high praise for CBS News in reporting news the GOP won't like. Initially, I thought CBS just reported this on their web-site only, but it appears it was part of their network broadcast.
May 17, 2013
CAIRO — In the month before attackers stormed U.S. facilities in Benghazi and killed four Americans, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens twice turned down offers of security assistance made by the senior U.S. military official in the region in response to concerns that Stevens had raised in a still secret memorandum, two government officials told McClatchy.
Why Stevens, who died of smoke inhalation in the first of two attacks that took place late Sept. 11 and early Sept. 12, 2012, would turn down the offers remains unclear. The deteriorating security situation in Benghazi had been the subject of a meeting that embassy officials held Aug. 15, where they concluded they could not defend the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi. The next day, the embassy drafted a cable outlining the dire circumstances and saying it would spell out what it needed in a separate cable.
“In light of the uncertain security environment, US Mission Benghazi will submit specific requests to US Embassy Tripoli for additional physical security upgrades and staffing needs by separate cover,” said the cable, which was first reported by Fox News.
Army Gen. Carter Ham, then the head of the U.S. Africa Command, did not wait for the separate cable, however. Instead, after reading the Aug. 16 cable, Ham phoned Stevens and asked if the embassy needed a special security team from the U.S. military. Stevens told Ham it did not, the officials said.
(more)
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/14/191235/amb-stevens-twice-said-no-to-military.html#.UZTNYu2fM98#storylink=cpy
McClatchy: Ambassador Stevens twice said no to military offers of more security, U.S. officials say
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/14/191235/amb-stevens-twice-said-no-to-military.html#.UZadQBjD-mxCAIRO — In the month before attackers stormed U.S. facilities in Benghazi and killed four Americans, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens twice turned down offers of security assistance made by the senior U.S. military official in the region in response to concerns that Stevens had raised in a still secret memorandum, two government officials told McClatchy.
Why Stevens, who died of smoke inhalation in the first of two attacks that took place late Sept. 11 and early Sept. 12, 2012, would turn down the offers remains unclear. The deteriorating security situation in Benghazi had been the subject of a meeting that embassy officials held Aug. 15, where they concluded they could not defend the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi. The next day, the embassy drafted a cable outlining the dire circumstances and saying it would spell out what it needed in a separate cable.
“In light of the uncertain security environment, US Mission Benghazi will submit specific requests to US Embassy Tripoli for additional physical security upgrades and staffing needs by separate cover,” said the cable, which was first reported by Fox News.
Army Gen. Carter Ham, then the head of the U.S. Africa Command, did not wait for the separate cable, however. Instead, after reading the Aug. 16 cable, Ham phoned Stevens and asked if the embassy needed a special security team from the U.S. military. Stevens told Ham it did not, the officials said.
(more)
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/14/191235/amb-stevens-twice-said-no-to-military.html#.UZTNYu2fM98#storylink=cpy
May 17, 2013
National Security Brief: Benghazi Review Board Co-Chairs Ask GOP To Testify In Public
By ThinkProgress on May 16, 2013 at 9:08 am
The co-chairs of the independent review board tasked with investigating the Obama administration’s response to the Benghazi terror attacks last year are asking House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) for a chance to testify in public.
Issa and former review board co-chairs Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen have been engaged in a recent back and forth over whether Issa invited them to testify at his hearing on Benghazi last week. Pickering and Mullen said they’d be willing to testify but Issa refused their participation. Issa has also challenged the credibility of the review board’s findings, which blame State Department officials for lack of diplomatic security in Benghazi last September.
~~
~~
[font size=3"]Meanwhile, McClatchy reports that in the month before the Benghazi attacks, Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in assault, “twice turned down offers of security assistance made by the senior U.S. military official in the region in response to concerns that Stevens had raised in a still secret memorandum.” [/font]
Benghazi Review Board Co-Chairs Ask GOP To Testify In Public - Issa wants "closed doors" testimony
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/05/16/2020371/national-security-brief-pickering-mullen-issa/National Security Brief: Benghazi Review Board Co-Chairs Ask GOP To Testify In Public
By ThinkProgress on May 16, 2013 at 9:08 am
The co-chairs of the independent review board tasked with investigating the Obama administration’s response to the Benghazi terror attacks last year are asking House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) for a chance to testify in public.
Issa and former review board co-chairs Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen have been engaged in a recent back and forth over whether Issa invited them to testify at his hearing on Benghazi last week. Pickering and Mullen said they’d be willing to testify but Issa refused their participation. Issa has also challenged the credibility of the review board’s findings, which blame State Department officials for lack of diplomatic security in Benghazi last September.
