by Tucker Scofield

My wife has nicknamed me “Captain Obvious” because I often point out that which should be unmistakable to even the casual observer. But the origins of this annoying habit are rooted in the number of times the “obvious” has been completely overlooked by what seemed to be otherwise intelligent human beings. That being said, here are some political observations that should be obvious but may have escaped your attention somehow:

Spending. We are approaching $16 trillion in debt; $300 billion per year in waste, fraud, duplicity, and abuse has been identified and could be cut from our budget without reducing services at all, yet NEITHER political party will touch it!  Insanity, man. The lone voice in this wilderness is Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) who has diligently kept this subject at the forefront of discussion every year since 2008.

Gas Prices. The price of gasoline has dropped some fifty cents/gallon recently, but don’t sigh in relief over the reduced cost of your summer vacation just yet. Prices will go up significantly over the next two months due to our idiotic policy of requiring “summer blends,” which vary wildly from state to state. And while Obama defenders say that the president does not control the price of oil, he does control where and when we drill here in our own country which, in turn, does affect the price of oil. Don’t be a fool…there is a direct correlation between the president’s energy policy and what we are paying at the pump. And BTW, when the “evil” George Bush was president, gas was under two bucks a gallon.

Green Energy. While he strangles traditional (and inexpensive) domestic fossil fuel energy sources, the president continues investing our money in green energy. His two biggest “successes” – Solyndra and the Chevy Volt – are just the tip of a failed green energy initiative that has poured hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into a sector that has seen no less than 14 Obama-propped companies file bankruptcy. Oh, and I’d like to also point out that if these companies are failing miserably, they’re not creating the millions of jobs Obama promised us back in 2008.

Climate Change. My cohort Alan Caruba here at the DC Post rails against climate change on a regular basis and does a great job of sourcing his arguments. Climate change can be summed up in one word: Fraud. Those who perpetrate it are in it for the money, those who believe it are in it to assuage their guilt. If Leonardo DiCaprio and Ed Begley, Jr. want to practice the religion of climate change, more power to ‘em. But I’m not gonna’ pay for it any more than I would pay for Tom Cruise to practice Scientology.

Greed. According to Obama’s class envy world-view, I’m supposed to be pissed off at “greedy” capitalists who run big corporations and destroy the lives of the middle class in the process. But wasn’t it those “greedy” capitalists that allowed us to earn enough money to create a middle class in the first place?? And I guess I’m supposed to look the other way when greedy politicians in Washington practice crony capitalism or make investments with insider information? Oh, and why am I supposed to hate Mitt Romney for his wealth but love the Kennedy’s, John Kerry, and Al Gore? Just sayin’.

Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman. George Zimmerman was all but hung by a lynch mob comprised of the mainstream media and our president. Intentionally edited audio and grainy security cam footage was used to prop up a pre-supposed racial motivation for the killing and then to dispute Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense. To seal the deal, the media posted a picture of a very young Trayvon Martin next to Zimmerman’s mug shot. Our president said the young Trayvon could have been his child, they looked so much alike. Nicely done. It resulted in Zimmerman having a $10,000 bounty placed on his head by the New Black Panthers along with black-on-white “revenge” attacks in at least six cities (one was Norfolk, VA in which the two white victims work for a newspaper that refuses to cover the incident). Now, doctor reports and autopsy results support Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense while school records, Facebook images, and state records indicate that Trayvon was far from angelic. A tragic death certainly, but the man who pulled the trigger should be tried in court, not on MSNBC.

Tucker Scofield’s writing is shaped by his extensive business travels in the manufacturing sector. He is also a musician, a daddy, and a husband. His articles appear periodically at www.TheDCPost.com and he can be reached at tucker.scofield@gmail.com or t.scofield@TheDCPost.com

Andrew Breitbart was never a “Birther,” and Breitbart News is a site that has never advocated the narrative of “Birtherism.” In fact, Andrew believed, as we do, that President Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961.

Yet Andrew also believed that the complicit mainstream media had refused to examine President Obama’s ideological past, or the carefully crafted persona he and his advisers had constructed for him.

