Representative Frank Wolf, The Quiet Lion, Retires

It would be simple enough to re-post the tribute to House Representative Frank Wolf we posted a year ago, but not good enough.

Congressman Wolf's office more or less shuts down tomorrow, Friday, 12/18/2014. Before we forget, we'd like to thank everyone in Wolf's office for their understanding, good will and support to us as we worked to help Wolf achieve sometimes seeming insurmountable ambitions designed for the good of the country. Special thanks to Wolf's Chief Of Staff Dan Scandling, with whom we exchanged so much, and who was always there to help us help Wolf. In a town where prima donna chief of staffs often rule, Scandling has been a tireless champion for his Boss, Rep Wolf, and to that end put in much overtime and effort on Wolf's behalf. Dan's integrity shone brightly. The country is a little better because Dan Scandling and his staff were there for Representative Frank Wolf.

Rep Wolf really is a rarity in DC. He has stood for what he believed in when get-along would have been better politics. He has fought congressional leadership when leadership got weak in the knees against the leftist media and the country club establishment. He has paid the price for being honest because the leadership knew he would do what was right, not what jellyfish politics demanded. Putting it bluntly, he gives a damn, and he means it. We can tell you that from the watchtower.

He has still been a visible figure on the talk shows, and as has so often been the case, the man we call The Quiet Lion spoke with calm but no-nonsense determination. His relaxed and pleasant demeanor masks a political prizefighter for whom more than a TKO will only suffice; his warm and unassuming manner belies a man of true and intense passion. While so many others shout passion and do little, he speaks in measured tones and does a lot. And on those rare occasions when justifiable indignation at one of life's injustices gets the better of his all-too-human nature - watch out: he's not fooling around. 

Some have tried to diminish his credentials as a conservative - probably the trolls who we, too, have fought online (it seems  some of their troll careers are coming to an end as we work with police and congress to now-successfully end that scourge onm Twitter). Make no mistake, perfection exists only in Jesus Christ and when it comes to being a conservative, Wolf's ratings from conservative groups is a record of which any Republican should be proud: Wolf gets a 100% rating from the National Right To Life Center. The Center for Security Policy gives him an 83% approval rating. American Conservative rating gives him an 80% though there must be some numbers missing there because the ultra-leftist aclu gives him only 8% and NARAL gives him 0%; in our judgement, that gives Wolf a 92% conservative rating. The NRA puts him in the mid-90 percentile range.

As of late, Wolf has been one of the very few voices to say directly what ISIS is doing and what their ambition is; as Hillary Clinton tells us to empathize with ISIS, Wolf tells the world what it needs to hear: ISIS is interested in nothing less than the total genocide of Christians in the Middle East. We hope he keeps saying it.

And then, of course, there is Benghazi. We like to be able to claim much credit for the fact that the Benghazi Select Committee exists as we campaigned so hard for the congressional co-sponsors to support it. The people on the committee like to post on their Twitter feeds their ten minutes of hearing glory, and make no mistake, some of what they say is quite good. But there is only one person who can take the singular bow for the Benghazi Select Committee, and that is Congressman Frank Wolf. He wrote the resolution, which was re-written with nary a change in another's name and then put on the floor by a clearly tyrannical House Speaker John Boehner, seemingly to deny Wolf the credit because Wolf plays by the only rules that matter: those of God and the Founding Fathers, in that order - not Boehner's. Many in congress are giving Boehner the credit for the Select Committee and that is simply wrong considering Boehner fought it for a year and a half until there were 191 congressional co-sponsors reading Boehner the riot act. We know - we watched him fight against it while we campaigned 4 hours a day, every day for 17 months to get it. But there would be no Select Committee had not one man wrote the resolution which brought about its being, and that man is Representative Frank Wolf. No matter what comes out of the hearings, all who take bows for their moments of glory stand under the very large shadow of The Quiet Lion who fought so hard for the bill he alone authored, which gave birth to what appear to be historic moments looming on the near horizon.

We will miss Rep Wolf's congressional reports and his dignified yet relaxed, straightforward style. We wish him all the best on his well-deserved retirement, but also secretly hope that he finds retirement dull and unsatisfying; so dull and unsatisfying that he continues to speak as only he can on issues which so desperately need to be voiced with the kind of courage which only Wolf has shown.

Here's to you, House Representative Frank Wolf. We raise our glasses in a toast to The Quiet Lion.

Well done, Sir. We'll never forget. Thank you.

Enjoy these great Rep Frank Wolf moments.

Report and Review of the 2nd Benghazi Select Committee Hearing

OP/ED

All quotes and images used via the Fair Use Act

On Dec, 10, 2014; the Benghazi Select Committee, for which this blog and group campaigned 4 hours a day, every day online for 17 months, had its second hearing, yesterday. Greg Starr, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, and Steve Linick, Inspector General with the State Department, both answerable to Hillary Clinton and working for the Obama Administration during the Benghazi attack and murders, testified before the House Select Committee on the events surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi.

In his opening statement, Benghazi Select Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, a former prosecutor who never lost a case, showed admirable determination in his insistence that this committee will continue on and on through the months until we know exactly what happened 

"... BUT I ALSO PLEDGE THAT WE'RE GOING TO KEEP ASKING QUESTIONS UNTIL WE HAVE A COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT HAPPENED. TO THAT END WE WILL HAVE HEARINGS, IN JANUARY, IN FEBRUARY, IN MARCH AND UNTIL... AND THAT MEANS ACCESS TO ALL THE DOCUMENTS AND THAT MEANS ACCESS TO ALL OF THE WITNESSES WITH KNOWLEDGE. THIS COMMITTEE WILL BE THE LAST BEST HOPE FOR ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS SURROUNDING THE ATTACKS IN BENGHAZI. WE MAY ACTUALLY WIND UP ANSWERING SOME OF THE QUESTIONS MORE THAN ONCE. WE MAY RISK ANSWERING A QUESTION TWICE. THAT SEEMS LIKE A REALLY SMALL INVESTMENT COMPARED WITH WHAT OTHERS HAVE GIVEN AND ARE CURRENTLY GIVING."

Democrats on the committee, unfortunately albeit predictably,  consistently tried to ignore the details of what happened in Benghazi from a justice perspective and make the point that the hearings were about "moving forward" - to "insure this never happens again" - clearly trying to protect the President so as to protect the democrat party and hence, their own political futures. Democrat Representative Cummings basically illustrated that in full measure without once mentioning that the Democrats had any concern about justice for the slain Ambassador and the Ambassador's people , making the absurd claim that the main concern of the families of the slain was that future embassies would be protected, never mentioning justice for their loved ones. It was theater of the absurd played to a nauseating degree, and we award a mountain of shame upon Cummings for expressing such a, in our opinion, brutally callous and utterly unconscionable, clearly politically-motivated, viewpoint.

Congressman Jim Jordan, the third Republican to speak and question the two witnesses was spectacular and absolutely withering in his pointed questions, and in so doing took what we regarded as Starr's absurd sense of inflated self-importance down to that of the appearance of a little boy who had been caught doing a very bad thing:

".... I THINK IT'S A GREAT IDEA. BUT I'M NOT ALONE. CLEAR BACK IN 1999 SECRETARY ALBRIGHT SAID THE SAME THING. SHE THOUGHT WE SHOULD HAVE THIS AT THE UNDERSECRETARY LEVEL. TODD KYLE IN THE BEST PRACTICES PANEL THOUGHT WE SHOULD HAVE IT AT THE UNDERSECRETARY LEVEL. AND THE GUY SITTING BESIDE YOU (co-witness Linick) THINKS WE NEED TO ELEVATE THIS TO THE HIGHEST LEVEL. SO I GUESS WE'VE GOT TWO BIG QUESTIONS THAT THIS COMMITTEE NEEDS TO ANSWER. WHY IN THE WORLD WON'T THE STATE DEPARTMENT DO WHAT EVERYONE IN THE WORLD KNOWS NEEDS TO  BE DONE: ELEVATE THIS TO THE HIGHEST THAT WE CAN? MAKE IT EQUAL TO 'CULTURAL EXCHANGE'  AND 'INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING', AND THEN THE BIG QUESTION AGAIN THAT I HOPE WE GET AN ANSWER TO IN THIS COMMITTEE. 'WHY WERE WE THERE (Benghazi)? WHY WERE WE THERE WITH THESE FACTS AND CIRCUMSTANCES?' THAT'S A FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION THAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW AND THESE FOUR INDIVIDUALS - AND THE FAMILIES OF THOSE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES - WOULD LIKE TO KNOW AS WELL. "

