EXCLUSIVE: Key suspects in Benghazi attack include former courier, bodyguard for Al Qaeda, sources say

At least two of the key suspects in the Benghazi terror attack were at one point working with Al Qaeda senior leadership, sources familiar with the investigation tell Fox News.
The sources said one of the suspects was believed to be a courier for the Al Qaeda network, and the other a bodyguard in Afghanistan prior to the 2001 terror attacks.
The direct ties to the Al Qaeda senior leadership undercut early characterizations by the Obama administration that the attackers in Benghazi were isolated “extremists" -- not Al Qaeda terrorists -- with no organizational structure or affiliation. 
The head of the House Intelligence Committee, Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., who receives regular intelligence briefings and whose staffers continue to investigate the Benghazi terrorist attack, would not discuss specific suspects or their backgrounds.
But he said the ties to Al Qaeda senior leadership, also known as Al Qaeda core, are now established.
“It is accurate that of the group being targeted by the bureau, at this point, there’s strong Al Qaeda ties,”  Rogers told Fox News. "You can still be considered to have strong ties because you are in the ring of operations of Al Qaeda core. ... There are individuals that certainly fit that definition."
Counterterrorism expert Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News that investigators are finding "more and more ties -- not just to Al Qaeda's branch in North Africa ... but Al Qaeda senior leadership in Pakistan."
A year ago, Fox News' Bret Baier was first to report that a former Guantanamo detainee, Sufian bin Qumu, was suspected of training jihadists in eastern Libya for the attack.
Now, sources tell Fox News that Benghazi suspect Faraj al Chalabi, also a Libyan national whose ties to Usama bin Laden date back to 1998, is believed to be a former bodyguard who was with the Al Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan in 2001.
After the Benghazi attack, al Chalabi fled to Pakistan where reports suggest he was held, then later returned to Libyan custody and eventually released. He was first publicly identified as a suspected terrorist in 1998 by the regime of former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi for his alleged role in the murder of a German intelligence official, Silvan Becker and his wife. An Interpol arrest warrant in March 1998 named al Chalabi, two other Libyans and bin Laden as the likely perpetrators.
“Our sources say al Chalabi is suspected of bringing materials from the compound to Benghazi to Al Qaeda senior leadership in Pakistan. It's not clear what those materials consisted of but he is known to have gone back to Pakistan immediately after the attack,” Joscelyn said.
Separately, and for the first time, Rogers laid out a timeline for the attack which suggests significant advance planning. According to the congressman, there was an “aspirational phase” several months out, where the idea of an attack was thrown around, followed by “weeks” of operational planning, and then the ramp up to the Sept. 11 assault which lasted up to several days. This assessment is in stark contrast to initial administration statements that the attack was “spontaneous” and achieved with little planning.
“I believe that they had an operational phase that lasted at least a couple of weeks, maybe even longer. And then an initiation phase that lasted a couple or three days prior to the event itself. And so this notion that they just showed up and decided this was a spontaneous act does not comport with the information at least with what we have seen in the intelligence community,” Rogers told Fox News.
Some counterterrorism analysts concur with Roger’s assessment, describing the mortars used to strike the CIA annex in the second wave of the attack as "smoking gun" evidence -- as mortars require skill to fire, and typically must be pre-positioned to ensure accuracy. On Sept. 11, two mortars struck the CIA annex, killing former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.
The opposing analysis is that the mortars were set in the early morning hours of Sept. 11, and that the terrorists did not bring equipment with them that suggests significant planning.
Fox News contacted the FBI which is in the lead on the Benghazi investigation, as well as the CIA and the National Counterterrorism Center, or NCTC. Both the NCTC and the CIA declined to comment. There was no immediate response from the FBI.

Day 1 The Launch

Rubio pushing bill to delay ObamaCare mandate over website meltdown

The widespread problems with the ObamaCare website are generating a new backlash in Congress, with Sen. Marco Rubio planning to introduce legislation that would delay the health law's individual mandate until the technical failures are addressed.
The Florida senator discussed the plan Tuesday morning in an interview with Fox News' "Fox & Friends." He said it would be "prudent" to delay the requirement on individuals to buy health insurance -- set to kick in early next year -- until users can consistently access the main website.
"How are you going to go after people next year ... if the thing you're forcing them to buy isn't available to buy?" he asked, saying the site is "not working."
Rubio's plan would delay the mandate until the Government Accountability Office certifies the system is "up and running and effectively working for six months, consecutive."
The plan comes as new reports detail the warning signs that may have been missed before the launch, and the massive undertaking that the tech team hired to fix the site is confronting.
The administration is now in a scramble to fix the problems that have prevented many from signing up for health insurance online. Officials announced Tuesday that former White House budget office chief Jeff Zients has been brought in as part of the team to address the site. President Obama on Monday directed the public to apply over the phone or by mail -- but at the same time, the White House did not rule out delaying the health law's 2014 requirement on individuals to buy insurance.
The New York Times, detailing the scope of the repair project, reported that while contractors have identified most the problems with the site, the administration is slow to issue orders. The Times quoted one specialist as saying 5 million lines of code may have to be rewritten.
The Washington Post reported Monday that a test of the website's capability to handle heavy traffic went wrong just days before the planned launch, when the site crashed after just a few hundred people tried to log on simultaneously.
The Post also reported that a group of 10 insurers invited to give advice and test the website urged federal officials not to do a nationwide launch due to the number of issues with the site. At late as a week before the launch date, the paper reported, no one had thought to test whether or not a user could complete the process of signing up for a health insurance plan through the site.
Meanwhile, a review of the site's technical specifications by The Associated Press found a mind-numbingly complex system put together by harried programmers who pushed out a final product that congressional investigators said was tested by the government and not private developers with more expertise.
Project developers who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity -- because they feared they would otherwise be fired -- said they raised doubts among themselves whether the website could be ready in time. They complained openly to each other about what they considered tight and unrealistic deadlines. One was nearly brought to tears over the stress of finishing on time, one developer said. Website builders saw red flags for months.
A review of internal architectural diagrams obtained by the AP revealed the system's complexity. Insurance applicants have a host of personal information verified, including income and immigration status. The system connects to other federal computer networks, including ones at the Social Security Administration, IRS, Veterans Administration, Office of Personnel Management and the Peace Corps.
President Barack Obama on Monday acknowledged technical problems that he described as "kinks in the system." He also promised a "tech surge" by leading technology talent to repair the painfully slow and often unresponsive website that has frustrated Americans trying to enroll online for insurance plans at the center of Obama's health care law.
But in remarks at a Rose Garden event, Obama offered no explanation for the failure except to note that high traffic to the website caused some of the slowdowns. He said it had been visited nearly 20 million times -- fewer monthly visits so far than many commercial websites, such as PayPal, AOL, Wikipedia or Pinterest.
"The problem has been that the website that's supposed to make it easy to apply for and purchase the insurance is not working the way it should for everybody," Obama said. "There's no sugarcoating it. The website has been too slow. People have been getting stuck during the application process. And I think it's fair to say that nobody is more frustrated by that than I am."
The online system was envisioned as a simple way for people without health insurance to comparison-shop among competing plans offered in their state, pick their preferred level of coverage and cost and sign up. For many, it's not worked out that way so far.
Just weeks before the launch of HealthCare.gov on Oct. 1, one programmer said, colleagues huddled in conference rooms trying to patch "bugs," or deficiencies in computer code. Unresolved problems led to visitors experiencing cryptic error messages or enduring long waits trying to sign up.
Congressional investigators have concluded that the government's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, not private software developers, tested the exchange's computer systems during the final weeks. That task, known as integration testing, is usually handled by software companies because it ferrets out problems before the public sees the final product.
The government spent at least $394 million in contracts to build the federal health care exchange and the data hub. Those contracts included major awards to Virginia-based CGI Federal Inc., Maryland-based Quality Software Services Inc. and Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.
CGI Federal said in a statement Monday it was working with the government and other contractors "around the clock" to improve the system, which it called "complex, ambitious and unprecedented."
The schematics from late 2012 show how officials designated a "data services hub" -- a traffic cop for managing information -- in lieu of a design that would have allowed state exchanges to connect directly to government servers when verifying an applicant's information. On Sunday, the Health and Human Services Department said the data hub was working but not meeting public expectations: "We are committed to doing better."
Administration officials so far have refused to say how many people actually have managed to enroll in insurance during the three weeks since the new marketplaces became available. Without enrollment numbers, it's impossible to know whether the program is on track to reach projections from the Congressional Budget Office that 7 million people would gain coverage during the first year the exchanges were available.
Instead, officials have selectively cited figures that put the insurance exchanges in a positive light. They say more than 19 million people have logged on to the federal website and nearly 500,000 have filled out applications for insurance through both the federal and state-run sites.
The flood of computer problems since the website went online has been deeply embarrassing for the White House. The snags have called into question whether the administration is capable of implementing the complex policy and why senior administration officials -- including the president -- appear to have been unaware of the scope of the problems when the exchange sites opened.
Even as the president spoke at the Rose Garden, more problems were coming to light. The administration acknowledged that a planned upgrade to the website had been postponed indefinitely and that online Spanish-language signups would remain unavailable, despite a promise to Hispanic groups that the capability would start this week. And the government tweaked the website's home page so visitors can now view phone numbers to apply the old-fashioned way or window-shop for insurance rates without registering first.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee was expected to conduct an oversight hearing Thursday, probably without Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifying. She could testify on Capitol Hill on the subject as early as next week.
Uninsured Americans have until about mid-February to sign up for coverage if they are to meet the law's requirement that they be insured by the end of March. If they don't, they will face a penalty.