It is for that reason that we launched “The Vetting,” an ongoing series in which we explore the ideological background of President Obama (and other presidential candidates)–not to re-litigate 2008, but because ideas and actions have consequences.

It is also in that spirit that we discovered, and now present, the booklet described below–one that includes a marketing pitch for a forthcoming book by a then-young, otherwise unknown former president of the Harvard Law Review. 

It is evidence–not of the President’s foreign origin, but that Barack Obama’s public persona has perhaps been presented differently at different times.Breitbart News has obtained a promotional booklet produced in 1991 by Barack Obama’s then-literary agency, Acton & Dystel, which touts Obama as “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.”

It also promotes Obama’s anticipated first book, Journeys in Black and White–which Obama abandoned, later publishing Dreams from My Father instead.

Obama’s biography in the booklet is as follows (image and text below):

Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.  The son of an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister, he attended Columbia University and worked as a financial journalist and editor for Business International Corporation.   He served as project coordinator in Harlem for the New York Public Interest Research Group, and was Executive Director of the Developing Communities Project in Chicago’s South Side. His commitment to social and racial issues will be evident in his first book, Journeys in Black and White.

The booklet, which is thirty-six pages long, is printed in blue ink (and, on the cover, silver/grey ink), using offset lithography. It purports to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of Acton & Dystel, which was founded in 1976.

Front cover (inside)

Jay Acton no longer represents Obama. However, Jane Dystel still lists Obama as a client on her agency’s website.

According to the booklet itself, the text was edited by Miriam Goderich, who has since become Dystel’s partner at Dystel & Goderich, an agency founded in 1994. Breitbart News attempted to reach Goderich by telephone several times over several days. Her calls are screened by an automated service that requires callers to state their name and company, which we did. She never answered.

The design of the booklet was undertaken by Richard Bellsey, who has since closed his business. Bellsey, reached by telephone, could not recall the exact details of the booklet, but told Breitbart News that it “sounds like one of our jobs, like I did for [Acton & Dystel] twenty years ago or more.”

The reverse side of the page that features Barack Obama includes former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader and early-1990s “boy band” pop sensation New Kids On the Block.

He indicated that while “almost nobody” wrote his or her own biography, the non-athletes in the booklet, whom “the agents deal[t] with on a daily basis,” were “probably” approached to approve the text as presented.

Dystel did not respond to numerous requests for comment, via email and telephone. Her assistant told Breitbart News that Dystel “does not answer questions about Obama.”

The errant Obama biography in the Acton & Dystel booklet does not contradict the authenticity of Obama’s birth certificate. Moreover, several contemporaneous accounts of Obama’s background describe Obama as having been born in Hawaii.

The biography does, however, fit a pattern in which Obama–or the people representing and supporting him–manipulate his public persona.

David Maraniss’s forthcoming biography of Obama has reportedly confirmed, for example, that a girlfriend Obama described in Dreams from My Father was, in fact, an amalgam of several separate individuals.

In addition, Obama and his handlers have a history of redefining his identity when expedient. In March 2008, for example, he famously declared: “I can no more disown [Jeremiah Wright] than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother.”

Several weeks later, Obama left Wright’s church–and, according to Edward Klein’s new biography, The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House, allegedly attempted to persuade Wright not to “do any more public speaking until after the November [2008] election” (51).

Obama has been known frequently to fictionalize aspects of his own life. During his 2008 campaign, for instance, Obama claimed that his dying mother had fought with insurance companies over coverage for her cancer treatments.

That turned out to be untrue, but Obama has repeated the story–which even the Washington Post called “misleading”–in a campaign video for the 2012 election.

The Acton & Dystel biography could also reflect how Obama was seen by his associates, or transitions in his own identity. He is said, for instance, to have cultivated an “international” identity until well into his adulthood, according to Maraniss.

Regardless of the reason for Obama’s odd biography, the Acton & Dystel booklet raises new questions as part of ongoing efforts to understand Barack Obama–who, despite four years in office remains a mystery to many Americans, thanks to the mainstream media.

