By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
Spoiler alert: The IRS scandal, the AP phone records scandal — they go nowhere. In September, we'll all be looking back thinking, "Huh, that was a big waste of time." It will be — in fact, it already is.
With White House scandals dominating each news cycle, President Obama's newly minted media critics may prefer to ignore their own culpability in creating this unfolding debacle.
The tragedy of Benghazi, where a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed, seemed a cut-and-dried story in the days after a mob attacked the State Department's mission in eastern Libya. Today, the public knows that those early administration pronouncements were false.
When I filibustered over domestic drone use, critics said that I was being ridiculous. They said that no American had been killed by a drone on American soil and that no one was likely to be anytime soon. President Obama responded that he hadn't killed anyone yet and didn't intend to — but he might.
Not since the days of the Nixon administration has this country seen such government malfeasance as under President Obama.
President Obama was asked about the metastasizing Benghazi scandal in a joint news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday. Referring to the Americans who died in Benghazi, the president said, "We dishonor them when we turn things like this into a political circus."
"These are the tactics of the Third World." — Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican,on the combined effects of the Benghazi matter, the Justice Department seizure of Associated Press phone records and the IRS probe of conservative groups, before the Senate.
The accountability report by former Ambassador Thomas Pickering and retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen was grossly inadequate ("McCain senses Benghazi 'cover-up,' wants more Clinton testimony," Web, May 12). The two men concluded those responsible for the Benghazi murders were low-level State Department staff; they totally ignored the basic problem of why the Benghazi facilities remained open.
We've seen then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton ask, with what seemed like feigned exasperation "What difference, at this point, does it make?" when asked about the State Department's talking points mischaracterizing the Benghazi, Libya, attack of last September. Apparently, it makes a lot of difference, since the CIA's talking points were revised 12 times before Ambassador Susan E. Rice delivered them. Had the attack indeed resulted from a spontaneous, unpredictable demonstration, then the administration's doing nothing in preparation for such violence would be excusable. And such a demonstration run amok may well not have justified mounting a potentially messy military counterforce response.
Suddenly, it seems we have broken through the most effective executive branch cover-up and complicit media blackout in memory.
You just knew press coverage of the congressional hearing on the Benghazi cover-ups last Wednesday would be nonexistent or squirrely, right?
You just knew press coverage of the congressional hearing on the Benghazi cover-ups last Wednesday would be nonexistent or squirrely, right?
House Republicans on Monday asked to interview retired Ambassador Thomas Pickering, the veteran diplomat who headed the State Department's probe into last year's attack in Benghazi, Libya, and Mr. Pickering said he would be happy to cooperate.
Sen. John McCain on Sunday said a special congressional committee is needed to investigate last year's deadly attacks on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, and called on former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to testify again on Capitol Hill regarding her role in the matter.
Laying the groundwork this weekend for likely White House bids, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal reached out to Republican voters in the two states that open the presidential nomination race — sounding the unofficial starting gun of the 2016 campaign.
Recently, she has spoken in favor of high taxes in Brazil, and last year she urged Pakistanis to pay more.
In Ecuador on June 8, she urged Latin American nations to overhaul their tax systems in order to impose heavier levies on the wealthy and reduce tax evasion.