Growing the Debt: US resumes $1.6B in aid to Pakistan

As the national debt tops $17 trillion -- thanks to the newly sealed debt-ceiling agreement -- America's costly foreign aid tab is back in the crosshairs.
The federal government in fiscal 2012 spent about $21 billion on non-military foreign assistance and was on track to spend roughly the same in 2013, according to federal records. As Washington enters the new fiscal year, another huge chunk of aid is being released -- the Associated Press reported over the weekend that the U.S. is planning to free up more than $1.6 billion in aid to Pakistan following a lengthy hiatus.
Daniel Markey, a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, suggested Monday that the aid decision was premature. He told FoxNews.com Live that the U.S. should at least be changing the way that money is used.
"We haven't gotten a lot out of Pakistan ... and we've spent billions and billions of dollars," Markey said Monday.
He said new leadership in Pakistan offers a reason to keep trying "but we should be very careful."
The aid had been on ice after a major breakdown in U.S.-Pakistan relations. Pakistan lashed out at the U.S. over the 2011 raid on Usama bin Laden's compound. U.S. lawmakers were similarly outraged after Pakistan imprisoned a doctor alleged to have helped the CIA in tracking bin Laden.
Ties continued to fray after the U.S. mistakenly fired on and killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers.
But after a long pause, and an election in Pakistan, both sides are trying to rebuild their relationship.
Newly elected Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrived in the U.S. on Sunday, for the first visit by a Pakistani head of state since 2008, and met with Secretary of State John Kerry. In a statement, the State Department said they "continued the robust dialogue on our shared goal of a stable, secure and prosperous Pakistan." The statement stressed the importance of "continued counterterrorism cooperation."
Aid to Pakistan over the years has been channeled to everything from health to education to economic development.
But it is Pakistan's role in counterterrorism operations that has made the U.S. so reluctant to cut ties with the country altogether. Despite suspicion running high between the two governments -- and concerns that some Pakistani officials are taking U.S. money with one hand and helping America's enemies with the other -- many in Washington see the partnership as one of necessity.
Markey, author of "No Exit from Pakistan: America's Tortured Relationship with Islamabad," said the U.S. still needs the supply lines in and out of Afghanistan as that war winds down. But he said the U.S. should be "skeptical."
The battle over how much to give to which countries has been escalating in Washington, and Republicans have made it a perennial target as they seek additional savings.
House Republicans proposed a nearly $6 billion cut to foreign aid in their fiscal 2014 budget proposal.
Congress has not yet passed a full-year budget -- the latest agreement to end the partial government shutdown resulted in a bill to fund the government for just three months. Lawmakers are now seeking a broader agreement to both fund the government and cut the deficit.
Amid the resumption of aid to Pakistan, the Obama administration recently decided to put some aid to Egypt on hold. The decision came after then-President Mohammed Morsi was overthrow.

White House won't rule out delay of ObamaCare individual mandate

The White House appeared to leave the door open Monday to delaying the so-called individual mandate in the federal health care law, as President Obama acknowledged the main website for enrollment is not working as it should.
Press Secretary Jay Carney addressed concerns over the mandate at a press briefing shortly after Obama, in the Rose Garden, personally acknowledged failures with the HealthCare.gov site and vowed that "these problems are getting fixed."
Carney was peppered with questions on whether the administration would be open to delaying the requirement on individuals to buy health insurance, if the website continues to lock out would-be customers. Echoing Obama, Carney said repeatedly that the country is just three weeks into a six-month enrollment process and suggested it's too early to make any decisions of that magnitude.
But he did not close the door on the option.
Asked if the administration is looking for flexibility in applying the mandate, Carney said: "Whatever conclusions you draw about the way the law is written, I think you can draw. The law is clear that if you do not have access to affordable health insurance, then you will not be asked to pay a penalty because you haven't purchased affordable health insurance."
He added that the administration is focused on providing that access.
Carney was vague on what the administration's next move would be, aside from bringing in tech experts from the private sector to try and repair the website. Without offering further explanation, he said the Department of Health and Human Services is "looking to align the policies with the disconnect between the open enrollment period and the individual responsibility time frames, which exist on the first year only."
Whether that signals the administration would consider even a short-term delay of the mandate is unclear.
Technically, Americans are supposed to obtain health insurance by the end of March 2014 to avoid a fine. But analysts have since calculated that, considering the time it takes to process all the relevant documents, most would have to seek coverage by mid-February. 
Republicans have used the website failures to fuel their case that the individual mandate should be delayed. They've been pushing for the delay ever since the administration announced earlier this year it would offer some employers a one-year reprieve from a separate mandate to extend insurance to workers.  
The president's remarks in the Rose Garden did little to quell their complaints.
"If the president is frustrated by the mounting failures of his health care law, it wasn't apparent today. Americans are looking for accountability, but what the president offered today was little more than self-congratulation," House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement. "Either the president doesn't grasp the scale of the law's failures or he doesn't believe Americans deserve straight answers." 
Republicans have blasted the administration for not offering up Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for a House hearing scheduled for Thursday.
But the House Energy and Commerce Committee confirmed late Monday that Sebelius would testify before the committee Oct. 30.
"As the administration continues to withhold important details and enrollment figures, I hope Secretary Sebelius is ready to give answers and finally live up to the president's celebrated claims of transparency," Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., said in a statement.

Rubio downcast about immigration reform, casts blame on Obama

I'm Legal?
Sen. Marco Rubio gave a downcast assessment Sunday about Congress passing immigration reform, arguing that fellow Republicans are leery about dealing with President Obama on the issue since he would not negotiate fairly during the recent fiscal crisis.
“Immigration reform is going to be a lot harder to accomplish than it was three weeks ago,” Rubio, R-Fla., who helped pass the Senate legislation handed to the Republican-controlled House, told “Fox News Sunday.”
Rubio said he agreed with Idaho Republican Rep. Raul Labrador who last week said House Republican leadership would be “crazy” to negotiate with Obama if the president makes the same “good faith effort” on an immigration bill that he did on fiscal negotiations and that Obama is “trying to destroy” the Republican Party.
“That’s not to say” Obama might agree to a path to citizenship for some of the roughly 11 million illegal immigrants in the country and to enforcing immigration laws, only to cancel the enforcement component, Rubio said.
The issue returned to the spotlight hours after Congress agreed on a deal to temporarily end the partial government shutdown and increase the federal debt limit, when Obama called on Congress on Thursday to swiftly reach an immigration-reform agreement.
“If the House has ideas on how to improve the Senate bill, let’s hear them. Let’s start the negotiations,” the president said. “This can and should get done by the end of this year.”
Despite Rubio’s reservations about negotiating with the president, he was steadfast in his argument that the country needs to fix a broken immigration system.
“There’s no argument the immigration system has to be fixed,” he told Fox News.
Rubio also defended himself and the Senate legislation, which has been called an amnesty program.
He said the country is now operating under a “de facto” amnesty program and that he’s not concerned about his sagging poll numbers amid a potential 2016 presidential run.
“I continue to believe it’s an important issue for our nation to confront,” Rubio said.
His comments come amid concerns from conservatives who think House leaders might meet with Senate negotiators, which would result in the lower chamber’s step-by-step plan, which begins with securing U.S. borders, being “blended” with the upper chamber’s comprehensive plan.
Rubio also said the House deserves “time and space” to craft its own legislation that “might be even better.” 

476,000 ObamaCare applications filed out of estimated 19 million that visited HealthCare.gov

WASHINGTON –  Administration officials say about 476,000 health insurance applications have been filed through federal and state exchanges, the most detailed measure yet of the problem-plagued rollout of President Barack Obama's signature legislation.
However, the officials continue to refuse to say how many people have actually enrolled in the insurance markets. Without enrollment figures, it's unclear whether the program is on track to reach the 7 million people projecting by the Congressional Budget Office to gain coverage during the six-month sign-up period.
Obama's advisers say the president has been frustrated by the flawed rollout. During one of his daily health care briefings last week, he told advisers assembled in the Oval Office that the administration had to own up to the fact that there were no excuses for not having the website ready to operate as promised.
The president is expected to address the problems on Monday during a health care event at the White House. Cabinet members and other top administration officials will also be traveling around the country in the coming weeks to encourage sign-ups in areas with the highest population of uninsured people.
The first three weeks of sign-ups have been marred by a cascade of computer problems, which the administration says it is working around the clock to correct. The rough rollout has been a glaring embarrassment for Obama, who invested significant time and political capital in getting the law passed during his first term.
The officials said technology experts from inside and outside the government are set to work on the glitches, though they did not say how many workers were being added.
Officials did say staffing has been increased at call centers by about 50 percent. As problems persist on the federally run website, the administration is encouraging more people to sign up for insurance over the phone.
The officials did not want to be cited by name and would not discuss the health insurance rollout unless they were granted anonymity.
Despite the widespread problems, the Obama administration has yet to fully explain what went wrong with the online system consumers were supposed to use to sign up for coverage.
Initially, administration officials blamed a high volume of interest for the frozen screens that many people encountered. Since then, the administration has also acknowledged unspecified problems with software and some elements of the system's design.
Interest in the insurance markets appears to continue to be high. Officials said about 19 million people had visited HealthCare.gov as of Friday night.
People seeking insurance must fill out applications before selecting specific plans. The applications include personal information, including income figures that are used to calculate any subsidies the applicant may qualify for.
More than one person can be included on an application.
Of the 476,000 applications that have been started, just over half have been from the 36 states where the federal government is taking the lead in running the markets. (Nanny States) The rest of the applications have come from the 14 states running their own markets, along with Washington, D.C.
The White House says it plans to release the first enrollment totals from both the federal and state-run markets in mid-November.
An internal memo obtained by The Associated Press showed that the administration projected nearly a half-million people would enroll for the insurance markets during the first month.
Officials say they expect enrollments to be heavier toward the end of the six-month sign-up window.
In an ironic twist, the problems with the rollout were overshadowed by Republican efforts to get changes to the health care law in exchange for funding the government. That effort failed and the government reopened last week with the health care law intact.
Stung by that defeat, some Republicans are now calling for the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The White House says it has complete confidence in her.
House Republicans have scheduled a hearing next week to look into the rollout problems. White House allies say they're confident the problems are being addressed.
"There's no question the marketplace website needs some improvement," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., one of the architects of the law. "The administration needs to fix the computer bugs and I'm confident that they're working around the clock to fix the problems."

Back To Work

Chinese Rating Agency Cuts US Sovereign Credit Rating

Bailey Comment: It just shows you what America has sunk to when a frigging communist country like china can downgrade our credit rating. Everyone in America should be ashamed of themselves especially our government,  I know I am.  Read the article below

A Chinese ratings agency cut its credit rating for U.S. sovereign debt by one notch to A-minus from A on Thursday, saying a deal struck by Congress to raise the government's borrowing ceiling failed to solve the cause of its debt problem.

Dagong Global Credit Rating said that the temporary fix of the debt issue would not defuse the fundamental conundrum of the U.S. fiscal deficit or improve repayment ability in the long-term, but could trigger defaults at any time in the future.

"The deal means only an escape from a debt default for the time being, but hasn't changed the fact that the growth of government borrowing has largely outpaced overall economic growth and fiscal revenues," China's biggest home-grown ratings agency said in a statement.

Editor’s Note: Obama’s Budget Takes Aim at Retired Americans

The U.S. Congress on Wednesday approved an 11th-hour deal to end a partial government shutdown and pull the world's biggest economy back from the brink of a historic debt default that could have threatened financial calamity.

Dagong said the increase in the debt ceiling, for the fifth time since President Obama took office in 2009, provided further proof of the U.S. government's inability to make improvements to fiscal fundamentals that were needed to enhance its debt servicing capability.

It said it held a negative outlook for the United States, noting that the Federal Reserve continued to inject dollars into the market through quantitative easing policies, eroding the value of the outstanding debt and hurting creditors' interests.

The downgrade put the United States several notches below Dagong's top rating and on par with Brazil, Israel and Panama, among others.

Dagong's ratings are barely watched outside of China, and major international credit agencies classify most countries very differently from the Chinese agency.

Dagong estimated that the U.S.'s foreign creditors could have suffered an estimated loss of $628.5 billion between 2008 and 2012 due to a weakening of the U.S. dollar.

China, sitting on the largest stockpile of foreign exchange reserves in the world, is the biggest holder of U.S. treasuries.

Dagong's views do not necessarily represent the Chinese government's stance, however, its analysis often runs in tandem with remarks from government officials.

China's Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao had earlier urged the U.S. government to take "concrete steps" to resolve the fiscal cliff issue and meet its responsibility to uphold stability of international financial markets.

A commentary on the official Xinhua news agency on Thursday took the two main U.S. political parties to task for "brinkmanship".

"The saga in Washington is teaching America's creditors a lesson: U.S. politicians are ready to fight each other at the expense of debt-holders' interests and U.S. Treasury bonds may no longer be safe investment," the commentary said.

The commentary does not reflect official policy but is an insight into views held at the top levels.

