Words ... Weapons of War … for the Heart and the Mind

The book was simply titled. "Propaganda and the American Revolution." Published by UNC Chapel Hill Press, it was, I think, a student's doctoral dissertation on the topic, researched and written in the 1940s. My mom bought it for me from a used book bin at a library book sale. It was paperback and about 400 pages.

I read and re-read that book. It stayed with me through the end of our anti-abortion picketing days here in Jacksonville, through my law school years, through my years as Staff Counsel with @FreeSpeechAdvocates, Litigation Counsel with @ChristianAdvocatesServingEvangelism, Senior Counsel with @ACLJ, and through the eight years that I directed the Washington DC Semester Program of the Regent University School of Law.

It was not a rip-roaring spy thriller.

Rather, it was a fairly interesting, academic examination of how propaganda was used by both Loyalists and Revolutionaries in the period leading to America’s independence from Great Britain. Unless and until you dig below the surface of what is taught in public school history classes, you will miss a singular fact, namely, what a rabble America’s founding generation was. “Propaganda and the American Revolution” serves well as a scuba tank for a dive into a deeper examination of one topic, propaganda, in the context of the revolution.

Surface examinations of subjects like the conditions animating revolution are the best that can be expected in typical classroom studies. That approach may suffice for passing achievement tests, but it won’t necessarily provide an adequate basis, of either information or evaluation, to put contemporary protests in a historical framework.

For example, if you are offended by flag burning by Black Lives Matters protesters or anti-war activists, if the street marches (setting aside those that involve destroying property and visiting violence on others) that have followed America’s selection of Donald Trump as the 45^th President represent a deeply anti-American endeavor, then you probably don't know about, or don’t fully comprehend, the particular pains taken to convince the great middle of colonial America to treat themselves as having suffered horrendous abuses at the hands of the Crown and the Parliament, driving them, if they would, to rise up and throw off the colonial yoke.

In the realm of the imaginative and nonviolent, colonial officials watched as colonists hung their images in effigy in town squares, from "Liberty Trees" and the like. In the world of the painful and violent, colonial officials were, on a few known occasions, painted with tar, dusted with feathers, and literally "ridden out of town on a rail."

(In case you miss the meaning of it, there were no trains in the late mid-18th century. A rail then was a single, extended, member of a rail and picket fence. In other words, being ridden out of town on a rail meant being set, legs splayed and wood rising, on a fence rail, and being carried out of town, with the rail constantly rising in that tenderest location on the human body.)

Sure, we heard about, perhaps studied, the Stamp Act, the Sugar Act, the Townsend Acts, the quartering of troops in colonists’ homes, and King George’s decision to hire Hessian mercenaries to suppress revolutionary sentiment in the colonies by show of brute force. But the fact remains: colonists who lived in those times, experienced those exactions, those impositions, and those threats were apparently content to live under the rough and weighting hand of England.

And that is where the work of propagandists came in. And that is the topic of the book mentioned at the beginning of this post.

So, when you take the closer in look that someone's labors in the colonial historical collections and libraries of New England, the Atlantic seaboard, and the colonial South allows, you begin to understand how the revolution was stood up from the midst of a sleepy young people.

While comparisons to Occupy Wall Street, or Black Lives Matter, or the current round of anti-Trump protests would overstate the case, there was a role in the propaganda campaign for very public demonstrations and protests. Moreover, there are, in today’s blogging, social networking, and tweeting, historical antecedents that were part of the foment for revolution and independence.

THE PUBLIC SQUARE AND THE FLASH MOB.

In September 2012, I traveled to New York City on the Acela Express.

I went to the Big Apple to argue before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. My argument would defend a victory I (and the team I supervised) obtained in a federal trial court in New York. This argument would be my last as Senior Counsel with the ACLJ.

The case involved a New York City ordinance coercing Pregnancy Resource Centers to communicate a set of messages chosen for them by the Democratic Party-controlled City Council. The targeting of Pregnancy Resource Centers was a coordinated effort that came to light as select, Democratic Party controlled jurisdictions began devoting precious government resources to the investigation of proposed ordinances and the subsequent enactment of them, and the inevitable expenses of defending them in courts. Jurisdictions that participated in the effort included the Montgomery County, Maryland County Commission, the New York City Council, the Baltimore City Council, and, subsequently, the Austin, Texas, City Council and, most recently, the State of California.

The targeting began in the aftermath of an investigative series by James O’Keefe and Lila Rose in which the willingness of Planned Parenthood facilities around the Nation to ignore evidence of statutory rape of minor females became broadly exposed. That expose led to calls to defund Planned Parenthood – a call that preceded the more recent round resulting from revelations about Planned Parenthood’s ghoulery of infant body parts sales.

In any event, with Planned Parenthood under the hot lamps and Congress being pressed to act, Planned Parenthood’s guardian angels began a counter offensive against what, apparently, Planned Parenthood considers its opposite number, volunteer run, not for profit, often religiously affiliated, pregnancy resource centers. The upshot of those efforts, in New York City, was the regressive, First Amendment contrary, compulsory speech ordinance imposed there. We obtained an injunction against the enforcement of the ordinance, and sustained that victory on appeal.

But, as I said, I traveled to New York City to argue in defense of our trial court win.

When I arrived in Penn Station, I witnessed a beautiful and rising chorus of singing. It was a flash mob that had been drawn to the Station by messages on social media, texts, etc. They slowly gathered, one voice, joined by one, and then two, three, five, twelve. By the time their performance ended, I suppose there were about 30 singing.

