BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
IT'S ONE SNIT FIT AFTER ANOTHER AT THE WHITE HOUSE THESE DAYS.
AN ANGRY BARRY O SPENT THE BULK OF SATURDAY HURLING OBJECTS AT A WALL TO SMASH THEM.
WHAT HAD HIM SO ANGRY?
NO, IT WASN'T ANOTHER SELFIE.
IT WAS LEARNING THAT THE BLOCKBUSTER FILM CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER CALLS OUT THE WHITE HOUSE POLICIES.
"I GOT F**KED!" SCREAMED BARRY O. "AND I DIDN'T EVEN GET F**KED, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN! THEY SCREWED ME OVER SO THE LEAST THEY COULD HAVE DONE IS SCREW ME! I MEAN CHRIS EVANS, HUBBA, HUBBA, HUBBA! I'D RIDE HIS FLAGPOLE LIKE OLD GLORY!"
FROM THE TCI WIRE:
Will today be remembered as the day Iraq War supporter Hillary Clinton's presidential dreams vanished?
Possibly.
A letter from [PDF format warning] the Office of Inspector General letter might just do the trick.
Fox News noted:
The Office of Inspector General, in a March 20 "management alert" to department leaders, said the department has failed to provide all or some of the files for $6 billion worth of contracts in the last six years.
"The failure to maintain contract files adequately creates significant financial risk and demonstrates a lack of internal control over the Department's contract actions," the memo said.
Adam Kredo (Free Beacon) noted, "The State Department misplaced and lost some $6 billion due to the improper filing of contracts during the past six years, mainly during the tenure of former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, according to a newly released Inspector General report."
But nobody appeared to know what they had.
Let's first note how this plays out in a campaign. The obvious question is one of competency as in, "Can she handle the presidency when she couldn't even handle the State Dept budget?"
It needs to be noted that Hillary has spent her year-plus since resigning as Secretary of State with only one public goal: To present herself baddest bitch in the whole damn town.
She's screamed for war, compared people to Hitler -- Let's just stop for a moment on that. How do you become president when you're screaming "Hitler!" at someone?
At any rate, she's attempted to prove just how tough she is -- as if anyone ever doubted she could be cold blooded or ruthless.
And now this comes up.
How is John Kerry better Secretary of State than Hillary Clinton?
There are a lot of variables which go to opinion. And there are some people who would argue that neither are good in their positions.
But these are appointments, these people are not elected, they are appointed. Since the American people had no say in the process -- despite paying their salaries -- it is especially important that they do their jobs and do the jobs professionally. In a democracy, you're supposed to have an open government.
Does Hillary grasp that?
John Kerry did.
Let's drop back to the April 17, 2013 snapshot, where we reported on that day's House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing:
Chair Ed Royce: I'd also like to call your attention to the State Department's Inspector General's Office. This is the key independent office looking at waste and fraud. Mr. Secretary, as of today, there has been no permanent State Department Inspector General for over five years. This includes President Obama's entire first term. The Committee raised this issue in a bi-partisan letter sent to you in February and we would like to see an immediate appointment to this position.
Secretary John Kerry: On the IG, you're absolutely correct. We're -- we're trying to fill a number of positions right now, the IG among them. The greatest difficulty that I'm finding now that I'm on the other side of the fence is frankly the vetting process. And I've got some folks that I selected way back in February when I first came in and it's now April and I'm still waiting for the vetting to move. I've talked to the White House. They're totally on board. They're trying to get it moved. So I hope that within a very short span of time, you're going to see these slots filled. They need to be. And that's just the bottom line. It's important and I commit to you, we will.
Chair Ed Royce: I think this is the longest gap that we've had in the history of this position. So if you could talk to the President about this in short order, we would very much appreciate it.
Secretary John Kerry: I don't need to talk to the President, we're going to get this done. We know it and we're trying to get the right people. Matching person to task and also clearing all the other hurdles, as I am finding, is not as easy as one always thinks. But we'll get it done.
Kerry kept his word. As Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) reported yesterday, "The warning was the second 'management alert' in State Department history, both issued by new Inspector General Steve Linick. Linick took over the job in late September, after it had been vacant for nearly six years."
For Hillary's entire four years as Secretary of State, she didn't feel she need to be accountable. She wasn't about to 'subject' herself to oversight.
She proved to be hostile to it.
It's this sort of thing that made many hate her -- yes, hate -- as First Lady. She thought she could do whatever she wanted with, for example, health care and do it away from the public eye and from any oversight. She had the chance, as Secretary of State, to embrace democracy and she chose not to.
$6 billion is unaccounted for and that's largely from her four years.
John Kerry only had to be asked once publicly by Congress about the IG. And he didn't have to puzzle it. He didn't have to take the question for the record. He immediately agreed that an IG was necessary and that there would be someone appointed to that position and that they were already working on it.
But for her entire four year term as Secretary of State, Hillary avoided oversight, she subverted democracy and, in the process, she appears to be unable to account for billions of US taxpayer dollars.
That doesn't say "presidential." And it means "Travelgate" and all the other scandals or 'scandals' (I didn't think there was anything there beneath the smoke) come back to haunt her. Secretary of State was supposed to be the prestige position that propelled Hillary to a new level but that didn't happen.
A comment on DeYoung's article is confusing:
7:11 AM CST
Once
again paying the price for the corrupted GOP refusing to approve needed
vital personnel to protect us from the vast network of fraud establish
under W went he rented out our government functions to his highest
campaign contributors. W belongs in a cage at The Hague.
Is Sleeve stating that the money that's missing/unaccounted for from 2008 to present is Republicans' fault?
If so, is Sleeve saying ("refusing to approve needed vital personnel") that the Republicans in the Senate must have blocked a nomination for the State Dept IG?
If that's what's Sleeve's saying, Sleeve is wrong.
There was no nominee.
And Republicans in Congress joined with Democrats in raising the issue in public letters to the White House and Republicans in the House tended to raise this issue repeatedly.
December 7, 2011 we reported on the House Oversight and Government Reform's National Security Subcommittee hearing.
Subcommittee Chair Jason Chaffetz: Before recognizing Ranking Member [John] Tierney, I'd like to note that the Defense Dept, State Dept, USAID and SIGAR will not have IGs in January. In May of this year, I wrote the President asking him to move without delay to appoint replacements. That letter was signed by Senators [Joe] Lieberman, [Susan] Collins, [Claire] McCaskill and [Rob] Portman, as well as [House Oversight Committee] Chairman [Darrell] Issa and Ranking Member [Elijah] Cummings and Ranking Member Tierney. I'd like to place a copy of htis record into the record. Without objection, so ordered. To my knowledge, the President has yet to nominate any of these replacements, nor has he responded to this letter. I find that totally unacceptable. This is a massive, massive effort. It's going to take some leadership from the White House. These jobs cannot and will not be done if the president fails to make these appointments. Upon taking office, President Obama promised that his administration would be "the most open and transparent in history." You cannot achieve transparency without inspectors general. Again, I urge President Obama and the Senate to nominate and confirm inspectors general to fill these vacancies and without delay.
So don't blame Republicans or Democrats in Congress for what Hillary did as Secretary of State. Let's note
Speical Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen from that same hearing:
SIGIR
Stuart Bowen: First, I am concerned about maintaining SIGIR's ability
to get the information we need to complete ongoing audits and
investigations and to continue to provide the kind of comprehensive
Quarterly Report coverage that the Congress has come to expect from us.
The State Department recently instituted a new bureaucratic process,
requiring the channeling of information that we request from the Embassy
through Foggy Bottom offices. This process inevitably will cause
delays, impede our capacity to deal directly with the individuals in
Iraq responsible for providing the necessary data, and thus reduce our
responsiveness. Symptomatic of this bureaucratic development, one of my
investigators, working jointly with the FBI on a criminal case, recently
was refused information by the State Department regarding a potential
subject (who is a State employee). State directed my investigator to use
the "audit process" to obtain this investigative information. Worse,
he was challenged as to whether the information, which he had requested
in good faith, was even related to "reconstruction funding." This
development is just the latest quandary in a predicament-filled year,
during which the State Department has repeatedly raised fallacious
objections to varying SIGIR requests. I thank the Chairman and Ranking
Member -- and the full Committee's leadership -- for their steadfast
support of our oversight mission; but these recent issues underscore
the reality of the continuing oversight challenges that confront us.
Attending hearings on Iraq and what the State Dept was doing there was very frustrating and not just for me watching the interaction but for members of Congress. As we have noted repeatedly since the State Dept took over the US mission in Iraq in October of 2011, they did so with no transparency. They attempted to circumvent Stuart Bowen and his office (which is no more today even though the State Dept continues to have a budget of approximately a billion each year just on Iraq) and they refused to inform his office or the Congress what they were doing.
How bad was it?
For one example, let's drop back to the December 1, 2011 snapshot which covered the November 30th hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East ans South Asia. The State Dept was represented by Brooke Darby.
US House Rep Gerald Connolly: Madame Deputy
Assistant Secretary, welcome. Is it your testimony here today that the
State Dept is fully committed to transparency and accountability with
respect to any and all programs it has oversight and responsibility for
in Iraq?
Brooke
Darby: We take our responsibility for accountability and cooperation
with all of the audit entities, with Congress very, very seriously.
US
House Rep Gerald Connolly: No, ma'am, that was not my question. Is it
your testimony that you're fully committed to transparency and
accountability with respect to those responsibilities?
Brooke Darby: We are absolutely committed to accountability.
US House Rep Gerald Connolly: Full accountability? Full transparency and accountability?
Brooke Darby: I'm not sure -- I'm not sure how you define that so . . .
US
House Rep Gerald Connolly: Well I guess I'm not sure why you avoid the
word. That was my question and you've ducked it three times. Are we
or are we not, is the State Dept committed to full transparency and
accountability to the tax payers in the United States and the people who
served in Iraq or not?
Brooke
Darby: We absolutely are accountable to the tax payers, to our
Congress and to all of the oversight bodies who are looking into how we
are spending our dollars, whether our programs are achieving success.
We are absolutely --
US House Rep Gerald Connolly: Alright. I'll sort of take that as a commitment.
This was characteristic of Hillary's tenure as Secretary of State. The Congress was unable to get answers -- especially ahead of the transfer of Iraq from a DoD-led mission to a State Dept-led one and in all the time that followed that transfer.
Six billion is unaccounted for. And the bulk of it is from Hillary's term as Secretary of State. She came in with no IG and she demanded no IG. She served four years without any check or oversight. And she and her people stonewalled Congress and any body or official attempting to provide oversight.
The missing money is a mark against her and against what she tries to pass off as "leadership." No oversight, no accountability, that's not leadership in a democracy.
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