~~
~~
“Recently, you seem to have changed your position on the terms of our appearance, apparently asking for a transcribed interview behind closed doors,” Pickering and Mullen wrote in a letter to Issa, which was obtained by CNN. “In our view, requiring such a closed-door proceeding before we testify publicly is an inappropriate precondition.
“Having taken liberal license to call into question the Board’s work, it is surprising that you now maintain that members of the committee need a closed-door proceeding before being able to ask informed questions’ at a public hearing,” they said. “The public deserves to hear your questions and our answers.”
[font size=3"]Meanwhile, McClatchy reports that in the month before the Benghazi attacks, Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in assault, “twice turned down offers of security assistance made by the senior U.S. military official in the region in response to concerns that Stevens had raised in a still secret memorandum.” [/font]
May 17, 2013
Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said Thursday night that he’s come to the realization that the rationale behind the court’s Bush v. Gore decision that effectively decided the 2000 presidential election “was really quite unacceptable” because it differentiated between so-called “hanging chads” and “dimpled chads.” That distinction, he told a gala event for the liberal watchdog group Public Citizen in Washington, “violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.” All votes should have been considered the same way, he explained.
Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor recently expressed regret that the court had taken up the case at all, and Stevens said he was “pleased to hear” about O’Connor’s shift. The liberal Stevens wrote the dissent in that case.
Stevens, who retired in 2010 and is now 93, was introduced as a “rock star” at the event and received applause for holding the record for the most dissents written by a single justice — a whopping 720. Excerpts from his stinging objection to the Citizens United decision were displayed on large posters around the room.
Stephens: Rationale for Bush v. Gore was “unacceptable”
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/17/stevens_rationale_for_bush_v_gore_was_unacceptable/Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said Thursday night that he’s come to the realization that the rationale behind the court’s Bush v. Gore decision that effectively decided the 2000 presidential election “was really quite unacceptable” because it differentiated between so-called “hanging chads” and “dimpled chads.” That distinction, he told a gala event for the liberal watchdog group Public Citizen in Washington, “violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.” All votes should have been considered the same way, he explained.
Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor recently expressed regret that the court had taken up the case at all, and Stevens said he was “pleased to hear” about O’Connor’s shift. The liberal Stevens wrote the dissent in that case.
Stevens, who retired in 2010 and is now 93, was introduced as a “rock star” at the event and received applause for holding the record for the most dissents written by a single justice — a whopping 720. Excerpts from his stinging objection to the Citizens United decision were displayed on large posters around the room.
May 17, 2013
On Thursday, the House of Representatives cast its 37th vote to repeal all or part of the health-care law. Or possibly its 38th vote. And I’ve heard some say its 36th vote. It depends how you count.
Why try another? Because a number of freshmen haven’t yet had a chance to vote on a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act. And the House Republican Conference feels that repealing Obamacare is something every House member should get to do at least once. It’s a rite of passage, like dry-heaving after Paul Ryan’s P-90X class, or offering your first amendment in committee.
The repeal passed the House though it will, as usual, be ignored by the Senate. But these news stories that put the words “repeal” and “Obamacare” near to one another have had an effect. As my colleague Sarah Kliff writes, “Last month, the Kaiser Family Foundation polled Americans on whether the Affordable Care Act is still law. Twelve percent of Americans — that’s about one in eight people — think that Congress repealed the Affordable Care Act. Another 23 percent aren’t sure or refused to answer the question.”
~~
~~
This vote had another interesting side effect, though. “It also repeals a central deficit-reduction component of the GOP’s own budget by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), which was released in March with much bravado and projections that it would balance the budget within a decade,” writes TPM’s Sahil Kapur.
(more)
Wonkbook: House Republicans hate Obamacare. But they also kind of need it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/17/wonkbook-house-republicans-hate-obamacare-but-they-also-kind-of-need-it/On Thursday, the House of Representatives cast its 37th vote to repeal all or part of the health-care law. Or possibly its 38th vote. And I’ve heard some say its 36th vote. It depends how you count.
Why try another? Because a number of freshmen haven’t yet had a chance to vote on a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act. And the House Republican Conference feels that repealing Obamacare is something every House member should get to do at least once. It’s a rite of passage, like dry-heaving after Paul Ryan’s P-90X class, or offering your first amendment in committee.
The repeal passed the House though it will, as usual, be ignored by the Senate. But these news stories that put the words “repeal” and “Obamacare” near to one another have had an effect. As my colleague Sarah Kliff writes, “Last month, the Kaiser Family Foundation polled Americans on whether the Affordable Care Act is still law. Twelve percent of Americans — that’s about one in eight people — think that Congress repealed the Affordable Care Act. Another 23 percent aren’t sure or refused to answer the question.”
~~
~~
This vote had another interesting side effect, though. “It also repeals a central deficit-reduction component of the GOP’s own budget by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), which was released in March with much bravado and projections that it would balance the budget within a decade,” writes TPM’s Sahil Kapur.
(more)
May 17, 2013
Things go wrong in government. Sometimes it’s just bad luck. Sometimes it’s rank incompetence. Sometimes it’s criminal wrongdoing. Most of the time you never hear about it. Or, if you do hear about it, the media eventually gets bored talking about it (see warming, global).
But every so often an instance of government wrongdoing sprouts wings and becomes something quite exciting: A political scandal.
The crucial ingredient for a scandal is the prospect of high-level White House involvement and wide political repercussions. Government wrongdoing is boring. Scandals can bring down presidents, decide elections and revive down-and-out political parties. Scandals can dominate American politics for months at a time.
On Tuesday, it looked like we had three possible political scandals brewing. Two days later, with much more evidence available, it doesn’t look like any of them will pan out. There’ll be more hearings, and more bad press for the Obama administration, and more demands for documents. But — and this is a key qualification — absent more revelations, the scandals that could reach high don’t seem to include any real wrongdoing, whereas the ones that include real wrongdoing don’t reach high enough. Let’s go through them.
(more)
The scandals are falling apart - Ezra Klein, WaPo
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/16/the-scandals-are-falling-apart/Things go wrong in government. Sometimes it’s just bad luck. Sometimes it’s rank incompetence. Sometimes it’s criminal wrongdoing. Most of the time you never hear about it. Or, if you do hear about it, the media eventually gets bored talking about it (see warming, global).
But every so often an instance of government wrongdoing sprouts wings and becomes something quite exciting: A political scandal.
The crucial ingredient for a scandal is the prospect of high-level White House involvement and wide political repercussions. Government wrongdoing is boring. Scandals can bring down presidents, decide elections and revive down-and-out political parties. Scandals can dominate American politics for months at a time.
On Tuesday, it looked like we had three possible political scandals brewing. Two days later, with much more evidence available, it doesn’t look like any of them will pan out. There’ll be more hearings, and more bad press for the Obama administration, and more demands for documents. But — and this is a key qualification — absent more revelations, the scandals that could reach high don’t seem to include any real wrongdoing, whereas the ones that include real wrongdoing don’t reach high enough. Let’s go through them.
(more)
May 15, 2013
~~
The United States spends far more than any other country on defense and security. Since 2001, the base defense budget has soared from $287 billion to $530 billion — and that’s before accounting for the primary costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. But now that those wars are ending and austerity is back in vogue, the Pentagon will have to start tightening its belt in 2013 and beyond. If Hagel gets confirmed as secretary of defense, he’ll have to figure out how best to do that.
Below, we’ve provided an overview of the U.S. defense budget — to get a better sense for what we spend on, and where Hagel might have to cut:
1) The United States spent 20 percent of the federal budget on defense in 2011.
~~
~~
All told, the U.S. government spent about $718 billion on defense and international security assistance in 2011 — more than it spent on Medicare. That includes all of the Pentagon’s underlying costs as well as the price tag for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which came to $159 billion in 2011. It also includes arms transfers to foreign governments.
(Note that this figure does not, however, include benefits for veterans, which came to $127 billion in 2011, or about 3.5 percent of the federal budget. If you count those benefits as “defense spending,” then the number goes up significantly.)
U.S. defense spending is expected to have risen in 2012, to about $729 billion, and then is set to fall in 2013 to $716 billion, as spending caps start kicking in.
~~
~~
(more)
America’s staggering defense budget, in charts
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/07/everything-chuck-hagel-needs-to-know-about-the-defense-budget-in-charts/~~
The United States spends far more than any other country on defense and security. Since 2001, the base defense budget has soared from $287 billion to $530 billion — and that’s before accounting for the primary costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. But now that those wars are ending and austerity is back in vogue, the Pentagon will have to start tightening its belt in 2013 and beyond. If Hagel gets confirmed as secretary of defense, he’ll have to figure out how best to do that.
Below, we’ve provided an overview of the U.S. defense budget — to get a better sense for what we spend on, and where Hagel might have to cut:
1) The United States spent 20 percent of the federal budget on defense in 2011.
