Obama Plans to Bypass Congress Even More? Adds ‘Executive Power’ Czar To Staff

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

A senior progressive strategist and former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton who specializes in the use of executive authority to bypass Congress is reportedly joining the White House.

The New York Times is reporting John Podesta, founder of the Center for American Progress, has agreed to serve as counselor to President Obama for a year.

Podesta last month announced the establishment of a new group, the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, that will work within his Center for American Progress. The new center bills itself as a research and grant-making organization founded to accelerate the closing of what it calls the income gap in the U.S. by fighting so-called income inequality.

The Times reported Podesta will help the White House on “matters related to the health care law, administration organization and executive actions,” with particular focus on so-called climate change issues, according to a person familiar with the plans.

Podesta is a long-time champion of the use of executive powers, including bypassing the legislative branch to enact progressive change.

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Iran Announces Refusal to Recognize Israel at United Nations Session

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Photo Credit: Screenshot

Photo Credit: Screenshot

As the United Nations General Assembly met to approve the credentials of member states on Thursday, Iran took the floor to announce its refusal to recognize the State of Israel.

The only nation to comment for the record on the routine procedure, Iran’s representative said that although the country voted in favor of the motion, it should not be seen as the Islamic Republic’s acknowledgement of Israel’s existence.

“My delegation has just voted in favor of this report, however, we would like to reiterate my government’s position that our support for this document should in no way be considered as the recognition of the Israeli regime,” she said.

In a statement provided to The Algemeiner, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ron Prosor, said that the statement was typical of Iran.

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Report: Obama Administration Knew Syrian Rebels Had Access to Chemical Weapons

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Photo Credit: Stringer / Reuters

Photo Credit: Stringer / Reuters

The Obama administration knew that a Syrian rebel faction had the ability to make chemical weapons but omitted that knowledge when building their case for a strike on Syria, an explosive new report alleges.

Seymour Hersh reports in the London Review of Books on Sunday that President Obama, while pitching the administration’s case for war, “failed to acknowledge something known to the US intelligence community: that the Syrian army is not the only party in the country’s civil war with access to sarin, the nerve agent that a UN study concluded – without assessing responsibility – had been used in the rocket attack.”

The report, the thrust of which the Obama Administration denies, calls into question the narrative that the administration has outlined since an August 21 chemical attack on a Damascus suburb that almost led the United States into an air war with Syria. The march toward war was based on what Obama and his top aides have characterized as conclusive evidence that Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian government had carried out the attack.

The Hersh article is based in part on a four-page secret cable given to a top official at the Defense Intelligence Agency on June 20, one of a group of intelligence community documents allegedly stating that jihadi rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra has the ability to make sarin gas. Sarin is the chemical believed to have been used in the Aug 21 chemical attack in Ghouta that crossed Obama’s “red line” and prompted the administration to push for a strike on Assad’s regime. The story is sourced mainly to intelligence and military officers and consultants.

“When the attack occurred al-Nusra should have been a suspect, but the administration cherry-picked intelligence to justify a strike against Assad,” Hersh writes.

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South Korea to Make Announcement On Air Zone; Expansion is Anticipated

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

South Korea was scheduled to make an announcement on Sunday amid anticipation that it will expand its air defense zone south into a zone newly declared by China that has spurred regional tensions.

South Korea’s defense ministry said the announcement at 0500 GMT/Midnight ET would be about its Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), but declined to comment on the details.

South Korea has said China’s move is unacceptable because its new zone includes the maritime rock named Ieodo which it controls, with a research station platform built atop it. China also claims the submerged rock as its own.

China’s decision on November 23 to declare an air defense zone in an area that includes islands at the center of a territorial dispute with Japan has triggered louder protests from Tokyo and Washington.

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North Korea Frees U.S. Korean War Veteran After Seven Weeks

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/KYODO

Photo Credit: REUTERS/KYODO

North Korea freed an 85-year-old retired American soldier on Saturday after detaining him for more than a month for crimes it said he committed during the Korean War six decades ago.

The veteran, Merrill E. Newman, flew to China from North Korea in the morning. Hours later he left on a United Airlines flight to San Francisco to be reunited with his family, sources at Beijing airport said.

North Korea’s official KCNA news agency earlier said he was being deported on humanitarian grounds and because he had admitted to his wrongdoing and apologized.

“I’m very glad to be on my way home,” Newman told Japanese reporters as he arrived at Beijing airport. “And I appreciate the tolerance the DPRK government has given to me to be on my way. I feel good, I feel good. I want to go home to see my wife.”

The DPRK – Democratic People’s Republic of Korea – is the official name of North Korea, one of the world’s most isolated and unpredictable states.

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Nelson Mandela Dies at Age 95

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Photo Credit: Fox News National leaders and ordinary citizens around the world joined Thursday in mourning Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years as a prisoner in South Africa for opposing apartheid, then emerged to become his country’s first black president, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and an enduring symbol of integrity, principle and resilience.

Mandela died “peacefully” Thursday night at 95 at his home in Johannesburg, surrounded by family, according to South African President Jacob Zuma.

Zuma, dressed in black, announced Mandela’s death in a nationally televised address, saying ” Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father. Although we knew that this day would come, nothing can diminish our sense of a profound and enduring loss.”

Mandela had spent almost three months in a Pretoria hospital after being admitted in June with a recurring lung infection.

Zuma said the man considered by many as the father of his nation would be accorded a full state funeral.

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What You Might Not Have Known About Nelson Mandela

By AP News

The world knows Nelson Mandela as a man who forever changed the course of modern history and who will surely continue to leave his mark long after his death Thursday at the age of 95.

You may know that he spent 27 years in prison, that he led South Africa out of apartheid and that he served as his nation’s first black president.

But did you know about the role of rugby in his legacy? His musings on Valentine’s Day? The lessons he taught sympathetic prison guards during his time behind bars?

Here are some details from Mandela’s life that you might not have known.

FATHER OF THE NATION

Nelson Mandela’s place as South Africa’s premier hero is so secure that the central bank released new banknotes in 2012 showing his face. Busts and statues in his likeness dot the country and buildings, squares and other places are named after him. At Soweto’s Regina Mundi Catholic church, a center of protests and funeral services for activists during the apartheid years, there is a stained glass image of Mandela with arms raised. South African Airways even emblazoned his silhouetted image on planes.

VALENTINE’S DAY

A $1.25 million project to digitally preserve a record of Mandela’s life went online last year at https://archive.nelsonmandela.org. The project by Google and Mandela’s archivists gives researchers — and anyone else — access to hundreds of documents, photographs and videos. In one 1995 note, written in lines of neat handwriting in blue ink, Mandela muses on Valentine’s day. It appears to be a draft of a letter to a young admirer, in which Mandela said his rural upbringing by illiterate parents left him “colossally ignorant” about simple things like a holiday devoted to romance.

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Saudis Turn to Russia in Move to Re-Balance Mideast

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Photo Credit: WND Saudi Arabia is proposing a sweeping deal to Russia that solidifies Moscow’s position in the Middle East and Persian Gulf largely at the expense of the United States, according to informed Egyptian security officials.

The deal incorporates increased Russian involvement in Egypt, Syria and the Persian Gulf, and even involves a Saudi guarantee to aid against terror plots targeting the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

The Egyptian officials said the deal seeks to replace the U.S. with Russia as the major weapons dealer to Egypt.

However, the weapons sales to Cairo are only the tip of the potential re-balancing iceberg that follows a major fallout with the Saudis after President Obama’s outreach efforts to Iran.

The Saudis asked for the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while Riyadh would help establish a permanent central Russian role in the future of Syria, with a military presence in the country, the officials said.

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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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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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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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