House GOP Report: Hillary Was ‘Aware’ of Benghazi Security Lapses

/7 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APHouse Republicans Friday released a blistering new report saying former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “was certainly aware” of security problems in Libya before the deadly Sept. 11, 2012, attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, blasting her and successor John Kerry for failing to hold anyone accountable.

The report written by staff members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s GOP majority cited problems with the State Department’s Accountability Review Board examination of the attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, The Washington Times reported.

And despite the Obama administration’s assertion that review board examination shows the blame for the attack lies with lower-level employees, the House report says Clinton should have been held accountable – and both she and Kerry failed to fire anyone for security breaches that led to the deaths of Stevens, State Department staffer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, the Times reported.

“Systemic failures at the State Department during Secretary Clinton’s tenure resulted in a grossly inadequate security posture in Benghazi,” the report states, according to the Times.

“These vulnerabilities contributed to the deaths of four Americans, including the first U.S. ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1979.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Manchin: ‘We Haven’t Been Successful’ in Changing Afghanistan: ‘Time to Leave’

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP Photo/J. Scott ApplewhiteSen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) says it’s time to “rebuild America, not Afghanistan.” He and three other senators want Congress to debate a continued U.S. military presence in that country after 12-plus years of war:

“If military might or money would change that part of the world, we’d have changed it by now,” Manchin told a news conference on Thursday.

“We haven’t been successful nor do we believe we will be successful. That’s my deep-rooted commitment to getting out of this part (of the world) and basically protecting America, making sure that harm doesn’t come to any Americans, and we’ll do whatever it takes to protect them.

“But an occupation — that is not our goal. It’s not what we do well, and it’s not been proved successful at all. So again, I’d say if military might or money would have changed that part of the world after 12 years, we’d have changed it, and we haven’t. So it’s time to leave.”

Manchin on Thursday joined fellow Democrat Jeff Merkeley (Ore.) and Republicans Mike Lee (Utah) and Rand Paul (Ky.) in introducing a resolution that says Congress should vote on the Obama administration’s reported plan to keep 10,000 American troops in Afghanistan for another ten years.

Read more from this story HERE.

Great Lakes Ice Cover Spreading Rapidly; See Which Lake Set a New Record

/8 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: NASAIce continued to build this past week on the Great Lakes due to the cold air and temperatures staying below freezing, and Lake Superior’s new record shows it.

The lake is 92 percent frozen, toppling a 20-year-old record of 91 percent set on Feb. 5, 1994. That statistic helped total Great Lakes ice cover soar, and we can expect to see more form in coming days.

The air temperatures this past week averaged around five degrees below normal for the Great Lakes area. This amount of deviation from normal means it was a fairly cold week.

As of February 5, 2014, the entire Great Lakes system is now reportedly covered 77 percent with ice, according to the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory. Last week at this time the ice cover was 66 percent. The 77 percent ice cover now still lags behind 1994, when the entire Great Lakes system had an average ice cover of 84 percent on February 5. This data is according to Jia Wang, physical oceanographer at the Great Lakes Environmental Research Center in Ann Arbor, MI.

Let’s look at each individual lake…

Read more from this story HERE.

Another Jobs Report Disappoints: 113,000 New Jobs, Unemployment Rate to 6.6 Percent

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Washington Examiner The Labor Department’s jobs report disappointed for a second consecutive month Friday, bringing the news that the U.S. created just 113,000 jobs in January, as the unemployment rate fell to 6.6 percent.

December’s even weaker job report was little revised, from 74,000 to 75,000.

Friday’s jobs number fell short of expectations, which were for 180,000 new jobs and the unemployment rate to hold steady at 6.7 percent

The report contained few indications, however, that the drop in the unemployment rate in January was due to out-of-work Americans continuing to quit the job hunt and leave the ranks of those counted as unemployed in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ survey. The labor force participation rate ticked up from a multi-decade low of 62.8 percent to 63 percent. A broader rate of unemployment, which reflects those forced into part-time work or only marginally attached to the labor force, fell from 13.1 to 12.8 percent.

Read more from this story HERE.

CBO Report Fallout: Specter of Welfare State Jolts Democrats

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Charles DharapakThe White House and congressional Democrats are trying to limit the fallout from the politically damaging conclusion in a Congressional Budget Office report that the Obamacare entitlement creates a major incentive for some people not to work.

While some critics focused on a finding by the CBO that Obamacare will result in 2.5 million fewer workers over a decade, conservatives said the bigger fundamental issue highlighted in the report is one familiar to the welfare state — that taxpayer-funded government subsidies provide disincentives for full-time work.

“People used to be stuck in jobs because they needed the health insurance,” said Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a practicing physician and a specialist on health care policy at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. “Now they’re going to be prevented from taking jobs because they need the subsidies.”

The CBO forecast continued to reverberate across Capitol Hill on multiple issues. The nonpartisan budget agency’s prediction that the U.S. jobless rate likely will stay above 6 percent through 2016 was revealed as Senate Democrats were preparing a push for another extension of benefits to the long-term unemployed, raising the prospect that the government will face much higher benefit costs over the coming years.