Larry O’Connor contributed to this report.

That is yet to be revealed. Further details of this corruption are promised. Whatever it is, it cannot have been good for the American people. It is ALWAYS good for Barack Obama. The stench from Washington DC gets worse. We must drain the swamp in November.

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/gop-probe-uncovers-deal-between-obama-and-drug-cos/546256

Reprinted from www.Stratfor.com

There has been a lot of chatter in intelligence and academic circles about al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) bombmaker Ibrahim al-Asiri and his value to AQAP. The disclosure last week of a thwarted AQAP plot to attack U.S. airliners using an improved version of an “underwear bomb” used in the December 2009 attempted attack aboard a commercial airplane and the disclosure of the U.S. government’s easing of the rules of engagement for unmanned aerial vehicle strikes in Yemen played into these discussions. People are debating how al-Asiri’s death would affect the organization. A similar debate undoubtedly will erupt if AQAP leader Nasir al-Wahayshi is captured or killed. AQAP has claimed that al-Asiri trained others in bombmaking, and the claim makes sense. Furthermore, other AQAP members have received training in constructing improvised explosive devices (IEDs) while training and fighting in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. This means that al-Asiri is not the only person within the group who can construct an IED. However, he has demonstrated creativity and imagination. His devices consistently have been able to circumvent existing security measures, even if they have not always functioned as intended. We believe this ingenuity and imagination make al-Asiri not merely a bombmaker, but an exceptional bombmaker.

Likewise, al-Wahayshi is one of hundreds — if not thousands — of men currently associated with AQAP. He has several deputies and numerous tactical field commanders in various parts of Yemen. Jihadists have had a presence in Yemen for decades, and after the collapse of al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, numerous Saudi migrants fleeing the Saudi government augmented this presence. However, al-Wahayshi played a singular role in pulling these disparate jihadist elements together to form a unified and cohesive militant organization that has been involved not only in several transnational terrorist attacks but also in fighting an insurgency that has succeeded in capturing and controlling large areas of territory. He is an exceptional leader.

Individuals like al-Asiri and al-Wahayshi play critical roles in militant groups. History has shown that the loss of exceptional individuals such as these makes a big difference in efforts to defeat such organizations.

Exceptional Individuals

One of Stratfor’s core geopolitical tenets is that at the strategic level, geography is critical to shaping the limits of what is possible — and impossible — for states and nations to achieve in the long run. Quite simply, historically, the strategic political and economic dynamics created by geography are far more significant than the individual leader or personality, no matter how brilliant. For example, in the U.S. Civil War, Robert E. Lee was a shrewd general with a staff of exceptional military officers. However, geographic and economic reality meant that the North was bound to win the civil war despite the astuteness and abilities of Lee and his staff.

But as the size of an organization and the period of time under consideration shrink, geopolitics is little more than a rough guide. At the tactical level, intelligence takes over from geopolitics, and individuals’ abilities become far more important in influencing smaller events and trends within the greater geopolitical flow. This is the level where exceptional military commanders can win battles through courage and brilliance, where exceptional businessmen can revolutionize the way business is done through innovative new products or ways of selling those products and where the exceptional individuals can execute terrorist tradecraft in a way that allows them to kill scores or even hundreds of victims.

Leadership is important in any type of organization, but it is especially important in entrepreneurial organizations, which are fraught with risk and require unique vision, innovation and initiative. For example, hundreds of men founded automobile companies in the early 1900s, but Henry Ford was an exceptional individual because of his vision to make automobiles a widely available mass-produced commodity rather than just a toy for the rich. In computer technology, Steve Jobs was exceptional for his ability to design devices with an aesthetic form that appealed to consumers, and Michael Dell was exceptional for his vision of bypassing traditional sales channels and selling computers directly to customers.