Such flash mobs might seem a creature of the 21^st century, but the American colonists knew their revolutionary antecedent:

One of the more common events in the pre-Revolutionary Period was a "funeral for liberty." "Liberty" was carried on a bier, decked with solemn and funereal colors. The crowds mourned as dead dear Liberty passed. The procession would end in the town square or other central location. At the last second, before the pretended interment of expired Liberty, she would rise from the bier, revived, reinvigorated, and rousing the crowd against depredations by Crown and Parliament.

In addition to funerals for Liberty, more than a few protests involved the display of colonial governors or other representatives of the Crown being hung in effigy.

THE BROADSIDE AND THE BLOG.

You are, perhaps to your great pain, reading a post on my blog.

As you do, literally billions of additional words are being poured onto the World Wide Web as blog posts. The topics are nearly innumerable, from whether Kirk or Piccard was the better captain, to whether cats or dogs are the better pet, to whether Bush or Obama were the cause of the rise of ISIS and the decline of the American economy.

These postings, and the sites and services that make them available to us, I call the “internet of words.”

(I would have claimed credit here for that phrase. Unfortunately for me, before I claim a neologism or a neophraseologism, I usually perform a Bing search. In this case, I learned that a book review in the Chronicle of Higher Education, back in 2014, bore the title, “The Internet of Words.” Here, however, I will kidnap the phrase and put it to work for me to identify a subset of internet communications: those that communicate the intended meanings of the creator through writing, rather than images (accompanying images permitted but not as a substitute in the communication of essential ideas)).

Of course, the principal means of communication – aside from the spoken word – at the time of the revolution in America was the printed word. Pamphlets, like Thomas Paine’s Common Sense are well known down to this day, and even studied in civics classes. Another widely spread and effective tool of communication, to which I've at least alluded here before, was the kind of printed publication called a “broadside.” These were printed single sided and were as large as posters popular in the bedrooms of teenagers today.

Broadsides proved effective tools for stirring the slightest embers of discontent into the raging flame of revolution. Such broadsides were numerous. Broadsides included news stories, calls to arms, and warnings of doom. The Continental Congress that issued the Declaration of Independence had it printed in broadside format to distribute widely in the colonies.

THE PULPIT AND YOUTUBE

Vine is gone. Snapchat is a young American’s medium. YouTube, however, cuts across generations. Sure, it carries videos from the latest contemporary musical artists and trailers for coming attractions. But YouTube also carries wonderful products, shorter and longer, of thought and imagination, as well as lessons in history and economics, mathematics, science, and technology. It is on YouTube that we hear the many voices of Anonymous, wearing the mysterious mask from the movie, V for Vendetta. We also hear careful and thorough messages illuminating broadly scattered subject matter.

Muhlenberg's decloaking in the pulpit

In the revolutionary era, the closest things to YouTube were pulpit addresses by ministers and public addresses by speakers. One chapter of “Propaganda and The American Revolution” explored the role of the black-robed brigade. These were pastors and preachers, pounding pulpits, for revolution or for fidelity to the crown.  Probably the most emblematic and readily recognized pulpit revolutionary was the German Lutheran, Peter Muhlenberg.

Whether the Muhlenberg story is apocryphal or true, it is said that Reverend Muhlenberg, after preaching a solemn sermon on the cause of the Revolution, stripped off his clerical garb, revealing a colonial uniform. What is known to be true is that he preached the sermon, delivered men and arms to the cause of revolution, and acquitted himself well in the War for Independence.

But Muhlenberg’s preaching for separation from the Crown was not singular even if it has become iconic. In fact, “Political Sermons of the Founding Era,” evidences the role of the black-robed brigade in fomenting support or opposition to revolution through expository preaching. Edited by Ellis Sandoz, “Political Sermons” gathers hundreds of such sermons, as well as so-called “Election Day” sermons, which were messages delivered prior to the taking of the vote on Election Day. From those sermons, and from the many of them subsequently published as pamphlets that survive in colonial and historical libraries, we can see the profound role of the pulpit in the revolutionary era.

SUMMING IT UP.

“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

The saying is a truism and a truth.

A significant portion of the American electorate did not get its way in the 2016 presidential election, just as many of us did not get our way in 2012, 2008, 1996, 1992, and 1976. The resort of the disaffected to public protests, and obloquy directed at the victor is entirely American. Violence as a form of protest, however, is neither peculiar to America, nor tolerable nor lawful.

Our colonial experience with despotism still needed a febrile brew to bring us to revolution. Many today, and on all sides, sense the need for revolutionary changes. For some, the revolution leads to localism and downscaled government. For others, the nanny plantation will not be large enough until everyone is on it and everyone agrees with it. I hope that as we face the protests – not lawful, nonviolent ones – we will remember that, however silly or unwarranted we might think their cause, they are exercising a right that we are bound to maintain and respect, if we want it respected in our turn.

Taking Your Polls With a Grain of Salt

One of the harsher criticisms delivered by a New Testament author is found in the Letter to the Hebrews. (If you aren't a "believer," I hope you'll tolerate this brief observation because it leads somewhere important.)

The writer criticizes Hebrew believers that aught, based on the passage of time and experiences of life, to be eating a diet suitable to adults. The writer uses the phrase "strong meat" to describe the diet that the writer expected those Hebrew believers to be of sufficient maturity to consume. (For the vegan reader, that's going to take you sideways if you get locked up on it … maybe think of the writer as having endorsed Brussel sprouts.) The writer's point is that, as adults, from the time our milk teeth drop out and our permanent teeth drop in, we are capable of eating more than breast milk from our mothers.

