Quoted from mikechristine1

One day after conception, please provide the EVIDENCE of the heart beating.    I'm not going to say that I'm in favor of abortion, YOUR OPINION is based on what our religion tells us.   But where in the Bible does it say that a grouping of cells is a life?   Do you believe in female circumcision?   That is a religious belief of other religion(s), and as Americans we do NOT want other religions' beliefs forced upon us.  So, explain WHY the Catholic beliefs should be forced upon non-Catholics?

Quoted from mikechristine1

One day after conception, please provide the EVIDENCE of the heart beating.    I'm not going to say that I'm in favor of abortion, YOUR OPINION is based on what our religion tells us.   But where in the Bible does it say that a grouping of cells is a life?   Do you believe in female circumcision?   That is a religious belief of other religion(s), and as Americans we do NOT want other religions' beliefs forced upon us.  So, explain WHY the Catholic beliefs should be forced upon non-Catholics?


Now about the renaissance city of Schenectady, what's the matter, you avoid discussing it because you know we are all correct, the city is failing big time?   How about a stabbing in the heart of downtown on Jay St?    Huh?????    How about the DRASTIC reduction in the tax base this year on top of the DRASTIC REDUCTION in the tax last year?    You won't talk about Schenectady anymore will you, now that you have been proven wrong and you can't provide one teeny weeny shred of evidence of anything you say about the city.

Quoted from bumblethru

mc1-----great redirect....don't know what the hell SCUMnectady renaissance has to to with the libya coverup.....can ya troll dvor on another thread please?.................geeezzzz

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"The crucial ingredient for a scandal is the prospect of high-level White House involvement and
wide political repercussions. Government wrongdoing is boring. Scandals can bring down presidents, decide
elections and revive down-and-out political parties. Scandals can dominate American politics for months
at a time."

"On Tuesday, it looked like we had three possible political scandals brewing. Two days later, with much
more evidence available, it doesn't look like any of them will pan out. There'll be more hearings, and more
bad press for the Obama administration, and more demands for documents. But -- and this is a key
qualification -- absent more revelations, the scandals that could reach high don't seem to include
any real wrongdoing, whereas the ones that include real wrongdoing don't reach high enough."

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a CBS News report on the Benghazi talking points, Major Garrett "did something I don't feel like I've seen in
a really long time or maybe ever on a network newscast. He basically said straight out:
Republicans told us these were the quotes, that wasn't true."
"There is no evidence the White House orchestrated these changes."

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"I was told there was going to be a cover-up. After reading the 100 pages of
emails related to the Benghazi media talking points, I'm hard-pressed to find evidence for
the most damning accusations against the president and his staff. If they were involved,
they were once again leading from behind."

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On TV this morning, Bob Woodward made the case for not dismissing Benghazi and compared the scandal to Watergate:


"You were talking earlier about kind of dismissing the Benghazi issue as one that's just political and the president recently said it's a sideshow," said Woodward. "But if you read through all these e-mails, you see that everyone in the government is saying, 'Oh, let's not tell the public that terrorists were involved, people connected to al Qaeda. Let's not tell the public that there were warnings.' I hate to show, this is one of the documents with the editing that one of the people in the state department said, 'Oh, let's not let these things out.' And I have to go back 40 years to Watergate when Nixon put out his edited transcripts to the conversations, and he personally went through them and said, 'Oh, let's not tell this, let's not show this.' I would not dismiss Benghazi. It's a very serious issue. As people keep saying, four people were killed. You look at the hydraulic pressure that was in the system to not tell the truth, and, you know, we use this term and the government uses this term, talking points. Talking points, as we know, are like legal briefs. They're an argument on one side. What we need to get rid of talking point and they need to put out statements or papers that are truth documents. Okay, this is all we know."

Quoted from CICERO

Woodward "Benghazi very serious issue"

Quoted from Box A Rox

As long as someone, anyone, keeps mentioning "Watergate", Woodward will continue to rake in the $$$.