These same leadership characteristics of vision, daring, innovation and initiative are evident in the exceptional individuals who have excelled in the development and application of terrorist tradecraft. Some examples of exceptional individuals in the terrorism realm are Ali Hassan Salameh, the operations chief of Black September, who not only revolutionized the form that terrorist organizations take by instituting the use of independent, clandestine cells, but also was a visionary in designing theatrical attacks intended for international media consumption. Some have called Palestinian militant leader Abu Ibrahim the “grandfather of all bombmakers” for his innovative IED designs during his time with Black September, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and his own group, the 15 May Organization. Ibrahim was known for creating sophisticated devices that used plastic explosives and a type of electronic timer called an “e-cell” that could be set for an extended delay. Another terrorism innovator was Hezbollah’s Imad Mughniyeh, who helped pioneer the use of large suicide truck bombs to attack hardened targets, such as military barracks and embassies.

In the jihadist realm, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is being tried by a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was such an individual. Not only did Mohammed mastermind the 9/11 attacks for al Qaeda in which large hijacked aircraft were transformed into guided missiles, but he also was the operational planner behind the coordinated attacks against two U.S. embassies in August 1998 and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Mohammed’s other innovations included the idea to use modular IEDs concealed in baby dolls to attack 10 aircraft in a coordinated attack (Operation Bojinka) and the shoe bomb plot. Mohammed’s video beheading of journalist Daniel Pearl in February 2002 started a grisly trend that was followed not only by jihadists in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia but also by combatants in Mexico’s drug war.

Leadership

One of the places where exceptional individuals have been most evident in the terrorist realm is in leadership roles. Although on the surface it might seem like a simple task to find a leader for a militant group, in practice, effective militant leaders are hard to come by. This is because militant leadership requires a rather broad skill set. In addition to personal attributes such as ruthlessness, aggressiveness and fearlessness, militant leaders also must be charismatic, intuitive, clever and inspiring. This last attribute is especially important in an organization that seeks to recruit operatives to conduct suicide attacks. Additionally, an effective militant leader must be able to recruit and train operatives, enforce operational security, raise funds, plan operations and methodically execute the plan while avoiding the security forces that are constantly hunting down the militants.

The trajectory of al Qaeda’s franchise in Saudi Arabia is a striking illustration of the importance of leadership to a militant organization. Under the leadership of Abdel Aziz al-Muqrin, the Saudi al Qaeda franchise was extremely active in 2003 and 2004. It carried out a number of high-profile attacks inside Saudi Arabia and put everyone there, from the Saudi monarchy to multinational oil companies, in a general state of panic. With bombings, ambushes and beheadings, it seemed as if Saudi Arabia was on its way to becoming the next Iraq. However, after the June 2004 death of al-Muqrin, the organization began floundering. The succession of leaders appointed to replace al-Muqrin lacked his operational savvy, and each one proved ineffective at best. (Saudi security forces quickly killed several of them.) Following the unsuccessful February 2006 attack against the oil facility at Abqaiq, the group atrophied further, succeeding in carrying out only one more attack — an amateurish small-arms assault in February 2007 against a group of French tourists.

The disorganized remaining jihadists in Saudi Arabia ultimately grew frustrated at their inability to operate on their own. Many of them traveled to places such as Iraq or Pakistan to train and fight. In January 2009, many of the militants who remained in the Arabian Peninsula joined with al Qaeda’s franchise in Yemen to form a new group — AQAP — under the leadership of al-Wahayshi, the leader of al Qaeda in Yemen who served under Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan before being arrested in Iran. An extradition deal between the Yemeni and Iranian governments returned al-Wahayshi to Yemen in 2003. He subsequently escaped from a high-security prison outside Sanaa in 2006.

Al Qaeda in Yemen’s operational capability improved under al-Wahayshi’s leadership, and its operational tempo increased (although those operations were not terribly effective). Considering this momentum, it is not surprising that the frustrated members of the all-but-defunct Saudi franchise agreed to swear loyalty to al-Wahayshi and join his new umbrella group, AQAP. The first widely recognized product of this merger was the attempted assassination of Saudi Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef on Aug. 28, 2009, using a device designed by al-Asiri and carried by his brother, Abdullah al-Asiri.

As with the Saudi group, the fortunes of other al Qaeda regional franchises have risen or fallen based on the ability of the franchise’s leadership. In Indonesia, for example, following the arrests and killings of several top jihadist commanders, the capabilities of the regional jihadist franchise there were deeply degraded. Al Qaeda announced with great fanfare in August 2006 that a splinter of the Egyptian jihadist group Gamaah al-Islamiyah had become al Qaeda’s franchise in Egypt, and in November 2007 al Qaeda announced that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group had become a regional franchise. But neither of these franchises ever really began operations. While a great degree of the groups’ ineffectiveness could have resulted from the oppressive natures of the Egyptian and Libyan governments — and those governments’ aggressive efforts to control the new al Qaeda franchises — Stratfor believes the groups’ failures also stem in large part from their lack of effective, dynamic leadership.

Arms Race

Leadership is not the only factor that influences a militant group’s ability to carry out terrorist attacks. Groups planning to conduct bombing attacks also require a proficient bombmaker, and an innovative bombmaker like Abu Ibrahim or Hamas’ Yahya Ayyash can greatly expand a group’s operational reach and effectiveness. This is especially true for groups hoping to conduct attacks in the United States and Europe.

As outlined in last week’s Security Weekly, those planning terrorist attacks against aircraft have been in a continual arms race with airline security measures. Every time security is changed to adapt to a particular threat, whether it be 9/11-style hijackings, shoe bombs, liquid bombs or underwear bombs, the terrorist planner must come up with a new attack plan to defeat the enhanced security measures. This is where innovation and imagination become critical. A master bombmaker might be able to show a pupil how to build a simple IED or maybe even something like a shoe bomb. The pupil may even become quite proficient at assembling such devices. But unless the pupil is innovative and imaginative, he will not be able to invent and perfect the next technology needed to stay ahead of security countermeasures.

There is a big difference between a technician and an inventor, and perhaps the best way to illustrate this principle is by drawing a parallel to the music world. A student can learn to play the saxophone, and perhaps even to mimic a jazz recording note for note. But it is quite another thing for that student to develop the ability to improvise a masterful solo like saxophonist John Coltrane could. In music, individuals like Coltrane are rare, and in terrorism, so are exceptional bombmakers — masters of destruction who can create imaginative and original IEDs capable of defeating security measures.

Following the death of Anwar al-Awlaki, AQAP’s English-language preacher, we noted that we did not believe his death would have much operational impact on the group due to his role as the group’s English-language ideologue. That argument was based upon the fact that al-Wahayshi, al-Asiri and AQAP operational leader Qasim al-Raymi, who were much more responsible for the group’s operations, were still alive. However, if the group were to lose an exceptional individual — such as its dynamic and effective leader, al-Wahayshi, or its imaginative and creative bombmaker, al-Asiri — the loss would make a significant difference unless the group could find someone equally capable to replace that individual.

 

By Michael Podwill  

Did the transparency king offer hush money?

Last Saturday, the New York Post reported extensively on charges that Obama made efforts to pay his old pal and erstwhile soul mate, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, some $150,000 to keep his big mouth shut during the 2008 campaign.

The details of this prospective payoff are offered in a book called “The Amateur,” penned by Arthur Edward Klein. In his book, Klein describes a purported Wright admission that Obama, through e-mails sent by “one of Barack’s closest friends,” did indeed offer that payment to ensure that Wright’s spigot of a foul and hateful mouth would stay firmly in “off position” so as not to harm Obama’s love affair with the gullible masses. Are we disturbed enough yet to wonder about the nature of this cryptic president and his fiendish presidency? Are we perhaps willing, at the very least, to concede that what we know about Obama could possibly be dwarfed by what we don’t know?

And then there’s this: Wright is far from the only dubious “contact” in the life and times of Barack Enigma Obama.  If indeed such a deal with Wright was/is a reality, then it’s more than plausible to assume that existing mountains of Obama cash could have been used for additional “money-for-silence” deals. Bill Ayers, anyone?