The Senate is expected to stage a test vote Thursday on extending the long-term jobless benefits.

Read more from this story HERE.

Report: Ex-Girlfriend Physically Attacked George Soros and his Lawyers During Deposition

/13 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Mike Clarke/AFP/Getty ImagesGeorge Soros’ ex-girlfriend flew into a rage and hit the billionaire before slapping Hollywood lawyer-to-the-stars Marty Singer in the face, knocking off his glasses, during a heated hearing in her $50 million lawsuit against the mogul.

Court papers filed by Singer say Brazilian actress Adriana Ferreyr, who dated Soros for five years until 2011 and is suing him for allegedly reneging on a promise to buy her a $1.9 million apartment, screamed “f - - king a - - hole” at the mogul then lunged at the lawyers during Soros’ deposition at her attorney’s office.

The papers filed Friday include an account by Singer — who also reps Sly Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger — that Ferreyr “suddenly and without warning . . . lunged at Mr. Soros, who is 83-years-old, and struck his head with her hands, knocking off the headphones he was wearing to amplify the audio . . . Ms. Ferreyr pulled back her arm to strike Mr. Soros in the face. I was able to grab both of Ms. Ferreyr’s arms to move her away from Mr. Soros.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Says ‘Freedom of Religion is Under Threat’ as Catholics Sue Administration

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Reuters In a speech during Thursday morning’s National Prayer Breakfast, President Barack Obama acknowledged, “It’s also clear that around the world, freedom of religion is under threat.”

“No society can truly succeed unless it guarantees the rights of all its people, including religious minorities,” he added later.

The Obama administration has been harshly criticized by the Catholic church and civil liberties organizations concerned that Obamacare mandates that organizations provide their employees free access to contraceptives through their health care plans, even if their religious faith calls contraception a sin.

Read more from this story HERE.

Could Another ObamaCare Extension Be in the Works Going Beyond 2016?

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox News Following a string of setbacks, the Obama administration reportedly is considering yet another extension of existing individual health insurance policies in an effort to smooth the transition to the federal exchanges under the Affordable Care Act.

Aetna Inc. Chairman and CEO Mark Bertolini told analysts during a conference call he heard the plans could be extended. So did Avalere Health CEO Dan Mendelson.

Meldelson said the Obama administration may decide to let policyholders keep their coverage for an additional three years but refused to confirm if a decision had already been made on the subject.

Avalere Health is a market analysis firm, but Mendelson said his company was not advising the administration on exchange policy. He said he has had informal discussions with administration officials about the extension, but he didn’t identify them.

Joanne Peters, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the administration was “continuing to examine all sorts of ways to provide consumers with more choices and to smooth the transition as we implement the law.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Leno’s Star-studded Farewell From ‘The Tonight Show’ for Second Time

/1 Comment/in , /by

NBC/Universal“I don’t like goodbyes; NBC does,” Jay Leno said in his latest last opening monologue, as he bid farewell to “The Tonight Show” — again — on Thursday night.

Characteristically, Leno wasn’t particularly maudlin or sentimental at first, at least compared to Johnny Carson’s “very heartfelt goodnight” that preceded Leno’s briefly interrupted stint as Carson’s successor.

In the closing moments, however, when it was just him at the desk, Leno did choke up, calling “The Tonight Show” “the greatest 22 years of my life,” talking about losing his parents in the first few years the show was on, and how the staff had become his family. Leno even quoted Carson’s sign-off, while saying he was “excited” for his successor, Jimmy Fallon.

“It really is time to go,” he said.

The role of honoring Leno fell largely to Billy Crystal, who lauded him as “America’s night light;” proceeded to reminisce about the early, hungry days of their 40-year relationship and careers; then treated Leno to a surprise rendition of a particularly appropriate song from “The Sound of Music,” performed by multiple stars, among them Oprah Winfrey.

Read more from this story HERE.

GOP Senators Send Letter to Obama Demanding Benghazi Explanation

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Getty ImagesThree Republican senators have sent a letter to President Barack Obama demanding answers to questions his interview with Bill O’Reilly raised about the Benghazi attack.

In the letter, Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, and John McCain of Arizona tell Obama that his interview “raises more questions than it answers,” and lay out some of the issues they want clarified.

The letter notes that Obama told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly in the interview broadcast in two parts on Sunday and Monday that what “became clear was that the security was lax, that not all the precautions that needed to be taken were taken.”

The bipartisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report concluded that the intelligence community provided “ample strategic warning” that Americans in Benghazi were at risk, the lawmakers wrote, yet Obama’s State Department ignored those warnings and failed to either increase security sufficiently or close the diplomatic facility.

The lawmakers also asked why then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on all five Sunday talk shows and said the United States had a strong security presence that was both “substantial” and “significant.”

Read more from this story HERE.