The writer's criticism focused on those Hebrews that should be, spiritually speaking, on an adult diet of spiritual understanding, but who were, instead, still feasting at the teat, surviving on the barest spiritual nutrition.

“Time to grow up,” I think, was the author's point.

Elections seem to bring out the teat sucker in folks.

I have in mind the consumption of news about presidential polls.

So, in the span of a few short days, we have been invited, courtesy of traditional news sources, to believe that we have swung from a Trump bump to an electoral Armageddon in which the Democratic Beast rises to the throne of America. Is that so obviously the case? If you take the Pablum of predigested summations, you may think it is so.

I think not. And, if you are a thinking person, you may think not too.

If you are a person that isn't content to avoid macerating facts, if you don’t simply accept the spoon fed agenda of the lap dance media, you will have looked through their filters and studied and understood the implications of what is, and what is not, being reported, about polling.

It's time to grow up.

If you have read this far, then I know you are capable of reading and understanding basic written English; to my thinking, that also means that you are capable of getting beyond the Pablum of media reports about presidential polling, that you can, you should actually take up the source information and screen it for its meaning.

Because it seems to be the place where folks shop for polling data, let's use RealClearPolitics and its polling summary page as an example. I've reorganized and reproduced their summary here:

 As shown, the largest sample polling was that of the Los Angeles Times poll. That poll, of over 2000 participants, showed the narrowest margin between Clinton and Trump, a single point of preference separating the two.

Moreover, that poll, based on its sample size had a self-reported negligible margin of error. Finally, among the polls summarized, that poll sought the views of LIKELY VOTERS, and was one of only TWO polls in the RealClearPolitics summary that sough the views of so-called LIKELY VOTERS.

The other poll of LIKELY VOTERS was completed a week prior to the LA Times Poll. It included a smaller polling sample, produced a reportable margin of error, and, while it showed Clinton ahead of Trump, the spread between them was nearly completely covered by that margin of error.

The remaining EIGHT POLLS were all of small sample sizes compared to the Los Angeles Times poll.

The remaining EIGHT POLLS were of a different demographic group. Where the LA Times and Reuters/IPSOS polls sought the views of LIKELY VOTERS, the remaining polls all sought the views of REGISTERED VOTERS.

Give some thought to what this could be telling you.

As a nation, a substantial minority of us, in many cases nearly 50% of those who are not only old enough to vote but are also eligible to vote do not vote. The most recent presidential election in which both the number of registered voters and the number of actual voters is certain, 2004, showed a turnout of about 60% of registered voters. You can check my math here and here.

Of course, there are many uncertainties in every election that can cause variations in the turnout and the outcome. Yet, if the search is for the most likely accurate forecast of how the election actually would turn out, you have to ask yourself, would the more accurate picture be gained by polling those who are registered to vote? Or, would the more accurate picture be gained by polling those who are, based on prior behavior and declared intentions, actually LIKELY TO VOTE?

The wildly ranging numbers in the REGISTERED VOTER POLLS, it seems to me, are exactly what to expect in a large scale group amongst whom nearly 50% are unlikely to actually vote in an election, even though they have bothered to register to vote.

Here’s another curiosity for a “meat-eating” poll reader:

If a poll of REGISTERED VOTERS showed one kind of trend or condition, but a contemporaneous poll of LIKELY VOTERS produced a contrary trend or condition, what meaning, if any, might/could/should we draw from a preference for polls of REGISTERED VOTERS or of LIKELY VOTERS?

Seriously.

Suppose that polling REGISTERED VOTERS produced reliably more accurate results, results that actually matched election outcomes. Or suppose, to the contrary, that polling LIKELY VOTERS did so. In either event, for what possible reason would a news agency or its polling partners choose to gauge the less reliable group?

Think about it.

Suppose you had to make your living betting on the outcomes of NFL games.

If you did so, which of the following would be more important to you: knowing what would be the actual starting line-up for Sunday's game, or simply knowing the undifferentiated list of all 53 eligible players on the team's roster?

To be sure, when injuries require that they do so, coaches will go into the bench; and you will want to know, in turn, about the depth of the bench for various positions, but in the first instance, how likely are you to pick one team over another, or even more so, pick a game based on point spread, if you are told only that there will be 11 unidentified players on one team playing against 11 unidentified players on the other team. The risk of losing on your bets would be enough to make you seek legitimate employment!

If the coach puts a passing quarterback on the field, that is some indication of the game to be played.

Here, the generic "registered voter" is placed in comparison with the more certainly known "likely voter."

If you think it odd for me to focus on the differences to be found in REGISTERED VOTER polls and LIKELY VOTER polls, I’d recommend reading some coverage of the differences. You can read about this topic, in the context of previous elections, here, here, here, here, and here.

And if a media organization likes the odds spread when polling REGISTERED rather than LIKELY voters, and then actually produces only polling of REGISTERED voters, that should give you that one more insight:

Yes, the media does have a preferred candidate, and they don't like the trends among likely voters, so they disguise them by polling a fairly irrelevant group instead.

A Hell of a Difference Hillary, a Hell of a Difference

In January 2013, two months following the re-election of Barack Obama and four months following the planned, deadly, terrorist attack on America's Benghazi Consulate, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified before Congress about the attack, the State Department's security arrangements for the Consulate, and the manner in which the Obama administration represented the attack on television in the immediate aftermath of the attack and in the heated last weeks of Obama's re-election run.