Fitch Ratings said on Tuesday it had placed a negative outlook over its AAA rating for the United States due to the political brinkmanship. Moody's Investors Service rates the United States at Aaa, while Standard & Poor's rates it at AA-plus.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Markets/China-Rating-Agency-Credit-Rating-United-States/2013/10/17/id/531546?ns_mail_uid=5689450&ns_mail_job=1542308_10182013&promo_code=1538F-1#ixzz2iD4yLfKL
Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!

Design a product that doesn't work, force everyone to buy it!

Furloughed government workers could be paid twice in Oregon

 Bailey Comment: The government is just a great big money pit! A small example is the article below.


Some federal workers who were furloughed in Oregon could be getting paid twice, with a state official confirming to Fox News that those workers who received state unemployment benefits during the partial government shutdown will not have to re-pay the money.
The spokesman for WorkSource Oregon Employment Department said the workers received at most a week’s worth of unemployment benefits. The spokesman said he did not know how many workers received the benefits.
He confirmed that furloughed federal workers in the state do not have to re-pay the state unemployment benefits.
The employees will receive double pay because the budget bill approved by Congress provides that all furloughed government workers will receive back pay for the days they did not work under the partial government shutdown.
Richard Hobble of the National Association of State Workforce Agencies told Fox News Oct. 11 that if federal employees receive double payment, the states should require them to re-pay the unemployment benefits once they received back pay.
“The states will be expected to collect back from the claimants who received those benefits when in fact they were compensated for those weeks,” he said.
During the partial shutdown, a third of the new unemployment claims filed in New Mexico came from federal workers. It was not clear if they would also be paid twice under the budget agreement provision if their claims were approved.
Washington D.C. and Maryland also both paid millions in unemployment benefits to about 24,000 furloughed workers during the budget crisis.

Vote breakdown: How lawmakers voted on the budget deal

SENATORS:
Voting yes were 52 Democrats, 27 Republicans and 2 independents.
Voting no were 0 Democrats and 18 Republicans.


HOUSE MEMBERS:
Voting yes were 198 Democrats and 87 Republicans. Voting no were 0 Democrats and 144 Republicans.

Todd Starnes: American taxpayers betrayed by chicken-hearted RINOs

American taxpayers have once again been trampled by establishment Republicans – a thundering herd of chicken-hearted Republicans in Name Only (RINOs) galloping to the Left.
The debt ceiling deal struck between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is a victory for President Obama and Democrats.
ObamaCare is still the law of the land. The government is still spending money it does not have. And thousands of government workers just got a two-week vacation courtesy of the taxpayers.
I’m sure we will hear establishment apologists calling the events of recent days a compromise. But seeing how the president refused to compromise, it’s more likely the Grand Old Party was the only one bending.
Establishment Republicans always talk about doing the right thing for the nation, no matter the price. But when push comes to shove, they always throw in the towel. And Wednesday, McConnell and his band of merry moderates heaved their towels in an epic demonstration of lily-livered cowardice.
But you’ve got to hand it to Sen. Ted Cruz for standing his ground. He held the line and ultimately paid the price. His good name was smeared by Democrats as well as McConnell’s band – most notably Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Bob Corker.
This band of bullies brushed aside Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment – the one about not speaking ill of any fellow Republican. If only the moderates debated Democrats with the same ferocity reserved for conservatives.
“The nastier they get, the more it demonstrates how scared they are of the American people holding every elected official accountable,” Cruz told me in a telephone call Wednesday afternoon. “It’s not surprising the Washington establishment pushes back. We knew when we took on the Washington establishment that it would fight back.”
Sen. Cruz told me Wednesday was not a good day for America.
“Today’s deal is a classic example of the Washington establishment turning a blind eye to the American people,” he said.  “It does nothing for all of the young people coming out of college right now who can’t find jobs because of ObamaCare. It does nothing for all the single parents forced into part time work who can’t feed their kids on 29 hours a week.”
The gentleman from Texas had nothing but praise for the House of Representatives. He said they held the line. They stood strong for the American people. The Senate is another matter.
“The outcome of this fight would have been very, very different if only Senate Republicans had made the decision to stand and fight alongside House Republicans,” he said. “That didn’t happen. That was the critical piece.”
Rush Limbaugh told his millions of listeners that the GOP has been hoodwinked.
“I have never seen a major political party simply occupy placeholders, as the Republican Party is doing,” he said on his national radio program.
“There hasn't been any opposition, not any serious opposition.  There may have been votes against this or that, votes against ObamaCare. There may have been votes against the stimulus, but in terms of a package of policies, a package of principled beliefs, of opposition expressed daily by party leaders against what's happening in this country, there hasn't been.
Wednesday’s  epic surrender was much like King Arthur in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” hollering, “Run away, run away.”
I can imagine the minstrel strumming a lyre in the middle of the Rotunda, warbling, “Brave McConnell ran away. When Obama reared his liberal head, he bravely turned his tail and fled. Yes, Brave Sir McConnell turned about and valiantly, he chickened out.”
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin took lawmakers from both political parties to task on her Facebook page.
“When life gives you lemons, at this point make margaritas,” she wrote in an essay titled, “Thanks a Lot for Caving, Politicians."
“Caving on debt could drive one to drink.”
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham still appears to be distressed that conservative lawmakers would actually follow through on their campaign promises and represent the interests of the people.
“This has been a very bad two weeks for the Republican brand,” he said.
What about the American brand, sir? Is anybody in Washington concerned about that?

Budget Cartoon

Activists resort to chaining themselves to buses, buildings to protest all deportations

Frustrated by a lack of progress in Congress on immigration legislation, activists are demanding President Obama stop deporting all illegal immigrants -- not just those who arrived here as children.
Only now, they're using new tactics, chaining themselves to buses, jails and federal buildings to persuade lawmakers to let them stay.
In Tucson, Ariz., on Friday, protesters chained themselves to three buses that were deporting illegal immigrants as part of Operation Streamline, a program that prosecutes or deports every illegal immigrant caught at the border. The program is meant to prevent the revolving door that encourages illegal immigrants to re-enter the U.S. hours or days after their initial arrest near the same location.
"No one really sees what happens once people are picked up and how families are separated," said a Phoenix protester. "This is something that happens every day, and it's our mission to keep up the pressure because we're already at too many deportations, and how much longer until the Obama administration does something about this immigration crisis?"
In Phoenix on Monday, 250 protesters also marched to the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters, though the office was closed due to Columbus Day.
Obama has said he doesn't favor a so-called "blanket amnesty" through executive action, but has instructed immigration control agencies not to break up families. Border Patrol sources tell Fox News it's no surprise, then, they're now seeing entire families -- not just young men -- busting the border in hopes of staying in the U.S.
Opponents say the administration is sending the wrong message.
"I say it isn't enough to deport them all," said Brandy Baron of Remember1986.com, which staged a counter-protest in Phoenix. "They knew when they came here illegally, they knew when they came here we have laws, and laws have consequences."
The Phoenix march was just one incident that underscores the growing frustration of Hispanics and immigration reform advocates over the last few months. Congress appeared ready to pass a bill before the budget and debt-ceiling impasse took hold in Washington. Since then, all other legislation has come to a virtual standstill.
On Monday at the Eloy Detention Center, one of the country's largest immigration jails, protesters chained themselves together in the entryway.
“I’m doing this to show my brother and all the other people inside that we support them and we will do what it takes to get them out," 16-year-old Sandy Estrada of Phoenix told Not One More Deportation.  "I want the president to know that everyone deserves to be with their families and that he can stop our pain.”
Last week, Tucson police pepper-sprayed a crowd that had surrounded a pair of Border Patrol agents who took two illegal immigrants into custody after a traffic stop.
"President Obama is approaching 2 million deportations. That's an all-time record," said Phoenix protestor James Lyall of the ACLU. "So in addition to all the other stuff going on, this is something that affects our communities on a day-to-day basis."
Immigration officials tell Fox News they are prepared to handle the disruptions and will make changes in handling deportations to avoid confrontations.

