What’s interesting in the news today?
Open thread. Feel free to share with the group. 🙂
1. The families of Benghazi victims and others have sent a letter to Speaker Boehner. The letter calls him out for his lack of effort and possible involvement in hiding what really happened in Benghazi. The letter pulls no punches.
From JudicialWatch “Dear Speaker Boehner,
We write to express our grave concern over the failure of your House of Representatives to extract the truth from the Obama administration concerning the attack on our diplomatic and intelligence facilities in Benghazi, Libya; and, the brutal deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, U.S. Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, and security officers Ty Woods and Glen Doherty.
To date, five (5) different committees of the House have conducted separate hearings, uncovering information in a piecemeal fashion lacking professional investigators. The five committees’ efforts are disjointed and uncoordinated. The Obama administration has benefited from that dysfunctional process to hide the truth. Hardly any Obama administration witnesses have testified – publicly or privately. You have resisted repeated calls for the creation of a select investigative committee with subpoena authority. It appears that you are satisfied to allow that state of investigative incoherence and ambiguity to continue. The last public hearing by any of the five committees was held in September – four (4) months ago. The families of the dead who fought valiantly to protect the mission and their families, the survivors, and the American people deserve better from you and your Members of Congress. They deserve the absolute truth from their government. Your failure to get the truth and hold public officials accountable increases the possibility of other repeat attacks and additional failures to defend Americans abroad.
On Sunday, December 29, 2013, the New York Times published a story concerning the Benghazi attacks that directly contradicts the sworn testimony of witnesses who appeared before various committees. Besides the obvious New York Times editorial and political objectives of inoculating Hillary Clinton and her 2016 presidential campaign from further criticism of her failures as Secretary of State, the story contradicts objective truth and established facts in a way that confuses the public. Your inaction and failure to lead on the Benghazi investigation directly contributes to the repetition of lies; a lack of accountability from responsible government officials; and the political advancement of persons who seek to continue to “fundamentally transform” the Constitution and our country. The New York Times recent publication proves the Benghazi story is not “going away.”
Your oversight of the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation has been without any meaningful effect or result. Not a single terrorist in this well-planned and executed military attack by radical Islamists has been apprehended. Ahmed Abu Khattala, a ringleader of the attack, granted long interviews to reporters in Benghazi cafes, while the Obama administration – and you – have done nothing. Nearly 16 months after the terrorist attack, the American public has no accountability and no plan of action from House leadership. The public is subjected to undisputed disinformation from a White House who calls the terror attack a “phony scandal.” While the White House repeats false and misleading information, you continue to ignore claims, documented by Rep. Frank Wolf, of intelligence officers being intimidated with multiple, punitive polygraph examinations and harassing non-disclosure agreement demands. If Benghazi is “phony” why are intelligence officers being threatened not to speak and subjected to polygraph exams? Why do you stand by passively?
Some analysts believe your inaction and passivity towards getting to the truth concerning Benghazi is because you were briefed on the intelligence and special operations activities in Libya as a member of the “Super 8.” You may possess “guilty knowledge.” We recall how then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi developed a form of “amnesia” concerning a documented briefing she received on so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” – later termed “torture” for political purposes. Are you in the same position as your predecessor? Are you dodging a legitimate, thorough, coordinated investigation of Benghazi because it will damage your political position as Speaker?”
You can click any of the above text to read the rest. This is signed by numerous Generals, Admirals, Colonels, Captains and others.
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2. The Obama admin has finally gotten around to maybe actually holding someone responsible. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.
From TheWeeklyStandard “The State Department today publicly announced a $10 million reward “for information leading to the arrest or conviction of any individual responsible for the September 11, 2012 Benghazi attacks.” The announcement for the reward is posted on rewardsforjustice.net.”
“Because of “security issues” the offer of the $10 million reward had not been officially announced until today.”
More like delayed by lies and CYA from Obama and Hillary.
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3. The unemployment rate has dropped again. Fuzzy Math, as always.
From TheFederalist “According to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released this morning, the U.S. economy last month added 74,000 new payroll jobs, while the unemployment rate fell to 6.7 percent from 7.0 percent. Good news, right? Not really.
Yes, the unemployment rate has fallen significantly from its high of 10 percent in October of 2009. But it turns out the unemployment rate has been falling for a pretty depressing reason: people dropping out of the labor force. Last month, 347,000 workers dropped out, effectively sending the message that it wasn’t even worth looking for work anymore.”
“In June of 2009, the labor force participation rate was 65.7 percent (by way of comparison, the average over the last decade is 65.1 percent, while the peak was 66.5 percent in June of 2003). Since the end of the recession, that number has nose-dived. At the end of last month, it hit 62.8 percent — on par with what the U.S. experienced in the late 1970′s (although at the time, the number was on the upswing).”
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4. And we have another ObamaCare success story. 🙄
Firemen getting their hours cut, and communities having to fork out more taxpayer dollars because of it.
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Wandering Views 
1. Two families out of the four signed the petition. The others involved include a long list of military personnel, PACs, right wing groups, private citizens and even a few corporate heads. Perhaps symbolic of the integration of military, politics and corporate money on the right side of the spectrum.
For the complaints of media bias, this story has surprising long legs, much longer than any embassy attacks in the previous admins.
2. They’ve named names now so I imagine its only a matter of time before Obama gets the drones on target. Or on the wrong target …. a wedding in yemen perhaps.
3.Interesting. The Conservative gov’t in Canada has long trumpeted their “expert” handling of the economy yet unemployment is increasing and labor participation rates even more so. Their response is to cite encouraging numbers in the US which indicate America has turned the corner and the Cdn economy will benefit. Obviously the Conservatives and Republicans forgot to exchange talking points this month.
