It’s Time You Read America Under Attack

The White House is engulfed in scandal. Why now?
 

America Under Attack. That’s the title of the latest book by Gerald Flurry, editor in chief of the Trumpet. The book was published last month. It’s free and you can read, or request a free hard copy, here.

There’s a lot to be impressed by in this book, but for me one of the most striking is the way events since its release have so powerfully vindicated its message.

America Under Attack is a smartly structured, well-researched, hard-hitting exposé of a terribly destructive war currently being waged on America, a war that is being waged, sadly, from the inside. The book has some pretty condemning observations which are delivered with some uncompromising, refreshingly straightforward language. Mr. Flurry explores and explains the sinister and destructive actions of America’s leadership, including the behavior of both political parties but especially the radical left, the mainstream media, the White House and President Obama. Unlike the many other books on this subject, criticizing the president and his men, or the media and radical left, is not the central purpose of the book.

What makes America Under Attack so profound—and so entirely unique—is the way Mr. Flurry gets to the central cause of America’s internal conflict. The book doesn’t merely criticize the decisions or behavior of America’s leaders: It gives the reason America’s leaders think the way they think and act the way they act.

But again, it’s the way this book has been so powerfully punctuated by events that I find especially remarkable, and that I want to write about here.

First, think back on that horrible week in April that began with a terrorist bombing in Boston—the first successful attack on U.S. soil since 9/11, followed by a massive explosion at a fertilizer factory in Texas two days later, and concluded with two failed bio-attacks on the government. Remember that week? That was also the week America Under Attack began landing in mailboxes.

I remember thinking to myself while reading about the Boston bombing, Wow, what a rough week for the States. America is really under attack. And I remember that same day opening an envelope that arrived in the mail and experiencing an adrenalin rush as I read the title of the book that fell out: America Under Attack.

Since then, the message of America Under Attack has been punctuated over and over and over.

We’ll review some of these events in a moment, but first let’s highlight just a few statements from this book. Here’s what Mr. Flurry wrote about U.S. foreign policy, which is essentially designed to shrink America’s global presence, ruin relations with friends and allies, and empower the enemies of the West (emphasis his throughout):

[I]n looking at the decisions this administration is making, I’m hard-pressed to think of any that don’t have the effect of weakening America, and strengthening the forces of evil in this world.

There’s a chapter in America Under Attack on the growing tendency among many of America’s politicians, journalists and intelligentsia to reject, circumvent and undermine the U.S. constitution. Why is this happening? Mr. Flurry answers:

It is because the Obama administration is taking actions just about every week that raise constitutional questions and that threaten to undermine America’s foundational document.

In another section, Mr. Flurry explains the level of deceit and deception coming from the Obama administration, and inflicting U.S. politics in general.

We are seeing bold, blatant lies become a bigger and bigger part of today’s political landscape.

The book quotes Mr. Obama assuring the American people, “You know where I stand. You know what I believe. You know I tell the truth.” To that, Mr. Flurry delivered a bold and frank response:

Does the president tell the truth? Is anyone paying attention?

Think on that last question, “Is anyone paying attention?” When Mr. Flurry wrote this book, and even when it was released last month, it’s safe to say most Americans were not “paying attention,” at least not nearly as seriously as they ought to have been. In fact, a good number of people, were they to read America Under Attack even as recently as April, might have felt Mr. Flurry’s evaluations were over the top and exaggerated.

Yet today, just a few weeks later, many Americans—some even on the left—find themselves coming to the same conclusions!

Since America Under Attack was released, we’ve seen one scandal on top of another engulf Washington and the White House. These aren’t minor scandals either. And they aren’t low level. Each scandal is taking place within the federal government. Each involves high-level figures, congressmen, senators, White House employees, cabinet leaders—most of whom were appointed by the president—committing despicable acts, acts of outright deception and lying—acts that directly impacted the well-being of America and its citizens.

And, perhaps most significantly, each scandal directly incriminates President Obama.

Phonetapping the Press

Last week, it was revealed that the U.S. Justice Department—headed by Eric Holder, an Obama appointee—secretly obtained telephone records of Associated Press reporters and editors. According to AP attorneys, the Justice Department seized records from about a year ago for more than 20 telephone lines used by the news organization. The Justice Department was interested in records of outgoing calls from the work and personal telephones of individual reporters, as well as calls from AP offices in New York, Washington and Hartford. More than 100 journalists work in the offices the Justice Department targeted. “They haven’t told us what they are looking for and nor have they explained why we got no prior notice, which our lawyers tell us is not only customary but required,” stated Kathleen Carroll, AP senior vice president and executive editor.

AP said it received a letter from the Justice Department last Friday that notified it of the seizure but offered no explanation. In a letter of protest sent to Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday, AP President and Chief Executive Officer Gary Pruitt said the government sought and obtained information far beyond anything that could be justified by any specific investigation.

The White House and Mr. Obama have tried to distance themselves from the Justice Department. The fact is, besides Eric Holder having been appointed by Mr. Obama, the Justice Department has for four years been a key appendage of the White House. As Alberto Gonzales, the former attorney general, stated: “It would surprise me that the White House would not have received some type of heads-up. [Something like] ‘Hey, we’re about to do this, there’s going to be some type of negative reaction.’”

