Dick Blumenthal, the nation’s first full time consumer
protection senator, has now weighed in on merchants who “may be selling lower
quality items produced specifically for outlet stores without properly
informing consumers,” according to a Philadelphia television station.
The Senator has asked the Federal Trade Commission to examine claims that merchants have misled consumers in their ads. “There’s a lot of evidence,” Blumenthal breathlessly told the television consumer protection watchdog in Philadelphia, “that people shopping at outlet malls or at outlet establishments have no idea that goods and merchandise are made specifically for outlet malls.”
Naturally, preventive legislation is needed.
On foreign policy issues of national importance, Benghazi
for instance, the senator has been less voluble. But that is because Mr.
Blumenthal is not interested in regulating foreign affairs – just outlet malls.
In fact, political consumers may be unaware that U.S. Congresspersons generally
are uninterested in regulating foreign policy or budgets or administration
officials who deprive Congress of the data the greatest deliberative body on
earth needs to satisfy its Constitutional obligations or, of equal importance,
its own ungovernable appetite for regulating everything that moves and breathes
outside Congressional precincts. Mr. Blumenthal’s own Congressional site carries only a brief
pro forma, seven line expression of “outrage
and sadness” issued the day after the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.
And you thought you sent your senator to Washington to hold responsible high administration officials who failed to protect or come to the aid of an ambassador to Libya murdered by – dare it be said? – Islamic terrorists.
Silly you.
In High School, your civics text – if you had the advantage
of a civics text – mentioned a division of powers as a check on presidential presumption.
The Constitution, an ancient but never-the-less useful document dating from
1787, invests the President with war powers and assigns to Congress auxiliary
powers that also shape foreign policy. Constitutionally, Congress is the voice
of conscience perched on the shoulder of any president who has Napoleonic
ambitions.
Chris Stevens, the ambassador murdered in Libya by Islamic terrorists, was the personal representative of the President of the United States,
as are all ambassadors.
Following the murder of the personal representative of
President Barack Obama and the brave military personnel who came to his aid --
Sean Smith and two Navy Seals, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, all slaughtered by
militant Al-Qaida connected terrorists -- members of the administration fanned
out to spread the lie that those who led the assault on the annex in Benghazi
were “protestors” agitated by a film that had insulted, peace be upon him, the
prophet Muhammad.
Persistent investigations by oversight Congressional
committees and a cache of e-mails
secured by Judicial Watch on a Freedom of Information demand has now
shown that the Obama/Rice stage show was an elaborate pantomime designed to
convey the message during a presidential campaign that Mr. Obama had dealt a
death blow to Al-Qaida. As such, the deception was much more wicked – and
deadly – than the ads that recently have excited the interest of Mr. Blumenthal.
Among the 41 documents pried loose from the Obama administration,
is an e-mail from deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes that presents to then U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice four
goals that were to be accomplished during Ms. Rice’s numerous television
appearances days after militant Islamic terrorists murdered the ambassador and
other Americans in Benghazi.
According to the e-mail, Ms. Rice was to: “… convey that the
United States is doing everything that we can to protect our people and
facilities abroad; To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet
video, and not a broader failure of policy; To show that we will be resolute in
bringing people who harm Americans to justice, and standing steadfast through
these protests; To reinforce the President and Administration’s strength and
steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges.”
Only the last goal had been accomplished – temporarily – in
the weeks following the terrorist attack. The attack on the U.S. Consulate did
not arise from a spontaneous protest; it was not rooted in an internet video;
the successful assault did point to a broader policy failure; the United States
was and remains irresolute in bringing to justice people who harm Americans,
particularly if they are associated with the Obama administration; and Mr.
Obama’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges – in Libya,
Syria, Egypt, Iran and, most recently, Russia -- is very much in question.
Comments
We are assured by a former player for the Mets named Tommy Vietor, who was apparently in a position to know, that Baraq Hussein Obama was not in the situation room on the evening of September 11, 2012. The reason for this is that he believed, or, more likely wanted to believe that there was no situation in Benghazi. I know of no evidence presently available that would refute the theory that Obama went to bed, did nothing to help our guys, because to send military aid would be to validate a reality counter to his ideological fantasies, and counter to his own crass political interests.