Fox: Long-awaited ‘Furious’ Report Places Blame on ATF, Justice

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Dozens of senior-level U.S. government officials turned a blind eye to public safety as they pursued an ill-conceived and poorly managed investigation into gun trafficking in Mexico, according to a long-awaited inspector general’s report on Operation Fast and Furious.

Portions of the Justice Department IG report, which has not been made public, were obtained exclusively by Fox News Channel.

The report and accompanying accounts cite a failure in leadership and a lack of accountability and oversight up and down the chain of command at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Justice Department itself and other offices. It says many senior executives knew the U.S. was helping traffic guns to Mexico that killed people but did nothing to stop it.

“We found no evidence in Operation Fast and Furious that the ATF or the (U.S. attorney’s office) attempted at any point during the investigation to balance the risks to the public safety against the long-term benefits of identifying trafficking networks and participants,” the draft report says.

Fast and Furious was the anti-gunrunning sting that helped send some 2,000 assault weapons to Mexico under the guise of stopping illegal trafficking. The operation ended only after the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry — two of the weapons associated with the investigation were found at his murder scene.

Read more from this story HERE.

White House in Disarray: Second Time in Two Weeks, Clinton Directly Contradicts Obama

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by a mob of radical Egyptian Al Qaeda sympathizers on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Clinton’s statements on the day’s events, released through the State Department’s website and Twitter feed, condemn “in the strongest possible terms” an attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya in Benghazi that left one American dead, but offer no condemnation of the attack on the U.S. embassy in Cairo.

Instead, Clinton reiterates an apology issued earlier today by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo–now deleted–which said: “We condemn the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims.”

“The U.S. deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others,” Clinton said. “Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation,” she added.

However, the White House has distanced itself from such apologies, according to Politico, saying that they were not “cleared by Washington.” Evidently, there is some discord in Washington.

Read more from this story HERE.

China Deploys Warships After Japan Announces Disputed Island Purchase

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China deployed two navy vessels and launched a verbal assault on Japan after Tokyo announced it had ‘bought’ a group of islands disputed by the two countries in the East China Sea.

Osamu Fujimura, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, yesterday confirmed that his country had agreed to purchase the islands, called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, from a Japanese family it claims owns them.

The government will reportedly pay a total of 2.05 billion yen (£16.4 million) for the islands and the transfer of their ownership will be completed by the end of this month.

However as Mr Fujimura spoke, China’s state-controlled news agency Xinhua reported that two Chinese surveillance vessels had arrived in the region to “assert the country’s sovereignty”. Japanese media said the Japanese Coast Guard was monitoring the vessels.

Japan’s move to “nationalise” the disputed islands escalated a simmering and long-standing feud between the two nations over the territory, which is administered by Japan but also claimed by China and Taiwan.

Read more from this story HERE.

Muslim Brotherhood at Work: US Ambassador to Libya Killed Over Movie

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The U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other American staff members were killed Tuesday in an attack on the U.S. consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi, the White House confirmed. President Obama, in a written statement issued Wednesday morning, called the attack “outrageous” and “senseless.”

Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was killed Tuesday night when he and a group of embassy employees went to the consulate to try to evacuate staff. The protesters, angry over a film that ridiculed Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, were firing gunshots and rocket-propelled grenades.

“I strongly condemn the outrageous attack on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi, which took the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens,” President Obama said in a statement Wednesday morning. “Right now, the American people have the families of those we lost in our thoughts and prayers. They exemplified America’s commitment to freedom, justice, and partnership with nations and people around the globe, and stand in stark contrast to those who callously took their lives.”

Obama said he’s directed the administration to provide “all necessary resources” to support security for U.S. personnel in Libya and to increase security at diplomatic offices around the world.

“While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants,” he said.

Read more from this story HERE.

US Embassy in Cairo Makes Outrageous Statement Against First Amendment

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Yesterday, the US Embassy in Cairo put out a shameful statement in response to anger over an anti-Muslim film:

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others

A stand against those who “abuse” their right to free speech is best suited to authoritarianism, and it’s absolutely grotesque to see American diplomats embracing it. The effort at appeasement was as inefficacious as it was depraved: The protests against the film in question turned more violent after the statement was issued, when the embassy wall was scaled and the American flag was torn down and burned.

By late this evening this was obvious at the White House: “The statement by Embassy Cairo was not cleared by Washington and does not reflect the views of the United States government,” a source characterized as a “senior administration official” tells Politico’s Byron Tau.

That’s all well and good; the statement does indeed look like it wasn’t carefully vetted (the missing period after “others” above isn’t my error — that’s how it is on the embassy website). But a not-for-attribution walk-back is hardly sufficient here. Somebody needs to be fired. Given that the embassy’s Twitter account spent the day defending the statement, it’s likely to be more than one somebody that needs to go, perhaps including Ambassador Anne Patterson herself.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Innocence of Muslims

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Here’s the trailer of the video that allegedly sparked the riots in Egypt and Libya:

“Children’s Rights Movement” Actually Killing Children

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There is a growing so-called “children’s rights” movement that is attempting to hijack parental rights, and, as a result, prematurely end the life of ill children.

A recent article in the Journal of Medical Ethics outlines the “suffering” and “torture” supposedly inflicted by parents who insist on continued medical treatment for their sick children. The authors of the review, Dr. Joe Brierley and Dr. Andy Petros, two pediatricians from Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, argue that subjecting children to treatment—when, in their opinion, a child is terminally ill—is “inhumane.”

In fact, they argue that continuing to medically treat a child when doctors have given up hope could constitute a breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits “torture.”

The two doctors reviewed 203 cases at the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care unit, where parents were advised that life support systems should be turned off for their children because recovery, in the view of the hospital staff, was unlikely. Seventy percent of deaths at the unit resulted from withdrawing medical care.

As the authors explain, the religious beliefs of parents “can lead to children being potentially subjected to burdensome care in expectation of ‘miraculous intervention.’” And since the children being cared for are usually “too young to subscribe to the religious beliefs by their parents,” doctors should not be beholden to the parents’ faith in determining care.

Read more from this story HERE.

Crime Does Pay: Convicted Felon Gets $104 Million from IRS

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Bradley Birkenfeld, the former UBS AG (UBSN) banker who went to prison after telling the Internal Revenue Service how the bank helped thousands of Americans evade taxes, secured a whistle-blower award of $104 million, the largest individual federal payout in U.S. history.

Birkenfeld told authorities how UBS bankers came to the U.S. to woo rich Americans, managed $20 billion of their assets and helped them cheat the IRS. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy in 2008, a year after reporting the bank’s conduct to the Justice Department, U.S. Senate, IRS and Securities and Exchange Commission. He left prison on Aug. 1.

“The IRS sent 104 million messages to whistle-blowers around the world — that there is now a safe and secure way to report tax fraud,” Birkenfeld’s attorney Stephen M. Kohn said today at a news conference in Washington. He is seeking a presidential pardon for Birkenfeld, who is under home confinement.

Birkenfeld’s disclosures preceded UBS’s decision to pay $780 million to avoid prosecution, admit it fostered tax evasion from 2000 to 2007 and turn over data on 250 Swiss accounts. UBS later agreed to provide information on another 4,450 accounts. Since then, at least 33,000 Americans have voluntarily disclosed offshore accounts to the IRS, generating more than $5 billion.

The UBS case led to an erosion of the use of Swiss bank secrecy by wealthy Americans to cheat the IRS. At least 11 banks are under criminal investigation in the U.S. Two dozen offshore bankers, lawyers and advisers, as well as 50 American taxpayers, have been charged with crimes.

Read more from this story HERE.

Videos: America Remembers 9-11 Attacks – We Will Never Forget

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This video summarizes the events around the US today to memorialize 9-11:

This video is a collage of emotionally-charged images and audio from 9-11:

Finally, this controversial video from ReasonTV asks, “When Did Honoring the Dead Become an Occassion for Fleecing the Living?”:

Florida Pizza Shop Owner Boycotted Because He Hugged Obama (+video)

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“People are saying a lot of bad things and boycotting my restaurant,” Scott Van Duzer, 46, told POLITICO. “There’s no middle line anymore, and that’s exactly what’s wrong with our country right now.”

The owner of Big Apple Pizza & Pasta Restaurant in Fort Pierce, Fla., said that both Democrats and Republicans are welcome in his store. But he also said he thinks Mitt Romney’s running mate Rep. Paul Ryan — whose
sculpted abs are thanks to intense P90X training sessions — would lose to the president in a workout battle.

“I think Obama could take him,” Van Duzer said, laughing. “Obama looked pretty fast and pretty quick on his feet.”

So is Van Duzer. For a guy who biked 1,148 miles in 31 days from Florida to Washington D.C., lifting Obama was a piece of cake — err, a slice of pizza. And Van Duzer says he wasn’t even warmed up.

“I don’t work out that much, man. Usually, it’s about two days per week. The bike ride was my big thing,” Van Duzer said. “I’m starting to go back to the gym right now. I need to start maintaining.” Read more from this story HERE.

Here’s the video of the “hug”: