Democrat Arrogance Is Amazing

A top Republican on the House intelligence committee slammed his Democratic colleague Sunday for suggesting fellow Democrats boycott the newly announced committee tasked with probing the Benghazi attacks. 

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said doing so would be "terribly arrogant" and "wrong." 

The call for a boycott was made earlier by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., during an interview on "Fox News Sunday." He was responding to House Speaker John Boehner's announcement Friday that the House would vote on a select committee to investigate Benghazi. 

The congressman said Democrats should not give the select committee more "credibility" by joining, dismissing new evidence that Republicans have called a "smoking gun" showing the White House politicized the tragedy. 

"I think it's a colossal waste of time," said Schiff, also a member of the intelligence panel. "I don't think it makes sense, really, for Democrats to participate." 

King, speaking afterward with Fox News, said this would be a "mistake" for Democrats as it would show they "cannot defend the administration." 

"If Democrats boycott this committee, refuse to take part, the American people are going to conclude, and I think quite rightly, that they feel they have something to hide," King said. 

Schiff, who called the select committee a "tremendous red herring," acknowledged he doesn't know what Democratic leadership will decide. 

Fox News was told on Friday that the panel would be bipartisan. Schiff's comments, though, raise the prospect that his party could try to define the committee as a political vessel by sitting it out. The remarks reflect how the committee, which has not yet been formally approved, already is a political football. It would begin its investigative work in the heat of the midterm election season, poised to level damaging charges against the Obama administration at a sensitive time. 

Leading Republicans were adamant that the committee is vital to get to the bottom of what happened in the days and weeks following the Sept. 11, 2012, attack which killed four Americans, including a U.S. ambassador. 

The tipping point for those, like Boehner, who were hesitant about forming a select committee, was the release of an email that showed a White House adviser reviewing talking points for then-U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice. The email  stressed the role of protests over an anti-Islam video -- which is the faulty explanation Rice went on to use to describe the Benghazi attack's origin on Sunday news shows after the tragedy. 

The White House maintains that email referenced protests elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa, but Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said that claim "doesn't pass the laugh test." 

She told "Fox News Sunday" the email shows the need for a select committee. Ayotte said there still hasn't been a clear explanation of why Rice connected the attack to a video. 

"The video story clearly came from the White House," she said, calling it a "political explanation leading up to an election." 

"This did not fit their narrative," Ayotte said. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the document was a "messaging email" -- one that Congress never would have seen if not for a court order to release it. He said the claim that a video was to blame was a "lie." 

"It wasn't a fog of war problem they had. They created a political smokescreen," Graham told CBS' "Face the Nation." 

Former White House adviser David Plouffe, speaking on ABC's "This Week," called the committee "bogus," and suggested more attention should be paid to shoring up security at U.S. embassies.

To Fallen Heroes

Two Alaska State Troopers, who have been featured in a reality TV show, were killed while investigating a report of a person brandishing a gun in a remote village, officials said on Friday.

The two troopers killed on Thursday, Sergeant Patrick Johnson and Trooper Gabriel Rich, worked for a rural services unit and had appeared on the National Geographic Channel's reality television show "Alaska State Troopers."

State troopers have since arrested a 19-year-old man in connection with the shooting deaths in the Yukon River village of Tanana, said Department of Public safety spokeswoman Megan Peters. A community of about 250-300 people, Tanana is accessible only by plane or boat.

Alaska Governor Sean Parnell said the men had died in a "horrific act," but did not provide details on the incident, which occurred about 45 minutes by plane west of Fairbanks.

"These fallen heroes answered the call to serve and protect, and made the ultimate sacrifice, while keeping our communities safe," he said in a statement.

The two officers were among scores of state troopers who have helped raise the agency's profile for their work in Alaska's far-flung regions under unforgiving weather conditions, and sometimes, with back-up at least a day or hundreds of miles away.

The two officers had appeared on several episodes of "Alaska State Troopers," now in its fifth season. Chris Albert, a spokesman at National Geographic Channel, said any episodes featuring the fallen troopers will no longer air. A film crew was not with Johnson and Rich at the time of their deaths.

"National Geographic Channel is incredibly saddened to learn of the loss of two Alaska State Troopers," Albert said.

