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Biden: Al Gore ‘Was Elected President of the United States’

Photo Credit: AP

Vice President Joe Biden praised former Vice President Al Gore at a Washington fundraiser for U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Ed Markey after stating that Gore actually won the 2000 presidential election.

“This man was elected president of the United States of America,” Biden said, according to the media pool report. “No, no, no. He was elected president of the United States of America. But for the good of the nation, when the bad decision, in my view, was made, he did the right thing for the nation.”

Biden, a potential 2016 presidential candidate himself, complimented Gore’s acceptance of the Supreme Court decision to halt recounts in Florida, a decision which effectively gave the election to his Republican George W. Bush.

“I can’t think of very many who would put his country first like that, at a really, really, really difficult time,” he said, according to Yahoo News. “There’s an awful lot of folks Al and I both know who have run for president and still haven’t gotten over it.”

Before turning his attention to Markey, Biden remarked that history would favor Gore over Bush.

Read more from this story HERE.

Benghazi vs Watergate: What Difference Does it Make?

Photo Credit: Irish CentralOver 40 years ago the country came to a standstill as revelations of lying and a cover-up by the President of the United States were exposed. Watergate became a name synonymous with a scandal of proportions that could topple a president.

Days of televised Congressional hearings with the often repeated phrase: “what did the President know and when did he know it?”— held the nation spellbound as politicians from both parties asked tough questions of the presidents staff.

The media coverage was unrivaled as details of a bungled petty burglary turned into a major scandal and efforts to hide the president’s involvement came to light.

But no one died as a result of Watergate.

Today’s congressional hearing on the events leading up, during and after the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, are revealing disturbing differences between what the Obama administration told the American public and what actual witnesses to the events are testifying to.

It is becoming clear; a purposeful decision was made to reduce the security presence in Libya which could have protected our personnel from attack. If normal security procedures would have been followed in Benghazi, our ambassador and three other Americans would not have been killed on September 11-12.

During the attack on our consulate and annex, contrary to what President Obama has claimed, not all measures were taken to send help to our besieged Americans. They were left outgunned and outnumbered to be killed, mutilated and wounded.

For weeks after the attack, a deliberate false narrative was put out by the Whitehouse and the State Department to cover up the real instigators in the attack: violent Islamic extremists who were closely allied with Al Qaeda.

At the critical moment in the presidential campaign, President Obama and Vice President Biden’s main theme had been they killed Osama Bin Laden and had defeated Al Qaeda. To admit that an Al Qaeda element had attacked our consulate and killed our ambassador would have been an admission of failure of one of the few successes the administration could lay claim to.

This knowledge would have made a huge difference in the election and could have been the difference between having a President Obama or a President Romney….It also would have been devastating for President Obama to defend in the debates with Romney….But it was an opportunity denied to Romney.

But today’s Benghazi hearing, no matter how riveting, and the news coverage leading up to it, is dramatically showing how our country has changed since the Watergate scandal.

Perhaps Americans have become hardened to scandal and no longer expect honesty from their President.

Perhaps if this was a Republican administration, there would be dozens of reporters assigned to get to the bottom of this story and 24/7 coverage would continue until all of the facts were exposed.

Unlike Watergate, where Democrats and Republicans joined together to find the truth, the Benghazi scandal has magnified the meanness of partisan politics. Any attempt to get to the truth by congress is labeled partisan politics by democrats. There is little if any cooperation by house democrats in this investigation.

The truth, if it is ever to be known by the American public will have to be uncovered by patriotic Americans, who put their country first.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Source: Only President Could Have Made ‘Stand Down’ Call on Benghazi

Photo Credit: Breitbart A source with intimate information about the events that happened on the ground in Benghazi the night the U.S. Consulate and the CIA annex was attacked by terrorists told Breitbart News that, ultimately, only the President of the United States, or someone acting on his authority, could have prevented Special Forces either on the ground or nearby from helping those Americans who were under deadly assault.

According to the source, when the attack on the Consulate occurred, a specific chain of command to gain verbal permission to move special-forces in must have occurred. SOCAFRICA commander Lieutenant Col. Gibson would have contacted a desk officer at the time, asking for that permission.

That desk officer would have called Marine Corps Col. George Bristol, then in command of Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara. From there, Bristol would have made contact with Rear Admiral Brian Losey, then Commander of Special Operations Command Africa. Losey would have contacted four-star General Carter Ham, commander of U.S. AFRICOM at the time.

“Ham answers directly to the President of the United States,” said the source. It wasn’t a low-level bureaucrat making the call, the source adamantly added.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Budget Control Act Of 2011 Violates Constitutional Order

In a Constitutional Republic of the sort that we thought we had, the process by which laws are made is at least as important as the laws that are enacted. Our Constitution prescribes that law-making process in some detail, but those who voted for the “Budget Control Act of 2011″ (“BCA 2011″) were wholly unconcerned about trampling upon required constitutional processes on the way to the nirvana of “bi-partisan consensus “to avert a supposed crisis. At least two titles of the bill now being rushed through Congress are unconstitutional.

First, the “Debt Ceiling Disapproval Process” in BCA 2011 Title III unconstitutionally upends the legislative process.

The Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, Clause 2 vests in Congress the power “to borrow Money on the credit of the United States.” As two of America’s leading constitutionalists, St. George Tucker and Joseph Story, observed, the power to borrow money is “inseparably connected” with that of “raising a revenue.” Thus, from the founding of the American republic through 1917, Congress — vested with the power “to lay and collect taxes, duties and imposts,” — kept a tight rein on borrowing, and authorized each individual debt issuance separately.

To provide more flexibility to finance the United States involvement in World War I, Congress established an aggregate limit, or ceiling, on the total amount of bonds that could be issued. This gave birth to the congressional practice of setting a limit on all federal debt. While Congress no longer approved each individual debt issuance, it determined the upper limit above which borrowing was not permitted. Thus, on February 12, 2010, Congress set a debt ceiling of $14.294 trillion, which President Obama signed into law.

However, a different approach was used when BCA 2011 was signed into law on August 2, 2011. Title III of the Act reads the “Debt Ceiling Disapproval Process.” Under this title Congress has transferred to the President the power to “determine” that the debt ceiling is too low, and that further borrowing is required to meet existing commitments,” subject only to congressional “disapproval.” For the first time in American history the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States has been disconnected from the power to raise revenue. What St. George Tucker and Joseph Story stated were inseparable powers have now by statute been separated.

Read More at Floyd Reports By Herbert W. Titus and William J. Olson, Floyd Reports