State Dept.

No Ramadan Event At State Department ~ Rex Tillerson

Published by Papa Giorgio

I grabbed this story from the Little Rock Tea Party Facebook group:

Exclusive – Tillerson declines to host Ramadan event at State Department

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has declined a request to host an event to mark Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, two U.S. officials said, apparently breaking with a bipartisan tradition in place with few exceptions for nearly 20 years.

Since 1999, Republican and Democratic secretaries of state have nearly always hosted either an iftar dinner to break the day’s fast during Ramadan or a reception marking the Eid al-Fitr holiday at the end of the month, at the State Department.

Tillerson turned down a request from the State Department’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs to host an Eid al-Fitr reception as part of Ramadan celebrations, said two U.S. officials who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

According to an April 6 memo seen by Reuters, the office – which typically initiates such events – recommended that Tillerson hold an Eid al-Fitr reception.

His rejection of the request suggests there are no plans this year for any high-profile Ramadan function at the State Department. The month of fasting and prayer for Muslims gets under way in many countries on Saturday….

Dee, the woman who posted the link to the story, said this:

  • Frankly, after 8 yrs. of Obama’s PRAISE & ADORATION of the Muslim’s, I’m sick & tired of hearing how GREAT they are. The ”Asswipe” abandoned CHRISTIANS & all other Religions [editor’s insert: even moderate Muslim communities in the Middle-East or secular movements in Iran], except them! It’s another day, just like Easter is for Protestants to worship their faith… In today’s ”WAR ON ISIS”, the Muslims are KILLING CHRISTIANS, which is what America was built on… Judeo-Christian beliefs… RAAMADAAN is not a ”National Holiday” either… Let the Muslims worship the way they want, that’s fair, but let’s not make a big ”WhoopDeeDo” out of it… I have nothing against any religion & don’t dislike Muslims… WHAT SAY YOU?

I SAY that I am happy that we shouldn’t see anymore of this by our Commander and Chief (BREITBART and my post –RPT– are the source for the text below):

Dispelling Benghazi Budget Mantras of the Left

Published by Papa Giorgio

Firstly, here is the video as well as the typical line thrown about on FaceBook: “Senator Chaffetz admitted we have to prioritize, and the Senate voted down funding for additional security in Benghazi. I really love it, especially coming from Chaffetz.”

Here is the rest of the story:

Robert Baldre, The State Department’s Chief Financial Officer For Diplomatic Security, Wrote That “I Do Not Feel That We Have Ever Been At A Point Where We Have Sacrificed Security Due To Lack Of Funding.” “Robert Baldre, your chief financial officer for diplomatic security, stated, and I quote, ‘I do not feel that we have ever been at a point where we have sacrificed security due to lack of funding,’ Rep. Steven Chabot, Ohio Republican, told Mrs. Clinton.” (Guy Taylor and Shaun Waterman, “Tears And Rage: Clinton Testily Defends Depiction Of Benghazi Events,” The Washington Times, 1/23/13)

Senate Homeland Security Report: Congress Has Been Responsive To Appropriating More Money To The State Department For Security-Driven Requests, But Neither The President Nor The State Department Requested Additional Funds For Libya. “At the same time, Congress has generally been responsive in providing supplemental and Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funds to the Department of State – more than $1.7 billion since 2007 – in response to emergent, security-driven funding requests, although primarily for facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, there was no supplemental or OCO request made by the President for additional diplomatic security enhancements in FY2010 or FY2011. Neither the Department of State nor Congress made a point of providing additional funds in a supplemental request for Libya, or more specifically, Benghazi.” (“Flashing Red: A Special Report On The Terrorist Attack At Benghazi,” United States Senate Committee On Homeland Security And Government Affairs, 12/30/12, p. 17)

The Washington Post Fact Checker: “The Reality Is That Funding For Embassy Security Has Increased Significantly In Recent Years.” “Moreover, while Boxer claims that Republicans ‘cut’ the budget, she is only comparing it to what the Obama administration proposed. The reality is that funding for embassy security has increased significantly in recent years. The Department of State’s base requests for security funding have increased by 38 percent since Fiscal Year (FY) 2007, and base budget appropriations have increased by 27 percent in the same time period,’ said the bipartisan Senate Homeland Security report on the Benghazi attack.” (Glenn Kessler, “Barbara Boxer’s Claim That GOP Budgets Hampered Benghazi Security,” The Washington Post’s Fact Checker, 5/16/13)

I am posting about this because there seems to be a misunderstanding of budgets and who is at fault and how much is given to the parties requesting it.

For instance, a charge always heard during Bush’s presidency was that he cut veterans benefits during his presidency. This was not the case, the Republicans passed continual increases while trimming the growth. In fact, benefits grew quicker under Bush than Clinton!

Similar, but not identically, as the U.S. was withdrawing from Iraq, the budget for the State Dept was trimmed. But before getting to the charts, let’s see what Hillary Clinton said in regards to the spending on Security:

During Previous Congressional Testimony, Clinton Stated That She Would “Be The First To Say” That The State Department’s Prioritization Of Funds Was “Imperfect.”SECRETARY CLINTON: “And I – I would go back to something the chairman said, because this was a point made in the ARB: Consistent shortfalls have required the department to prioritize available funding out of security accounts. And I will be the first to say that the prioritization process was at times imperfect, but as the ARB said, the funds provided were inadequate. So we need to work together to overcome that.” (Secretary Hillary Clinton, Committee On Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, Testimony, 1/23/13)

Clinton Indicated That The State Department’s Designation Of The Benghazi Facility As Temporary Contributed To The State Department Not Allocating Additional Resources To Benghazi. SECRETARY CLINTON: “That’s why we have a huge workforce of people who are given responsibility and expected to carry forward that responsibility and I think designating it as ‘temporary’ in the ARB’s findings did cause an extra level of uncertainty to some extent.

You know, as the chairman said at the very beginning quoting from the ARB, the has been an enculturation in the State Department, the husband (ph) resources to, you know, try to be as — as careful in spending money as possible and then I think adding to that the fact that it was quote, ‘temporary’ you know, probably did lead to some of the confusion that we later saw played out in the cables, but not the — the status of it for the Libyan government.” (Secretary Hillary Clinton, Committee On Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, Testimony, 1/23/13)

The State Department Was “Hesitant To Allocate Money” On Security Upgrades On The Benghazi Facility, “A Post That May Be Closing In A Few Months.” “The RSO should be aware that the requests for expensive security upgrades may be difficult to obtain as headquarters is hesitant to allocate money to a post that may be closing in a few months.” (“Review Of The Terrorist Attacks On U.S. Facilities In Benghazi, Libya, September 11-12, 2012 Together With Additional Views,” Senate Select Committee On Intelligence, 1/15/14, p. 17)

  • Four Months Before The Benghazi Attack, The State Department Spent $108,000 For An Electric Vehicle Charging Station At The Vienna Embassy. “In May 7, the State Department authorized the U.S. embassy in Vienna to purchase a $108,000 electric vehicle charging station for the embassy motor pool’s new Chevrolet Volts. The purchase was a part of the State Department’s ‘Energy Efficiency Sweep of Europe’ initiative, which included hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on green program expenditures at various U.S. Embassies.” (Representative Mike Kelly, “Libya Security Cut While Vienna Embassy Gained Chevy Volts,” The Washington Times, 10/10/12)
  • In 2009, The State Department Spent Nearly $300,000 On Alcohol.  “Last year alone, the State Department sent taxpayers tabs totaling nearly $300,000 for alcoholic beverages — about twice as much compared to the previous year, according to an analysis of spending records by The Washington Times.” (Jim McElhatton, “Taxpayers Foot State Department’s Stiff Liquor Bill,” The Washington Times, 4/15/10)

Here are the raw numbers, and keep in mind that the draw down if funding was because of the draw down in Iraq:

Take note as well the information gleaned from the following graph:

There has been some back and forth between Republicans and Democrats over funding for security in Libya in the wake of Ambassador Chris Stevens’s death. Republicans have questioned whether the State Department had adequate security to protect the ambassador, and Democrats have countered that Republicans tried to cut funding for embassy security. What does the budget record show?

According to the fiscal year (FY) 2013 Congressional Budget Justification Department of State Operations (p. 11), overall funding for those programs has increased sharply over the past decade. Indeed, Worldwide Security Protection is more than double what it was a decade ago. Despite reductions from budget peaks in FY 2009 and FY 2010, both budget lines are higher than in FY 2008. (continues below chart)

special-libya-security-coll

Comparing FY 2011 actual funding versus the FY 2012 estimate, there appears to be a reduction in Worldwide Security Protection and Embassy Security, Construction and Maintenance. But that reduction does not account for additional funding in FY 2012 from Overseas Contingency Operations funds amounting to $236 million for Worldwide Security Protection (p. 63) and $33 million for Embassy Security, Construction and Maintenance (p. 467). As a result, total funds for Worldwide Security Protection for FY 2012 are estimated to be $94 million higher than in FY 2011, while Embassy Security, Construction and Maintenance is estimated to be $61 million less than FY 2011. Together, there is a net increase.

[….]

It is tempting to look for a scapegoat for the tragic events in Libya. However, if one exists, the overall budget for embassy security is not it.

(DAILY SIGNAL)

PolitiFact mirrors the GOP POST on this that I have already quoted from

…State Department officials, meanwhile have said publicly that budgets were not a factor.

During a House hearing into the attack on Oct. 10, 2012, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher asked deputy assistant secretary of state Charlene Lamb: “Was there any budget consideration and lack of budget which led you not to increase the number of people in the security force there?”

“No, sir,” Lamb said.

Later, Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, asked, “So there’s not a budget problem. It’s not you all don’t have the money to do this?”

“Sir, it’s a volatile situation. We will move assets to cover that,” Lamb said.

More of the same on May 8, 2013. Responding to a Democratic member who pointed to embassy security spending in recent GOP House budgets, committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., prodded Eric Nordstrom, former regional security officer in Libya, about Lamb’s previous testimony.

Issa said, “Mr. Nordstrom, you were on that panel. Do you remember what she (Lamb) said?”

“Yes, she said that resources was not an issue,” Nordstrom said. “And I think I would also point to the (Accountability Review Board) report, if I’m not mistaken, that they talked to our chief financial officer with (Diplomatic Security), who also said that resources were not an issue.”

[….]

It’s true that Congress did not fully fund embassy security requests from the Obama administration in recent years, which is what Farrow argues amounts to a “cut.” But funding for embassy security is up from 2008, and up dramatically since before 9/11.

How does this tie into the Benghazi attack? State Department officials and government experts lay more blame on decisions by upper management not to provide the temporary Benghazi facility with more officers and better protections than the availability of money.

Farrow made that very point in his segment, which makes it odd that he led his segment by tying the attack with insufficient congressional funding.

We rate his claim Mostly False.

State Department Audit Slams Hillary!

Published by Papa Giorgio

Also in related news:

The Romanian hacker who claimed he easily breached Hillary Clinton’s email server pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to two counts of computer hacking charges, as part of a deal with the Justice Department. 

In exchange for a reduced sentence, Marcel Lehel Lazar – also known as Guccifer — has agreed to cooperate with federal authorities in the future.

(Fox News)

Politico has this:

Significantly, the report also reveals that Clinton and her top aides at State – Cheryl Mills, Jake Sullivan, Huma Abedin, and possibly others – refused to cooperate with the IG’s investigation despite the IG’s requests that they submit to interviews.

The report is devastating, although it transparently strains to soften the blow. For example, it concludes that State’s “longstanding systemic weaknesses” in recordkeeping “go well beyond the tenure of any one Secretary of State.” Yet, it cannot avoid finding that Clinton’s misconduct is singular in that she, unlike he predecessors, systematically used private email for the purpose of evading recordkeeping requirements.

(National Review)

…A long-awaited State Department inspector general report on the impact of personal email use on recordkeeping at State was released to lawmakers on Wednesday, and concluded that Clinton violated the agency’s records rules. And as many Americans prepare for the traditional Memorial Day kickoff to the summer season, longtime Clinton aide Cheryl Mills is scheduled to sit for a sworn deposition Friday in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the conservative group Judicial Watch.

Mills’ testimony would be the first known time a member of Clinton’s inner circle has been questioned under oath in the email controversy. Another top Clinton aide, Huma Abedin, is set to testify next month. And Clinton herself is awaiting a judge’s ruling on whether she should be required to give a deposition.

No matter how that comes out, Clinton also faces an ongoing FBI investigation into the email set up. Some of her aides have already been questioned. She’s expressed a willingness to sit down with investigators — something they’re expected to take her up on in the next few weeks. Unless it takes place in complete secrecy, such a session would be the highest-profile legal spectacle the former first lady has faced since she testified 20 years ago before a federal grand jury investigating the disappearance and reappearance of Whitewater billing records.

“I think the [Office of Inspector General] report is going to be of interest and the testimony is going to be out there,” said Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton. “I think the courts will take action this summer….I don’t see any of this going away.”

On top of all that, there’s an expected House report on Benghazi. And a slew of planned document releases from the State Department that a conservative group is planning to make into a movie.