Second Peruvian Child Victim of Racist Attack

Hat Tip Japan Times Herald

One week after it was revealed by Consul General of Peru, Julio Cardenas, that a 13 year old Peruvian girl had been raped by 5 Japanese classmates, a second case of a Japanese racist attack has emerged in Kanazawa.

A 12 year old Peruvian boy was savagely beaten by two Japanese boys of the same age.  The Japanese boys had a history of bullying the boy at school a teacher at the boys' school said.  The teacher wishing to be unnamed said, "The two boys have been bullying the Peruvian boy for the last year.  They have been known to use racist names, trip the boy, and to write racist notes to him.  The principal had a meeting with their parents in February and things seemed to have gotten better."

Unfortunately, they had not gotten better.  Three weeks ago the two Japanese boys confronted the Peruvian as he rode his bicycle home after school.  One boy pushed him off the bike and when he tried to defend himself, the second boy came from behind and beat him on the head with an empty drink can.

A witness says they continued to beat him after he fell to the ground, and did not stop even as he bled from his nose and the wounds on his head.  They only stopped when an unidentified Japanese man stepped in.  The Japanese attackers ran off and the man called police.  Knowing where the boy lived the man then went to the boy's home to tell his mother.  The man returned with the mother just as Kanazawa police arrived.

After an initial investigation at the scene, an officer went to one of the attackers' home and talked to the accused and his mother.  The accused then took the officer to the second accused home where the officer talked with his mother.  The officer returned to the scene where an ambulance crew had arrived and began treating the victim's injuries.  The boy was taken to a hospital where he was treated, and xrays showed no serious injury his skull, so he was released.

Police the next day arrived to the victim's home with an offer from the parents of the attackers of money for the medical treatment and a small amount of apology money.  When the mother refused so she could get legal consultation, the police informed her their offer would only be made once.

An attorney procured for the woman by the Peruvian Consulate in Tokyo, Kotaro Tanaka, says that he is looking into the case going to Juvenile Court in Kanazawa so the mother can get medical bills paid and also damages for the boy's physical, mental, and emotional anguish.  Mr. Tanaka says that his office can make no other statements as the case is being reviewed by Kanazawa courts.  Tanaka and the boy's mother want attempted murder charges filed against the attackers and their parents charged with obstructing justice for making a financial offer to quiet the case.  They also want Kanazawa prefecture and city government officials to investigate methods police use.

The boy is currently being treated by a psychologist in Kanagawa and also by a therapist specializing with victims of bullying.  The Peruvian Consulate says the case became known after the mother called the Peruvian Consulate after reading a Peruvian website reporting on the rape victim in Fujinomiya, Shizuoka.

The Peruvian Consul General, Mr. Cardenas, comments, "Foreigners in Japan need to be made aware of what their rights are by the Japanese government.  There are far too many cases of violence against foreigners at the moment."  The mother reports she is afraid of reprisals from the parents of the attackers after she received legal representation.  A note in Japanese was taped to the door of her home stating that "If you do not like your treatment go back to Peru and take all the other trash with you."  Parents of the attackers deny writing the note.  Police in Kanazawa say they are still investigating and the case is ongoing.

We will update as more information comes forth.  Rev. Daniel Rea, Editor Japan Times Herald

Obama's Failed Asian Pivot

Behind the veil of reassuring Asian allies about Washington's attention, an agreement with Japan to forge ahead with the 12-nation free-trade Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was easily the most important item on President Obama's tour of East Asia.

The stakes were so high and the negotiating dynamics so intense that American and Japanese trade officials were given extra time to come up with a deal until Mr. Obama had to leave Tokyo for his flight to Seoul.

Apparently, some progress was made but there was no agreement.

What happened?

Strangely enough, the Japanese did not think that their unwillingness to open up their farm and automobile sectors were the main stumbling blocks. During last Friday's press conference, Japan's Finance Minister Taro Aso said that the problem was a lack of consensus on the American side, and that any agreement was unlikely until after the mid-term Congressional elections next November.

Implicit in Tokyo's view is the Japanese refusal to make the necessary concessions because they thought Mr. Obama could not get a fast-track negotiating authority to conclude the TPP agreement covering the 12 countries (U.S., Japan, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Peru) that are estimated to account for 40 percent of world trade and for 60 percent of American exports.

