Boston: FBI Failed to Warn, Could Have Prevented Bombings

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Photo Credit: APBoston authorities could have prevented last month’s deadly Boston Marathon bombings if federal law enforcement agencies had adequately shared information and followed through on warnings about accused bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, witnesses told Congress Thursday.

“I believe that though it would not have been easy, it was possible to have prevented the terrorist attacks in Boston,” former Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., told the House Homeland Security Committee. “In a literal sense, the homeland security system we must acknowledge that we built after 9-11 to protect the American people from terrorist attacks failed to stop the Tsarnaev brothers.”

In the first congressional hearing into the April 15 bombing that killed three and injured more than 200, Lieberman and other witnesses testified about a lack of information sharing between federal agencies and between federal authorities and local police. Republicans and Democrats alike joined in the criticisms.

“We cannot ignore that once again it has taken a tragedy to reveal problems in our vast, varied and numerous federal databases,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson, of Mississippi, the committee’s top Democrat.

Witnesses told the committee that Boston authorities were never told prior to the bombing that Russia had warned the FBI about the older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the bombings’ alleged mastermind who also had posted radical jihadist videos on the internet.

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Dershowitz: Ted Cruz one of Harvard Law’s Smartest Students

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Photo Credit: Grae StaffordFamed Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz ranks Sen. Ted Cruz among the school’s smartest students, adding that the Canada-born Texan can run for president in 2016.

Cruz was a “terrific student,” Dershowitz told The Daily Caller. “He was always very active in class, presenting a libertarian point of view. He didn’t strike me as a social conservative, more of a libertarian.”

“He had brilliant insights and he was clearly among the top students, as revealed by his class responses,” Dershowitz added.

Dershowitz also gave a high estimate of Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren — who has decidedly different political views than Cruz.

Dershowitz says he and Cruz would often debate issues presented in Dershowitz’s criminal law class. “Cruz’s views were always thoughtful and his responses were interesting,” the law professor explained. “I obviously disagreed with them and we had good arguments in class. I would challenge him and he would come up with very good responses.”

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Prosecutor May Seek Death Penalty Against Alleged Cleveland Kidnapper For Murdering Unborn Children

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Photo Credit: abbybatchelderAriel Castro, the Cleveland man police say kidnapped and held captive three women for a decade, could also face aggravated murder charges for allegedly terminating the pregnancies of his captives.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty said Thursday that based on the facts of the case, his office intends to seek charges not only for the sexual assaults endured by the victims, but also “each act of aggravated murder he committed by terminating pregnancies.”

Castro is accused of separately abducting two teenage girls and a young woman and holding them in his home for about 10 years. One of the victims, Amanda Berry, escaped with her 6-year-old daughter. Castro is set to undergo a paternity test to confirm he is the girl’s father. Another victim, Michelle Knight, alleges she became pregnant five times and that each time Castro starved her and punched her in the stomach until she miscarried, according to a police report reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.

McGinty said he may seek the death penalty against Castro.

Castro was arraigned Thursday in Cleveland Municipal Court, where the judge set bail at $8 million.

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Obama Admin. has been Working “for Years” to “Gut Welfare Reform”

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Photo Credit: APThe Obama administration was planning to weaken the welfare work requirements as far back as 2009, GOP lawmakers charge.

An internal Department of Health and Human Service (HHS) memo from 2009 released Tuesday by Senate Finance Committee ranking member Orrin Hatch and House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp explores the legal justifications to allow the HHS secretary to waive work and other requirements for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) that were part of the 1996 welfare reform law.

Last summer the Obama administration issued an Information Memorandum allowing states apply to waive the TANF work requirement. At the time, the administration said this was due to requests from some states for more flexibility and was meant as a way to test strategies “to improve employment outcomes for needy families.”

Republicans, including then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney, charged that the action “gut” the 1996 welfare reform.

According to Hatch and Camp, the memo shows that the Obama administration was looking to find ways to get around the work requirement years in advance of receiving requests from states.

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Obama Admin. Denies Retaliating Against Benghazi Whistle-Blower

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Photo Credit: Andrew GeraciThe State Department on Thursday dismissed accusations that it retaliated against one of the key witnesses at this week’s Benghazi hearings by demoting him after he questioned the Obama administration’s account of the terrorist attack.

Foreign Service officer Gregory N. Hicks, who was the No. 2 U.S. diplomat in Libya during the Benghazi terrorist attacks last September, told lawmakers at an explosive House hearing on Wednesday that he was chastised and “effectively demoted” after he questioned the decision to blame the military-style assault on a spontaneous demonstration against an anti-Islam video.

The State Department “has not and will not retaliate against Mr. Hicks,” spokesman Patrick H. Ventrell said.

“As Mr. Hicks testified yesterday … he has followed ‘standard’ employment processes,” Mr. Ventrell added, quoting Mr. Hicks‘ testimony Wednesday.

During that testimony, Mr. Hicks said that his jaw “hit the floor” when, five days after the deadly assault, he heard U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan E. Rice directly contradict the president of Libya by saying the attack appeared to have grown out of a demonstration against the video and that there was no evidence it might have been preplanned.