4, And they say the media has a liberal bias, this newscast was horrible. Journalism at its worst. I wonder why the obvious solution wasn’t asked by the reporter; why don’t the fire depts consolidate their force by making more full time workers and less part time. Right now fire fighters are working part time at two or three depts (which raises questions about safety as I’m sure their shifts aren’t coordinated) If each firefighter worked full time in one place, the service would improve and health care cost would be roughly similar. Instead the city dept’s attempt to avoid health care by schedule workers for one less hour (29 or 39).
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Why are this
I wonder why the obvious solution wasn’t asked by the reporter; why don’t the fire depts consolidate their force by making more full time workers and less part time.
and this
Instead the city dept’s attempt to avoid health care by schedule workers for one less hour (29 or 39)
in the same paragraph?
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Because the obvious solution is to offer firefighters permanent full time jobs with health care. Scheduling becomes easier, firefighting is better, firefighters will take better care of the equipment and facilities, etc. In the long run its cheaper. If the city is not convinced this is a more fiscally responsible approach, they can offer these FT jobs with a 2-3% pay cut. There will be enough firefighters who will exchange a small pay cut for health care, stability, FT status, and regular shifts. Its apparent ideological blinders are impairing both the fire departments and “journalist” from looking for different and better solutions than treating skilled workers like its McDonalds or Walmart.
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Just parenthetically, any proposed solution or approach to any problem has “ideology” behind it. Adding that analysis to a situation is like the antithesis of Occam.
Anyway, the “obvious solution” is to abolish Obamacare. It creates this kind of thing.
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Even without the ACA, it makes sense to have FT employee who are well paid instead of employing the Walmart model especially in skilled positions. Costco employs more FT workers and gives health benefits to its employees vs Walmart which tends to rely on PTs and believes in avoiding health care by informing its employees where they can find gov’t help. The Costco is more profitable and more responsible. Firefighting is a highly skilled profession and attracting the best with FT work and benefits is better in the long term.
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Allusion to Walmart. Got it. Capitalistic greed is the root of all evil. Can’t argue with that.
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Greed is neither here or there although the bible does call the love of money the root of evil. Simply put, the Walmart model works for immediately gratification ie stock price and Walton family fortune but in the long run the Costco model works and for anything that requires specialized training going with the Walmart model is not pragmatic.
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And ACA puts on pressure to reduce hours, hence the answer to the question you wanted the reporter to ask.
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ACA does and does not. If your model for corporate mgmt is Walmart then yes, but if you see past quartly reports and daily stock fluctuations, then the ACA does not since you would offer health care anyway. And the latter is a better corporate mgmt model.
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Costco is changing its model to anyone below supervisor is part time.
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I doubt they’ve changed their model since November
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/19/reasons-love-costco_n_4275774.html
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I wonder if Obama will have the flags flown at half staff?
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Of course not.
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For what, Chas?
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Ariel Sharon?
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Costco: news as of Friday. A friend’s husband works there. He’s also trying to get on at the local fire station. To do so, he has taken classes, training, EMT course work, rode along, rented the fire “suit” for six months (part of training,) and has gone through a series of tests and a lengthy one-on-one interview.
He’s waiting to hear back from the background check (warned it may take up to three more months to get the results), then will have four months more of training before he can become a VOLUNTEER.
He’s been working on this for three years, while working full time at Costco. He didn’t get the supervisor position he had applied for at Costco and now his hours are being cut (right after they bought a new house). Still, they’re managing and his hope is that once he finishes the volunteering (approximately 18 months) he may finally be hired as a fire fighter and Costco will no longer be an issue.
Bachelor’s degree . . . . has worked at Costco for 10 years (he put himself through college working there). I give you all these details in the hopes you’ll understand why so many fine twenty and thirty-somethings I know are very frustrated with their attempts to work hard and get ahead in this allegedly improving economy.
Costco’s starting wage in California is somewhere near $10-11 an hour, but the first six months are brutal–because they’re trying to weed out anyone who isn’t a hustling worker. We’ve known several people who have supported their families working there, but while it seems like a relatively easy place to work, it’s physically challenging and they cut no slack.
I know that because one of the young women who lived with us (Bachelors Degree, Liberal Arts), didn’t make that six month cut. She spent nearly her entire five months working there rounding up shopping baskets from the parking lot, usually in four-six hour shifts. She was let go because she took too much time so doing and didn’t run. (To be fair to Costco, she wasn’t physically fit enough for pretty much any jobs at the store.)
I don’t know what it’s like where the rest of you live, but I don’t see many opportunities in northern California to make a decent standard of living unless you’re a computer jockey. 😦
Fortunately for us, all our children take after their father and are computer-savvy. I’d despair otherwise. 😦
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Michelle – What about careers in nursing or similar jobs (physician’s assistants, home health aides, etc.)? That had been a growing field, but I don’t know what effect the implementation of Obamacare will have.
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Hard to say, Karen. Nursing is generally a pretty good recession-proof job, but in our county there’s an over abundance of nurses, so positions are hard to get. My friends in medicine warned my daughter off going to medical school because so much is in flux. My daughter is in a program that basically replaces CNAs with free college students doing internships, so there go a bunch of less-education intensive medical field jobs. She’s now thinking of becoming a PA for a variety of reasons.
I see a lot of talented kids with college degrees working jobs that don’t require degrees–under employed, basically. As I said a couple weeks ago, I know few kids who have an easy path into a career out of college these days. 😦 And for the ones who don’t go to college, it’s even worse out here in California.
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