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ASSOCIATED PRESS    Published - May 19 2013 07:24AM EST

CONNIE CASS, Associated Press

(The Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The night of smoke, chaos, gunfire and grenades that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, is well-documented. Eight months later, it is the decisions made back in Washington that remain murky and in perpetual dispute.

Why were a diplomatic outpost and the visiting U.S. ambassador left so poorly protected? Should the Pentagon have rushed jets or special forces to the rescue when the assault began? Did President Barack Obama's administration obscure the true nature of the terrorist attack to help him get re-elected?

Congressional Republicans are poking for evidence of incompetence and cover-up in the ashes of the Sept. 11 anniversary attack. Obama dismisses their probes as a politically driven "sideshow."

The release this past week of 100 pages of government emails and notes is the latest fodder, as numerous Benghazi investigations continue.

A look at the issue:

___

WHY NOW?

Republicans and Democrats began condemning each other's response to Benghazi within hours of the first shots fired. The issue has flared and dimmed ever since, revived by new testimony, reports or documents like the newly released emails.

Republican lawmakers say they won't stop until they get their questions answered.

Democrats accuse the GOP of flogging the issue for partisan gain.

The focus on Benghazi and other controversies makes it harder for Obama to press his second-term agenda. Emphasizing the State Department's failings during her tenure could be especially damaging to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the early favorite among Democrats who might seek the presidency in 2016.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a possible Republican presidential candidate, already is arguing that the attack "precludes Hillary Clinton from ever holding office."

The controversy also helps Republicans raise money and fire up their conservative base heading into next year's congressional elections.

___

SEPT. 11, 2012

The night of the attack, as described by the State Department's review board and other accounts:

Seven Americans are at State's temporary residential compound in Benghazi that night: U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, visiting from the embassy in Tripoli; computer specialist Sean Smith and five diplomatic security officers. They are a minority among U.S. personnel in Benghazi; most work for the CIA, which operates a secret "annex" about a mile away.

Egyptian demonstrators had scaled the walls of the U.S. Embassy in Cairo hours earlier to protest an American amateur filmmaker's video mocking the Prophet Muhammad. But there were no demonstrations that day in Benghazi. The attack begins suddenly around 9:40 p.m. - gunfire, explosions, sounds of chanting and then dozens of armed men swarming through the compound's main entrance. Libyans hired to guard the compound flee.

A security officer hustles Stevens and Smith into a fortified "safe room." It fills with blinding smoke when the attackers set the building on fire with diesel fuel, and the two men become separated from the security officer.

A CIA team from the annex arrives about 25 minutes into the attack and helps search for the two diplomats inside the smoke-filled room, while gunfire continues outside. Only Smith's body is found. Eventually the U.S. personnel escape in armored vehicles, plowing through gunfire and grenade blasts to the CIA annex across town. Rocket-propelled grenades and mortar fire target the annex intermittently for an hour after midnight.

A team of six security officials summoned from Tripoli arrives around 5 a.m. Soon after, another assault on the annex begins. A mortar blast kills CIA security contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. About an hour later, a Libyan military unit arrives to help evacuate the U.S. personnel.

After the Americans fled the diplomatic compound, Benghazi civilians found Ambassador Stevens in the wreckage and drove him to a hospital, but he couldn't be saved. Like Smith, he died of smoke inhalation.

Stevens is the first U.S. ambassador killed by militants since 1979.

___

POLITICAL FROM THE FIRST

The calamity in Benghazi was the kind of autumn surprise that can rock a presidential race.

The night of Sept. 11, before word of Stevens' death was out, Republican nominee Mitt Romney issued a hurried statement about violence in Egypt and Libya, criticizing the State Department as too sympathetic to Muslim protesters. Critics, even some in his own party, faulted Romney for politicizing a crisis before the facts were in.

A month later in a combative presidential debate, Romney took another tack. He jumped on Obama for being too slow to acknowledge that terrorism was committed on his watch.

"It took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror," Romney insisted.

"Get the transcript," Obama snapped back, referring to his remarks the day after the assault.

In that Rose Garden appearance and similar words the next day, Obama had said that "acts of terror" would not shake U.S. resolve. He also condemned the violent protests that were sweeping through Muslim nations, sparked by anger over the Muhammad video.