Before going further, here's a link to an excerpt of that testimony. Please watch it again. I know most of you have seen it before. But, please, remind yourself of exactly how Secretary Clinton presented to the Committee her "What difference does it make" rebuke:

A lot of ink has been spilled in pursuit of political agendas and in pursuit of the truth, over the Consulate Benghazi attack. The pursuit of truth, of course, was substantially impeded by the known lie offered by the Obama administration immediately following the attack. You do remember the known lie, yes? That the attack on Benghazi was the result of outrage in the Islamic community over a youtube video that blasphemed that religion?

That was the lie told five times on a Sunday morning five days after the attack by Susan Rice, then the President's National Security Adviser. That lie was not a spontaneous error made once and then forced to be repeated on subsequent talk shows. It was the planned lie. Indeed, it was planned as a deliberate distraction from what the Benghazi attack might really be seen to reveal: the foreign policy failures of the Obama administration.

We know that last fact thanks to the work of Judicial Watch. Its FOIA lawsuits have forced the Obama Administration to produce damning emails.

One of those damning emails came from Ben Rhodes.

Rhodes serves as Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting to President Obama. Rhodes has siblings. In a wonderfully delicious coincidence, his brother is the President of CBS News. Given the absolute failure of CBS News to substantively analyze, or question, the agenda-driven (re-elect Obama), completely false narrative she offered on Face the Nation, it leaves one wondering just how cozy the relationship between CBS's Rhodes and the White House's Rhodes is.

Rhodes emailed tips about preparing Rice for her Sunday morning talk show appearances. Among his tips:  "underscore that these protests are rooted in an internet video, and not a broader failure of policy." No, no, certainly not a broader failure of policy. We certainly would not want our National Security Adviser to get on the TV Sunday morning shows and say, "Benghazi was a cluster-f#ck of monumental proportions and is the fault of our failed policies." So, what would she say instead?

Apparently whatever lie Rhodes suggested.

In some way, it may seem unfair to require one to answer for the lies of another ... unless one used their position to lend credence and weight to the false narrative. So while you might sympathize with Hillary Clinton, when called to task on Capitol Hill, no sympathy is warranted. Particularly, no sympathy is warranted because she did not come to Capitol Hill to clear the air, resolve ambiguities, or tell the truth.

How do I know that to be the case?

Well, it's all right up there in that video.

Hillary came to Capitol Hill to continue the venerable Democratic (and governmental) practice of telling bald-faced lies.

Here is the transcript of the relevant exchange between Republican Senator Ron Johnson and Secretary Clinton in that video linked above:

Johnson: But, Madame Secretary, do you disagree with me that a simple phone call to those evacuees to determine what happened wouldn’t have ascertained immediately that there was no protest? That was a piece of information that could have been easily, easily obtained? 

Clinton: But, Senator, again— 

Johnson: Within hours, if not days? 

Clinton: Senator, you know, when you’re in these positions, the last thing you want to do is interfere with any other process going on, number one— 

Johnson: I realize that’s a good excuse. 

Clinton: Well, no, it’s the fact. Number two, I would recommend highly you read both what the ARB said about it and the classified ARB because, even today, there are questions being raised. Now, we have no doubt they were terrorists, they were militants, they attacked us, they killed our people. But what was going on and why they were doing what they were doing is still unknown -- 

Johnson: No, again, we were misled that there were supposedly protests and that something sprang out of that -- an assault sprang out of that -- and that was easily ascertained that that was not the fact, and the American people could have known that within days and they didn’t know that. 

Clinton: With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator. Now, honestly, I will do my best to answer your questions about this, but the fact is that people were trying in real time to get to the best information. The IC has a process, I understand, going with the other committees to explain how these talking points came out. But you know, to be clear, it is, from my perspective, less important today looking backwards as to why these militants decided they did it than to find them and bring them to justice, and then maybe we’ll figure out what was going on in the meantime. 

Johnson: OK. Thank you, Madame Secretary.

Do you see the lie?

What does Hillary say?

"Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they'd they go kill some Americans?"

You have to literally take the blow by blow with Hillary to catch the full nuance of complete and utter falsehood she unloads in that statement.

Notice the hands and her gaze toward Senator Johnson:

So far, you would be right to conclude that she had not yet lied.

The next moment, however, she will begin to unload 100% Grade A falsehood. But before I explain, here is a bit more background.

When the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee was beginning its investigation into Benghazi, it sent a letter to Secretary Clinton. That letter details an extended series of attacks on American and other foreign facilities and personnel in Libya in the months leading up to the planned terrorist assault on the Benghazi Consulate and the murders of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. This chronology showing the increasing danger of circumstances in Benghazi is based on their letter:

• April 6, 2012, BENGHAZI – IED Attack on Benghazi Consulate
• April 11, 2012, BENGHAZI – Gun battle, including antiaircraft guns and RPGs, within 5 km of the Benghazi Consulate
• April 25, 2012, TRIPOLI – A US Embassy diplomatically plated vehicle detained and Embassy-issued radio seized
• April 26, 2012, BENGHAZI – Fistfight and gunfire while a Foreign Service officer attended a trade-related event at the International Medical University
• April 27, 2012, BENGHAZI – Two South African contractors kidnapped by armed men while walking through a residential area of Benghazi
• May 1, 2012, TRIPOLI – The Deputy Commander of Embassy Tripoli’s Local Guard Force carjacked, beaten and detained by a group of armed youth.  
• May 22, 2012, BENGHAZI – Two RPG rounds were fired at the Benghazi office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), approximately 1 km from Consulate Benghazi
• June 2012 – In June 2012, a posting on a pro-Gaddafi Facebook page identified Ambassador Stevens daily exercise schedule and directed a threat against the Ambassador with a photo of him
• June 6, 2012, BENGHAZI – An IED on the north gate of Consulate Benghazi blew a hole in the security perimeter “big enough for forty men to go through” 
• June 10, 2012, BENGHAZI –June 10, 2012, a convoy carrying the British Ambassador was attacked with an RPG.  
• Late June 2012, BENGHAZI – The International Committee of the Red Cross building was attacked again, this time in broad daylight while people were inside.  
• August 6, 2012, TRIPOLI – Armed assailants attempt to carjack vehicle with diplomatic plates driven by US security personnel
• WEEKS BEFORE September 11, 2012, BENGHAZI – Unarmed Libyan guards were warned by family members to quit guarding Consulate Benghazi due to rumors of an impending attack

No wonder that Ambassador Stevens, along with other federal officials detailed to Libya repeatedly requested that security be enhanced there. Of course, if the chronology alone is insufficient to convince you that these repeated and increasing attacks occurred, try denying the visual evidence. Here are photos showing the aftermath of the attack on the convoy carrying the British Ambassador:

As the chronology above mentioned, there was also an RPG attack on the International Committee of the Red Cross in Benghazi. The photo below shows where the rocket propelled grenade entered the ICRC building:

National Security Adviser Susan Rice took to the airwaves and pushed the administration's lying line, recounting a false narrative, that a video that defamed Islam stirred anti American sentiment. White House Creative Writing expert Ben Rhodes urged the lie so that no one would think the Benghazi attack reflected a more general failure of US policy.

Of course, that is precisely what the attack reflected.

The Obama administration shares responsibility with other nations for supporting the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi. What ever ill one may speak of that dictator, he kept the more disruptive and violent components of Libyan society in check. Supporting his removal, and his murder, put us in the position of killing the engineer on a train speeding down a straight track into town, knowing that the track curves precipitously in the downtown area. If you do that, you are agreeing to the mayhem that results. And this administration was warned by human rights groups about the dangers to Libyan minority groups inherent in such destabilization. Yet the administration made removing Gaddafi a key component of its middle eastern strategies.

What followed, then, was the trail of disturbances and violence. Nor was our Benghazi consulate the sole target of the violence, as the chronology above showed. And that chronology does not address the domestic harms of the failed policy of this administration for Libyan minorities and ordinary citizens.

So, when Hillary came to Capitol Hill, and did so after the House Committee's letter, mentioned above, pointed to the intensifying violence and danger, and inquired about security arrangements and requests for enhanced security for the Libyan mission, Secretary Clinton obviously practiced and came prepared ... to lie.

Notice, in the video, she omitted "protest over a video defaming Islam. Now, she simply asks, "Was it because of a protest?"

Remember, when she spoke that phrase, she already knew that it was NOT BECAUSE OF A PROTEST. It never was. Yet, in setting up her counterpoise of two competing narratives -- each of which exonerates the Obama administration for failing to respond to security enhancement requests -- she clings to a part of the narrative, that the attack was "because of a protest."

The answer, as the Secretary knew, was, "No, it wasn't because of a protest."

Then she proceeds immediately to offer the alternative, equally false narrative;

So, having proposed that it might have been the result of a protest, she immediately leaps to the alternative, equally false narrative. "Was it because a group of guys were out walking one night and decided to go kill some Americans?"

Well, again, Secretary Clinton knew that the answer to the question was, "No, it wasn't because a 'group of guys were out walking one night and decided to go kill some Americans.'" That narrative offers a skin of truth: that a group of guys decided to kill Americans. But that skin of truth was stretched overly tightly around a lie of enormous proportions. The lie was the impression left by the question that the attack was an unplanned event isolated in time to the evening when it occurred. One has the sense, from hearing her words, that she is suggesting that a group of radicals were strolling in the park and decided

What difference, at this point, does it make?

It makes the difference that the President and his administration -- in a planned act of direct lies -- told America that the attack on Benghazi was the fault of a video. They knew when they said it that they were lying. Why say it? Because they knew the alternative, truthful, explanation was damning to the President's re-election: a more general failure of policy in the region. Now one of the principal architects of that falsehood, an agent of deception that used flourish and art to spin out two further developed and completely false narratives, would be President.

No, it wasn't a group out for a walk that spontaneously decided to kill Americans.

No, it wasn't a protest against a video that simply spun out of control.

The two previous IED attacks directly on the compound, including one that blew a hole in the compound's fence large enough for forty men to charge through, show that there was deliberation, planning, probing for weaknesses in security taking place in the months leading up to the attack. The Gaddafi regime that Obama toppled was, certainly, troubling. The wreck left in the wake of topping that regime, however, was the failure of Obama's policy. A person of honor would have resigned their post rather than assist in propping up Obama's policy and his lies to the American people. We have seen American political leaders demonstrate that honor.

During the investigation into the break-in of the Democratic Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington, then-President Richard Nixon gave in to pressure and appointed an independent special prosecutor, Archibald Cox. When Cox's investigation discomfitted Nixon, he decided to fire him.

The decision of the President to terminate an official of his administration is nothing new. In our history we had episodic fits between Congress and the President over that power. Ultimately, Congress enacted a law, the Tenure in Office Act, during the administration of Pres. Andrew Johnson.