~~
~~
All told, the U.S. government spent about $718 billion on defense and international security assistance in 2011 — more than it spent on Medicare. That includes all of the Pentagon’s underlying costs as well as the price tag for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which came to $159 billion in 2011. It also includes arms transfers to foreign governments.
(Note that this figure does not, however, include benefits for veterans, which came to $127 billion in 2011, or about 3.5 percent of the federal budget. If you count those benefits as “defense spending,” then the number goes up significantly.)
U.S. defense spending is expected to have risen in 2012, to about $729 billion, and then is set to fall in 2013 to $716 billion, as spending caps start kicking in.
~~
~~
(more)
May 14, 2013
research shows holding a gun makes you more likely to 'see' a gun in the hands of others
[font size="3"]Now, here's some interesting research![/font]
[font size="3"]Holding a Gun Makes You Think Others Are Too, New Research Shows[/font]
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120321152627.htm
[font size="+1"]Wielding a gun increases a person's bias to see guns in the hands of others, new research from the University of Notre Dame shows.[/font]
Notre Dame Associate Professor of Psychology James Brockmole, who specializes in human cognition and how the visual world guides behavior, together with a colleague from Purdue University, conducted the study, which will appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
In five experiments, subjects were shown multiple images of people on a computer screen and determined whether the person was holding a gun or a neutral object such as a soda can or cell phone. Subjects did this while holding either a toy gun or a neutral object such as a foam ball.
The researchers varied the situation in each experiment -- such as having the people in the images sometimes wear ski masks, changing the race of the person in the image or changing the reaction subjects were to have when they perceived the person in the image to hold a gun. Regardless of the situation the observers found themselves in, the study showed that responding with a gun biased observers to report "gun present" more than did responding with a ball. Thus, by virtue of affording the subject the opportunity to use a gun, he or she was more likely to classify objects in a scene as a gun and, as a result, to engage in threat-induced behavior, such as raising a firearm to shoot.
"Beliefs, expectations and emotions can all influence an observer's ability to detect and to categorize objects as guns," Brockmole says. "Now we know that a person's ability to act in certain ways can bias their recognition of objects as well, and in dramatic ways. It seems that people have a hard time separating their thoughts about what they perceive and their thoughts about how they can or should act."
(more)
Notre Dame Associate Professor of Psychology James Brockmole, who specializes in human cognition and how the visual world guides behavior, together with a colleague from Purdue University, conducted the study, which will appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance.
In five experiments, subjects were shown multiple images of people on a computer screen and determined whether the person was holding a gun or a neutral object such as a soda can or cell phone. Subjects did this while holding either a toy gun or a neutral object such as a foam ball.
The researchers varied the situation in each experiment -- such as having the people in the images sometimes wear ski masks, changing the race of the person in the image or changing the reaction subjects were to have when they perceived the person in the image to hold a gun. Regardless of the situation the observers found themselves in, the study showed that responding with a gun biased observers to report "gun present" more than did responding with a ball. Thus, by virtue of affording the subject the opportunity to use a gun, he or she was more likely to classify objects in a scene as a gun and, as a result, to engage in threat-induced behavior, such as raising a firearm to shoot.
"Beliefs, expectations and emotions can all influence an observer's ability to detect and to categorize objects as guns," Brockmole says. "Now we know that a person's ability to act in certain ways can bias their recognition of objects as well, and in dramatic ways. It seems that people have a hard time separating their thoughts about what they perceive and their thoughts about how they can or should act."
(more)
May 14, 2013
Researchers from The University of Texas at Arlington are pioneering a new method for using carbon dioxide, or CO2, to make liquid methanol fuel by using copper oxide nanowires and sunlight.
Illustration of copper oxide nanorods.
A schematic illustration of the two-step synthesis of CuO-Cu2O hybrid nanorod arrays.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The process is safer, simpler and less expensive than previous methods to convert the greenhouse gas associated with climate change to a useful product, said Krishnan Rajeshwar, interim associate vice president for research at UT Arlington and one of the authors of a paper recently published in the journal Chemical Communications. Researchers began by coating the walls of copper oxide, CuO, nanorods with crystallites made from another form of copper oxide, Cu2O. In the lab, they submerged those rods in a water-based solution rich in CO2. Irradiating the combination with simulated sunlight created a photoelectrochemical reduction of the CO2 and that produced methanol.
In contrast, current methods require the use of a co-catalyst and must be conducted at high operating pressures and temperatures. Many also use toxic elements, such as cadmium, or rare elements, such as tellurium, Rajeshwar said.
