Report: American Teacher Killed in Benghazi

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Photo Credit: Fox News An American citizen who was working at an international school was shot and killed in the Libyan city of Benghazi Thursday morning by unknown assailants, a school board member told Fox News.

The State Department identified the victim as Ronald Thomas Smith II, and confirmed that he was a teacher at an international school in Benghazi.

“We can confirm that a U.S. citizen was shot and killed in Benghazi,” a State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in the statement.

“We offer our condolences to the victim’s loved ones. We are in contact with the family and are providing all appropriate consular assistance. Out of respect for the privacy of those affected, we have no further comment at this time. For questions on the investigation, I refer you to the Libyan authorities,” the statement said.

School board member Adel Mansouri said the teacher was shot around lunchtime near his home.

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Audit: IRS Loses Billions Due to Stolen ID Numbers

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Photo Credit: APTax cheats armed with stolen identification numbers are costing the Treasury billions of dollars a year, according to a new audit.

Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration says that, in 2011 alone, tax cheats were able to steal or falsely obtain some 285,000 employee identification numbers, which the IRS uses to identify a taxpayer’s business account.

In all, the IRS could be issuing around $2.3 billion a year in these sorts of false payments — or around $11.4 billion over a five-year span.

Read more from this story HERE.

Planet Has Been Discovered That Should Not Be There

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Photo Credit: GuardianLVA planet has been discovered that should not be there. Astronomers have discovered a planet so strange that they say it should not even be in existence. It orbits its personal star at such an astonishing distance; it is causing some theories of planetary formation to be destroyed, stated researchers. It is unlike anything that is in our solar system.

The planet has a mass almost 12 times the size of Jupiter and an orbit over 650 times larger than the distance between the Earth and Sun. This newly discovered globe, with the “exciting” name HD 106906 b, is throwing quite a blow against existing planet formation concepts.

Research leader Vanessa Bailey stated that the planet is especially fascinating because no prior model of such a planet exists which can start to explain what it is that they are seeing. But she admitted that astronomers are extremely puzzled by the planet’s presence.

Bailey explained that scientists have always believed that planets which orbit too closely to stars have been created from dust, gas and debris from asteroids that enclose a fledgling star. They also thought this process was much too sluggish for tremendously large planets to be able to form so far away from a star in space.

The researcher and her associates’ have done much examination on the orb HD 106906 b, and all of it has been accepted to be printed in The Astrophysical Journal.

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Surrender: Obama Admin. Accepts China’s New Controversial Air Zone

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Photo Credit: Foreign PolicyTop Obama administration and Pentagon officials signaled a willingness to temporarily accept China’s new, controversial air defense identification zone on Wednesday. Those officials expressed disapproval for the way in which the Asian power has flexed its muscles, and cautioned China not to implement the zone. But they also carved out wiggle room in which the United States and China ultimately could find common ground on the issue, indicating that they may be willing to live with the zone for now — as long as China backs off its demand that all aircraft traveling through it check in first.

“It wasn’t the declaration of the ADIZ that actually was destabilizing,” said Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, America’s highest-ranking military officer. “It was their assertion that they would cause all aircraft entering the ADIZ to report regardless of whether they were intending to enter into the sovereign airspace of China. And that is destabilizing.”

That’s a change from just a few days ago, when U.S. Vice President Joe Biden demanded that China take back its declaration of the zone. And it’s another demonstration that China’s recent decisions have forced the United States to tread carefully. On Wednesday, Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing for more than five hours, according to a senior administration official. In brief public remarks midway through the marathon session, Biden didn’t mention the air defense zone at all.

Japan, a vital American ally, has expressed fury over the Chinese move and ordered its commercial airliners not to provide information about their flight paths to the Chinese military. By contrast, the United States made a point of flying a pair of B-52s through it last week, but seems to have accepted that China will keep the zone in place indefinitely. U.S. officials have shifted their focus instead on preventing a potential military clash between Japan and China.

In meetings in Beijing on Wednesday, Biden laid out the U.S. position in detail, reiterating that the United States does not recognize the new zone and has deep concerns about it, a senior administration official said. Biden told Xi that the United States wants China to take steps to lower tensions in the region, avoid enforcement actions that could lead to crisis, and to establish communication with Japan and other countries in the region to avoid altercations, the administration official added. Privately, Biden did not call for the air defense identification zone it to be rolled back — something administration officials had done Monday while Biden was visiting Japan. Instead, the vice president asked the Chinese leader to be careful about how his country operated the zone going forward.

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After 20 Years of Denial, Clinton Admits Pot Smoking, Thinks it’s ‘Funny’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP/Steve HelberMore than 20 years after saying he “didn’t inhale,” Bill Clinton is setting the record straight about his youthful pot smoking.

“I didn’t say I was holier than thou, I said I tried. I never denied that I used marijuana,” Clinton told Fusion TV’s Jorge Ramos in an interview aired Tuesday night.

Back in 1992, in the midst of his first presidential campaign, Clinton famously equivocated when asked about his drug use, saying that during his days as a Rhodes Scholar in England, “I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn’t like it, and didn’t inhale, and never tried it again.”

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Cato’s Michael Cannon: ‘Abraham Lincoln Talked About Our Right to Alter Our Government or Our Revolutionary Right to Overthrow It’

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Photo Credit: Aude Guerrucci-Pool/GettyOn Tuesday, Michael Cannon, Cato Institute’s Director of Health Policy Studies spoke to members of Congress that an armed revolt could occur against the federal government if things do not change.

Cannon testified that President Obama’s disregard of the Constitution and the lies concerning the implementation of Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and its implications, and the consequences of Obama’s behavior, could lead to an armed revolt against the federal government.

Cannon stated that Obama’s actions were unprecedented by any president in acting to do as he pleases while Congress does nothing about it.

In the testimony, Cannon said, “There is one last thing to which the people can resort if the government does not respect the restrains that the constitution places on the government. Abraham Lincoln talked about our right to alter our government or our revolutionary right to overthrow it.”

“That is certainly something that no one wants to contemplate,” he continued. “If the people come to believe that the government is no longer constrained by the laws then they will conclude that neither are they.”

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Limbaugh: ‘Partnered Parenting’ Used to be Called ‘Marriage’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: APOn today’s show, Rush Limbaugh said that The New York Times wants “to bring about the end of the nuclear family.”

Limbaugh was discussing this article from the Times. He also talked about the website Partnered Parenting, in which 22 year old Rachel Hope connects people to have children in non-committal relationships:

“Is it a coincidence ladies and gentleman, that The New York Times would be focusing on the end of, the destruction of, the dissolving of, the nuclear family? While they have been championing the gay agenda, especially same-sex marriage more than any other newspaper on the planet? I’m telling you, this is an agenda, they’re not strictly reporting what is happening. It’s like the same way they use polling data, they want to bring about the end of the nuclear family.”

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CIA Witnesses Offer More Evidence Benghazi Attack Planned

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Photo Credit: REUTERSCIA personnel who testified Tuesday on the Benghazi attack provided new evidence that it was premeditated, telling lawmakers that the deadly mortar strike on the CIA annex began within minutes of a rescue team’s arrival, Fox News has learned.

According to the closed-door testimony on the Hill by two CIA personnel, a small team was sent on the night of the attack from Tripoli and got held up at the Benghazi airport. After they were eventually cleared, they arrived at the annex. Witnesses testified that it did not seem coincidental that the mortar attack began soon after.

Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., told Fox News after the closed, classified session that all of the witnesses (eight total witnesses have now testified in these sessions) were on the same page about the nature of the mortar attack, which killed former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty on the annex roof.

“These were trained people and … it was an attack. It wasn’t over any type of film or propaganda,” Westmoreland emphasized, referring to the administration’s initial claims that an anti-Islam film triggered protests that led to the attack.

“We don’t know why the administration would have ever thought any differently,” Westmoreland said. “Other than that them and the State Department were trying to make sure that they were covered because of the unpreparedness they were in.”

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2013: The Most Volcanic Eruptions Recorded in Modern History

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Photo Credit: APThis year will go down on record, as seeing the most volcanic eruptions recorded in modern history. The previous number was set in 2010, at 82 volcanic eruptions for the year.

The number of volcanoes erupting across the planet has been steadily rising from a meager number of just 55 recorded in 1990. While most scientists may readily dismiss any significance to the latest figures and may be quick to say the planet is just experiencing normal geological activity, it does raise other concerns about just what may be transpiring within the interior of our planet.

The average number of volcanic eruptions per year should be about 50 to 60; as of December 5, 2013, we already at 83. Volcanic eruptions are one way the planet dissipates a dangerous build-up of heat, magma, and pressurized gases.

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Shocking Harvard Poll: Millennials Abandon Obama, Reject Obamacare, Want President Recalled

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Photo Credit: jewishworldreview.comThe Obama thrill is gone among America’s millennials aged 18-29 just a year after they helped the president win a second term.

A new and shocking poll from Harvard University’s Institute of Politics released Wednesday found that younger Americans are so disgusted with President Obama, Congress and the troubled Obamacare system that 47 percent support recalling the president and just 29 percent are planning to sign up for health insurance.

“A critical factor in the election and reelection of Barack Obama, America’s 18- to 29- year-olds now rate the president’s job performance closer to that of Congress — and at the lowest level since he took office in 2009,” said Harvard Institute of Politics Director Trey Grayson.

How bad is it? Obama’s approval rating among millennials, many with big college loans and no job, is just 41 percent. Even young blacks are tiring of the president, with his approval rating among African-Americans dropping from 84 percent seven months ago to 75 percent today.

Harvard’s poll is especially troubling for Obamacare, which needs millions of younger Americans involved for it to succeed financially. The poll found that 57 disapprove of Obamacare and that there is little interest in signing up.

Read more on why millennials abandon Obama HERE.