“We have been for months and we will be for the next several months on the receiving end of document productions from the State Department and others,” said David Bossie of Citizens United, another conservative organization. “We have been and continue to be in the works on a Hillary documentary….We’d like to have something launch on or around the the Democratic Convention.”

[….]

“Whether it’s the Benghazi report, the state IG report or other types of releases, those are just a variation of bad for Hillary Clinton because on that day and time whenever those happen it is taking her off her message and making her have to answer questions related to these issues that she doesn’t want to talk about,” the veteran GOP operative said. “That’s called winning, if you’re Donald Trump.”

(reads it all)

…A-N-D T-H-E… Washington Times weighs in:

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeatedly broke government policy by using her own secret email server and top aides misled other department staff to cover for her, an inspector general concluded in a report sent to Capitol Hill Wednesday.

Not only did her use of the secret server shield her communications from open-records laws, but she also broke department policy by failing to report several hacking attempts, the inspector general said in an 83-page investigative report that is devastating in its conclusions.

After one of the 2011 hack attempts Mrs. Clinton’s tech staffer shut the server down for a few minutes, hoping that would solve the situation, but quickly warned top aides not to send Mrs. Clinton “anything sensitive” after the attempted breach, according to the report, which was obtained by The Washington Times.

After another suspicious attempt Mrs. Clinton said she was scared to open email — but failed to report the matter.

“Notification is required when a user suspects compromise of, among other things, a personally owned device containing personally identifiable information,” the investigators said. “However, OIG found no evidence that the Secretary or her staff reported these incidents to computer security personnel or anyone else within the Department.”…

The UAE Doing What Our Own State Department Cannot! (Updated)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Breitbart!

The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) cabinet approved a comprehensive list of 83 designated terrorist organizations Saturday, the WAM Emirates News Agency reports. The list includes various al-Qaeda affiliates and the Islamic State.

But the UAE also considers the Muslim Brotherhood and some of its global affiliates as terrorist organizations. The list includes the Council on American-Islamic Relations(CAIR) and the Muslim American Society (MAS).

[….]

In a statement, CAIR said it and MAS “peacefully promote civil and democratic rights and … oppose terrorism whenever it occurs, wherever it occurs and whoever carries it out.”

But FBI policy since 2008 has prohibited communicating with CAIR outside of criminal investigations. That decision was based on evidence in a terror-financing prosecution in Dallas which placed CAIR and its founders in a Muslim Brotherhood Hamas support network called the Palestine Committee. “[U]ntil we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS, the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner,” Assistant FBI Director Richard Powers wrote in 2009.

The Muslim American Society (MAS) also serves as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in America. A 2004 Chicago Tribune story describes how MAS was formed as the Brotherhood’s U.S. arm after a debate about whether to stay underground. In 2012 testimony, Abdurahman Alamoudi, once the most politically influential Islamist activist in the country, said the connection between MAS and the Brotherhood was well known in Islamist circles….

…read it all…

CAIRFBIshhh

Via Jihad Watch:

  • …This photo comes from Hamas-linked CAIR-Florida’s “14th Annual Banquet Rooted in Faith” in Tampa yesterday, courtesy of an anonymous reader who was at the banquet. It is not the first time Hamas-linked CAIR, designated a terror organization by the United Arab Emirates, has discouraged Muslims from talking to the FBI…

Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer explains the connections between the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the jihad terror group Hamas. (H/T – Creeping Sharia)

What Real vs Faux Leadership Looks Like (UPDATED)

Published by Papa Giorgio

If you were President, would you not inform your State Department — at least! — to take this a bit more seriously??? What does a real President do during such an event? Lets see (Via HotAir):

What did our great and illustrious Obama do? Obama gives crash 40 seconds before telling jokes…

…At approximately 12:50 pm, the motorcade stopped at the Charcoal Pit, a popular, established restaurant just north of Wilmington, Del. Known for its burgers and sundaes. Obama shook hands and mingled with many of the diners, stopping at one point to pick up seven-month old Jaidyn Oates, and pose for a photo.

…He invoked Vice Presiident Biden’s name a few names, noting to some diners, “Me and Joe, we share shakes all the time,” and to others, “Biden told me the burgers are pretty good.”

….Just before hugging another young girl, whose mother lifted her across the booth to hug the president, Obama asked, “Do you give good hugs?”