Unleashing the IRS

Then there’s the Internal Revenue Service scandal, which grows with each passing day, and which Peggy Noonan, George Will, and others, have stated could be as significant as Watergate.

The irs recently admitted that it targeted conservative groups during the 2012 election season. Lois Lerner, irs director of Exempt Organizations, admitted to flagging groups that used the name “tea party” or “patriot” for review and had their tax returns examined. Groups that advocated education about the American Constitution were also flagged.

Lerner claimed that this was not “out of any political bias.” That’s poppycock. As the Wall Street Journal wrote: “If there was no political bias, why were only conservative groups targeted?” The Journal goes on to explain the significance of the irs’s actions: “It’s important to understand that the timing of these requests, in the middle of the 2012 campaign, had the effect of stifling political activity. The targeted groups had tax-exempt status that allowed them to participate in certain kinds of political messaging. But any such group receiving irs missives is immediately going to become cautious, lest it risk the arbitrary wrath of some tax official. The speech-squelching effects may have been especially important in Ohio, which was ground zero in the battle for the White House.” (emphasis added).

In other words, the actions of the irs may have assisted the re-election of Barack Obama!

At first, the irs claimed only a few individuals were responsible. Now even Lerner herself has been implicated, and it’s clear that this was the work of more than a couple of rogue employees. USA Today wrote: “In February 2010, the Champaign Tea Party in Illinois received approval of its tax-exempt status from the irs in 90 days, no questions asked. That was the month before the Internal Revenue Service started singling out Tea Party groups for special treatment. There wouldn’t be another Tea Party application approved for 27 months. In that time, the irs approved perhaps dozens of applications from similar liberal and progressive groups, a USA Today review of irs data shows.”

This week two U.S. congressmen claimed that nearly 500 groups were affected. The whole truth probably hasn’t emerged yet. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney called the irs’s actions “inappropriate.” My favorite commentary on this comes from veteran commentator George Will. “No, using the salad fork for the entrée is inappropriate,” he wrote. “Using the Internal Revenue Service for political purposes is a criminal offense.” His article was titled: “In irs scandal, echoes of Watergate.”

Benghazi

Benghazi is not a new story. What is new, however, is the level of attention finally being given to the actions of the White House that awful night. Details have now emerged showing that leaders at the very top of the U.S. government not only refused to dispatch the military to help rescue consulate employees during the terrorist attack, but that they knowingly, carefully orchestrated a cover-up.

Last Friday, abc Newsnot exactly a conservative source—revealed that the U.S. administration had tried to cover up the extent of their failure and had lied to the press.

Immediately after the September 11 attack last year, UN Ambassador Susan Rice described what happened using a set of talking points put together by the intelligence community. At the time, we were told that these talking points were barely edited. According to White House spokesman Jay Carney, “The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions was changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”

We now know that Mr. Carney, the president’s spokesman, was telling a bald-faced lie. The State Department heavily edited and even censored the talking points—or at least heavily leaned on the intelligence community to do so. Statements about links to al Qaeda were cut out, as were references to the cia giving advanced warning of the attack. The attack on the embassy became a “demonstration.” America’s leaders said the attack was sparked by a demonstration about a YouTube video, even though there was no demonstration.

Last week, the deputy head of the mission, Gregory Hicks, said that the YouTube video was not a big deal in Libya, and no one saw the attack as a demonstration. Here’s how the Weekly Standard summarized the White House’s behavior: “After pushing the intelligence community to revise its talking points to fit the administration’s preferred narrative, administration officials would point fingers at the intelligence community when parts of that narrative were shown to be misleading or simply untrue. …

[F]resh evidence emerged that senior Obama administration officials knowingly misled the country about what had happened in the days following the assaults” (emphasis added).

Together, these three scandals seem to be changing the perception of Mr. Obama and his administration, even in the mainstream media and among some of his liberal supporters. After four years of being blindly loved and embraced, and being given a free pass on its many indiscretions and flaws, the Obama administration appears to be under real pressure. More and more people are coming to see the lies and deceit.

Richard A. Epstein wrote in Foreign Policy:

The very president who has pledged himself to be the most open and transparent administration ever is now perceived on all sides of the political spectrum as a secretive soul who skulks about in the shadows, so sure of his own moral rectitude that he thinks that it is alright to ignore the procedural safeguards that the U.S. Constitution wisely puts in the path of less wise and omniscient presidents. Long ago, James Madison warned in Federalist No. 10 that the Constitution had to be rigged for bad times because it is in the nature of politics that ‘Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.’ Madison’s time has come.

Again, it’s the timing of these scandals that is especially remarkable. Eight weeks ago, Gerald Flurry released a book explaining that America’s government is run by immoral, dishonest figures who are pursuing policies and actions designed to ruin America. Since then, not one, or two, but three enormous scandals have broken that vindicate every detail of his message. Pretty extraordinary, isn’t it?

It makes me want to read America Under Attack again.