Huckabee Says There’s ‘Absolute Certainty’ of a White House Cover-up on Benghazi

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Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee tells Newsmax it’s an “absolute certainty” there has been a cover-up involving the Benghazi terrorist attack and the White House “flat-out lied” to the American people about it.

He also maintains that Mitt Romney and the Republicans lost the election not because their message was wrong but because the Obama “machinery” was “staggeringly good.”

And Huckabee, who sought the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, says he won’t rule out another White House run in 2016.

CIA Director David Petraeus resigned his post after acknowledging an extramarital affair, and Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee want to know why, after the FBI had been investigating this for months, they hadn’t been notified earlier.

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV, Huckabee was asked if details of his affair were covered up by the White House to help Obama win re-election. Read more from this story HERE.

[Editor’s Note: Curiously, after posting the video of the Huckabee interview where the Governor makes the “absolute certainty” comment, Newsmax pulled it down. We have contacted Newsmax for an explanation but have not received a response back at the time of this posting].

Filmmaker Declines to Sell Footage of ‘Firenado’ to Al Gore Because ‘Science Isn’t Settled’ (+video)

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(The Blaze) Filmmaker Chris Tangey was surprised when he was contacted by Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project as the organization hoped to use his footage of a fire tornado — or “firenado” — shot in the Australian Outback in September. Tangey explained to NT News that they would need to convince him such an event was caused by man-made global warming before selling them the rights to it.

TheBlaze brought you both the story of Tangey’s “firenado” footage and also his refusal to grant rights to the Climate Reality Project. Now we’ve talked with Tangey directly about his thoughts on the use of nature footage and the context of man-made global warming, as well as why he rebuffed Gore.

Tangey, owner of Alice Springs Film and Television, in an email interview with TheBlaze explained that the first time he was contacted by Gore’s team, they were seeking rights to the footage for five years to be used in PowerPoint presentations. The second time the Climate Reality Project crew reached out, which was last week, it was for a 24-hour webcast taking place this Nov. 14 through 15.

After this initial request, Tangey said he researched climate change for himself.

“I came to the conclusion there is climate change,” he wrote. “But I am yet to see definitive evidence on its severity; how much of it is human induced; how long it has been going for and how long it is likely to go for; how much is due to the solar cycle; how much is due to the all sorts of variables in oceans which cover 71 percent of the planet’s surface and for which there is no all-encompassing historical data, nor can there be, or how capable the planet is of self-correction (which seems to be the big surprise among scientists, although they seem to be constantly ‘surprised,’ yet can be so definitive on climate change…).”

See video below. Full footage begins at 3:15:

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Ron Paul, “Secession is an American Principle”

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Ron Paul has joined the secession discussion. Today, the 2012 presidential candidate reaffirmed a position that he’s discussed before, stating at RonPaul.com that “secession is an American principle.”

Dr. Paul also included a video from 2009 where he discussed secession as “an important Constitutional principle.”

He contends that secession is “an American tradition. It’s very American to talk about secession. That’s how we came into being. Thirteen colonies seceded from the British and established a new country, so secession is very much an American principle.”

Paul also cites the US response to the disintegration of the former USSR: “What about all the strong endorsements we have given over the past decade or two of those republics that seceded from the Soviet system? We were delighted with this. We never said, “Oh no. Secession is treasonous”.

He concludes, “No matter what they do and how many promises they have and how many bailouts they have, they can’t do it if the money doesn’t work. So then, the independence of the states will come back and it doesn’t mean that you’ll be un-American to even contemplate what might have to be done once the dollar crashes.”

Report: Obama Asks Holder to Stay On for Second Term

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He’s back. President Barack Obama reportedly asked Eric Holder to stay as attorney general after he’s inaugurated for a second term, and the controversial Cabinet head agreed.

“I don’t know if everyone in the White House wants him [Holder] to stay, but the important guy does, and that’s all that matters,” a source told the New York Post.

Mr. Holder is one of the most controversial attorney generals in history. His Department of Justice is responsible for Fast & Furious, the gun walking operation that placed over 2,000 guns into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. These guns are connected to the deaths of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and over 300 Mexican citizens. Hundreds of guns are still missing. Another gun walking operation out of Dallas, TX is connected to the death of ICE Agent Jaime Zapata.

In July, the House of Representatives voted to hold Mr. Holder in contempt of Congress for not complying with an October 2011 subpoena over documents concerning Fast & Furious.

Read more from this story HERE.

Justice Scalia Shoots Down Idea of Leaving the Union: ‘There Is No Right to Secede’

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photo credit: us mission genevaLast night, TheBlaze reported that residents of 27 states had filed petitions with the White House to be allowed to secede from the union. As of today, that number has swelled to 47.

But could it actually happen? Do states even have a right to secede anymore? The answer, according to arguably the most respected conservative Justice of the United States Supreme Court, is an unequivocal “no.

Over at New York Personal Injury Attorney Blog, author Eric Turkewitz recounts an interesting story of how his brother, a screenwriter, managed to apparently coax an answer out of Scalia on precisely this topic.