For many, there has always been a gnawing, nagging supposition that this unknown self-proclaimed god (lowest case “g”) on earth possesses multitudes of deep, dark secrets. Why else, how else could mysteries still abound — about his place of birth, his true faith, his college transcripts, his connections to shady consorts, his ultimate political leanings and his vision of and for America?

Even now, as he rounds third base on what many (hopefully a majority) sensible, real-life Americans pray is his only term in office — because his partisan, political, irresponsible and failing policies are destroying us — we remain largely clueless. Even worse, and far more outrageous and telling about what is happening to America and Americans, we continue to believe that appropriate investigation into whom or what this man is would somehow be an affront, politically, racially, morally or otherwise.

Have we truly become a nation of sheep? Or zombies? Are we “The Time Machine’s” eloi to Obama’s morlock?

Perhaps George Clooney and his rarefied A-list of Hollywood heavies (the “good millionaires and billionaires,” the ones who, despite their expansive bank accounts, are somehow amongst the righteous and pure 99%)  can be sure that their man is above board and pushing America in the right direction.

But what about the rest of us?

What about the millions of Americans who simply want to keep their jobs — or who desperately want to find a job?

These working Americans, Obama’s true forgotten Americans, are the ones who expend precious time and blood vessels deep in worry. They worry about putting food on the table and a roof over their family’s head. They also worry where one nation, divisible, under Obama, is moving. And they worry about getting, at long last, into the core of the riddle of the enigma that was, is and might always be Barack Hussein Barry Soetoro Obama.

In his townhall.com column of Monday, May 14, John Ransom put it all quite well when he said this of the horrific mess that is Obama’s term of office: “It’s just another turn in Obama’s ‘fairy tale’ presidency that has the country now thinking ‘long national nightmare.’ ”

The best way to assuage the horrors of a nightmare is to wake up. Do you hear the ringing alarm clock, America? It tolls for thee.

Michael Podwill’s Viewpoints appear in The DC Post on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He is a freelance writer and a creative marketing/advertising consultant. He can be reached at mpodwill@aol.com or at M.Podwill@thedcpost.com

AMERICA’S HUNTERS — Pretty Amazing!
The world’s largest army… America ‘s hunters!
I had never thought about this…
A blogger added up the deer license sales in just a handful of states and arrived at a striking conclusion:

There were over 600,000 hunters this season in the state of Wisconsin .
Allow me to restate that number: Over the last
several months, Wisconsin’s hunters became the eighth largest army in the world.More men under arms than in Iran .

More than France and Germany combined.

These men deployed to the woods of a single American state, Wisconsin, to hunt with
firearms, and no one was killed.

That number pales in comparison to the 750,000 who hunted the woods of Pennsylvania and Michigan ‘s 700,000 hunters, all of whom have now returned home safely.
Toss in a quarter million hunters in West Virginia and it literally establishes that the hunters of those four states alone would comprise the largest army in the world. And then add in the total number of hunters in the other 46 states.
It’s millions more.
The point?
America will forever be safe from foreign invasion with that kind of home-grown firepower.
Hunting…
it’s not just a way to fill the freezer.
It’s a matter of national security.

That’s why all enemies, foreign and domestic, want to see us disarmed.

Food for thought, when next we consider gun control.

Have A Great Day!
————————————-
Overall it’s true, so if we disregard some assumptions that hunters don’t possess the same skills as soldiers, the question would still remain…what army of 2 million would want to face 30, 40, 50 million armed citizens.

HUGO

Contributor’s website: http://thevoice.name

“Similar episodes of unprovoked violence by young black gangs against white people chosen at random on beaches, in shopping malls, or in other public places have occurred in Philadelphia, New York, Denver, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington, Los Angeles, and other places across the country. Both the authorities and the media tend to try to sweep these episodes under the rug.”

You can’t fix a problem that remains hidden behind a wall of Political Correctness and aided by a Liberal media.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/299918/censored-race-war-thomas-sowell#

http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2012/05/14/hypocrite-obama-hits-romney-over-bain-connection-but-ignores-his-own/