***UPDATE: NBC’s senior White House correspondent joined the chorus Wednesday. On his MSNBC show, “The Daily Rundown,” Chuck Todd looked into the camera and said, “Attention White House: Release all the emails.” The headline has been updated to add NBC.
Assuming they are the ones who leaked to CNN an email written by Ben Rhoades (a Deputy National Security Advisor close to the President), the White House might have been too clever by half Tuesday. An act that was obviously meant to pour water on the Benghazi fire started by an ABC News report, has only ended up being gasoline. Now both CNN and ABC have joined conservative media in calling for the White House to release all the emails surrounding the editing of the CIA talking points.
Friday, in a bombshell report that blew the long-simmering Libya scandal wide open and right into the arms of the mainstream media, ABC’s Jonathan Karl reported that an email written by Rhoades specifically mentioned the State Department’s concerns about the CIA talking points. Here is how Karl transcribed the Rhoades’ email:
We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation. We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.
“Never before revealed information” to be aired at press conference
By Paul Joseph Watson
May 8, 2013
Families of the SEAL Team 6 members who were killed when their helicopter crashed in Afghanistan in August 2011 are set to give a press conference tomorrow during which they will hold the Obama administration partially responsible for the deaths of their sons.
With the administration already reeling over today’s Benghazi revelations, a press release on the ‘Tea Party Command Center’ website promises “never before revealed information” about the circumstances behind the incident.
“Accompanying the families of these dead Navy SEAL Team VI special operations servicemen will be retired military experts verifying their accounts of how and why the government is as much responsible for the deaths of their sons as is the Taliban,” states the press release.
The burnt-out interior of a building at the U.S. State Department Special Mission Compound in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 13, 2012. (AP Photo/Mohammed Hannon)
(CNSNews.com) – When asked at a press briefing on Monday to say that two State Department officials set to testify in Congress on Wednesday about the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi are “credible people,” State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell would not do it.
The two officials are Greg Hicks, who was the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya, and Mark Thompson, who was the deputy coordinator for operations in the department’s counter-terrorism division.
“Before we get to the specifics of what they’re expected to testify, I wonder if you could provide us with your assessment of the caliber of these two individuals,” James Rosen of Fox News asked Ventrell. “Are they credible? They’ve been working at fairly senior posts here and abroad for years and years. I wonder first what thoughts the Department has about the caliber of these two individuals.”
A military special ops member who watched as the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi unfolded last September told Fox News the U.S. had highly trained forces just a few hours away, and said he and others feel the government betrayed the four men who died in the attack.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, and appearing in a Fox News Channel interview with his face and voice disguised, the special operator contradicted claims by the Obama administration and a State Department review that said there wasn’t enough time for U.S. military forces to have intervened in the Sept. 11 attack in which U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, an embassy employee and two former Navy SEALs working as private security contractors were killed.
“I know for a fact that C-110, the EUCOM CIF, was doing a training exercise in … not in the region of North Africa, but in Europe,” the operator told Fox News’ Adam Housley. “And they had the ability to act and to respond.”
“You know, it’s something that’s risky, especially in our line of profession, to say anything about, anything in the realm of politics, or that deals with policy.”
- Special Forces operator
The C-110 is a 40-man Special Ops force capable of rapid response and deployment specifically trained for incidents like last year’s attack in Benghazi. During the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Libya, in which U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in Libya, the C-110 were training in Croatia, just 3 ½ hours away.
“We had the ability to load out, get on birds and fly there, at a minimum stage,” the operator told Fox News. “C-110 had the ability to be there, in my opinion, in a matter of about four hours…four to six hours.”
Police officers celebrate after capturing bombing suspect Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev in Watertown, Mass. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
The sought-after suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings was arrested Friday night — taken from a boat parked on a trailer behind a house in the suburban town of Watertown, police said.
Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, was taken into custody without incident about 8:45 p.m., said Massachusetts State Police Col. Timothy Alben.
“We have a suspect in custody,” Alben said at a 9:30 p.m. news conference. “We’re exhausted, folks, but we have a victory tonight.”
Tsarnaev, a Chechen native who became a naturalized U.S. citizen last year on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, was covered with blood when he was arrested, he said.
He was found on the stern end, or back, of the boat, leaning over, Alben said.
The teen was taken to a local hospital, where he remained in “extremely serious” condition, The Boston Globe reports.
“Suspect in custody. Officers sweeping the area,” Boston Police said on Twitter at 8:45 p.m.
Several Supreme Court justices indicated they might lean toward issuing a narrow ruling on gay marriage during a landmark hearing Tuesday on California’s same-sex marriage ban, even as lawyers for the plaintiffs argued for legalizing the unions nationally.The case heard Tuesday, the first of two gay-marriage cases the high court is weighing this week, centered on California’s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage but could have national implications. If the justices choose to rule broadly, they could overturn Prop 8 and in doing so invalidate every other restriction on gay marriage in the country.But the justices suggested Tuesday they could decide the case without issuing a ruling that ripples through all 50 states.Several justices, including some liberals who seemed open to gay marriage, raised doubts Tuesday that the case was properly before them. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the potentially decisive vote on a closely divided court, suggested that the court could dismiss the case with no ruling at all.
Such an outcome would almost certainly allow gay marriages to resume in California but would have no impact elsewhere.Click to listen to the Supreme Court arguments in the Prop 8 case.
Kennedy said he feared the court would go into “uncharted waters” if it embraced arguments advanced by gay marriage supporters. But lawyer Theodore Olson, representing two same-sex couples, said that the court similarly ventured into the unknown in 1967 when it struck down bans on interracial marriage in 16 states.
Kennedy challenged the accuracy of that comment by noting that other countries had had interracial marriages for hundreds of years.
There was no majority apparent for any particular outcome and many doubts expressed about the arguments advanced by lawyers for the opponents of gay marriage in California, by the supporters and by the Obama administration, which is in favor of same-sex marriage rights.
Chief Justice John Roberts told Olson that it seemed supporters of gay marriage were trying to change the meaning of the word “marriage” by including same-sex couples.
Lawyers representing supporters of the California ban known as Proposition 8 argued that the court should not override the democratic process and impose a judicial solution that would redefine marriage in the some 40 states that do not allow same-sex couples to wed.
The case attracted high interest. Spectators were waiting in line since Thursday for the chance at being in the room while the two sides try to sway the court.
By ruling broadly, the court could overturn every state constitutional provision and law banning same-sex marriages. Or, they could set back the gay marriage movement by upholding California’s ban and continuing to leave the issue up to the states. By choosing the middle route, though, the justices could dismiss the case — a move likely to let gay marriages resume in California, with no impact anywhere else.
The case before the high court came together four years ago when the two couples agreed to be the named plaintiffs and become the public faces of a well-funded, high-profile effort to challenge Proposition 8 in the courts.
The fight began in 2004 when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered city officials to issue marriage licenses. Six months later, the state Supreme Court invalidated the same-sex unions. Less than four years later, however, the same state court overturned California’s prohibition on same-sex unions.
Then, in the same election that put President Obama in the White House in 2008, California voters approved Proposition 8, undoing the court ruling and defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
The ballot measure halted same-sex unions in California. Roughly 18,000 couples were wed in the nearly five months that same-sex marriage was legal and those marriages remain valid in California.
The high-profile case has brought together two one-time Supreme Court opponents. Republican Theodore Olson and Democrat David Boies are leading the legal team representing the same-sex couples.
They argued against each other in the Bush v. Gore case that settled the disputed 2000 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush. Opposing them is Charles Cooper, Olson’s onetime colleague at the Justice Department in the Reagan administration.
On Wednesday the court will consider a provision that defines marriage as between a man and a woman for the purpose of deciding who can receive a range of federal benefits, as part of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.
The arguments come at a time of changing views on the issue. Support for gay marriage is becoming a mainstream Democratic position and the issue is causing a sharp divide among Republicans.
The issue has created fault lines within the Republican Party, as some prominent members drop their opposition to same-sex marriage while others stiffen it.
Gary Bauer, president of American Values, told “Fox News Sunday” that proponents of gay marriage are effectively asking “for unelected judges to deny the people of the states the right to decide what marriage is in their state.”
Bauer said he would prefer that every state bar gay marriage. But, acknowledging that’s not likely, he said the court should let the states decide.
However Nicolle Wallace, a former adviser to former President George W. Bush and to the 2008 McCain campaign, said those arguing against Prop 8 are in fact using a “conservative legal argument.”
“They will basically lay out the conservative case that there is not any place in the Constitution that allows for a different set of rules for a different class of people,” she told “Fox News Sunday.” “There’s also a moral imperative here. If you believe, if you value and treasure and revere the institution of marriage, then you should want every family unit to be really wrapped in marriage.”
Top Democrats who previously opposed same-sex marriage — and had taken the more moderate position of supporting civil unions — have in recent months and years shifted course. President Obama announced his support for gay marriage in the months leading up to the presidential election. Hillary Clinton also recently followed suit.
But Republicans have also been crossing to the pro-gay marriage side. Wallace is among dozens of Republicans who filed a brief in the Supreme Court case arguing for Prop 8 to be overturned. And Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, publicly reversed his position on the issue after his son came out as gay.
The position shifts, though, do not signal a party-wide change of heart. Many Republicans would still prefer the issue be left up to the states and are encouraging the high court justices to rule narrowly.
“They would be far better off to decide these two cases on the narrowest possible grounds,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Sunday. A sweeping decision against gay marriage, he said, would be a “huge mistake” that would “undermine respect for the judiciary.”
Americans as a whole are likewise divided. A Fox News poll released Thursday showed 49 percent of voters favor legalizing gay marriage, while 46 percent oppose it.
That marks a shift since the question was first asked in 2003 — when 32 percent said gay marriage should be legal, and 58 percent opposed it.
Support for gay marriage has grown the most among Democrats, and self-described moderates and independents. Still, support for gay marriage rose by 10 points among Republicans over the past decade, according to the Fox News polling.
Gay marriage has been approved in nine states — Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, Washington — and the District of Columbia. But 31 states have amended their constitutions to prohibit same-sex marriage. North Carolina was the most recent example last May.
Egyptian protest the deaht of Ezzat Atallah, who died in a Libyan prison, in front of the Libyan embassy in Cairo. (AP Photo)
(CNSNews.com) – On Feb. 12, about two years after the U.S. government first militarily intervened in Libya to advance the cause of Libyan revolutionaries and five months after Libyan terrorists murdered Amb. Chris Stevens and three other Americans in that country, the post-revolutionary Libyan government arrested a U.S. citizen for allegedly “proselytizing” Christianity in Benghazi.
As of today, according to both a senior administration official and a State Department spokesperson, this U.S. citizen remains imprisoned in post-Qaddafi Libya.
The Libyan government also arrested seven other Christians in Benghazi in connection with the same alleged case of Christian proselytizing. These include a South African woman, a South Korean man and five Egyptian men.
One of the Egyptians, Ezzat Atallah, was tortured by the Libyans while in detention, according to an Egyptian human rights lawyer. Atallah later died in Libyan custody—from what an Egyptian official characterized as natural causes.
China’s new leader began his first overseas trip as president with a much anticipated visit to Russia today – a symbolic trip that underlines China’s desire to ensure its energy supply while showing defiance in the face of US influence in Asia.
A grand reception was held to welcome President Xi Jinping upon his arrival in Moscow, with guards riding on horseback brought out to greet a foreign leader for the first time. Kremlin guards snapped to attention as Mr Xi and his long retinue walked into the gilded, chandeliered Grand Kremlin Palace, where they met members of official delegations in the ornate St George Hall before sitting down for talks.
“China and Russia are the main and most important strategic partners,” Mr Xi told Russian media upon his arrival. He said he was eagerly anticipating his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “In many ways we speak a common language,” he said.
The grand welcome was a clear indication of the importance placed on the visit by Moscow. Russia is one of the world’s biggest energy producers, and China is the top energy consumer. These realities tend to outweigh the traditionally tense relations between the two neighbouring giants, who were bitter rivals during the Soviet era despite their ideological links.
Russia has watched China’s rise with concern, anxious that it might someday threaten its dominance on its eastern borders. But a bigger concern for the Kremlin, one that it shares with China, is blunting US influence in the region. At the start of talks, Mr Putin described the ties between the two countries as an “extremely important factor of global politics.”
Ahead of Mr Xi’s arrival, he said: “We are working together, helping to shape a new, more just world order, ensure peace and security, defend basic principles of international law.”
Mr Xi said that the relations between the two countries are the best ever.
In recent years, the need to counterbalance the growing might of the US has led to the two to set aside some differences. Strong trade links have also smoothed some of the wrinkles in the interim, with bilateral trade soaring to a record £58bn last year.
Beijing and Moscow have taken similar stances on some of the biggest geopolitical issues of recent years, from North Korea to Iran to Syria, often voting in concert to veto punitive sanctions by the UN Security Council.
Many analysts believe their relationship is likely to strengthen, especially as the United States tries to expand its influence in Asia, and both countries are firm in rejecting Western criticism of their human rights records.
The two leaders are expected to discuss Syria and North Korea, but the economy is likely to dominate.
Shortly before Mr Xi arrived in Russia with first lady Peng Liyuan, a £1.3bn deal was announced by Russian and Chinese companies to develop coal resources in eastern Siberia. Russia also sees China as a way to diversify its energy markets away from Europe and it is keen to tie up a potentially enormous gas deal which could eventually see almost 70 billion cubic metres of gas pumped to China annually for the next 30 years.
Mr Xi’s tour continues until March 30 and he will also visit Tanzania, South Africa and the Republic of Congo. In South Africa he will attend the fifth BRICS summit.
The five key emerging economies that make up BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – have become an increasingly important channel for China and Russia to counter growing US influence.
BRICS countries hold reserves totalling £3 trillion, most of them held by China, and China now accounts for 20 per cent of Africa’s exports.
China surpassed the US and Europe as Africa’s largest trading partner in 2009 and has maintained its leading place in the years since.
China’s First Lady: A new role model
In China, the big news about Xi Jinping’s first trip as president has not been about energy, investment or BRICS, but rather about his wife Peng Liyuan’s first public appearance as first lady.
Ms Peng is a hugely popular figure in China, indeed, she was probably better known than him until recently, and adored by millions for her stirring renditions of folk tunes in army uniform or ethnic costume.
“Peng Liyuan has a very positive meaning for China. China needs a female role-model. Imagine what would it be like if China had a First Lady like Michelle Obama?” wrote one online fashion commentator.
Since the cult of personality that built up around Chairman Mao Zedong, the Communist Party has sought to avoid making its leaders too personal. Solid, dull technocrats have run the show, and their wives have been even less visible.
posted at 12:01 pm on March 19, 2013 by Allahpundit
The AP claimed this morning that Paul was set to endorse a path to citizenship in his speech today. Not so, countered conservatives on Twitter: Read his prepared remarks and you’ll see that citizenship is never mentioned. Which is true, and also irrelevant.
The whole point of Paul’s speech is GOP rapprochement with Latino voters; he spends nearly two-thirds of it extolling Latinos’ work ethic, reminiscing about his friendships with Latinos growing up in Texas, name-checking Jaime Escalante and Pablo Neruda, and of course citing the ancient canard that Latinos are really just Republicans who don’t know it yet. (He mentions abortion and gay marriage as particular areas of overlap.
In fact, younger Latinos support legal abortion in all or most cases and nearly 60 percent of Latinos overall support state recognition of gay marriage.) There’s no earthly way that Paul, having made a conciliatory pitch that florid, would ultimately turn around and insist that illegals be forever barred from seeking citizenship. In his op-ed on immigration today at the Washington Times, he actually refers to them at one point as “undocumented citizens.”(!) When pressed on the issue in the Q&A after his speech, he said this:
So no, he won’t create a special path to citizenship to help move illegals quickly through the green-card process but there’s a path to citizenship through normal channels in the end. Then again, with the singular exception of Jeb Bush, whom no one believes is serious anyway, every prominent Republican politician I can think of supports a path to citizenship eventually. That’s my whole point: If you’re trying to build goodwill with Latinos, there has to be. But what about the rest of Paul’s plan? Quote:
The first part of my plan – border security – must be certified by Border Patrol and an Investigator General and then voted on by Congress to ensure it has been accomplished…
With this in place, I believe conservatives will accept what needs to come next, an issue that must be addressed: what becomes of the 12 million undocumented workers in the United States?
My plan is very simple and will include work visas for those who are here, who are willing to come forward and work…
Questions continue to swirl surrounding the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead. Among the most confounding factors were inaccurate comments made by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice in the wake of the assault. The embattled administration official appeared last night on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” to discuss the government’s handling of the crisis.
During the exchange, the host challenged Rice on some of the confusing and contradictory information that emerged in the wake of the terror attack. The ambassador also issued some tough words for those who still believe the Obama administration is hiding key information.
Stewart wasted no time launching into his questioning. Almost as soon as Rice sat down, he asked the ambassador why she was selected to speak out on Sunday morning shows and pondered why someone else more appropriate (i.e. Hillary Clinton or another official) wasn’t chosen. The ambassador gave this long-winded answer:
“I’ve spent many-a-Sunday doing the Sunday shows. In this case, Secretary Clinton, who had been asked originally to do it, felt that she didn’t want to, couldn’t do it that week, having been through quite an intense week with the loss of our colleagues in Benghazi, the violence against our embassies all over the Arab and Muslim world and then — also that Friday having to join President Obama in greeting the families of our fallen colleagues and bringing their bodies back.”
Syrian rebels are reported to have seized control of the country’s largest hydro-electric dam, in what would be a strategic loss to the government.
Activists and opposition groups said fighters had taken over entrances and exits of the dam in the northern province of Raqa.
Reports said the dam on the Euphrates River was still operational.
Meanwhile an explosion in a car on the Syria-Turkey border has killed at least seven people, officials say.
It is thought that the explosion happened in the area of the Cilvegozu customs post on the Turkish side of the border, in the southern province of Hatay.
Dozens of people were wounded in the blast, the cause of which was not immediately clear.
Dec. 1, 2012: Supporters of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi rally in front of Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt. (AP)
CAIRO – Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi called Saturday for a referendum in two weeks on a contentious draft constitution, setting a date for another milestone in the country’s transition to democracy. Widespread disputes over the charter and Morsi’s recent seizure of near absolute power have marred the process and thrown the country into turmoil.
As has been the case in nearly two years since Hosni Mubarak was ousted, what should have been a cause for national celebration turned into dueling protest between opponents and supporters of how the transition has been managed– largely divided along Islamist and secular lines.
More than 100,000 Morsi supporters organized by the Muslim Brotherhood and ultraconservative Salafi groups took to the streets of Cairo and other cities a day after a massive opposition demonstration against his recent decrees giving him immunity from judicial oversight and the charter that was rushed through an assembly packed with allies.
The presidency has been locked in a tug of war with the powerful judiciary and secular and Christian activists since Morsi granted himself far-reaching powers on Nov. 22 in a bid to pre-empt an expected decision by the Supreme Constitutional Court on Sunday to dissolve the constitutional panel, as it had done the Islamist-led parliament earlier this year.
Has Libya attack become ‘politicized’? Senior retired military officer wants answers on…
Sources who have debriefed the team that was at the CIA annex the night of the attack in Benghazi say that the CIA operators from the Global Response Staff, or GRS, were equipped with Mark 48 machine guns and had two types of laser capability. Each weapon had both a “passive” as well as a “visible” laser that could be used against the Libyan attackers.
The presence of laser capability on the roof of the CIA annex confirms what Fox News sources that night in Benghazi originally said, which is that they had laser capability and for 5 hours and 15 minutes were wondering where the usual overhead air support was, especially since, according to this source, they radioed from the annex beginning as early as midnight asking for it.
The presence of lasers raises more questions about why air support was not sent to Benghazi even protectively once it became clear that the fighting had followed the CIA rescue team back to the annex.
U.S. military officials say they “thought the fighting was over” after the team left the consulate and that there was a lull in the fighting.
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden tells Newsmax that Mitt Romney was right — and President Obama wrong — when the GOP candidate said during the Monday debate that a nuclear Iran and not a terrorist attack was the biggest threat to America’s national security.
The retired 4-star Air Force General also says he is “not very hopeful” that negotiations with the Iranians will dissuade them from developing nuclear weapons. And he predicts that a President Romney would “review” Obama’s exemption of some of Iran’s major trading partners from imposing sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
FILE: June 21, 2012: Mitt Romney campaigns in Orlando, Fla. (AP)
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is set to give a foreign policy speech Monday that will mark one of his final opportunities before Election Day to show his potential as a world leader — amid political turmoil in the Middle East and economic collapse in Europe.
Romney’s success on foreign policy has thus far have evolved towards good reviews. He has drawn widespread praise from conservatives and fellow Republicans for his full support of Israel’s quest to stop Iran from achieving nuclear capability.
Protesters in Egypt and Libya attacked U.S. diplomatic missions on Tuesday, leading to the death of an American staffer at the consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi after fierce clashes at the compound, a Libyan official said. “One American staff member has died and a number have been injured in the clashes,” Abdel-Monem Al-Hurr, spokesman for Libya’s Supreme Security Committee, said, adding he did not know the exact number of injured or what the cause of death was.
The violence in Benghazi followed protests in neighboring Egypt where protesters scaled the walls of the Cairo embassy and tore down the American flag and burned it during protests over what demonstrators said was a U.S. film that insulted the Prophet Mohammad. On Tuesday, Egypt’s prestigious Al-Azhar mosque and seat of Sunni learning condemned a symbolic “trial” of the Prophet organized by a U.S. group including Terry Jones, a Christian pastor who triggered riots in Afghanistan in 2010 by threatening to burn the Koran.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
(CNSNews.com) – Although the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the federal government will spend $3.563 trillion in fiscal year 2012 and the White House Office of Management estimates it will be $3.795 trillion, actual withdrawals from the U.S. Treasury have already exceeded $10 trillion.
In fact, as of the close of business Wednesday, withdrawals from the Treasury equaled $10,201,615,000,000 for fiscal 2012, which began on Oct. 1, 2011 and will end on Sept. 30.
According to the Daily Treasury Statement–the official daily accounting sheet for the federal government—withdrawals from the Treasury exceeded $10 trillion this year on Aug. 30, when they rose from $9.903 trillion to $10.035 trillion.
If Chris Christie lit a fire under Republicans last night, it’s now up to Paul Ryan to provide the fuel to keep it burning for what promises to be a hard-fought two-month battle to win the White House.
The Republican vice presidential candidate is teed up Wednesday to deliver the “hard truths” Christie talked about in his rousing keynote address on opening night. While Christie is known as the GOP fighter, Ryan is the point-man for budget-balancing solutions the party claims to represent.
The Wisconsin congressman has been quietly preparing his speech for days. Members of Ryan’s staff contacted by Fox News earlier this week said they couldn’t say precisely how long it would be, but that he has “teased” some of the ideas in it before.
Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, is best known for his controversial plans to overhaul Medicare and the tax system. They are likely the kinds of “hard truths” Christie raised Tuesday night, as the New Jersey governor claimed Mitt Romney and Ryan would lead a “new era of truth-telling” in Washington.
March 15, 2007: In this file photo Israeli school children wear gas masks during a drill organized by the Israeli Home Front Command simulating a chemical missile attack in a shelter at a school in the central Israeli city of Lod. (AP/File)
JERUSALEM – An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program could trigger a bloody monthlong war on multiple fronts, killing hundreds of Israelis or more, the Israeli Cabinet’s civil defense chief warned in an interview published Wednesday.
KABUL, Afghanistan – A man in an Afghan uniform shot and killed three American troops Friday morning in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military command said, in the third attack on coalition forces by their Afghan counterparts in a week. The Taliban claimed the shooter joined the insurgency after the attack.
So far this year, at least 21 similar attacks — in which Afghan forces or insurgents disguised in Afghan uniforms have turned their guns on international troops — have killed 30 coalition service members, according to an Associated Press tally.
Friday’s shooting took place in Sangin district of Helmand province, said U.S. military spokeswoman Maj. Lori Hodge. She gave no further details and said the military were investigating.
(CNSNews.com)– Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Congress last week that terrorists intending to harm the American people enter the U.S. from Mexico “from time to time.”
At a July 25 hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Ron Barber (D-Ariz.) asked Napolitano: “As you know, Madam Secretary, there have been anecdotal reports about material evidence of the presence of terrorists along our southern border. My question is, is there any credible evidence that these reports are accurate and that terrorists are, in fact, crossing our southern border with the intent to do harm to the American people?”
Napolitano answered: “With respect, there have been–and the Ababziar matter would be one I would refer to that’s currently being adjudicated in the criminal courts–from time to time, and we are constantly working against different and evolving threats involving various terrorist groups and various ways they may seek to enter the country.”
“What I can tell you, however, is that that southern border–the U.S.-Mexico border–is heavily, heavily staffed at record amounts of manpower, materiel, infrastructure and the like, and we are constantly making sure we’re doing all we can to make that border as safe as possible,” she said.
An August 2009 audit by the Government Accountability Office that focused on Customs and Border Protection (CBP) checkpoints said that in fiscal 2008 CBP reported “there were three individuals encountered by the Border Patrol at southwest border checkpoints who were identified as persons linked to terrorism.”
In April 2010, CNSNews.com reported that FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “In Detroit, Mahmoud Youssef Kourani was indicted in the Eastern District of Michigan on one count of conspiracy to provide material support to Hezbollah. … Kourani was already in custody for entering the country illegally through Mexico and was involved in fundraising activities on behalf of Hezbollah.”
Five years ago, in an August 2007 interview with the El Paso Times, then-Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell echoed what Napolitano told Congress last week about terrorist coming into the U.S. across the Mexican border.
“So, are terrorists coming across the Southwest border?” McConnell said in that interview. “Not in great numbers.”
“There are some cases?” asked the El Paso Times.
“There are some. And would they use it as a path, given it was available to them? In time they will,” said McConnell.
“If they’re successful at it, then they’ll probably repeat it,” asked the reporter.
“Sure,” said McConnell. “There were a significant number of Iraqis who came across last year. Smuggled across illegally.”
I’ve been watching for years as the United States has moved further down the road toward a system that embraces and resembles communism, but all the while, also possesses the characteristics of a corporate fascist state.
Stories of Chinese communist espionage penetrating U.S. military bases, laboratories, and academic institutions have been plentiful, as the People’s Liberation Army has sought to steal any sensitive information that could be used to improve China’s military surveillance and weapons systems.
The Cox Report to Congress dealt with many of those issues. Formally titled, U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China, this partially-classified report was released in January 1999. Despite the concerns outlined in the Cox Report, the situation has only worsened. Even more frightening, is the now undeniable complicity of those within federal, state, and city governments at opening up the U.S. — our economy, our infrastructure, our businesses, and our neighborhoods — to the People’s Republic of China.
BREAKING: Abu Yahya Al-Libi, considered a ‘rock star’ in the jihadist world, is killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan, as officials say it will be hard for Al Qaeda to replace one of its most experienced and versatile leaders.
This file image from video and provided by the SITE Intelligence Group, shows Abu Yahia al-Libi. (AP/SITE INTEL GROUP)
Abu Yahya Al-Libi is a rock star in the jihadist world. With his videos and lectures going viral on the Web, he is Al Qaeda’s Mr. YouTube.
On Monday, the top Al Qaeda operative reportedly was the intended target of the latest U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, strikes that have been increasingly unpopular among Pakistanis but successful in recent years at taking out terrorist leaders.
The latest strike reportedly killed eight militants in the tribal region of North Waziristan. U.S. and Pakistani government sources told Reuters that Al-Libi was the intended target, but they could not confirm whether he had been hit.
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood planned a mass climax to its presidential campaign on Sunday, hoping to sway undecided voters and clinch victory in this week’s election when Egyptians will choose their leader freely for the first time.On the last day of official campaigning, the Brotherhood told Egyptians to “book your place anywhere in Egypt” for evening rallies in support of its candidate Mohamed Mursi.
Brotherhood supporters seem unfazed by surveys that show their unfancied contender trailing rivals who entered the race earlier and are spending heavily in the dash for votes.
In one poll published last week in al-Masry al-Youm newspaper, Mursi was last of the four front-runners but 37 percent of the people surveyed were yet to make up their minds.
The polls, a relative novelty in Egypt, are admittedly unreliable and the large cohort of undecided voters further complicates any effort to pick a winner in the country’s first genuinely contested presidential election.
“Egyptians are a religious people and Mursi appears to be a man of God,” said Farag Ibrahim, a 44-year-old in the Nile Delta town of Mansoura. “That is why I will vote for him, and because I think many others will too, and he will win.”
With a grassroots network stretching into Egypt’s smallest villages, the Muslim Brotherhood has consolidated its influence since Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow in last year’s popular uprising.
WARNING: Freedom of SPEECH and of the PRESS is still the LAW.
THIS WEBSITE IS SERVING THE PUBLIC INTEREST. TAMPERING WITH THIS WEBSITE IS PUNISHABLE BY LAW AS A VIOLATION OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
The Scripture Call for God’s People:
II Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
LIKE us on FACEBOOK
FoxNews “The Speaker’s Lobby”
We the People...
Fool Me Twice: Obama’s Shocking Plans for the Next Four Years Exposed
.
CWNews Posted Comments