Democrats Join GOP in Blasting Benghazi Bungling

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Photo Credit: ReutersChairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., slipped in the question of the hour during the middle of a heated back and forth on State Department security practices, on the first day of a select committee’s hearings on the attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi.

He asked, “What POLICY were we pursuing in Libya that was so great we overlooked all the (security) trip wires and risks?”

The State Department spokesman answered, as he had repeatedly throughout the hearing, that he didn’t know because, “I was not there.”

This time, however, Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Greg Starr added he thought it was because American diplomats did not want to lose the confidence of the people of Libya.

After the hearing, WND asked Gowdy if he expected anyone would ever give him a substantive answer to his question.

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New Alliance from Hell: Boko Haram and ISIS

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Photo Credit: WNDThe Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram, known for its kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls, has deepened its connection to the Middle East terror army ISIS by forming an information and materiel-support alliance, according to sources.

A Nigeria staff member for the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, a non-profit foundation promoting democratic institutions, says leaders Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of ISIS and Abubakar Shakau of Boko Haram “have been sharing military strategy and other information back and forth.”

Kristina Baum says the alliance will empower Boko Haram.

“Boko Haram is hopeful that this will give them more financial support,” she said. “Before, Boko Haram has been getting their money from kidnapping, ransom and extortion from local governments.”

Maha Hamdan, an analyst for Consultancy Africa Intelligence and IntelligenceCommunity.com, confirms the link-up, calling it a dangerous development.

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An Idiotic Government with Idiotic Goals

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Photo Credit: TownHallFor folks who are trying to ignite inflation, this sure isn’t working out very well. It’s been hoped by the country’s central bankers that the massive quantitative easing PROGRAM along with near-zero interest rates will touch off a wave of inflation that if not exactly the same thing as boom times, will at least give the appearance of a strengthening economy. However, month after month inflation in the goods that the Fed cares about seems muted. Now this month we had the horrid news that official inflation numbers are falling not rising.

“The consumer-price index declined 0.2 percent,” reports Bloomberg, “the first decrease since April 2013, a Labor Department report showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 83 economists SURVEYED by Bloomberg called for unchanged. Excluding volatile food and fuel, the so-called core measure was unchanged, the first time it failed to increase in almost four years.”

Oh, the horror of falling gas prices!

It should be noted that falling fuel costs, not coincidentally, also contributed to the robust retail SALES figures that boosted the economy in August

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Excitement, Apprehension Build As Scotland Prepares for Vote on Independence

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Photo Credit: Leon Neal / AFP / Getty ImagesFor Scots, Wednesday was a day of excitement, apprehension, and a flood of final appeals before a big decision. In a matter of hours, they will determine whether Scotland leaves the United Kingdom and becomes an independent state.

A full 97 percent of those eligible have registered to vote — including, for the first time, 16- and 17-year-olds — in a referendum that polls suggest is too close to call.

A phone poll of 1,373 people by Ipsos MORI, released Wednesday, put opposition to independence at 51 percent and support at 49 percent, with 5 percent of voters undecided.

That means neither side can feel confident, given the margin of error of about plus or minus three percentage points.

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, himself a Scot, told a No campaign rally that the quiet majority of pro-Union Scots “will be silent no more,” while pro-independence leader Alex Salmond urged voters to seize a democratic opportunity 307 years in the making.

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Texas Executes Woman for Torture Death of 9-Year-Old Boy

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Photo Credit: AP / Texas Department of Criminal JusticeA Texas woman convicted of the starvation and torture death of her girlfriend’s 9-year-old son a decade ago was executed Wednesday evening.

Lisa Coleman, 38, received a lethal injection after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-day appeal to spare her.

She was pronounced dead at 6:24 p.m. CDT, 12 minutes after Texas Department of Criminal officials began administering a lethal dose of pentobarbital.

Coleman became the ninth convicted killer and second woman to receive lethal injection in Texas this year. Nationally, she’s the 15th woman executed since the Supreme Court in 1976 allowed the death penalty to resume. During that same time, nearly 1,400 men have been put to death.

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Facebook Deletes Profiles of Drag Queens; LGBT Community Outraged

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Photo Credit: APSan Francisco drag queens are sparring with Facebook over its policy requiring people to use their real names, rather than drag names such as Pollo Del Mar and Heklina. But the world’s biggest social network is not budging from its rules.

In recent weeks, Facebook has been deleting the profiles of self-described drag queens and other performers who use stage names because they did not comply with the social networking site’s requirement that users go by their “real names” on the site.

On Wednesday, Facebook declined to change its policy after meeting with drag queens and a member of the San Francisco board of supervisors. The company said is usually deletes accounts with fake names after investigating user complaints.

“This policy is wrong and misguided,” said Supervisor David Campos, who was flanked by seven drag queens during a press conference at San Francisco City Hall.

The drag queens and others in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community say many Facebook account holders fear using their real names for a variety of reasons, including threats to their safety and employment.

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Democrats Turn on Debbie Wasserman Schultz

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Photo Credit: APDemocratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is in a behind-the-scenes struggle with the White House, congressional Democrats and Washington insiders who have lost confidence in her as both a unifying leader and reliable party spokesperson at a time when they need her most.

Long-simmering doubts about her have reached a peak after two recent public flubs: criticizing the White House’s handling of the border crisis and comparing the tea party to wife beaters.

The perception of critics is that Wasserman Schultz spends more energy tending to her own political ambitions than helping Democrats win. This includes using meetings with DNC donors to solicit contributions for her own PAC and campaign committee, traveling to uncompetitive districts to court House colleagues for her potential leadership bid and having DNC-paid staff focus on her personal political agenda.

She’s become a liability to the DNC, and even to her own prospects, critics say.

“I guess the best way to describe it is, it’s not that she’s losing a duel anywhere, it’s that she seems to keep shooting herself in the foot before she even gets the gun out of the holster,” said John Morgan, a major donor in Wasserman Schultz’s home state of Florida.

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House Approves Ron Paul’s ‘Audit the Fed’ Bill

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Photo Credit APFormer Rep. Ron Paul’s push to audit the Federal Reserve got another boost Wednesday when the House passed the bill for the second time in three years, and by a bigger margin than before.

The bill, now sponsored by Rep. Paul Broun, Georgia Republican, was approved on a 333-92 vote, with all but one Republican and 106 Democrats in favor of it. That’s a major jump from last time, when a majority of Democrats voted against it.

Still, despite the overwhelming support, the law is likely to die…

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Illegal Alien Frenzy: Border Rush in Advance of U.S. Crackdown

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Photo Credit: APThe summer lull in illegal border crossings from Mexico is about to give way to a rush of even more immigrants in a frenzy of fear that Washington is about to shut the door, according to several Hispanic leaders.

In Honduras, for example, U.S. threats coupled with those from local leaders warning about the dangers of crossing the border have instead reenergized children and adults to run fast to America and pay inflated fees to “coyotes” to get them there.

“As I am speaking, hundreds of children are trying to leave Honduras,” said Jose Guadalupe Ruelas, a Honduran leader who advocates for children. “When people in Honduras hear that the U.S. is going to get stricter with immigration rules and laws then people think to themselves, ‘Now is the time for me to go,’” he said through an interpreter.

Ruelas and several other Hispanic leaders met in Washington on Tuesday after spending a week in Latin nations responsible for sending over 50,000 children across the U.S. border this year. Officials expect another 145,000 next year.

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World War E

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Photo Credit: Jack MooreBy Jeff Mason and James Harding Giahyue.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday called West Africa’s deadly Ebola outbreak a looming threat to global security and announced a major expansion of the U.S. role in trying to halt its spread, including deployment of 3,000 troops to the region.

“The reality is that this epidemic is going to get worse before it gets better,” Obama said at the Atlanta headquarters of the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“But, right now, the world still has an opportunity to save countless lives. Right now, the world has the responsibility to act, to step up and to do more. The United States of America intends to do more,” he added.
The U.S. plan, a dramatic expansion of Washington’s initial response last week, won praise from the U.N. World Health Organization, aid workers and officials in West Africa. Experts said it was still not enough to contain the epidemic, which is rapidly spreading and has caused already-weak local public health systems to buckle under the strain of fighting it.

U.S. officials said the focus of the military deployment would be Liberia, a nation founded by freed American slaves that is the hardest hit of the countries affected by the crisis.

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EBOLA SURVIVOR: NO TIME TO WASTE AS OBAMA UPS AID

BY LAURAN NEERGAARD AND JIM KUHNHENN.

An American doctor who survived Ebola said there’s no time to waste as President Barack Obama outlined his plan to ramp up the U.S. response to the epidemic in West Africa.

“We can’t afford to wait months, or even weeks, to take action, to put people on the ground,” Dr. Kent Brantly told senators Tuesday.

Obama called the Ebola crisis a threat to world security as he ordered up to 3,000 U.S. military personnel to the region along with an aggressive effort to train health care workers and deliver field hospitals. Under the plan, the government could end up devoting $1 billion to containing the disease.

“If the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people affected, with profound economic, political and security implications for all of us,” Obama said after briefings in Atlanta with doctors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and from Emory University, where Brantly and two other aid workers with Ebola have been treated.

Obama acted under pressure from regional leaders and international aid organizations who pleaded for a heightened U.S. role in confronting the deadly virus. He called on other countries to also quickly supply more health workers, equipment and money.

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