A top GOP critic pushed back Sunday on charges that Republican efforts to investigate last year’s Benghazi attack are designed to inflict political damage on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“Hillary Clinton’s not a target,” said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa on NBC’s Meet the Press. “President Obama is not a target.”
Issa, who heads a panel probing the assault on the diplomatic outpost that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, said he will seek depositions from Benghazi review board heads Ambassador Thomas Pickering and retired Adm. Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The interagency process of modifying talking points in the wake of the attack scrubbed the fact that the incident was “a terrorist attack from the get-go,” Issa said Sunday.
“The American people were effectively lied to for a period of about a month,” he charged. “That’s important to get right.”
Photo Credit: Daily CallerThe brother of a top Obama administration official is also the president of CBS News, and the network may be days away from dropping one of its top investigative reporters for covering the administration’s scandals too aggressively.
CBS News executives have reportedly expressed frustration with their own reporter, Sharyl Attkisson, who has steadily covered the Obama administration’s handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack in Libya since late last year.
“Network sources” told Politico Wednesday that CBS executives feel Attkisson’s Benghazi coverage is bordering on advocacy, and Attkisson “can’t get some of her stories on the air.”
Attkisson, who is in talks to leave the network before her contract expires, has been attempting to figure out who changed the Benghazi talking points for more than five months.
“We still don’t know who changed talking points but have had at least 4 diff explanations so far,” Attkisson tweeted on November 27, 2012.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-12 05:27:452016-04-11 11:21:28Top Obama Official’s Brother is President of CBS News, May Drop Reporter Over Benghazi Coverage (+video)
She goes on to state that civil disobedience by protesters is fine, as long as such civil disobedience is not in violation of the law:
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-12 05:21:562016-04-11 11:21:28Talk Show Host Headed for Trouble With His DC Open-Carry March (+video)
Photo Credit: watchwithkristinWell, at least the liberal media has a least one partially honest broker left. In this clip, CBS Evening News Anchor, Scott Pelley, laments the fact that the US media is repeatedly getting stories wrong.
He proclaims, “Our house is on fire.”
Perry made the admission at a Quinnipiac University event.
Of course, you won’t hear him admitting the real reasons for the “erroneous” stories: bias. He doesn’t mention the fact that the US media is dominated by a handful of corporate owners. Nor does Perry talk about the LSM’s sell-out to the Obama Administration.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-12 05:19:532016-04-11 11:21:29CBS News Anchor: ‘Journalists Are Getting Big Stories Wrong, Over & Over Again’
Photo Credit: Matthew Holst On Friday, Sen. Rand Paul put his stake in the ground for a possible run in 2016 by mocking the Obama administration and delivering a blistering critique of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s handling of the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. The administration has been criticized for failing to provide security during the attack and for its characterization of the incident afterward.
Speaking at the Iowa GOP’s annual Lincoln Dinner, Paul questioned the initial response to the attacks and asked, “First question to Hillary Clinton: Where in the hell were the Marines?”
“It was inexcusable, it was a dereliction of duty, and it should preclude her from holding higher office,” the Kentucky Republican added to loud applause.
Republicans’ search for a candidate to deliver their first victory in a presidential election since 2004 began as Paul used the plum speaking slot to plant the seeds for his own possible bid. And he won his biggest applause by taking on Clinton, who’s seen as the early front-runner for the Democratic nomination to succeed President Barack Obama.
Paul was just elected to the Senate in 2010 and is perhaps best known as the son of the former Texas Congressman Ron Paul, whose two campaigns for president attracted a fervent, grassroots following that might translate to his son.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-12 05:14:412016-04-11 11:21:29Rand Paul Challenges Hillary Clinton in Key Iowa Speech (+video)
Senior Internal Revenue Service officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011, according to a draft of an inspector general’s report obtained by The Associated Press that seemingly contradicts public statements by the IRS commissioner.
The IRS apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was “inappropriate” targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status. The agency blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware.
But on June 29, 2011, Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, learned at a meeting that groups were being targeted, according to the watchdog’s report. At the meeting, she was told that groups with “Tea Party,” `’Patriot” or “9/12 Project” in their names were being flagged for additional and often burdensome scrutiny, the report says.
The 9/12 Project is a group started by conservative TV personality Glenn Beck. In a statement to the AP, Beck suggested that the revelations were hardly news to him and other conservatives.
“In February 2012, TheBlaze first reported what the IRS now admits to – that they unfairly targeted conservative groups including the 9/12 project,” Beck said, citing his website and TV network. “It is nice to see everyone else playing catch-up and finally asking the same questions that TheBlaze started raising over a year ago.”
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-12 04:59:302016-04-11 11:21:31IRS Knew Tea Party Was Being Targeted In 2011: Report (+video)
Photo Credit: BreitbartAn event touting itself as an evening of immigration reform discussion with a “diversity of opinion” turns out to be slanted heavily towards “comprehensive immigration reform.” The BuzzFeed Brews Special Edition: Immigration Summit, sponsored by the Charles Koch Institute, will take place Tuesday, May 14th from 6 PM – 8 PM Eastern Time. The Charles Koch Institute is an educational offshoot of the Charles Koch Foundation.
It’s an unusual pairing: BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith has a reputation for liberal bias (he recently blamed “the right” for conditions of Kermit Gosnell’s abortion clinic) will be the moderator; Charles Koch, founder of the libertarian CATO Institute, is one of the people most reviled by the left.
The goal of the event is described as follows:
[W]e believe one of the best ways to turn conversations into solutions is through the challenge of assumptions and exchange of ideas. Our event on immigration aims to do just that by bringing together a diversity of opinions for a thoughtful dialogue.
At first glance, the panel appears diverse: the six invitees include a Democrat politician, a Republican politician, two members of conservative organizations, one from a liberal Hispanic/Latino organization, and one from a libertarian think tank.
Obama celebrates Mother’s Day by promoting the federal government’s policy of providing free contraception. Here’s the tweet sent out by the White House:
Of course, no DC observers should be surprised at this. During his Mexican press conference last week, Obama made it clear that he was OK with girls as young as 15 years of age having sex and using the infamous Plan B:
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2013-05-11 04:18:022016-04-11 11:21:34Obama Celebrates Mother’s Day With Free Birth Control (+video)
Photo Credit: ABC NewsThe mother of Gina DeJesus, whom Ariel Castro allegedly abducted and kept as a sex slave in his Cleveland home for a decade, had a surprising answer when asked what she would say to Castro.
“I would hug him and I would say, ‘God bless you.’ I would say, ‘God bless you,’ and I’d hug him. I did not hate him. I forgave him years ago. I said it: I forgive whoever done it, just let her go,” Nancy Ruiz told “20/20” anchor David Muir in an exclusive interview Thursday.
“Because you know what?” Ruiz added. “When you start to hate a person, that eats you up. I don’t have time for that. I have to be, you know, I want to be happy, like I am now.”
Ariel Castro’s cousin, Maria Castro Montes, had a different answer when Muir asked her the same question.
“I wouldn’t be able to look at him. I couldn’t say anything to him. Why? Shame on you? How could you do this? I don’t even want to ask him those questions. I don’t even want to look at him,” Montes said in an exclusive interview Thursday.
Photo Credit: Andrew Harnick CIA director David Petraeus was surprised when he read the freshly rewritten talking points an aide had emailed him in the early afternoon of Saturday, September 15. One day earlier, analysts with the CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis had drafted a set of unclassified talking points policymakers could use to discuss the attacks in Benghazi, Libya. But this new version—produced with input from senior Obama administration policymakers—was a shadow of the original.
The original CIA talking points had been blunt: The assault on U.S. facilities in Benghazi was a terrorist attack conducted by a large group of Islamic extremists, including some with ties to al Qaeda.
These were strong claims. The CIA usually qualifies its assessments, providing policymakers a sense of whether the conclusions of its analysis are offered with “high confidence,” “moderate confidence,” or “low confidence.” That first draft signaled confidence, even certainty: “We do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda participated in the attack.”
There was good reason for this conviction. Within 24 hours of the attack, the U.S. government had intercepted communications between two al Qaeda-linked terrorists discussing the attacks in Benghazi. One of the jihadists, a member of Ansar al Sharia, reported to the other that he had participated in the assault on the U.S. diplomatic post. Solid evidence. And there was more. Later that same day, the CIA station chief in Libya had sent a memo back to Washington, reporting that eyewitnesses to the attack said the participants were known jihadists, with ties to al Qaeda.
Before circulating the talking points to administration policymakers in the early evening of Friday, September 14, CIA officials changed “Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda” to simply “Islamic extremists.” But elsewhere, they added new contextual references to radical Islamists. They noted that initial press reports pointed to Ansar al Sharia involvement and added a bullet point highlighting the fact that the agency had warned about another potential attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in the region. “On 10 September we warned of social media reports calling for a demonstration in front of the [Cairo] Embassy and that jihadists were threatening to break into the Embassy.” All told, the draft of the CIA talking points that was sent to top Obama administration officials that Friday evening included more than a half-dozen references to the enemy—al Qaeda, Ansar al Sharia, jihadists, Islamic extremists, and so on.
Hopefully, the scandal will widen as Americans dig into the Obama Administration’s falsehoods. Listen to what the “Commander-in-Chief” had to say about Benghazi in February:
