Congress: Hillary’s Benghazi Investigation Let Top Officials Escape Blame

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Photo Credit: Getty

Photo Credit: Getty

The State Department’s investigation into the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi was not independent and failed to hold senior State Department officials accountable for the failures that led to the death of four Americans, according to a new investigative report compiled by the House Oversight Committee.

The Administrative Review Board, chosen by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, unfairly placed the blame for the terrorist attack on four mid-level officials while ignoring the role of very senior officials in Clinton’s State Department for decisions about security in Benghazi, according to the new report led by Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA). Also, the structure of the ARB and the culture in Clinton’s State Department raised questions about the independence and integrity of the review, according to Issa’s committee.

“The ARB blamed systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies within two bureaus, but downplayed the importance of decisions made at senior levels of the Department. Witnesses questioned how much these decisions influenced the weaknesses that led to the inadequate security posture in Benghazi,” the report stated. “The ARB’s decision to cite certain officials as accountable for what happened in Benghazi appears to have been based on factors that had little or no connection to the security posture at U.S. diplomatic facilities in Libya.”

The Daily Beast first reported in May that the four officials removed from their jobs and placed on administrative leave as a result of the State Department’s ARB report on Benghazi had never been told what they were accused of, never been given any opportunity to appeal their punishments, and never were officially fired. One of the officials, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Ray Maxwell, had little to no role in Libya security policy and was not even alleged to have been connected to the security failures leading up to the Benghazi attack.

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Feds: FBI Tailed Top Terror Recruiter Al to Pentagon

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Picture al-AwlakiThe federal government has released documents that show Anwar al-Awlaki, the former Denver resident and onetime al-Qaida leader who was killed in 2011 in a U.S. missile strike in Yemen ordered by President Obama, was followed by the FBI to the doors of the Pentagon, where he was an invited guest.

WND reported earlier this year that Judicial Watch, the government watchdog agency that investigates and reports on government corruption, found FBI authorities knew Awlaki was linked to several 9/11 hijackers weeks before he was invited to lunch at the Pentagon in an “outreach” to Muslims.

At the time, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the more “we learn about Anwar al-Awlaki, the more questions arise not only about his activities before and after 9/11, but also about the al-Qaida operational and support network still active in the United States.”

“It is now even more concerning that Awlaki was invited to the Pentagon after 9/11 and then let go by the FBI despite warrants for his arrest,” Fitton said.

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Arizona Magazine Pulled after Accidentally Advising Readers to Eat Psychedelic Mushrooms

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Photo Credit: Erhard Nerger

Photo Credit: Erhard Nerger

An Arizona travel magazine told readers to eat psychedelic mushrooms.

The October issue of Arizona Highways shows a picture of a hallucinogenic mushroom identified as edible. Realizing their gaffe, the magazine’s publishers pulled all issues from shelves and notified subscribers.

The magazine’s ‘nature factoid’ of the month showed the fly agaric mushroom on page 13 of this month’s issue.

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The Weeping Baby Elephant and the Silent Scream (+video)

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Photo Credit: LifeSiteNews

Photo Credit: LifeSiteNews

For a few hours on Thursday, the all-seeing eyes of the world’s media were fixed on the eyes of a pachyderm.

In a story that tugged at heartstrings around the globe, the media reported that a baby elephant named Zhuangzhuang, born in a Chinese zoo on August 30, cried for five hours after being rejected by his mother.

When zoo trainers saw her trying to stomp the newborn to death in her cage, they thought it was an accident. But after the mother tried to kill her child a second time, personnel had to remove the calf for his own safety.

By nature’s design, a child loves his parent, even a murderous one, and the tears began to flow until his eyes turned red. He couldn’t bear to be parted from his mother and it was his mother who was trying to kill him,” a spokesman from the Shendiaoshan Wild Animal Natural Reserve Area said.

On a slow news day, reporters from across the earth focused on the infant elephant. His story of abandonment began filling news outlets…

But none made the obvious connection: How does a human baby whose mother tries to kill him react?

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Initial Jobless Claims Slump Due to Underreporting by Two States (+video)

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Photo Credit: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Photo Credit: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Jobless claims in the U.S. declined last week to the lowest level since April 2006 as work on computer systems in two states caused those employment agencies to report fewer applications.

First-time claims for unemployment insurance fell by 31,000 to 292,000 in the week ended Sept. 7, which also included the Labor Day holiday, a Labor Department report showed today in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey called for 330,000 applications.

The decrease in filings doesn’t signal a change in job-market conditions because most of it was caused by computer-network conversions in the two states, according to a Labor Department spokesman. The pace of job cuts has waned since the end of last year, setting the stage for faster payroll and income growth that would help propel consumer spending.

“Stronger job growth may be on the horizon,” said Millan Mulraine, director of U.S. rates research at TD Securities in New York. “When we start seeing improvement in the labor market, I think that will provide another tailwind for confidence, and spending, going forward.”

Stocks were little changed as investors weighed the prospect for cuts in Federal Reserve stimulus and watched developments on Syria. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell less than 0.1 percent to 1,688.54 at 11:01 a.m. in New York.

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Bachman: Rush, Breitbart ‘Alternative Media’ Outlets Helping Truth Rise to the Top

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MI) said that Rush Limbaugh and Breitbart News are “alternative media” outlets that are helping the truth the mainstream media try to hide rise to the top.

Appearing on Breitbart News’ broadcast of the “Exempt America” rally on Tuesday with Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon, Bachmann said there is this “big monolithic media, then you have Rush.”

She emphasized that Limbaugh “has the biggest voice out there.” Bachmann said there are “very few places you can go to get the other side,” and noted, “now we have Breitbart.” She said it was refreshing to have voices like Breitbart News that give readers the “unvarnished” truth and represent the voice of Americans outside the beltway.

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Why 2014 Shapes Up to Be Another Tea Party Year

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Picture 2014 Another Tea Party YearThe last year has been highly informative for Americans who have been looking for information on hypocrisy, shabby intellectualism, broken promises, opportunism, populist dreck, and IPhones.

Since almost the moment Obama celebrated his re-election with Republican leader John Boehner by proposing to raise taxes on all of us, God has played an enormous practical joke on liberals.

In only ways He could, God has shown that liberals are wrong. Not just wrong, but really, really, seriously wrong. 

Demented even. And yeah, I’m talking about Ezra Klein.

No, the world really doesn’t work the way liberals want, they’ve found out, and what’s more, liberal leaders and scribblers know it. They have known it for years…

It’s been little less than a year for people who enthusiastically voted for Obama in 2012 to find this out. 

And what liberals miss in being wrong on specifics, they make up in volume. 

So let’s make a list, shall we?

1) Tax the Rich! Oh, and you too!…

2) The Great Sequester Doom…

3) IRS-NSA-MOUSE scandals….

4) Missiles Over the Mid-East…

5) Global Warming, er, Climate, uh, Change?…

6) Choooo, Choooo…Obamacare a’coming…

There’s more.

With Obama there is always more.

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David Brooks warns of ‘the rise of Ted Cruz-ism,’ takeover of Republican Party (+video)

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Picture David BrooksOn PBS’s “NewsHour” on Friday night, New York Times columnist David Brooks warned that Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and similar legislators’ rise to prominence threatens the traditional Republican Party.

Brooks insists the motives of Cruz are less about legislation and policy and more about the politics of undermining the Republican establishment.

“What’s going on in the House, and a bit in the Senate, too, is what you might call the rise of Ted Cruz-ism,” Brooks said. “And Ted Cruz, the senator from Canada through Texas, is basically not a legislator in the normal sense, doesn’t have an idea that he’s going to Congress to create coalitions, make alliances, and he is going to pass a lot of legislation. He’s going in more as a media-protest person. And a lot of the House Republicans are in the same mode. They’re not normal members of Congress. They’re not legislators. They want to stop things. And so they’re just being — they just want to obstruct.”

“And the second thing they’re doing, which is alarming a lot of Republicans, is they’re running against their own party,” he continued. “Ted Cruz is running against Republicans in the Senate. The House Republican Tea Party types are running against the Republican establishment.” He added, “And so they’re having a very obstructive role which is going on this week, and I think it’s going to make John Boehner’s life even more difficult.”

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