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Explosive: Special Ops Team Ready to Go, Furious at Order to Stand Down

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Photo Credit: APThe dramatic and personal stories of State Department staffers — one of whom was in Libya at the time of attacks on the U.S. Consulate — injected real emotion into a very political hearing on Benghazi on Wednesday.

In his first full public accounting, Gregory Hicks, a Foreign Service officer and ex-deputy chief of mission in Libya, recounted in vivid detail what happened the night of the attacks. Republicans insist that the Obama administration and the State Department didn’t do nearly enough to aid U.S. personnel under attack in September 2012.

Sure to be trumpeted by Republicans, Hicks’s most explosive revelation centered on an assertion that a four-man special operations team based in Tripoli was allegedly told not to make the flight to Benghazi on the night of the attacks.

State and Pentagon officials countered that the team wouldn’t have arrived in Benghazi in time and that it was instead needed in Tripoli.

“They were furious,” Hicks said when asked how the special forces troops responded to orders not to leave Tripoli.

See the videos of the testimony HERE.

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Benghazi Makes Watergate ‘Look Like Kindergarten’

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Revelations in Wednesday’s congressional hearings on the Benghazi terrorist attacks prove it is a massive scandal that will carry significant consequences for those involved in the cover-up, according to retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney.

McInerney served at the highest levels in the Air Force, including time as assistant vice chief of staff and vice commander in chief of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe. He believes the Obama administration deliberately misled the American people on the motivation for the attack and is now covering its tracks on decisions to prevent a military rescue in Benghazi. He told WND that is more clear than ever following Wednesday’s testimony of former Deputy Chief of Mission Gregory Hicks and two others before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

“This is going to be the biggest scandal. It is going to make Watergate look like kindergarten because Watergate was primarily limited to the Oval Office. This cuts across the whole national security apparatus, where people were lying and covering up,” McInerney said. “It is a dereliction of duty that this nation has never seen before.”

So what consequences could that mean for the highest levels of the administration?

“Well, just see what the consequences were in Watergate. If it’s far worse than Watergate, the consequences will go right into the Oval Office,” he said.

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Senators Now Attempt to Regulate Gun Powder as an Explosive, Limiting Quantity, Requiring Background Checks

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Photo Credit: APAfter reports that the Boston Marathon terrorists had used black powder for the explosive component of their pressure cooker bombs, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) proposed major changes to federal laws regulating loose gun powder and explosives.

On April 23, Lautenberg introduced S. 792, the Explosive Materials Background Check Act. Originally, the Senator submitted the bill as a shell bill–meaning it was not fully written–but this month he has finally submitted the full text of his bill.

An analysis of the text reveals profound changes to current law. Lautenberg’s changes in the explosives law would seriously hamper history reenactor hobbyists, black powder hunters, sportsmen, target shooters, and anyone that loads their own ammo with modern smokeless gun powder or the older style black powder.

One change would require those that want to buy and store either smokeless powder or black powder to get a new license–at a rate of $50 every three years–to allow them to do so. The bill also says that they will only be allowed to have “limited” supplies but does not seem to say what amount would exceed those limits.

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Video Maker Blamed for Benghazi Remains Jailed

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Photo Credit: abardwellSo what about that filmmaker, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula?

He’s been in jail since the controversy erupted, officially for reasons unrelated to his “offense” against Islam.

A lawyer for the filmmaker told WND his client was serving time for a probation violation and is scheduled to be released this fall from a prison in Latoona, Texas.

The issue was all over Twitter, where one person commented, “It’s crystal clear that the terrorists who killed four Americans in Benghazi weren’t spurred on by an anti-Islam video, despite what administration officials wanted the public to believe. But nearly eight months after the attacks, ‘Innocence of Muslims’ filmmaker Makoula Basseley Nakoula still languishes in prison.”

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Poll: 61% of College-Age Students Want Government to Stay Out of Their Lives

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YAF Poll of College-Age StudentsSince I graduated from college in 2009, the economy has remained stagnant and the job market has remained weak, with no sign of improvement. Just last week, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics reported that the unemployment rate hit 7.5 percent.

While the mainstream media and our leaders in Washington want you to believe that the economy is getting better, thanks to more spending, higher taxes, and more regulation, six million people have dropped out of the work force since the recession began in 2008. Young Americans, especially, have it bad.

About 45 percent of 18 to 34-year olds are unemployed according to a recent poll by Demos, a public policy firm. I still know of college classmates who have yet to find meaningful jobs or are severely underemployed almost four years after graduation. However, a recent poll on young people’s views of limited government, free markets, and economic liberty suggests some may be waking up to the conclusion that government, over-regulation, and more spending will not turn our futures around.

In a survey launched by Young America’s Foundation and conducted by the polling company, Kellyanne Conway, Inc., more than 60 percent of college-age students feel that government should not take an active role in their day-to-day-lives, and half of respondents believe that the federal government is mostly hurting economic recovery.

President Ronald Reagan said, “Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.” And, as the poll suggests, young people share this belief: 66 percent of the students polled had a positive opinion of “entrepreneurship,” 44 percent found “free markets” positive, and 42 percent believe the federal government is an opponent rather than a partner in the pursuit of the American Dream.

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