I wonder whether American diplomats knew about all that before Mr. Obama went to Tokyo.

At any rate, the danger now is that the TPP and Washington's similar project of a free-trade agreement with the E.U. (Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement – TAFTA) may unravel. America's forthcoming presidential election cycle will soon be in full swing, and the next U.S. administration won't be ready to take up these issues until sometime in 2017 -- assuming that Asians and Europeans were still interested.

For Japan, however, the economic consequences of forgoing structural reforms inherent in a more open trading system could be serious. The TPP was seen as an impetus to competitive markets at home and a tariff-free access for Japanese exporters to a region that is home to nearly half of the world's population.

Prospects of increasing export sales are of vital importance at a time when Japan's foreign trade is becoming a drag on economic growth. Last year, for example, the negative trade balance took 0.3 percent off the Japanese gross domestic product (GDP), and the trade deficit in the first quarter of this year nearly doubled from the year before.

Japan's domestic demand is also likely to continue to weaken. Real wages in the first two months of this year declined 1.5 percent from the year earlier, and the households' real purchasing power will be significantly eroded by stagnant wages, rapidly rising inflation and higher taxes.

Without a sustained pressure to open up its economy in a free-trade environment, it is difficult to see how the Japanese government could initiate and complete meaningful structural reforms that would go against deeply entrenched vested interests and powerful political constituencies.

It, therefore, seems that the changing structure of an opening Japanese economy – the "third arrow" of the government's economic program – is at best a very long shot. As so many times in the past, it will be much easier for Japan to rely on a tried and tested expedient of more monetary creation, weaker yen and a renewed export push.

CNBC

13 Year Old Peruvian Girl Raped By Japanese Classmates

This is sick beyond all imagination.  The Japanese lamestream media has yet to cover this.  The Keystones in Shizuoka have done squat to investigate.  The school board in Fujinomiya, Shizuoka have done all they can to block any information.  This needs to be reported.  Come on bloggers get in touch with my friend Rev. Daniel Rea at the Japan Times Herald for information.

Hat tip Japan Times Herald

A 13 year old Peruvian girl has reported to police and her mother that she has been repeatedly raped by five Japanese female class mates.

The girl, who was a member of a music club at the school in Fujinomiya, Shizuoka, says as one girl penetrated her with a "device" other girls would hold her down as two others would film and take photographs of the rape on their phones.

The girl's mother, who is a single mother, says, "My daughter has been very troubled for some time and I wanted to know why. Last Friday she let me know the reason. I was horrified." After the mother received little help from police and the school or school board, she decided to involve Peruvian Consul General, Julio Cardenas.

Consul General Cardenas has been seen at the Shizuoka Central Police building and also at the school in Fujinomiya. When I contacted the Consul I was told by an employee who wished to remain anonymous, “Today we had a telephone discussion with the mother and we found her to be in a very emotional state. We offered all our support and full cooperation as diplomats in Japan for Peru. It is totally heart breaking that could happen to any child. We must assure our citizens we will not allow any abuse or bullying of our citizens."

School officials refused to comment, as did police in Shizuoka.

Update April 25

The presence of Peruvian Consul General Julio Cardenas has motivated police in Fujinomiya, Shizuoka to confiscate the phones of the 5 Japanese girls accused of raping their Peruvian class mate.  The girl and her mother talked over an hour with Consul Cardenas.  After that , she had more details that will help in the police investigation. 

Consul Cardenas has brought the mother and daughter to Tokyo for a consultation with a Japanese lawyer, Kotaro Tanaka .

The Consul has commented that the girl and her mother have much fear and asked to be removed from Shizuoka.   This afternoon, the mother decided on action to safeguard the physical and psychological health of her family and they left Shizuoka with the Consul.

"They are now leaving Fujinomiya " said an employee at the Peruvian Consulate who asked not to be identified.  The employee added, "They only want to communicate with the Consul, an attorney, and the police . They want justice."

We will keep updating as information comes.

Update May 1

Peruvian Consul General Julio Cardenas reports that the 13 year old girl and her mother are doing well in Tokyo. Currently they are staying in a home provided by the Consul. The girl has been able to see a priest and a psychologist in Tokyo. The mother has been able to get some medical attention for hypertension.