Are you kidding me again?

Ex-ACORN operatives helping roll out ObamaCare

A group formed from the ruins of ACORN is hard at work signing people up for ObamaCare, and may be collecting taxpayer cash for their work despite Congress' efforts to cut the organization and its affiliates off from government funding, a watchdog group charged.
The United Labor Unions Council Local 100, a New Orleans-based nonprofit, announced last month it would take part in a multi-state "navigator" drive to help people enroll in President Obama's health care plan. The labor council was established by ACORN founder Wade Rathke after his larger group was broken up amid scandal in 2009 and banned from receiving taxpayer funds.
“At a time when our government has ceased functioning due to an appropriations gap, it is ironic that America’s tax dollars are being doled out to an entity whose poor stewardship of our funds was well-established by Congress,” said Dan Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action, a nonpartisan watchdog group based in Washington.

Are you kidding me?

Crash-prone ObamaCare site also includes voter registration option

The federal website that enrolls Americans in ObamaCare also asks applicants if they want to register to vote, raising questions about why the Obama administration would further complicate an already crash-prone website.
Thirty six states are using the federal site – also called exchanges or market places -- to enroll customers in government-mandated health insurance.
At least four other states -- California, Connecticut, New York, Vermont and Wisconsin -- also are asking or intend to ask customers if they want to register to vote.
“The [website] launch has not gone well,” Nick Novak, a spokesman for the John K. MacIver Institute for Public Policy, which noticed the voter-registration question on the Wisconsin site, told FoxNews.com on Monday. “Why are they cluttering up the site?”
Novak, who has unsuccessfully tried numerous times over the past week to click through the site, also argues officials should have at least posed the question after customers sign up for insurance.
However, government officials have defended putting the question on the exchanges, citing federal law.
Brian Cook, a spokesman for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in August the exchanges must include the question, under the 1993 National Voter Registration Act. The law requires states to offer voter registration at government offices that provide public assistance.
Brett Healy, president of the Wisconsin-based MacIver Institute, suggests that including the question could backfire on Democrats.
"The president should be careful what he wishes for,” he said. "While he counted on young people to win the presidency, many are now experiencing ObamaCare sticker shock."

Al Qaeda kingpin Abu Anas al-Libi belongs at Guantanamo, not in New York

U.S. Commandos scored a tactical victory against Al Qaeda by swooping into Libya and capturing Abu Anas al-Libi earlier this month, a former Bin Laden confidant and terror kingpin. Now President Obama must follow through with a strategic win.
That means extracting valuable intelligence from al-Libi, whose name literally means “the Libyan,” about his two decades of terror insider experience as an Al Qaeda computer expert and co-conspirator of plots against U.S. interests. Al-Libi is believed to have been involved in plots across Africa and the Middle East, including against our Kenya and Tanzania Embassies in 1998 which killed 224 people.
But getting that treasure trove of information depends on our strategy to pry it from a hardened warrior.
And so far, the Obama administration is failing us.
Here’s why:
Instead of whisking al-Libi to Guantanamo where he could be interrogated by the military and CIA for as long as it takes to get actionable intelligence – and then try him by military commission as an enemy combatant, Mr. Obama first decided to hold him aboard the amphibious transport ship USS San Antonio, and later try him in a New York federal courtroom.

Mr. Obama’s resistance is entirely based on politics, which he is putting above national security. Again.

First, let's look at the move to put him on the Navy ship.
While holding key terror suspects captured overseas on a Navy ship makes sense temporarily, therein lies the long term problem -- everybody knows it’s just a temporary landing place, including the detainee. Al-Libi has likely been inclined to bide his time and wait till he arrived in the United States to speak with a civilian lawyer.
Second, about justice.
Obama’s counter-terrorism strategy often resembles a hybrid of police work and war. Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, a leader of Somalia’s Al Qaeda ally, Al Shabaab was captured in 2011 and held aboard a Navy ship for two months.  But then Obama ordered his transfer to federal court in New York where he would be afforded a full range of Constitutional Rights.
Ironically, Obama champions a concept that gives foreign enemy combatants trying to kill Americans, with generous legal protections designed by our Founding Fathers to protect Americans. 
What would George Washington would say?
Third, on the interrogations.
Let’s face it, al-Libi’s time on a ship likely didn't require much toughness. Mr. Obama banned coercive interrogation techniques within 48 hours of his January 2009 inauguration. -- Al-Libi could face rougher treatment from police departments across the country for robbing a liquor store.
Sure, he may decide to cooperate with investigators over a hamburger and fries. Some FBI agents have the knack of getting guys to reveal meaningful information via polite conversations, but that strategy can take considerable time as the interrogator-detainee form a tight bond. While that’s great to help prosecutors secure convictions in court, it could take years, and won't stop imminent attacks.
So what’s wrong with sending al-Libi to Guantanamo?
Actually, nothing. 
Mr. Obama’s resistance is entirely based on politics, which he is putting above national security.
Again.
Let’s understand that although Gitmo had a rocky start in 2002, it remains in the crosshairs of history’s largest propaganda campaign.
Left-leaning defense lawyers, so-called human rights activists, key media and politicians, both in the U.S. and overseas, worked tirelessly to convince the world that Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists at Gitmo were actually the victims. 
They conveniently ignore the fact that detainees collectively killed countless thousands of civilians worldwide, including on Sept. 11, 2001, in the mass-casualty bombings at our East African Embassies, at a Bali nightclub, and the Jakarta Marriott, and during Afghanistan’s civil war.
And with the exception of isolated incidents impacting a grand total of 1% of the total detainee population, the rest have been treated with kid gloves.
Gitmo and military commissions have played a vital role in defending America as we remain at war.
Just as we held Nazis as enemy combatants in 1943, we should continue holding Al Qaeda terrorists and affiliates in the same status.
Al-Libi should join them at Gitmo -- starting today.
J.D. Gordon is a retired Navy Commander who served as a Pentagon spokesman in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2005-09. He serves as senior adviser to several Washingtonbased think tanks.

 

Will this administration ever lose?