In interviews over the next two weeks, Obama blamed the attack on extremists but steered clear of using any form of the word "terror." Other administration officials did the same and continued to conflate the Benghazi attack with the protests elsewhere.

Finally, at a Sept. 20 news briefing, White House spokesman Jay Carney said it was "self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack."

___

THE TALKING POINTS

The question of the moment: Were the "talking points" drawn up within days of the attack deliberately misleading?

The document, outlining the government's public message, was sent to members of Congress and to Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who made the round of Sunday morning talk shows five days after the attack.

Republicans accuse Rice of deceiving the American people. They say that, working from the talking points, she passed off an attack by heavily armed terrorists possibly linked to al-Qaida as something less damaging to Obama's terror-fighting credentials.

Rice described the attack as a "horrific incident where some mob was hijacked, ultimately, by a handful of extremists."

The White House says Rice reflected the best information available while facts were still being gathered. Republican critics say the administration should have known by then that there was no mob of protesters and the attack was a premeditated act of terrorism.

Two months after her TV interviews, the controversy ended Rice's chance of following Clinton as secretary of state.

___

STILL TALKING

Those talking points from September are in the news now because of new revelations about how they were crafted.

Republicans demanded to see emails exchanged by administration officials who revised and edited the talking points. On Wednesday, the White House publicly released 100 pages of emails and notes, saying congressional Republicans had misrepresented what they say.

Most of the email back-and-forth is between the State Department and the CIA, the entities whose facilities were attacked in Benghazi. White House and FBI officials were also in the discussions.

From the first draft, the CIA described the attack in Benghazi as a spontaneous outgrowth of the movie protests that began in Egypt - which indicates that was the theory in Washington then. However, the No. 2 diplomatic official in Libya at the time says he knew immediately it wasn't true and was demoted after he questioned the version of events Rice recited on TV.

One edit especially has been criticized as political: Victoria Nuland, then State's spokeswoman, sought removal of a reference to a CIA warning about the potential for anti-American demonstrations in Cairo and jihadists trying to break into that embassy. Nuland wrote that "could be abused" by lawmakers to criticize her department for failing to take heed.

Also deleted were references to the CIA's past warnings about dangerous extremists linked to al-Qaida in Benghazi.

After many deletions, the meat of the talking points read: "The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations."

___

UNPROTECTED

The month after Obama was re-elected, an independent review board issued its harsh verdict.

Senior officials in Washington had failed to protect the Benghazi mission, even after diplomats in Libya asked for more security, said the panel appointed by the State Department.

Since the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi, eastern Libya has been plagued by violence and awash with heavily armed militias. The U.S. compound as well as British diplomats and the Red Cross had been targeted by explosives in smaller attacks several times over the spring and summer.

The danger was obvious.

And yet security was "inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place," the Accountability Review Board concluded.

Four State Department officials were reassigned or resigned as a result.

"We clearly fell down on the job with regard to Benghazi," Deputy Secretary of State William Burns told lawmakers.

Republicans put the focus on Clinton's responsibility. In combative congressional hearings in January, the outgoing secretary of state said the cables from Benghazi seeking help never reached her.

"I did not see these requests. They did not come to me," she said. "I did not approve them. I did not deny them."

Obama called the poor security "a huge problem" and said changes would be made to protect risky posts.

Democrats tried to shift some blame to congressional Republicans, complaining that they cut $300 million from the Obama administration's budget request of $2.6 billion for diplomatic and embassy security in 2012.

___

WHERE WAS THE CAVALRY?

Could the military have done more to help on Sept. 11? A former top diplomat thinks so.

Gregory Hicks, who was Stevens' No. 2 and monitoring the crisis from Tripoli that night, suggests that sending fighter jets or even a cargo plane overhead might have scared off the insurgents with a show of force. That might have saved the lives of the two CIA contractors by preventing the final assault on the CIA annex, which came about eight hours after the first attack on the diplomatic mission, Hicks told a House committee.

Hicks also said four members of a special forces team in Tripoli wanted to fly on a Libyan plane to Benghazi but were told to stand down. Pentagon officials said the evacuation was already beginning by then and those forces would have arrived too late.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate there wasn't enough information about what was happening on the ground to send in aircraft. For example, for several hours officials didn't know what had happened to the ambassador.

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made the same point. "You can't just willy-nilly send F-16s there and blow the hell out of a place without knowing what's taking place," Panetta told senators.

State's review board concluded the military did what it could. An unarmed Predator drone flew over the diplomatic post beginning shortly after 11 p.m. to gather information. Two military personnel were with the team from Tripoli that arrived at the CIA annex in the morning. A C-17 from Germany carried the evacuated Americans out of Tripoli. Special operations forces and other personnel who were deployed from Europe and the United States in response to the crisis didn't reach Libya in time to help.

"The interagency response was timely and appropriate," according to the review board, "but there simply was not enough time given the speed of the attacks for armed U.S. military assets to have made a difference."

___

WHAT'S NEXT

The FBI is still investigating who carried out the attack, and Attorney General Eric Holder says there has been "very, very substantial progress."

Republicans on five House committees are pursuing inquiries. Many GOP lawmakers are pushing House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to appoint a special select committee to investigate.

The leaders of the review board, veteran diplomat Thomas Pickering and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, have offered to testify publicly about their findings and to answer critics who say the probe was incomplete. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight committee, has issued a subpoena to compel Pickering to testify in closed session first.

And congressional Republicans say they will keep pressing for more documents, such as details of military orders during the attack.

___

Associated Press writer Donna Cassata contributed to this report.

Quoted Text

The Republican controlled House Appropriations Committee passed via a party line vote
on Tuesday a move to give themselves a budget increase as they cut budgets for already reduced
via the sequester. These include firefighting efforts, cutting an additional 18% of the funding out
of labor, health and education programs including Indian healthcare, which are already facing sequester
cuts.

Naturally the Republicans spared Homeland Security, the Pentagon, and even Veterans Affairs. They
cannot afford to be seen screwing over veterans again so soon. Republicans claim they need the extra
money for security and police upgrades:

Appropriations panel spokeswoman Jennifer Hing said the reason for the slight budget increase
include greater police costs and security upgrades for the House’s oldest office building.

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Obama didn't push for Benghazi rescue because he feared failure
By South Jersey Times
on May 26, 2013 at 3:12 AM


Americans attempting to rescue fellow Americans is a time-honored tradition we all should respect.

I believe the Obama administration decided not to provide aid last fall before Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others were killed in a terrorist attack at Benghazi, Libya, for the following reasons:

In the run-up to the 2012 election, President Barack Obama reflected on Jimmy Carter’s failed rescue attempt of embassy personnel in Iran and how it helped Ronald Reagan get elected in 1980. Obama also, no doubt, recalled George W. Bush’s premature “Mission Accomplished” banner about Iraq and the subsequent political grief that he suffered.

The Obama administration did not want to acknowledge that the attack was from terrorists or engage the terrorists in a firefight just before the election. They feared that the Republicans would remind the public of Obama’s campaign boasts about how he had killed Osama bin Laden and had effectively decimated al-Qaida by eliminating its remaining key leaders.

I believe they gambled that they could pin the Benghazi attack on a spontaneous demonstration and not al-Qaida. The deaths of four Americans, weighed against the “good” that the Obama administration could do by remaining in power, was considered an unfortunate but acceptable trade-off.

That type of blatant God-like, political decision making should be condemned by all Americans.

Superstorm Sandy amounted to a break for Obama, since it pushed Benghazi out of the news and out of the minds of most voters. Even with recent damaging testimony from witnesses to the event, some Democrats will unfortunately circle their political wagons and continue to dismiss any claims that Obama and his underlings did anything wrong.

I wonder how Obama supporters can live comfortably knowing that the president apparently decided against any rescue attempt, then left on a campaign fundraising trip the day after the attack.

http://www.nj.com/south-jersey-voices/index.ssf/2013/05/letter_obama_didnt_push_for_be.html