Read more from this story HERE.

Google Reports Growing Government Surveillance

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photo credit: brionvGoogle received more requests from the U.S. government to hand over user data during the first half of this year than from any other country, according to the search company’s biannual “Transparency Report” released on Tuesday.

From January to June, Google received nearly 8,000 requests for user data from the U.S. government. The search company said it “fully or partially” compiled with roughly 90 percent of them. That’s up from the 5,950 requests for user data that Google received from the U.S. government during the same period a year ago.

More than 16,000 Google accounts were specified in the U.S. government’s user data requests, according to the report.

However, the search company cautioned that the total number of U.S. government requests for user data also tallied requests “issued by U.S. authorities on behalf of other governments pursuant to mutual legal assistance treaties and other diplomatic mechanisms.”

Still, that number dwarfs the requests from other countries: India and Brazil came after the U.S. with 2,319 and 1,566 requests for user data, respectively, during the first half of 2012.

Read more from this story HERE.

A Long Line of Nice Losers

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photo credit: donkeyhoteyMitt Romney now joins the long list of the kinds of presidential candidates favored by the Republican establishment– nice, moderate losers, people with no coherently articulated vision, despite how many ad hoc talking points they may have.

The list of Republican presidential candidates like this goes back at least as far as 1948, when Thomas E. Dewey ran against President Harry Truman. Dewey spoke in lofty generalities while Truman spoke in hard-hitting specifics. Since then, there have been many re-runs of this same scenario, featuring losing Republican presidential candidates John McCain, Bob Dole, Gerald Ford and, when he ran for reelection, George H.W. Bush.

Bush 41 first succeeded when he ran for election as if he were another Ronald Reagan (“Read my lips, no new taxes”), but then lost when he ran for reelection as himself– “kinder and gentler,” disdainful of “the vision thing” and looking at his watch during a debate, when he should have been counter-attacking against the foolish things being said.

This year, Barack Obama had the hard-hitting specifics– such as ending “tax cuts for the rich” who should pay “their fair share,” government “investing” in “the industries of the future” and the like. He had a coherent vision, however warped.

Most of Obama’s arguments were rotten, if you bothered to put them under scrutiny. But someone once said that it is amazing how long the rotten can hold together, if you don’t handle it roughly.

Read more from this story HERE.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rejects Carbon Tax Proposal

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photo credit: caza_no_7House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) threw cold water Tuesday on supporting a carbon tax, hours after a Treasury Department official said the administration could consider the idea if Republicans lead the effort.

A tax on greenhouse gas emissions has won increased attentoin in recent weeks as a way to combat climate change and simultaneously raise revenues.

But Upton (R-Mich.) said Tuesday he is “not a carbon tax guy.”

The administration said last week it would not propose a carbon tax. But Gilbert E. Metcalf, Treasury’s deputy assistant secretary for energy and environment, reiterated that position Tuesday, opened the door to discussing carbon taxes in fiscal talks if Republicans initiated the push.

Upton comments Tuesday underscore how unlikely that scenario is as talks about avoiding the “fiscal cliff” unfold. Asked if he would accept a carbon tax along with a tax cut elsewhere, Upton said, “I don’t like the idea.”

Read more from this story HERE.

USA Today: Petraeus and Broadwell Used Common ‘Email Trick’ Used by Terrorists

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Paula Broadwell, ex-mistress of disgraced former CIA chief David Petraeus, could have used several different methods to hide her identity if in fact she sent anonymous, threatening emails to Tampa socialite Jill Kelley, experts say.

But Shawn Henry, who retired in March as the FBI’s executive assistant director in charge of all civil and criminal cyber investigation worldwide, says the FBI had many techniques available to trace the communications.

“Somewhere along the way, her IP address was captured,” Henry said.

Someone trying to remain anonymous can hide emails by routing them through different servers and using public computers that don’t keep activity logs, he said. Broadwell may have thought she had done everything to hide her tracks, but often people make mistakes, leaving their emails traceable by investigators, he said.

The Associated Press, citing a law enforcement source who declined to be identified, reported that Petraeus and Broadwell apparently used a “dropbox” to conceal their email traffic.

Read more from this story HERE.

Economic Optimism Plunges In Post-Election IBD/TIPP Poll

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If newly re-elected President Obama was hoping to float into his second term on a cloud of renewed national optimism and bipartisan goodwill, he’s likely to be disappointed.

The latest IBD/TIPP Poll shows that, at least as far as economic optimism is concerned, America very much remains a house divided.

The bellwether Economic Optimism Index for November plunged 10%, from 54 in October to 48.6 in November, as a major part of the electorate took stock of the vote’s outcome and didn’t like what it saw for the economy.

The partisan breakdown for optimism is telling. Not surprisingly, sentiment among Democrats improved — 4.2%, from 70.8 in October to 73.8 in November.

But Republican poll respondents, who for months were below the break-even level of 50 for optimism , expressed an even gloomier outlook over the economy’s future.

Read more from this story HERE.