Will this administration ever lose?
History has several examples of political success that has occurred in different political environment, we know are fact.
The destruction of Russia by the advancement of the Society in the Red, White war—where the communist with abject brutality succeeded in killing more people at a greater rate than ever known in mankind’s history to dominate a nation. Then followed by the Communist destruction of China, where once again the barrel of a gun advanced the domination of a nation with abject destructive force.
Yet these are nothing to the success of the communist intrusion occurring in this nation—using guile and fraud—to advance this demented agenda to dominate this nation.
As an American observer, just one of the millions of citizens in this nation who are stunned what is occurring there is only one question that can be asked; why? Why is this nation surrendering to the dementia of communist, under the assault of the most incompetent individual ever elected to political office?
I’m not sure how many are sick and tired of watching ‘Boner aka Boehner’ hold a press conference, turn around, expose his backside, drop his draws, spread his cheeks and show us the latest dildo the Democrats have shoved up the cavity of the anatomy we identify as where the sun never shines. Is there ever a time he could possibly, just once, say we are standing on principle, and we are going to do whatever it takes—even if it means we shut this government down until this nation can have another election and replace this nihilist, even if it means three more years!
All we have to review is the latest catastrophe of the communist intrusion destroying American health care. Think of the reality. This absolute absurdity, advancing a concept that has never worked, can never work, and has no objective of providing health serving—only to give the government control of yet another segment of our economy…advancing the central planning agenda of communist domination…to government dictation. Often I can’t help but wonder if the government would have spent 1/10^th the effort on improving medical servicing, instead of advancing government communist central planning dictates, what we possibly could have today.
Why are those who should be in abject opposition to government domination, the Republican Party, acquiescent in accepting that communist medical servicing is inevitable? What irrational logic can possibly lead to such a conclusion? How demented in acknowledging reality that this concept has never worked, will never work, and is the most destructive ideology ever from the dementia of mental distortion ever known to man yet requires not modification, not application, not more time in application of this destruction; but the elimination of government having anything to do with being a player, or participant in the medical servicing of this nation’s health servicing!
How many examples are needed to realize that government intrusion into anything in society results in the only possible conclusion it can—abject failure. Using just this nation’s failures should be example enough. Look at the failures, we can list them: social security, never designed for anything security, and the farthest thing from social possible…but designed for one purpose and one purpose only…to reduce the communist infusion of money under Keynesian communist monetary policy—that did not work under Franklin Roosevelt any better than it is working under our current elected communist—to remove the same money being injected into the business environment, by a new tax—the tax of social security. Once again confirming that government intrusion into any segment of society, in any activity of that society, is doomed to the only result possible; abject failure.
Let’s take the next advancement of communist doctrine; the destruction of all wealth in the nation—replacing it with the dictates of government discretion of determining what the currency of the money in this nation is worth. Think of that little reality—the epitome of communism—done with absolute stealth, a nation so damn ignorant, they did not know it happened, understand what it meant, and are now subjects to economic domination of government that makes every communist nation on the face of this planet envious. This is the apex; the absolute domination of society, for government has usurped the power, to by their whim dictate the value of your life, your life’s effort and the accumulation of that effort over a lifetime. With this one action, the first three points of Marx’s ten point plan of communist domination was accomplished. So stealthy, without rejection, because of our nation’s citizen’s ignorance, they don’t even know it occurred.
Why is it that we as a nation, as the citizens don’t remember the communist actions that led to the beginning of the medical servicing insanity this nation is now experiencing? Who doesn’t remember the little beginning; the wage and price controls of communist intrusion in the Second World War. Where to circumvent the government dictates of wages, the concept of business provided health insurance was born. When the war was over, did the government then abstain from intrusion into health servicing, and allow the market system to work? No they did not. It is the curse of government that once its cancerous advancement occurs in any venue they choose—the society is condemned. Never, never in the history of man is there an example of government once intruding in anything ever backing off, unless forced to. And don’t use the prohibition as an example, for that was insanity at an unprecedented example.           
The result, not only did we continue the intrusion into medical servicing, they put it under the most devious form of government intervention ever conceived by man; the tax code. For if we use the tax code, by allowing the people, to reduce the tax burden by the expenses the people have—is that not the epitome of communist central planning? Of course it is. Sadly it occurs with the absolute stealth of society’s ignorance. Led like the sheep to the slaughter, never once stopping to think, to engage their collective mental processing to even acknowledge the domination of government over society.
The list goes on and on, finally reaching the absolute domination of the medical servicing itself. The goal the objective and the path our nation is currently on.
The Chinese general Sun Tzu said that there are two things one must know in order to survive. Simple really, know yourself, and know your enemy. IN this nation today we know neither of these. The citizens of this nation know not what type of government we have. Know nothing of the form of government, the concept we are a republic of laws, not the democracy of mob rule. Know nothing of the reality of man, that equal by definition can ever result in equality. That our nation, this wonder of the States united in America is so exceptional in concept there is no known comparative in the history of mankind. That the philosophical ideals of this nation are ‘the protection of the unalienable rights, those rights endowed by the laws of nature and nature’s God, to be protected and preserved by the actions—the dictates—of government. Not the domination of society as is presently occurring by the advancement of the dementia of the current communist intrusion.
We must know the enemy. Currently that enemy is the very government that is dictating to the people the domination of society, while destroying the very vestige of the wonder of this miracle of a nation.
Montesquieu the French philosopher identified long ago that society must have ‘mores, morals, and the religion of the people’ before civilization will flourish.
Today all of these foundations are under attack—some actually removed from our society—and we wonder why our society is more of a jungle than the society of man.
Our enemy is those who will destroy and dismantle this nation; they are communist. The longer this nation ignores that simple reality; the faster our acceleration to the darkness of the domination of government and the end of our society—this absolute wonder of a nation—based on such simplicity; liberty and the preservation of man’s freedom.         

Vets march on Washington, roll into WWII memorial, protest outside White House

Veterans marched on Sunday in Washington in protest of the partial government shutdown that has kept them and other Americans from visiting war memorials across the country, with support from several star conservatives.
“This is the people's memorial,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told a crowd of several hundred gathered near the WWII Memorial on the closed National Mall, which has become a national symbol of the shutdown and the country’s response. “Simple question: Why is the federal government spending money to keep veterans out of the memorial? Why did they spend money to keep people out of Mount Vernon, Mount Rushmore? Our veterans should be above political games.”
Veterans, including many in wheelchairs, took down police barricades and entered the memorial at about midday as others took the protest to the edge of the White House South Lawn.
“Today somebody’s wife [or] husband is dead in Afghanistan. Is somebody going to pay her husband [or] his wife or their children?” one protester shouted at the White House, referring to the partial shutdown cutting off benefits for the survivors of military personnel.
Some of the metal barricades were carried the roughly half-mile walk from the memorial to the White House, where they were left near the fence in front of Pennsylvania Avenue.
A man was arrested at the event in connection with bringing at least one gun in a bag.
A witness named Jacob Reed told Fox News the man was standing in line to talk to Washington Republican Rep. David G. Reichert.
Reed said a police officer asked the man what he was doing, then asked him to take his bag off his back. The man complied and said the bag contained a bunch of firearms, at which point he was handcuffed and taken into custody.
Cruz was joined by 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, on a gray, rainy day in the nation’s capital.
“Veterans have proven they are not timid. And we will not be timid in calling out anybody that uses the military as pawns,” Palin told the crowd assembled at the Million Vet March on Memorials. “We can only be America, home of the free, if we are America, home of the brave.”
Protesters shouting “U.S.A.” and “Tear down these walls” put the blame squarely on President Obama and Democratic congressional leaders.

“In a mean-spirited fit of selfish anger, Barack Obama has shut down our nation’s war memorials,” march organizers said in a press release. “And he has declared open war on our honored veterans. The World War II memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, Obama has shut them all down to force his will on the House of Representatives and, frankly, to get revenge on the American people who oppose ObamaCare and his other naked power grabs.”

Just how much does HealthCare.gov cost?

Government officials deny the price tag on the troubled ObamaCare website is as big as $634 million, as widely reported on Thursday. Nonetheless, a close look at the cost of HealthCare.gov and the overall architecture of this giant federal program reveals no real bargain for the American taxpayer.
"What a train wreck. How can we tax people for not buying a product from a website that doesn't work?" Speaker of the House John Boehner demanded on Wednesday, as report after report indicated that the software problems experienced by the online portal were nowhere near being resolved. Computer experts who spoke with FoxNews.com this week said bad code and a lack of testing could be the culprit, though more complicated problems could mean issues for months to come.

Allen West: Obama is a Spoiled Brat, Don't Reward Bad Behavior

In simply Southern terms, Allen West defined President Obama as a “spoiled brat child.”
The former Florida Representative said America has given Obama everything he wanted, during an interview on the "The Steve Malzberg Show” show Thursday:

“We gave him a state senator position in Chicago, we gave him a U.S. Senate position out of the state of Illinois, unproven, untested, no resume, we gave him the presidency — twice. So if you continue to reward bad behavior, you're going to get more of that bad behavior."

The majority of Americans continue to accuse Republicans for the nearly-two-week-long government shutdown. However, it is the President who seems to be immalleable. So much for Hope, Change and Progress.

The Senate will return to work Sunday and attempt to find another way to end the partial shutdown of government services and reach an agreement on the nation's borrowing limit before an October 17 deadline after Democrats rejected a proposal by Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins that had bipartisan support.
Leaders of the Democratic-led Senate rejected the proposal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling Saturday before heading down Pennsylvania Avenue to meet with President Obama at the White House.
Whether Senate Democrats will try to revive the proposal was unclear. They left the 75-minute meeting without talking to reporters. Sen. Collins appeared hopeful that Democrats may be open to reviving the plan.
"Despite [Senate Majority Leader] Senator Harry Reid's unfortunate dismissal of the 6-point plan, …. it continues to attract bipartisan support,” Collins said. “Six Senate Republicans and six Senate Democrats met twice today to discuss how we could move forward with the plan or some version of it. These meetings were constructive and give me hope that a bipartisan solution … is within our reach."
Reid rejected the plan  -- which calls for funding the government for six months and increasing the federal debt limit through January -- purportedly, in part, because the spending level of $967 billion next year was too low, despite it providing more flexibility in administering the federal budget cuts under sequester.
Collins’ plan also calls for a two-year delay on ObamaCare's medical device tax and requires income verification for Americans seeking subsidies for ObamaCare.
“Susan Collins  is one of my favorite senators, Democrat or Republican,” Reid said. “I appreciate her effort, as always, to find a consensus. But the plan that she suggested … is not going to any place at this stage.”
The upper chamber also failed the get the necessary 60 votes on a bill to increase the debt limit through 2014 that was “clean” of Republican demands for spending cuts or changes to ObamaCare.
In the Republican-controlled House, negotiations ended abruptly when Republicans refused to let Democrats vote on a bill to reopen the government, which resulted in an exchange between a staffer from each party.
“They amended the rules so only Majority Leader Eric Cantor can put something on the floor to open the government,” said Maryland Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer, the House minority whip.
Earlier in the day, House Speaker John Boehner told his caucus in a closed-door meeting that he and the president still have no deal.
"The Senate needs to hold tough," Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., said Boehner told House GOP lawmakers. "The president now isn't negotiating with us."
The White House rejected a House plan to open the government for just six weeks.
The partial government shutdown kicked in Oct. 1, after lawmakers failed to reach a temporary spending bill. And the federal government is projected to miss the debt ceiling deadline on Thursday unless Congress increases the federal government’s borrowing limit.
Still, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are keeping an open dialogue, which appears to show the best opportunity to resolve the fiscal crisis is now in the upper chamber.
"The only thing that's happening right now is Sen. Reid and Sen. McConnell are talking,” said Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn. “And I view that as progress.”
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said early Saturday: “Congress must do its job and raise the debt limit to pay the bills we have incurred and avoid default. It is unfortunate that the common sense, clean debt limit increase proposed by Senate Democrats was refused. … This bill would have taken the threat of default off the table.”

Conservative website vows to 'unmask leftists in the media'

leftists in the media'

Published October 12, 2013

FoxNews.com

FILE: Oct. 10, 2013: The Rev. Al Sharpton receiving a citation from the Philadelphia City Council, at City Hall in Philadelphia, Pa.AP

A California conservative group is launching a bare-knuckle campaign to expose the so-called liberal media and its advertisers -- vowing to knock down the highest-profile players and “unmask leftists in the media.”
“The media must be destroyed where they stand,” Truth Revolt, a new project by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, said Sunday before launching a website. “That is our mission.”
To be sure, its first target was MSNBC talk-show host Al Sharpton and major advertiser Ritz Crackers -- an opening flurry followed by at least 15 Sharpton-related stories over roughly the past week.
However, the attack on Ritz, sold in the United States under the Nabisco label and owned by parent company Mondelēz International, has resulted in some criticism among conservatives about a potential job-killing strategy in a slow-growing economy.
Horowitz has hired Breitbart News editor at large Ben Shapiro -- author, Harvard Law School graduate and a well-known voice of the young conservative movement.
The project has been branded as the conservative response to the George Soros-back Media Matters of America, which has used similar tactics to attack members of the so-called “right wing media.”
Horowitz, Shapiro and others also appear eager to take the fight beyond network TV.
“TruthRevolt understands that all politics is local, and therefore looks to fight leftist propaganda at the local level, monitoring local newspapers, television and radio,” according to the website. “TruthRevolt also seeks to stop the left dead in its tracks when it comes to training the next generation, our college campuses.
Exactly who is backing the entire Los Angeles-based Horowitz operation is unclear since the foundation is a 501 (c) 3 charity, which does not require it to disclose contributors on IRS filings.
However, the foundation reported a total of $5.5 million in contributions in 2011, the most recent available year.
The foundation -- whose operations include the project Jihad Watch and which puts out publications and hosts a variety of salons with high-profile conservatives -- also reported $6.4 million in total revenue in 2011, including $914,293 from programming.
Horowitz started the group in 1988 under the name the Center for the Study of Popular Culture to “establish a conservative presence in Hollywood and show how popular culture had become a political battleground.” The name was change in 2006 to the foundation.
Horowitz could not be reached for comment despite several attempts.
However, Shapiro recently told The Daily Beast that boycotts like the ones aimed at Sharpton and Ritz are just the beginning.
“Politics is a hard-nosed game, and the right has been playing Marquess of Queensbury rules for a long time on this,” he told the news website.

Detroit, Obama Town

Detroit, the town where Obama got his start in politics?

Judge Judy: 'Government is there to serve us, not the other way around'

Popular television judge Judy Sheindlin – better known as “Judge Judy” – told Megyn Kelly Friday on "The Kelly File" that “government is there to serve us. Not the other way around."
Judge Judy didn’t stop there, also questioning whether the welfare state has allowed people to become too dependent on government.
“What we’ve done to a whole group of people is say, ‘not to worry, if you can’t take care of yourself, we’ll take care of you,’” she said.
At the end of her chat with Kelly, her self-proclaimed "number one fan," Judge Judy wondered if today’s children are too often told that they’re special.
“It gives young people a false sense of reality,” she said. “It creates mediocrity. It stops people from wanting to be better.”

Cruz Calls Out Hecklers at Values Voter Summit

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz effectively dealt with a small group of hecklers who tried to shout him down during his speech Friday at the Values Voter Summit

The shouting started after Cruz had launched into an attack against "that trainwreck, that disaster, that nightmare that is Obamacare."

"It seems that President Obama's paid political operatives are out in force today," Cruz said.

Urgent: Do You Support Sen. Ted Cruz's Efforts to Defund Obamacare? Vote Here.

The smattering of catcalls continued throughout his speech. "I'm curious, is anybody left at the Organizing for America headquarters? Cruz asked at another point, referring to Obama's political action committee.

"I'm actually glad that the president's whole political staff is here instead of actually doing mischief in the country."

The hecklers were eventually hustled out of the room at Washington's Omni Shoreham Hotel.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/cruz-obama-hecklers/2013/10/11/id/530625?ns_mail_uid=5689450&ns_mail_job=1541365_10112013&promo_code=1528C-1#ixzz2hSjntt9z
Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!

Peter Roff Who’s Checking the Fact Checkers?

