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Rubio Defends Bush, Blames Clinton for 9/11

February 17, 2016
Jon Boldt

Writer

The Context

During one shouting match at the South Carolina debate, Donald Trump attacked Jeb Bush with claims that his brother, President George W. Bush, was responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks and didn't keep Americans safe. Trump --- who is running as a Republican --- spouted all the radical liberal talking points about 9/11.

"First of all, you're blaming George Bush for 9/11, which is only what the worst left-wing nutjobs do," Stu said Tuesday, filling for Glenn on The Glenn Beck Program. "Most people would say, 'Look, was he perfect? No.' But was he responsible that a few months after he came into office, there was a terrorist attack? No sensible person blames him for it."

It's also very poor form to attack a former Republican president at a GOP debate, especially with outrageous claims.

True Colors

Donald Trump’s liberal talking points about 9/11 showed his true colors.

“How did he keep us safe when the World Trade Center came down -- the World -- excuse me. I lost hundreds of friends. The World Trade Center came down during the [Bush administration]” Trump said in between boos. “He kept us safe? That's not safe. That is not safe, Marco. That is not safe.”

Better Than Gore

Coming to the defense of George Bush, Marco Rubio may have had the single best line of the night.

“I just want to say, at least on behalf of me and my family, I thank God all the time that it was George W. Bush in the White House on 9/11 and not Al Gore,” Rubio said.

Rubio's comment received thunderous applause from the audience. The senator also made the accurate and valid point that it was President Bill Clinton who failed to take out Osama Bin Laden when he had the chance.

“All right. The World Trade Center came down because Bill Clinton didn't kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him,” Rubio said.

Bill Clinton's Regret

The Washington Post fack-checked Rubio's claim about Clinton. Was Rubio right or wrong?

"They had nine examples of times where Bin Laden may have been killed or at least there was an effort to do that. And, of course, it did not occur during the Clinton administration," Stu said. "Some of them were not his fault. Some of them were CIA plans that were abandoned."

Stu went on to explain one specific instance in August 1998 when Clinton vacillated over signing a memo to authorize killing Bin Laden. The language was weakened, leaving CIA officials under the impression they did not have permission to kill Bin Laden.

According to Stu, it's one of Clinton's biggest regrets.

Common Sense Bottom Line

George W. Bush was not on the stage Saturday night, and should not have been attacked viciously. Rather than talking about substantive solutions, Trump resorted to more name-calling and finger-pointing.

"The fact that he's using [9/11] for his own political gain is another thing that even most Democrats wouldn't attempt," Stu said. "The lengths this man will go to for his own personal benefit are jarring."

 

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

PAT:  On Saturday night, Rubio and Trump and Jeb Bush all got into this 9/11 thing.  I mean, this is just a fiasco with Donald Trump.

JEFFY:  It sure is.

PAT:  And the whole George W. Bush is responsible for 9/11 and he should have been impeached and all that kind of stuff.

So I thought Jeb had a pretty good defense of his brother.  Also, Rubio stepped in.  And here's what he had to say.

MARCO:  I just want to say at least on behalf of me and my family, I thank God all the time that it was George W. Bush in the White House on 9/11 and not Al Gore.

PAT:  Yes.

(applauding)

PAT:  Excuse me.

MARCO:  I think you can look back in hindsight and say a couple of things, but he kept us safe.  And not only did he keep us safe, but no matter what you want to say about weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein was in violation of UN resolutions, an open violation, and the world wouldn't do anything about it.  And George W. Bush enforced what the international community refused to do.  And, again, he kept us safe.  And I'm forever grateful to what he did for --

DONALD:  How did he keep us safe when the World Trade Center came down -- the World -- excuse me.  I lost hundreds of friends.  The World Trade Center came down during the --

(booing)

DONALD:  He kept us safe.  That's not safe.  That is not safe, Marco.  That is not safe.

MARCO:  All right.  The World Trade Center came down because Bill Clinton didn't kill Osama bin Laden when he had the chance to kill him.

(applauding)

DONALD:  And George Bush -- by the way, George Bush had the chance also, and he didn't listen to the advice of his CIA.

PAT:  Okay.  So there's Trump.  I mean, he is really doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on George W. Bush responsible for 9/11 essentially.  He didn't keep us safe on 9/11.  All of that.  What are the facts about Bill Clinton's involvement there?  You have to turn on your microphone.

JEFFY:  And while he's doing that, I will say, if you go back and look at the video of when Donald Trump is saying, he didn't get the facts of his CIA.  He looked so --

PAT:  Oh, he was pissed.

JEFFY:  -- angry.

PAT:  Very much so.

STU:  First of all, you're blaming George Bush for 9/11, which is only what the worst left-wing nutjobs do.  Most people would say, "Look, was he perfect?  No.  But was he responsible that a few months after he came into office, there was a terrorist attack."  No sensible person blames him for it.

PAT:  Not even Jeb mentioned that.  He took office in January, we were hit in December.  Okay.  It was just the very beginning of his presidency.

STU:  The planning obviously started long before that.

PAT:  Long before that.

STU:  It's just a ridiculous criticism that even most normal Democrats abandoned a long time ago.

PAT:  Uh-huh.

STU:  Not to mention, he's using to win arguments in a debate that lives of, you know, people who are killed in these attacks -- he claims to have lost hundreds of friends.  Whether he even has hundreds of friends I think is a question.  Most people don't.  At least people you would actually consider friends.  But the fact that he's using that for his own political gain is another thing that even most Democrats would attempt.

So there's a whole 'nother thing there besides the fact that it's ridiculous as far as the facts of the matter.  The lengths this man will go to for his own personal benefit are jarring.  And he pulled that off there.

The question about Rubio claiming that Clinton had chances to kill them -- Washington Post did a fact-check on this.  And I kind of assumed they were just going to say, "Yeah, well, false."

PAT:  False.

STU:  Actually they had nine examples of times where Bin Laden may have been killed or at least there was an effort to do that.  And, of course, it did not occur during the Clinton administration.

Some of them were not his fault.  Some of them were CIA plans that were abandoned.  But there are nine of them including time -- this one, to give you a brief example.  I mean, we can go through all of them.  It's probably not worth necessarily going through all of them.  

But he had a memo -- he vacillated over signing a memo that would have authorized the killing of Bin Laden.  This is August 1998.  He first authorized only a capture, then agreed to allow Bin Laden's killing, only to weaken the language later.  CIA officials were under the impression they did not have permission to kill Osama bin Laden.

PAT:  Seems to me that Clinton has admitted that since.

STU:  It's definitely one of his biggest regrets, I think he said.

PAT:  Yeah.  So I thought it was true when Rubio said it.  And it seems like the post -- or is it the TIME's?  Or is it the Post?

STU:  The Post.

Featured Image: Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) participates in a CBS News GOP Debate February 13, 2016 at the Peace Center in Greenville, South Carolina. Residents of South Carolina will vote for the Republican candidate at the primary on February 20. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Bill Gates ends climate fear campaign, declares AI the future ruler

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump’s secret war in the Caribbean EXPOSED — It’s not about drugs

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.