The fast-tracking of Nakoula’s jailing was highly irregular. Among other things, I’d like to see the Congressional investigators get Nakoula’s prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Dugdale — and perhaps his boss, U.S. Attorney André Birotte Jr. — under oath about communications from the White House or the Justice Department regarding this case.
Because what it’s looking like is that Nakoula was targeted and jailed so as to provide a scapegoat/villain in a politically motivated cover story that the White House knew was false. If that’s the case, it’s extremely serious indeed, and in some ways more significant than whatever lapses and screwups took place in Benghazi. I’d also be interested in hearing from Nakoula’s attorney, Steven Seiden, about any threats made by the government to secure a plea deal.
If there’s an impeachable offense anywhere in the Benghazi affair — and at this point, I’m not saying there is — it’s more likely in what happened with Nakoula than in the problems abroad…
Unfortunately, impeachable offenses,and high crimes and misdemeanors are in the mind of the beholder, and impeachment is ultimately a political, not legal act.
If I were an employer, I wouldn’t want “free” labor of that nature, because it can consume too many resources just trying to manage it, when you’d have no authority because it could just walk away with no penalty. It’s the same problem that people have with volunteer organizations.
I have a better, and slightly less controversial proposal. Just let the market work, and eliminate the minimum wage. It would do wonders for youth unemployment in the inner city.
Within hours of the initial attack on the U.S. facility, the State Department Operations Center sent out two alerts. The first, at 4:05 p.m. (all times are Eastern Standard Time), indicated that the compound was under attack; the second, at 6:08 p.m., indicated that Ansar al Sharia, an al Qaeda-linked terrorist group operating in Libya, had claimed credit for the attack. According to the House report, these alerts were circulated widely inside the government, including at the highest levels. The fighting in Benghazi continued for another several hours, so top Obama administration officials were told even as the fighting was taking place that U.S. diplomats and intelligence operatives were likely being attacked by al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists. A cable sent the following day, September 12, by the CIA station chief in Libya, reported that eyewitnesses confirmed the participation of Islamic militants and made clear that U.S. facilities in Benghazi had come under terrorist attack. It was this fact, along with several others, that top Obama officials would work so hard to obscure.
And with the help of a supportive/indifferent media, they succeeded. Until now.
These are important ones (though not the only ones):
No more “gangs,” no more hurry-up votes on incredibly long bills that no one has read. Normal order: Committee hearings in both houses, markups, votes without special closed rules, conference committees to resolve differences. In other words, a deliberative process. If Obama hadn’t been trying so hard for a “win,” he wouldn’t have abandoned that approach for basically his entire presidency. He still didn’t win much — except for ObamaCare, and the bills for that “win” are coming due.
They don’t seem to have learned them with immigration. “Comprehensive” solutions are generally comprehensively bad, like a broken Rubik’s cube.