"Facts," someone once said, "are stubborn things." If there is one thing that is gnawing the marrow out of political coverage in America today, it's the so-called "fact checkers" whom editors of some of the nation's most prestigious publications have appointed to evaluate the veracity of statements made by candidates for public office.
According to the American Heritage dictionary, the definition of "fact" is: 1) Knowledge or information based on real occurrences; 2) Something demonstrated to exist or known to have existed; or 3) A thing that has been done, especially a crime. The last is especially interesting since the way fact-checking has been employed in the last two election cycles is as near to a crime as a journalist can commit.
Now comes a study from the George Mason University Center for Media and Public Affairs that demonstrates empirically that PolitiFact.org, one of the nation's leading "fact checkers," finds that Republicans are dishonest in their claims three times as often as Democrats. "PolitiFact.com has rated Republican claims as false three times as often as Democratic claims during President Obama's second term," the Center said in a release, "despite controversies over Obama administration statements on Benghazi, the IRS and the AP."
[Check out our editorial cartoons on President Obama.]
"Republicans see a credibility gap in the Obama Administration," said Dr. Robert S. Lichter, head of the Center for Media and Public Affairs. "PolitiFact rates Republicans as the less credible party."
As the first person to empirically demonstrate the liberal, pro-Democrat bias in the Washington press corps, Lichter's analysis is worth further study and comment.  His study – and in the interests of full disclosure, he was once a professor of mine at the George Washington University  - "examined 100 statements involving factual claims by Democrats (46 claims) and Republicans (54 claims), which were fact-checked by PolitiFact.com during the four month period from the start of President Obama's second term on January 20 through May 22, 2013." The conclusion: Republicans lie more.
Or do they? As the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto has consistently reported, the fact checking business often – too often for anyone's good – turns on matters of opinion rather than matters of "fact." One recent example that drives the point home is the Washington Post's recent fact check that gave President Barack Obama "four Pinocchios" for asserting that he had, in fact, called what happened in Benghazi an act of "terrorism."
According to the Post's Glenn Kessler, Obama did in fact refer to it the next day in a Rose Garden address as an "act of terror," but did not call it "terrorism." Is this a distinction without a difference? Hardly, at least as far as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney might be concerned. It will be a long time before anyone forgets how the second presidential debate turned into a tag team match with Obama and CNN's Candy Crowley both explaining to the mystified Republican that Romney was, in fact, wrong when he accused the president of not having called the Benghazi attack a terrorist incident.
[See a collection of editorial Cartoons on Benghazi.]
The fact that, as the Lichter study shows, "A majority of Democratic statements (54 percent) were rated as mostly or entirely true, compared to only 18 percent of Republican statements," probably has more to do with how the statements were picked and the subjective bias of the fact checker involved than anything remotely empirical. Likewise, the fact that "a majority of Republican statements (52 percent) were rated as mostly or entirely false, compared to only 24 percent of Democratic statements" probably has more to do with spinning stories than it does with evaluating statements.
There is a "truth gap" in Washington, but it doesn't exist along the lines the fact checkers would have you think. It was Obama who said you could keep the health care you had if you liked it, even if Obamacare became law. It was Obama who said the Citizens United decision would open the floodgates of foreign money into U.S. campaigns. It was Obama who said Benghazi happened because of a YouTube video. It was Obama's IRS that denied conservative political groups had been singled out for special scrutiny. And it was Obama who promised that taxes would not go up for any American making less than $250,000 per year.
All of these statements and plenty more are demonstrably false, though some people still pretend there is truth in them. As the Lichter study demonstrates, it's not so much fact checkers that are needed as it is fact checkers to check the facts being checked.

PolitiFact Bias

Hoystory: "Fact checking frauds"

Self-described "reformed journalist" Matthew Hoy's disgust with PolitiFact only occasionally bubbles over into blog posts at his blog, Hoystory, but this week we have a double helping.

Hoy starts out by pulling the rug out from under PolitiFact's "Pants on Fire" rating of Jeb Hensarling's claim that Congress leaves itself as the only ones not receiving subsidies on the "Obamacare" exchanges.

Hoy:

The point Hensarling was making, which is obvious to anyone with half a brain (which explains Politifraud’s problem), was not that no one was getting subisides, but that Congressional staffers, many of whom make north of $100,000 a year, would be the only ones at that income level who get subsidies from the federal government.

And Hoy continues by pointing out PolitiFact's failure to apply its own standards consistently in rating "False" an obvious use of hyperbole, this time when conservative bloggers mocked the Obama administration for closing the ocean as a result of the partial government shutdown:

In their effort to protect their lord and savior, Barack Obama, from himself, Politifarce conveniently disregarded two of  their own rules on what statements deserve their attention:

In deciding which statements to check, we ask ourselves these questions:

• Is the statement rooted in a fact that is verifiable? We don’t check opinions, and we recognize that in the world of speechmaking and political rhetoric, there is license for hyperbole.
  
• Would a typical person hear or read the statement and wonder: Is that true?

Visit Hoy's Hoystory blog for the whole takedown, and let this serve as a reminder that PolitiFact's problems are legion. We don't have the hours in the day to expose them all, so we're grateful to people like Hoy who take the time to expose PolitiFact's errors and distortions.

AP Poll: Obama Approval Plummets to 37

Radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh attacked survey results released on Wednesday that blamed Republicans for the federal shutdown while burying the news that President Barack Obama's approval ratings had plunged to 37 percent among Americans surveyed.

"The point is, once again, there is no media, there is no news," the conservative host said, according to a transcript of his afternoon program. "This is the Democrat Party with activists disguised as journalists. Thirty-seven percent approval.

"And it's not some outlier poll," Limbaugh continued. "You have to read over halfway down into that story to learn that. I haven't seen it anywhere else. It's been on AP, but have you seen anybody else pick that up? It's just classic."

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The article was on the Associated Press-GfK survey of 1,227 probable voters conducted Oct. 3-7, with a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.

"Americans are holding Republicans primarily responsible for the partial government shutdown as public esteem sinks for all players in the impasse, President Barack Obama among them, according to a new poll," the report began. "It's a struggle with no heroes."

The article then disclosed that 62 percent of respondents "mainly blamed Republicans for the shutdown" and that "the poll found that the tea party is more than a gang of malcontents in the political landscape, as its supporters in Congress have been portrayed by Democrats.

"Rather, it's a sizable — and divisive — force among Republicans," the AP report said.

But in the seventh paragraph appears the first — and only — reference to Obama's new approval ratings: "Most Americans disapprove of the way Obama is handling his job, the poll suggests, with 53 percent unhappy with his performance and 37 percent approving of it.

"Congress is scraping rock bottom, with a ghastly approval rating of 5 percent."

The report was published by such mainstream media outlets as The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and National Public Radio.

The information appeared in the seventh paragraph of The Huffington Post's story and in the eighth paragraph of those published in The Washington Post and on NPR.

Limbaugh charged that such coverage was wrong about what was actually occurring in Washington.

"If you are a conservative media guy inside the Beltway, you're convinced that Obama's winning everything," he said. "If you're a conservative media guy inside the Beltway and you're subjected to that narrative each and every day, you think the Republicans are really getting shellacked. You think they're taking it on the chin.

"It's the exact opposite," Limbaugh said. "It's the exact opposite of what's happening outside the Beltway."

"The president's at 37 percent. The shutdown is going on. Now we learn that five military families were insulted profoundly with the way the deaths of their service-member relatives were treated.

"It is obvious that this administration is acting purposely to inconvenience and to harm people it considers its political enemies," Limbaugh said.

Further, Limbaugh contrasted the coverage of Obama's new 37 percent rating with coverage by Wolf Blitzer of CNN of its poll on March 13, 2006, when Republican President George W. