GOP Rep Reveals Why He Believes Benghazi Attack & US Syria Policy Likely “Intimately Related Issues”

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Picture Frank-Wolf-APA top congressional appropriator suggested on Monday evening that the State Department and CIA might have been stockpiling weapons for Syrian opposition fighters when they came under attack by jihadists in Benghazi, Libya.

“I firmly believe that whatever the State Department and CIA were doing in Benghazi had a direct connection to U.S. policy in Syria—a policy that to date has not been fully revealed to the American people or Congress,” Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.) said on Monday evening during a discussion focusing on “unanswered questions” surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed four Americans.

“Were these rebels being armed with weapons collected in Benghazi?” Wolf asked, according to a copy of his prepared remarks. “Again, there is reason to believe this may be the case and a clear explanation is warranted.”

Congress cannot “make an informed decision” about Syria before the circumstances surrounding the Benghazi attack are “more fully understood,” said Wolf, who sent a pair of letters to President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday to reveal whether weapons in Benghazi could have reached Syrian rebels and “jihadist fighters.”

A public hearing would help “determine what was going on at the CIA annex in Benghazi and what role it played in the collection and disbursement of weapons collected in Libya, specifically with the focus of trying to understand how the annex may have supported CIA efforts to arm and train Syrian rebels,” Wolf explained.

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Store Owner Stunned After Receiving Mysterious Envelope From The Man Who Robbed Him at Gunpoint More Than a Decade Ago (+video)

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Picture - Robber returns monieAn unidentified man recently returned to the Nashville store he robbed 11 years ago to deliver a hand-written note as well as $400 cash to replace the money he stole — with interest.

The owner of the InterAsian Market & Deli, Keosavanh Xayarath, remembers being robbed at gunpoint over a decade ago like it was yesterday.

The man and his son, Somboon Wu, were caught off guard when a mysterious man recently entered the store and insisted they accept an envelope marked “Owner.” The man reportedly told them that the delivery was very important because it contained money.

The letter read in part:

“I do not use drugs anymore and I feal [sic] I must make amends to the people I have hurt in the past…I hope you will accept this money and find forgiveness…Anonymous”

Wu said, “If he’s watching, wherever life takes you, just know that we, we forgive you for what you did.”

The family also posted the letter on their store’s social media accounts to make sure the former drug-using robber knows he is forgiven.

WSMV Channel 4

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Fox News Poll: Voters Say US Less Respected Since Obama Took Office

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obama_bite_lipNearly half of American voters — 48 percent — think the United States is less respected around the world today than it was five years ago. That’s up from 37 percent who felt that way last year, according to a Fox News poll.

The new poll, released Monday, finds 14 percent of voters think the U.S. is more respected today — nearly five years into the Obama presidency — and 36 percent say it’s unchanged.

In 2012, roughly 29 percent of voters said the U.S. was more respected than in 2008. That’s more than twice the number who feel that way today (14 percent).

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Things Fall Apart for Obama – Left Abandoning Him

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Photo Credit: American Thinker

Photo Credit: American Thinker

It’s so bad for President Obama that there is now talk of impeachment, not from his foes on the right but from his former allies on the left, if he proceeds with an attack on Syria absent Congressional approval. Dennis Kucinich kicked off the talk late last month with a tweet:

200 in #Congress demand #Syria vote. #Constitution art.1 sec.8 -@BarackObama risking #Impeachment? (@washingtonpost https://t.co/f12uDY3TTu)– Dennis Kucinich (@Dennis_Kucinich) August 30, 2013

But yesterday it got serious, as prominent blacks intellectual leaders took up the theme. From Buzzfeed:

“It doesn’t make sense to commit more war crimes,” Cornel West said Sunday on the syndicated radio show Smiley and West, to an approving response from host Tavis Smiley, who has also been consistently critical of Obama. (snip)

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Obama: Even Michelle’s Answer on War ‘is No’

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michelle-obama-photo1President Obama acknowledged Monday that even his wife, Michelle, is skeptical of having the U.S. become embroiled in another overseas military conflict.

Obama, in a number of television interviews taped Monday, used his wife to drive home the point that he understands most Americans remain skeptical of his proposal for a limited strike in Syria.

“If you ask somebody, if you ask Michelle, ‘Do we – do we want to be involved in another war? The answer is no,” Obama told NBC. “People are wary about it, understandably.”

The administration has consistently made the point that any action would be limited in scope, and it has denied that it would constitute a war.