The Consul has been working with the Shizuoka police and with the school board in Fujinomiya. The Consul could not comment on the investigation as it is ongoing. An employee at the consulate who asked to remain anonymous noted on the telephone that, "Right now we are doing all we can to care for the needs of the family. The mother has her younger son in Tokyo as well. Our main concern is to provide for their well being."

The consulate has retained legal representation with Kotaro Tanaka. The law firm would only confirm they are conducting legal representation and cooperating with the Consul and with authorities.

Questions still remain as to why the Japanese media has ignored this story. The Japan Times Herald has sent this story to all major news outlets, including English language, and has received no reply as of the posting of this update.

By Rev. Daniel Rea, Managing Editor, Japan Times Herald

Looking Deeper Into Benghazi Emails

In the immediate aftermath of the 2012 attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the White House quickly jumped from questions about the cause of the attack to blaming the incendiary YouTube video promoted by Florida pastor Terry Jones.

Last May, a set of emails was leaked by opponents of President Obama outlining the development of the talking points then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice used in a series of television appearances following the September 11, 2012 attack. The White House then released a more complete set of messages, effectively neutralizing critique of how the talking points were created.

New documents, obtained by the conservative group Judicial Watch by a Freedom of Information Act request, include a different set of talking points created by Obama advisor Ben Rhodes and sent to administration officials including spokesman Jay Carney. At the top, it outlines four goals:

1. To convey the USA is doing everything that we can to protect people and facilities abroad;
2. To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy;
3. To show that we will be resolute in bringing people who harm Americans to justice, and standing steadfast through these protests;
4. To reinforce the President's and Administration's strength and steadfastness in dealing with difficult challenges.

I've highlighted the most important point: number 2 - Rhodes' assertion that the protests "are rooted in an Internet video."

At the time this email was sent — about 8 p.m. on Friday, September 14 — a separate set of emails was bounding back-and-forth between the CIA, the FBI, the State Department, and the White House. Those emails, the ones that were the subject of the discussion last May, offer a much different and much more reserved description of what prompted the attack. An email sent from the CIA to the White House at about 5 p.m. included this language:

The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the US Consulate and subsequently its annex. … On 10 September we warned of social media reports calling for a demonstration in front of the Embassy and that jihadists were threatening to break into the Embassy.

Over the next night, much of those specifics were stripped out by CIA director Michael Morell. But when Rhodes sent his proposed talking points, the nuance of "currently available information" was lost.

The new documents also include an email sent from a staffer for Rice to a group of employees in her office. It walks through a conversation the State Department's Victoria Nuland held on background with members of the press on the Wednesday after the attacks. In that conversation, Nuland was similarly vague. "Toria said that she couldn't speak to the identity of the perpetrators but that it was clearly a complex attack," the email reads. When Nuland was asked if the attack was linked to the video disparaging the Prophet Muhammed, "she said she could not confirm a connect as we simply don't know — and we won't know until there's an investigation."

What Rhodes was apparently advocating was to eliminate that nuance. And when Rice appeared on Fox News that Sunday with Chris Wallace, she was asked to respond to a statement made by Carney.

CARNEY (on video): This is not a case of protests directed at the United States writ large or at U.S. policy. This is in response to a video that is offensive.WALLACE: You don't really believe that?
RICE: Chris, absolutely I believe that. In fact, it is the case. We had the evolution of the Arab spring over the last many months. But what sparked the recent violence was the airing on the Internet of a very hateful very offensive video that has offended many people around the world.

One point of critique on the Benghazi affair has long been that the White House wanted to play up the role of the YouTube video in order to deflect critique of their policies. It's not clear if Rhodes had information about the attack (or believed he had information about the attack) that isn't reflected in the documents, but it seems clear that he overstepped the caution that was exhibited by other members of the administration — perhaps leading to Rice's strong and much-derided assertion that the attack was in response to the video. It was his job to protect the White House, but it's likely that this argument has caused much more trouble for Obama than it prevented.

 On September 27,2012,  the key actors in the White House's response team passed around a news article from FoxNews.com which indicated that the administration knew by September 12 that the video didn't play a role. All of the discussion about that article was redacted.