“As long as we are using fossil fuels, we’ll have the question of what to do with the carbon dioxide,” said Rajeshwar, a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry and co-founder of the Center for Renewable Energy, Science & Technology, CREST, at UT Arlington. “An attractive option would be to convert greenhouse gases to liquid fuel. That’s the value-added option.”
(more)
Arlington researchers explore more efficient carbon dioxide to Methanol
http://www.uta.edu/news/releases/2013/02/carbondioxide-methanol.phpResearchers from The University of Texas at Arlington are pioneering a new method for using carbon dioxide, or CO2, to make liquid methanol fuel by using copper oxide nanowires and sunlight.
Illustration of copper oxide nanorods.
A schematic illustration of the two-step synthesis of CuO-Cu2O hybrid nanorod arrays.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The process is safer, simpler and less expensive than previous methods to convert the greenhouse gas associated with climate change to a useful product, said Krishnan Rajeshwar, interim associate vice president for research at UT Arlington and one of the authors of a paper recently published in the journal Chemical Communications. Researchers began by coating the walls of copper oxide, CuO, nanorods with crystallites made from another form of copper oxide, Cu2O. In the lab, they submerged those rods in a water-based solution rich in CO2. Irradiating the combination with simulated sunlight created a photoelectrochemical reduction of the CO2 and that produced methanol.
In contrast, current methods require the use of a co-catalyst and must be conducted at high operating pressures and temperatures. Many also use toxic elements, such as cadmium, or rare elements, such as tellurium, Rajeshwar said.
“As long as we are using fossil fuels, we’ll have the question of what to do with the carbon dioxide,” said Rajeshwar, a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry and co-founder of the Center for Renewable Energy, Science & Technology, CREST, at UT Arlington. “An attractive option would be to convert greenhouse gases to liquid fuel. That’s the value-added option.”
(more)
May 14, 2013
This is a great article to use for reference.. when commenting on sites for the lumpenproletariate.
PAUL BUCHHEIT FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged" fantasizes a world in which anti-government citizens reject taxes and regulations, and "stop the motor" by withdrawing themselves from the system of production. In a perverse twist on the writer's theme the prediction is coming true. But instead of productive people rejecting taxes, rejected taxes are shutting down productive people.
Perhaps Ayn Rand never anticipated the impact of unregulated greed on a productive middle class. Perhaps she never understood the fairness of tax money for public research and infrastructure and security, all of which have contributed to the success of big business. She must have known about the inequality of the pre-Depression years. But she couldn't have foreseen the concurrent rise in technology and globalization that allowed inequality to surge again, more quickly, in a manner that threatens to put the greediest offenders out of our reach.
Ayn Rand's philosophy suggests that average working people are 'takers.' In reality, those in the best position to make money take all they can get, with no scruples about their working class victims, because taking, in the minds of the rich, serves as a model for success. The strategy involves tax avoidance, in numerous forms.
Corporations Stopped Paying
In the past twenty years, corporate profits have quadrupled while the corporate tax percent has dropped by half. The payroll tax, paid by workers, has doubled.
(MORE)
Society's Parasites Are the Rich, Not the Working Class and Poor
http://truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/17960-the-biggest-takers-and-societal-parasites-are-the-rich-not-the-working-class-and-poorThis is a great article to use for reference.. when commenting on sites for the lumpenproletariate.
PAUL BUCHHEIT FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT
Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged" fantasizes a world in which anti-government citizens reject taxes and regulations, and "stop the motor" by withdrawing themselves from the system of production. In a perverse twist on the writer's theme the prediction is coming true. But instead of productive people rejecting taxes, rejected taxes are shutting down productive people.
Perhaps Ayn Rand never anticipated the impact of unregulated greed on a productive middle class. Perhaps she never understood the fairness of tax money for public research and infrastructure and security, all of which have contributed to the success of big business. She must have known about the inequality of the pre-Depression years. But she couldn't have foreseen the concurrent rise in technology and globalization that allowed inequality to surge again, more quickly, in a manner that threatens to put the greediest offenders out of our reach.
Ayn Rand's philosophy suggests that average working people are 'takers.' In reality, those in the best position to make money take all they can get, with no scruples about their working class victims, because taking, in the minds of the rich, serves as a model for success. The strategy involves tax avoidance, in numerous forms.
Corporations Stopped Paying
In the past twenty years, corporate profits have quadrupled while the corporate tax percent has dropped by half. The payroll tax, paid by workers, has doubled.
(MORE)
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