….At 1:01 pm Obama declared, “I’m starving!” He sat down to eat with Tanei Benjamin, who wrote the president a year ago. The president ordered a 4-ounce “Pit special,” which is burger with fries. He asked for it to be done medium well, and to have lettuce and tomato. He also asked for a water with lemon.

(HotAir)

Even the State Department was soo feckless that even Shep Smith got frustrated:

HotAir noted the last Tweet from the State Dept. to end this eventful day:

For years, tweets from @BarackObama have popped up in my Twitter feed so often so very detached from the actual events of the day as to feel like some kind of non sequitur performance art. This outdoes all of them.

This tweet is from the official State Department account, from Jen Psaki, at 9:26 p.m.*, hours after two huge international stories have broken. Now, the administration perhaps can’t be expected to react to the actual events at issue seriously. Too much to ask. But what they do sometimes react to seriously is a p.r. issue, and they’ve had many hours to realize everyone thinks they’re muffing this. Would it be so much to ask to keep it relatively sober tonight?

And yet. And yet.

 

The Blaze has some great follow up Tweets on the above:

By the time of publication on Friday morning, Psaki sent out one more tweet, but it was about John Kerry’s trip to Afghanistan last weekend.

(H/T: Weasel Zippers)

McCain weighs in:

The “HAMMER” weighs in as well:

Bill Kristol Says U.S. Policy Right Back to Pre-9/11 ~ Sent FBI Forensic Team to Libya

Published by Papa Giorgio

From Video Description:

This whole thing with the U.S. Consulate killings has opened up Obama’s foreign policy to justified critiques that show yet another area of bankruptcy in serious thinking. (Posted by: Religio-Political Talk) The FBI has refused to go until their safety is assured (http://tinyurl.com/95ocnsx). DUMB! You don’t send CSI into this situation, you send ARMED MILITARY!

Not to mention that a Libyan official warned the U.S. three days prior:

Three days before the deadly assault on the United States consulate in Libya, a local security official says he met with American diplomats in the city and warned them about deteriorating security.

Jamal Mabrouk, a member of the February 17th Brigade, told CNN that he and a battalion commander had a meeting about the economy and security.

He said they told the diplomats that the security situation wasn’t good for international business.

“The situation is frightening, it scares us,” Mabrouk said they told the U.S. officials. He did not say how they responded.

Mabrouk said it was not the first time he has warned foreigners about the worsening security situation in the face of the growing presence of armed jihadist groups in the Benghazi area.

And Hillary is to blame directly for the ammo issue, i.e., the direct death of 4-American citizens.

————————————————

In interviews with Breitbart News and the Howie Carr radio show, Fox News military analyst Colonel David Hunt laid the blame for the murder of U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans on Hillary Clinton and the State Department.

Colonel Hunt said Thursday that the American mission at Benghazi “was like a cardboard building, there wasn’t even bullet proof glass.” In addition, Hunt said the security guards inside the mission were private security guards who were not allowed to have bullets n their guns.  

“What’s happened in Libya is the final straw of political correctness,” he told Breitbart. “We allowed a contractor to hire local nationals as security guards, but said they can’t have bullets. This was all part of the point of not having a high profile in Libya.”

“The policy of the Obama administration led to this,” he said. “It was the policy of the Obama administration to have a low profile in Libya. That’s why the rules of engagement were approved by the Secretary of State to have no Marines at Benghazi, and to have an American contractor hire Libyan nationals to provide security there. The rules were they couldn’t have ammunition.”

“Obama may not have known the details of the State Department Rules of Engagement for Libya, but his Chief of Staff and National Security Advisor would have. The Secretary of State absolutely would have.”

“The Department of State Security are the people in charge of diplomatic security. They enforce the rules of engagement, which are set at Clinton’s level at State. The Department of Defense was told we’re not going to have Marines at Benghazi. Whether it goes higher than the Secretary of State to the President, I don’t know.”

“The recent political conventions had more security than Ambassador Stevens had in Benghazi,” said Hunt, in a reference to the DNC and RNC conventions. If you carried a sharp stick within a mile of the conventions at Tampa or Charlotte you got arrested, yet you don’t give bullets to the guards of our Ambassador to Libya. It wouldn’t surprise me if Al-Qaeda bought off some of the Libyan nationals hired to guard our ambassador at Benghazi.”

(http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/160040#.UFX19FGLWJo)

Again, here is pre-President Obama saying how he would “heal” our relations with the Muslim people:

Then Senator Barack Obama (11-21-07) Says He Is Uniquely Qualified to Bring Stability to America’s Relationships In The Muslim World