View photo

Documents Tie White House to Benghazi

Hat tip to The Japan Times Herald

From:

The Washington Post

AP, AFP, and UPI

As the result of a Freedom of Information Act battle waged by the conservative group Judicial Watch, new documents have emerged tying the messaging of the Sept. 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, to the White House. Judicial Watch reports:

[The documents] include a newly declassified e-mail showing then-White House Deputy Strategic Communications Adviser Ben Rhodes and other Obama administration public relations officials attempting to orchestrate a campaign to “reinforce” President Obama and to portray the Benghazi consulate terrorist attack as being “rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy.” 

Other documents show that State Department officials initially described the incident as an “attack” and possible kidnap attempt.The documents were released Friday as result of a June 21, 2013, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the Department of State (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-00951)) to gain access to documents about the controversial talking points used by then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice for a series of appearances on television Sunday news programs on September 16, 2012.  Judicial Watch had been seeking these documents since October 18, 2012. . . . Among the top administration PR personnel who received the Rhodes memo were White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, Deputy Press Secretary Joshua Earnest, then-White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, then-White House Deputy Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri, then-National Security Council Director of Communications Erin Pelton, Special Assistant to the Press Secretary Howli Ledbetter, and then-White House Senior Advisor and political strategist David Plouffe.

 In addition a document showed Susan Rice was informed before her TV appearance: “Responding to a question about whether it was an organized terror attack, Toria said that she couldn’t speak to the identity of the perpetrators but that it was clearly a complex attack.” Toria refers to Victoria Nuland, then State Department spokeswoman and now assistant secretary for Europe and Eurasia. She had been unfairly maligned in some quarters and falsely accused of participating in the illicit editing of the talking points. These documents exonerate her entirely, pointing the finger directly at the White House and the CIA. (It is noteworthy that in the days between the attack and Rice’s TV outing, Nuland never tied the video to the attack; Carney did, most clearly on Sept. 14.) With regard to the CIA:

The Judicial Watch documents confirm that CIA talking points, that were prepared for Congress and may have been used by Rice on “Face the Nation” and four additional Sunday talk shows on September 16, had been heavily edited by then-CIA deputy director Mike Morell. According to one email:

The first draft apparently seemed unsuitable….because they seemed to encourage the reader to infer incorrectly that the CIA had warned about a specific attack on our embassy.  On the SVTS, Morell noted that these points were not good and he had taken a heavy hand to editing them. He noted that he would be happy to work with [then deputy chief of staff to Hillary Clinton]] Jake Sullivan and Rhodes to develop appropriate talking points.

The e-mails were exchanged at a time when the State Department and CIA already knew that the video was not at issue and that this was a staged attack of some type. Former United Nations spokesman Richard Grenell who was briefly part of the Mitt Romney presidential team told Right Turn, “The e-mail from Ben Rhodes to a bunch of political appointees at the White House proves that there was a scramble inside Obama’s inner circle to protect him from the fallout of a U.S. Ambassador being killed on the anniversary of 9/11 and a few short weeks from his reelection.” He pointedly added: “ It’s time for real journalists to confront the President. It’s clear now that he and his team have not been truthful with the American people.”

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz’s spokesman Catherine Frazier was quick to jump on the news. She told Right Turn, “ Here we are more than 19 months after the attack – seven months after Sen. Cruz called for a joint select committee to investigate – and more revelations continue to surface, confirming how little we really know about what happened in Benghazi on Sept 11, 2012.” She stressed, “This administration must be held accountable to telling the truth so that we can find closure, bring our attackers to justice, and prevent future attacks — and Hillary Clinton’s regrets are not enough. All witnesses with knowledge of the attack including administration officials should be called to testify before a joint select committee so we can once and for all know the truth about what happened.”

Since mainstream media reporters have been loath to press the issue (and Congress may well convene new hearings), let me offer a few questions to start the inquiry:

Will Rhodes be allowed to testify under oath?

Who instructed Rhodes to send the memo and who reviewed it before it went out?

Will the president instruct all the people mentioned in the emails to cooperate with congressional or other investigators?

Since the issue now involves senior White House officials, is a special prosecutor appropriate?

If any individuals conspired to falsify a reason for the attack knowing of evidence to the contrary, will the president fire them?

At the time of the e-mails, did the president understand the video was not at issue?

Is the White House planning on conducting its own internal investigation?

When White House Spokesman Jay Carney received the talking points and in subsequent press conferences stressed the role of the video, did he know that assertion to be untrue?