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Oil Shipments by Rail, Truck, and Barge Up Substantially

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Most oil and petroleum products are moved to refineries and consuming areas by pipeline, which is both the safest and most economical means of transporting them. However, due to a shortage of pipeline capacity, more and more oil and petroleum products are being moved by rail, truck, and barge. Those shipments almost doubled in 2012, and they are continuing to increase to move crude oil from the shale formations in North Dakota and Texas, and oil sands in Canada to U.S. refineries. Between 2011 and 2012, oil delivered to refineries by trucks increased 38 percent, crude moved on barges increased 53 percent and rail deliveries quadrupled. Because the nation’s pipeline infrastructure has not kept pace with growing domestic oil production, the market has had to rely increasingly on alternative transportation options.

figure 2

etween 2005 and 2010, 96 percent of crude oil was transported by pipeline and tanker ships to refineries. Inland refineries are generally reached by pipeline since pipeline transport has relatively low costs and high capacity. For imports and offshore production, tanker ships have been the primary form of transportation for crude oil. But in 2011, these two transportation forms began to decline in market share, representing 93 percent of the market in 2012.[ia]

Between 2000 and 2010, truck and rail shipments have averaged just 1 percent of total shipments to refineries because they are less cost-effective options for moving crude. But, beginning in 2011, truck and rail volumes increased, and represented 3 percent of refinery shipments in 2012. Domestic barge shipments also increased, accounting for nearly 3 percent as well.

Because of the lengthy regulatory review process for expanding existing pipelines or building new pipelines, the transportation of crude oil and petroleum products has moved to rail and truck, which provide more flexibility because they can use existing infrastructure. Unless more pipeline capacity is built to deal with the increased domestic crude production, it is likely that these transportation modes will expand.

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Bill Maher Confesses: ‘Selling Pot Allowed Me to Get Through College’

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Photo Credit: Mediaite

Photo Credit: Mediaite

In an infographic from this week’s edition of Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Bill Maher admits to having been a pot dealer as a means to paying for college and start up his career in comedy.

bill maher confession

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CBO: Obamacare Individual Mandate Delay Would Save $35 Billion

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller

Photo Credit: Daily Caller

The House bill to delay Obamacare’s individual mandate would save $35 billion dollars, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis.

After the Obama administration revealed it would not enforce the employer mandate — a requirement that large companies provide their employees health insurance — until January 2015, the House quickly passed a measure that would not only codify that delay, but put off the individual mandate by one year as well.

The CBO found that just a one-year delay of the individual mandate would save $35 billion over ten years. But the basic cost structure of the Affordable Care Act would remain intact.

“I never thought I’d see the day when the White House, this president, came down on the side of big business, but left the American people out in the cold as far as this health care mandate is concerned,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said.

Cantor’s message carried over even to some in the President’s own party. The “Fairness for American Families Act” is one of many Republican-dominated efforts to delay certain aspects of Obamacare, but this time it received bipartisan support: 22 House Democrats bucked their own party and voted for the bill, which President Obama vowed to veto.

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President Obama’s Over-the-Top Lobbying Push

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

President Barack Obama’s putting the full powers of the presidency on display — and on the line — in a way he’s never done before.

In the past, critics have argued that Obama’s priorities, from gun control to climate change, have suffered for his unwillingness to fully engage Congress and the American public with all of the tools of his office. The standard arc: Obama makes a speech or two, sends the issue to Capitol Hill and then keeps his distance. If it passes, he takes credit. If it fails, he blames Congress.

Not this time.

The reason is simple: The path to a win in Congress, if it exists at all, is through lawmakers who now say they’re likely to vote no.

Already, the White House has ceded ground on its original use-of-force authorization language, settling for the reality that only a more narrow version could possibly pass. The White House whip count is bad enough that senior administration officials won’t share it publicly to make the case that they could win in either the Senate or the House right now.

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Obama Administration had Restrictions on NSA Reversed in 2011

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The Obama administration secretly won permission from a surveillance court in 2011 to reverse restrictions on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, permitting the agency to search deliberately for Americans’ communications in its massive databases, according to interviews with government officials and recently declassified material.

In addition, the court extended the length of time that the NSA is allowed to retain intercepted U.S. communications from five years to six years — and more under special circumstances, according to the documents, which include a recently released 2011 opinion by U.S. District Judge John D. Bates, then chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

What had not been previously acknowledged is that the court in 2008 imposed an explicit ban — at the government’s request — on those kinds of searches, that officials in 2011 got the court to lift the bar and that the search authority has been used.

Together the permission to search and to keep data longer expanded the NSA’s authority in significant ways without public debate or any specific authority from Congress. The administration’s assurances rely on legalistic definitions of the term “target” that can be at odds with ordinary English usage. The enlarged authority is part of a fundamental shift in the government’s approach to surveillance: collecting first, and protecting Americans’ privacy later.

“The government says, ‘We’re not targeting U.S. persons,’ ” said Gregory T. Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. “But then they never say, ‘We turn around and deliberately search for Americans’ records in what we took from the wire.’ That, to me, is not so different from targeting Americans at the outset.”

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