GOP Rep Martha Roby skillfully brought out that, on the issue of "going forward", that the Obama Administration has totally failed to implement the Benghazi review board's security recommendations and Roby did so in a way that was quiet, polite, and ultimately devastating: Nothing is worse than having your entire argument dismantled by someone as courteous as Republican Representative Roby.

Republican Peter Roskam got into the details to a terrific degree and basically showed the incompetence of the Obama Administration on all levels of security and how the state department simply threw in the towel on security. Watching Starr's pathetically weak responses to Roskam became downright embarrassing. HUGE kudos to Roskam for getting the info he wanted, showing how little info Starr really had to give that was relevant and, in all respects, controlling the moment with great equal measures of human theater and sincere fact-finding.

Democrat Adam Schiff, alas, was the best at illustrating the Democrats' somewhat disingenuous approach to questioning by simply running out the clock on his own time, asking about general security around the world and almost nothing whatsoever specific about Benghazi. It was a shameful display of wonton disregard for the memories of the slain heroes and the grief and need for justice expressed by the heroes' families.

Democrats are the party of compassion? Sorry, but if the Democrat members of the Benghazi Select Committee amount to the collective textbook example of democrat compassion then I must say it: Absolute B*llsh*t. It is clear and apparent every Democrat on that committee, in our opinion, wants to sweep the facts of what happened in Benghazi under the rug and they aren't even showing the good grace to be subtle about it.

It seems very much like the Democrats really don't want to talk about what happened in Benghazi, only what the US can do from this point forward. That is literally like a criminal investigation in which the police only want to know how similar crimes in the future can be avoided and have no interest in finding out who committed the crime actually being investigated. That is exactly what the Democrats are doing - and in so doing playing politics to protect an Administration so as to protect their political party from the fallout of unflattering  disclosures and keep America from understanding acts by the Administration which may prove shattering in their illegality.

We are proud of this Benghazi Select Committee, proud of the members and proud of Chairman Rep Trey Gowdy who is demonstrating amply, so far, his dedication to this issue of justice for the Benghazi slain and why he never lost a case as a prosecutor.

We only have one thing to request of the Benghazi Select Committee and that's an answer to a question which we have been asking now for two years: WHERE ARE THE BENGHAZI SURVIVOR WITNESSES? Only the people on the ground can give a full accounting of what happened over those several horrendous hours, and if they have been shut up by the Obama Administration which now seems plain, then finding them and bringing every one of them in to testify must be the first order of business attended to from this point forward, or this entire Select committee will be reduced to a hypothetical exercise in meaningless political procedure. Indeed, that is a basic reason why we campaigned so hard for this Select committee, because only a Select committee has the power to subpoena and force the witnesses to appear to testify. Police need witnesses to any crime to bring justice. So does the Benghazi Select committee. It is as simple and basic as that.

Chairman Gowdy promised that all witnesses would be brought forward and we regard that as a huge shot across the bow to all those trying to make this issue go away. We expect Gowdy to keep his word because he strikes us a true southern gentleman as well as driven on issues about which he cares. We also promise you that we, too, will stay on the issue to insure that the witnesses become the absolute, central focal point of the hearings. No investigation of what happened in Benghazi can fulfil its function without the full, public and unredacted testimony of the survivor witnesses who were on the ground and saw it all, and America has a right to know it all.

Stay Tuned.