In 1867, having grown wary with Edwin Stanton's service as secretary of war, Pres. Johnson wrote a telegram to Sec. Stanton advised him that his resignation from office would be accepted. Stanton did not respond and continue to exercise the powers of his office as secretary of war. Stanton, part of the radical Republican wing of the Republican Party, and others believe that Johnson's policies of reconstruction were insufficiently rigorous and disciplinary of a South which had fought against the union. Ultimately, Pres. Johnson ordered Sec. Stanton to suspend the exercise of his office and appointed Ulysses Grant to service Secretary of War in his place.

In response to the president's actions, Congress enacted the Tenure in Office Act over Johnson's veto. The act prohibited the president from discharging any government official whose appointment required the advice and consent of the Senate, without obtaining the consent of the Senate to the discharge. Because Johnson's discharge of Stanton violated the act, the House of Representatives impeached Johnson. Although this Senate failed to convict Johnson it was the first time in our nations history that a president was subjected to a trial for impeachment.

A century later, Pres. Nixon, embattled in the White House over the Watergate break-in, face the rigorous investigation by special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Nixon concluded that Cox should be fired. He directed the Atty. Gen. of the United States, Elliot Richardson, to fire Archibald Cox. Richardson refused.

Rather than fire Cox, Richardson resigned. Nixon then ordered the Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox. Like Richardson, Ruckelshaus refused. He resigned his office.

In the absence of an Attorney General or the Deputy Attorney General, the solicitor General of the United States is the acting head of the Department of Justice. At that time Robert Bork was the Solicitor General of the United States. Nixon requested that Bork terminate Archibald Cox has special prosecutor. Bork terminated Cox, in his view the president had the sole prerogative to terminate from employment with the federal government any employee.

Richardson and Ruckelshaus set a clear precedent for a person holding high public office under the government of the United States to resign from office rather than to participate in folly or crime. Clinton, who served as an attorney to the Watergate committee investigating Nixon, knew that Richardson and Ruckelshaus acted honorably in the face of Nixon's demand for the firing of Archibald Cox. Apparently that lesson of history was lost on Secretary Clinton. Hillary Clinton chose poorly.

Instead, Hillary shared in the lying, and offered her own falsehoods. Your decision to support her candidacy grants her your post-hoc absolution, your license to conduct herself in future offices as she did as Secretary: lying to you, to the American people, and to the world, and doing so solely on the ground that the ends -- the re-election of the President free from doubts that his failed policy created the Benghazi bloodbath -- justified the means.

With a Skirt Like that, Of Course She Got Raped

That got your attention, so let me start by clarifying something.

Women don't get raped because they wear skimpy clothing. They get raped because someone else breaks the law, disrespects the integrity and humanity of another, and commits a despicable act of violation.

That being said, this administration likes to blame the short skirted woman for being raped.

More specifically, this administration likes to blame Ambassador Chris Stevens for his own violent murder in Benghazi.

Allow me to explain.

Do you remember the recent brouhaha over Ben Carson's reaction to the shooting at Umpuqua Community College. He said, in that position, he would have attacked and urged others to join in the attack, because "he might get me, but he can't get us all." In essence, the talking heads made this out to be Carson blaming the victims for getting shot.

Some follow up in conservative media noted that the disarmament of Jews left them unable to defend themselves against the Nazis. Again, this remark was criticized for its supposed blaming of the victims.

Well, children, here's a bit of information for you. It's about your current president, the most recent previous Secretary of State, and their decision to BLAME AMBASSADOR STEVENS for his gruesome death in Libya.

You didn't hear in the media about that attack on Ambassador Stevens by the Administration?

I suppose not.

But here's a paragraph from the Accountability Review Board findings on the attack at Benghazi,

Security in Benghazi was not recognized and implemented as a “shared responsibility” by the bureaus in Washington charged with supporting the post, resulting in stove-piped discussions and decisions on policy and security. That said, Embassy Tripoli did not demonstrate strong and sustained advocacy with Washington for increased security for Special Mission Benghazi.

See that last sentence, "Embassy Tripoli did not demonstrate strong and sustained advocacy with Washington for increased security for Special Mission Benghazi." Among sentences that could be written about the attack in Benghazi and the losses incurred, there is the one produced by this administration that indicts Obama and Clinton for playing the "blame the victim" card.

The key difference --when this progressive train wreck of an administration engages in this kind of deliberate attempt to blame shift onto the dead, as opposed to when Ben Carson simply explains what he would do differently in the same circumstances as those recently killed at Umpuqua -- is that the Lap Dance Media is too busy gussying itself up for the White House Correspondents Dinner, or checking the mail for the much vaunted White House Christmas Party invitation to do the job that real muckrakers of journalism once did.

At the end of this administration, when the trash is being cleared, I fully they will find one journal on the shelves of the Oval Office. It will be styled, "Things I Took Responsibility For." When they open the pages, they will, of course, be blank.

Forget the Necessary and Proper Clause, We Need an IDGARA Amendment to the Constitution

I would like to propose an amendment to the Constitution.

It would, of course, be a mere formality. It would, however, make constitutional the excesses, overreaches, violations, and abuses regularly visited by government actors upon the People, upon individuals, and upon States.

The Amendment would be styled, The I Don't Give a Rat's Ass Amendment, and it would read as follows:

Whenever this Amendment shall have been ratified by three fourths of the States, or whenever any government officials needs or desires to pretend that it shall have been so ratified, then this Amendment shall be part and parcel of the Constitution, and shall amend and modify each and every letter, word, clause, sentence, paragraph, portion, provision, Article and part thereof, so that, as amended, every provision of the Constitution shall be understood to read, 'If I care what the Constitution says, then and only then will I abide by its terms; when, however, I find the terms and provisions of the Constitution inconvenient, obstructive, or unhelpful, then I don't give a Rat's Ass what it says, and that's perfectly permissible."

In writing on the Law, Thomas Aquinas suggested that positive law, law enacted by man, should be limited in terms and scope and number, and should comport itself to the conduct of men (as consistent with God's law). The I Don't Give a Rat's Ass Amendment does just that. It avoids the niceties and restrictions that so often are merely forms and shadows, and too often observed in their breach.

If you read in these words a criticism limited to Democrats, then you misunderstand the temper of my criticism.

John Roberts has twice deployed the essential power of the I Don't Give a Rat's Ass principle in sustaining the Obamacare Act against constitutional challenges. Lest you forget, Roberts is a hopeful monster of Republican creation.

Anthony Kennedy has three times deployed the essential power of the I Don't Give a Rat's Ass principle as he causally but casually pushed America toward acceptance of a Supreme Court ruling holding that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment intended to prohibit limitations on marriage that discriminate against same-sex couples.

George W. Bush deployed the I Don't Give a Rat's Ass principle in signing the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 into law despite his stated conclusion that several provisions of the law were, in his judgment, unconstitutional. He deployed that same principle with his grotesque enlargements of Clinton era surveillance programs when he pushed for, and signed into law, the PATRIOT Act.

Of course, it isn't just Presidents and Supreme Court justices that handily rely upon and invoke the essentials of the I Don't Give a Rat's Ass principle.

Too often, Congress enacts laws of uncertain constitutionality, leaving to the Courts the performance of its own separate duty to judge whether bills presented for consideration satisfy constitutional norms.

The FCC has reared its ugly head to seize the Internet, a medium of communication, and appears intent on deciding how private persons and organization use that medium to communicate. That the Constitution prohibits any law abridging the freedom of speech and of the press simply elicits from Net Neutrality Commissioners an entirely unsurprising "I Don't Give a Rat's Ass."

I hope that you will consider adding your voice to mine.

It is time to relieve beleaguered elected officials and agents of government of the shameful task of pretense, the arduous artifices of obfuscation, bound up in being required to pretend that they care what the Constitution says.

With the "I Don't Give a Rat's Ass Amendment" then we truly can advance to an open, honest, government in the sunshine.

Looking Back: July 2014 on JimsJustSayin

He's George Takei and It's Okay ... For Him to Be Wrong 

Ensign Sulu, I won't tell you how the Enterprise slipped into a worm hole, and you don't tell me  how the Free Exercise Clause and Religious Freedom Restoration Act work.

A False Claim and A True Bill 

Like all sensible folk, I wasn't watching the Sunday morning talk shows when UN Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on all FIVE network shows.  So, until it was reported later that day and in subsequent days, I did not know that the Administration was asserting that the attacks on our Benghazi compounds resulted from a spontaneous response by people of Islamic faith who were offended by a YouTube video deemed blasphemous of Islam.

Boehner's Boner: Ineffectual Parenting of the Boyking 

If Boehner wants to do his job, he needs to forget about suing the President. Even if he can get every Republican in the House to authorize the suit, the federal courts will, ultimately, throw the suit out (a) because of lack of legal standing to sue, or (b) as presenting a non-justiciable political controversy.

Devising a Code of Conduct for the Supreme Court? 

Adopting yet another federal law -- the resort of scoundrels as a general rule -- rather than deploying the law as it exists now, is not the answer.  It is, however, in keeping with the temper tantrums of our times.  Rather than proceeding on Articles of Impeachment, the proposed solution is to adopt a statute.

DREAM Act Birds Come Home to Roost 

We are three days past Independence Day.  I hope, nonetheless, that you will recognize that usurpation of legislative authority by King George III constituted the principal basis for our rebellion against English tyranny.  Obama's tyranny is no less offensive to the republican self-government to which our Declaration aims, our State Constitutions frame, and our National Constitution commits.

Stolen Page from the Obama Diary, July 9, 2014 

Dear Diary, I visited the border today.

Why Having Two White Parents That Remain Together Through Life Is Sucky 

The fact is, having one black parent is good enough to make Barack Obama America's first "black president."  So what that he didn't know his father?  So what that his father bedded and illegally wedded Barack's mother?  So what that his father's influence in his life is an after the fact construct for a book ghost written for a future president by a past domestic terrorist?

Bob Goodlatte vs. Alexander Hamilton: Why Obama Can Be Impeached 

That Goodlatte believes that the basis for impeaching Obama does not exist leaves me with a dread sense that the one truly representative body of our federal government is captained by the ignorant or the damned.

Senate Prefers Pandering Over Responsibilities of Office 

Not heard in the background of that noise are the soft crunching of gravel under boots as American service members walk into, through and beyond dangers on virtually every continent.  Ignored in the press to do this entirely sophistric act of legislative Kabuke theater are the pleas of communities along the southern border to act to reduce the tidal wave of illegal entries into the United States, along with the warnings of those with reason to know that the flood is not just of those seeking a better life here, but also includes, or is at risk of including, those who meld into the flood, so that, on entry into the best and brightest hope of mankind on earth, they can bring terror to the people whose interests have been sacrificed in the Senate in the interest of partisan politics.

A Tale of Two Courts 

With news of federal appeals court decision out of Washington, DC, in the morning on July 22nd, I thought, "this is the best of times."  By the time the day had ended, and word came of another appeals court's decision on the same issue out of Richmond, Virginia, I thought "this is the worst of times." 

A False Claim and A True Bill

Like all sensible folk, I wasn't watching the Sunday morning talk shows when UN Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on all FIVE network shows.  So, until it was reported later that day and in subsequent days, I did not know that the Administration was asserting that the attacks on our Benghazi compounds resulted from a spontaneous response by people of Islamic faith who were offended by a YouTube video deemed blasphemous of Islam.

By now, of course, we all know that the Obama administration put that precise argument forward.  We know that a man in California who had previously been convicted of another crime had his probation revoked and was returned to jail ... all as part of the federal government's commitment to punish those responsible for inflaming Islamic sensibilities with that blasphemous video.  We also know that Obama's administration -- by sending Susan Rice to those Sunday morning shows -- lied to us, lied to the families of the four Americans killed, lied to the world.

And now that one terrorist has been captured, transported to the United States, and had an appearance in the US District Court to answer to his indictment, we know that the Obama administration knows that it lied to us.

The term indictment is stern.  It draws into the mind images of stringent criminal proceedings.  A judgment, drawn in large terms, that the accused has certainly committed criminal acts.  So, I think it's helpful to know that sometimes an indictment is fairly quick and simple read.  I'm including a link to the indictment below and the relevant text here:

"(conspiracy to Provide Material support and Resources to Terrorists Resulting in Death)

Beginning on a date unknown to the Grand Jury but no later than on or about September 11, 2012, and continuing until on or about September 12, 2012, in Libya, that is, outside the jurisdiction of any particular state or district, but within the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the United States, and pusuant to Title 18, United States Code, Section 3238, within the venue of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, defendant AHMED ABU KHATALLAH, also known as. Ahmed Mukatallah, did knowingly and intentionally conspire and agree with other conspirators, known and unknown to the Grand Jury, to provide material support and resources to terrorists, that is, personnel including himself and others, as defined in Title 18, United States Code, Section 2339A(bXl), knowing and intending that the material support and resources were to be used in preparation for and in carrying out a violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 930(c), Killing a Person in the Course of an Attack on a Federal Facility Involving the Use of a Firearm and a Dangerous Weapon, and a violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 844(f), Maliciously Damaging and Destroying U.S. Property by Means of Fire and an Explosive, and this offense resulted in death."

That's all that it says.  There's a case caption, and a place for the Grand Jury's representative to have signed, indicating the Grand Jury's True Bill.

You do see what isn't there, right?

Nothing about spontaneous rioting responding to an inflammatory video.


Nothing about an inflammatory video at all.


Do you see what is there?

An accusation of CONSPIRACY on the part of the Defendant and others.  CONSPIRACY, a plan of action to accomplish an unlawful result.

But then, with the World Cup underway, and a possible early season hurricane along the east coast, at this point, what difference does it make?

The difference it makes is made only to those that care that they have been manipulated, misled, lied to, used.  Wouldn't you think the talk shows that hosted the lie-fest of the Obama administration would want to be in the forefront of pursuing the lie?  Don't hold your breath for that day to come.

But do something.  Repost this status and the link to the indictment.  Ask the questions.  Call your Congressional delegation at 202-224-3121 and demand ACTION by Congress, not platitudes, not remonstrations, but ACTION.  Obama must be held to account for setting the culture of deceit and corruption that rots his administration, as they say, from the head back.  Hillary must be held to account for the blood of the first openly gay US Ambassador and three brave Americans who were killed, not in spontaneous retaliation to a video, but as part of the aftermath of the Obama administrations incompetent and incontinent destabilization of the Middle East.

I wonder, as I think about the Administration's decision to fabricate a false cover story for Benghazi, how this LIE will come back to haunt Obama.  I'm an attorney by trade.  If I put on my thinking cap, I believe I could come up with five different ways of showing that the Government has changed its story, that it boldly declared a completely inconsistent theory of the cause of the violence on September 11, 2012:  the supposed offense among faithful Muslims to the blasphemous video.  On top of that, I don't doubt that Obama's lie to America, repeated five times in a three hour period, that the middle east had been inflamed by the blasphemous video will echo in an argument that the attack was the result of a provocative insult to Islam and its Prophet.

With all the webs of deception spun by this Administration, I'm surprised Obama, Clinton and Rice didn't compete for the role of Shelob in "The Desolation of Smaug."

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You can read the indictment for yourself here

Kerry Will Leave No Stone Unturned ... Obamaroaches Will Scurry

Folks with a bit of grey at the temples will remember who it was that sought to preserve future political viability.

I think John Kerry's statement that the State Department will leave no stone unturned in seeking out the truth of what happened with Benghazi reflects a profound awareness on his part that Barack Obama has cleared his glide path to the 2016 Democratic Presidential nomination and that Hillary has stupendously failed to "preserve future political viability."

Let's face it:  Hillary Clinton's presidential aspirations are dead, after the latest Benghazi revelations (State Department micro-editing and control of the Susan Rice talking points).  ABC News has talking points as they evolved prior to Susan Rice's quintefecta of fabrications.

If the stink of this scandal leads to Obama's resignation or impeachment, I think Joseph Biden will see a short shelf life as President, purely comical caretaker, and if Kerry takes a serious (at least for the public) stand, he would be rightly perceived by Democrats as the mop and bucket needed to clean up their party's disastrous White House implosion.

Just sayin!