As of this writing, the entire second Benghazi Select Committee hearing can be seen on the C-SPAN archives, HERE

TEA PARTY FIRE ANTS DEBATE MONTEL WILLIAMS

...And What's The Deal With All These New Liberal-Supporting "Conservative"  Celebrities, Anyway? 

(All images/media/quotes used via the Fair Use Act)

Conventional dramatic structure dictates that the punch line be placed at the end. But in this case, the punchline is better placed up-front, with the rest of the backstory, afterward.

Former TV Talk show host and now leftist radio Air America celebrity Montel Williams claims to be a conservative.Here he is making the claim in response to TPFA co-Leader Kathy Amidon calling out Williams for grossly insulting conservative/Tea party favorite Michelle Bachmann.

So the question really is, what do you think a conservative is? If Williams believes he is a conservative, then IMO he is at extremely dramatic odds with the political reality all around him because in the world I live in, "Conservatives" do not agree to be TV pitchmen for Barack Obama Inauguration Commemorative coins and say he is proud to do so, as Montel Williams did in 2009:

If you like videos, here he is making his pitch, with a couple of funny editorial modifications made by whoever uploaded the video:

To add insult to injury, the coins are for want of a better word, "fakes" (a word used by at least a few journalists, along with rip-offs, etc). They are just standard US Currency with stickers attached to them.

Some have argued that Williams could not have known the unbelievably cheap quality of the product, but that, IMO, seems rather implausible considering he was sitting virtually right on top of them, and the stickers are apparently very poorly done and visible as stickers easily even in a casual inspection:

Why is this important? because as you will see in the screenshots from Twitter, below, all we did was Tweet to Williams - who had followed us first (no idea why, but seems troubling as you will see)- that we had been tapped to advise the Congressional House Science Committee on their investigation into Twitter trolls and Truthy, we having had so much experience and having been covered by media several times on the issue, and Williams fights the idea of a Twitter investigation by Congress vigorously.

Now, where I came from, additionally, Conservatives help other conservatives. The demands that something be done about the Twitter abuse and suspension of conservatives are very common now (though only TPFA campaigned on this issue directly to Congress). Every conservative knows about the Twitter conservative suspension problem if they have been anywhere near Twitter. But Williams fights against the idea of helping his "Fellow Conservatives" in this way, going so far as to say that Conservatives - presumably equally in his view - are trolls also (and presumably, then, Twitter allows conservative trolls to go wild too, which is absurd, since Twitter suspends innocent conservatives while plainly allowing leftist trolls to run mad). That, apparently, by "conservative" Montel Williams who in 2009 was proud to be the TV salesman for Barack Obama coins, which turned out to be fake.

Doesn't add up to your definition of "conservative", does it?

The bigger problem is we are seeing a pattern emerge, one in which celebrities, who call themselves conservatives pretty much out of nowhere, attack activist conservatives and endorse extremely liberal candidates and politics (and apparently really bad "Obama coins").

You will recall when we wrote about "conservative" Hollywood actor James Woods, who in our opinion appeared happy to help trolls attacking us while he himself supported Rudy Giuliani (who is an OK moderate, but he's sure no conservative in the true conservative definition, as are Ted Cruz, Rand Paul or Sarah Palin) and whose only online donation records we could find show him donating to way left-wing candidates:

Here is a supposed "Conservative" (apparently related to uber-liberal actor Alec Baldwin) Harriet Baldwin, who claims personal friendship with Woods and also claimed, in a tweet (not laced with IMO classless, foul-mouthed profanity which she has used repeatedly against us in the past), that our/TPFA thank you letters from Congressman Frank Wolf and Congressman Tom Rice were "bogus"(IMO clear defamation; after she posted that remark, World Net Daily proved the letters are real by confirming the fact by calling Wolf's office. Baldwin never apologized for the, IMO, plainly obvious slander):

Twitter is packed with so-called "conservatives"  behaving like this.

So just what on earth is going on here with these so-called "conservative" celebrities who attack conservative groups unprovoked, aid in the attacks, donate to liberals and pitch Barack Obama commemorative coins?!? 

In my opinion only, knowing the media professionally as I do, what we are seeing is a probably loosely-organized activism by far-left celebrities to infiltrate the highly effective Tea Party right, and in so doing move the nation's perception of the political center way to the left to compensate for the genuine threat to the left of Tea Party accomplishment. IMO nothing else makes sense. Here's how, in theory, it works: celebs make the claim of being conservative, media picks up on it, celebrity says things like "Giuliani for President" and "Do not investigate Twitter" and the mainstream media sells the perception to the public that anyone who is to the right of those "conservative celebrities" is a "far right wacko".  

TPFA is investigating this vigorously and will not let you down. Rely on it. We're going to find out where this is coming from because it makes no sense on the surface even to a casual observer well-versed in politics.

Our pledge to you also, about the Twitter Investigation, is this:

We campaigned hard for it:

We are advising Congress.

And while we like the investigation committee(which announced the investigation three weeks after the Twitter Trolls Must Be Stopped video was tweeted to Congress and 3 days after the committee asked us/TPFA us to help), at the first sign that the investigation is going "RINO" - and you all know that frustration: weak, wrong-headed, "conventional", too timid of leftist media response to do the job at full power - the Tea Party Fire Ants will swarm congress on Twitter, name names and demand that they get it together or will publicly cite  the committee as not competent and demand that the investigators be replaced, and we will do it every day for months - over a year as we did for Benghazi if necessary - until it's done right according not to ivory tower investigators being paid by public money - but by the public which has lived this horror and is demanding that congress do the job like righteous, hard-nosed and determined leaders, not weak-kneed bureaucratic  politicians looking for the easy way out every time something reveals itself which demands a little passion and elbow grease. Being "intelligent and measured" does not mean being weak and lazy. We know you - the true Tea Party people - generally don't trust your government in exactly the way the Founding Fathers warned all citizens to be wary of all governments. We promise to you that this congressional investigation of Twitter, one way or the other, will be done properly with results manifest which you will find acceptable, if we have to campaign all over again from scratch. What IMO appears to be the biggest case of ongoing censorship and emotional abuse in American history - what is happening on Twitter, whose execs have a practical love-fest with Obama - will be addressed and remedied.

Millions of innocent people are being criminal cyber-bullied, and driven to despair - and even suicide - from endless humiliation, rape and death threats, and conservatives are mostly at the receiving end of such activity - in the political realm, at least - while the trolls who attack (now labeled medically as everyday, common  psychopathic sadists) are clearly given free rein by Twitter. This is no time to screw around and play politics as usual. This is serious and we mean business. Twitter will be fixed by congressional action no matter what the social and political pressures may be. That is our promise to you. And as you have learned, we can do it, too.

Enjoy the Tea Party Fire Ants debate Obama "Fake Coin" Montel Williams threads, and watch as Williams seems to use circular logic, change the subject and ultimately claim  angry, self-righteous indignation as a debate response when all he had to do was not debate the people who Tweeted to Williams initially only once - people Montel Williams followed first before they followed him.

For readers' sanity I chose a thread reading that omitted the trolls. Here is a sample and see how Montel takes their attacks against us at face value, all the while sticking by his view that GOP Congressman should not investigate federal funds used to fund truthy and not investigate Twitter trolls, basically the only way that Conservatives will be able to be saved from having their lives ruined by Twitter trolls. Remember, Twitter defamation shows up on any search engine. You can never have looked at Twitter in your life and anyone who dislikes you can destroy your life just by tweeting about you. It's that bad, and needs to be stopped

A toll sampling from the Williams threads:

TPFA's Kathy seemed to have the right message to stop Williams cold: Post links to the videos of Montel Williams The  Conservative being a proud pitchman for lousey Barack Obama commemorative coins (ever-present trolls not included):

SO WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH THIS APPARENT NEW BREED OF LIBERAL-LOVING "CONSERVATIVE" CELEBRITIES?

WE'RE GOING TO FIND OUT.

Stay tuned.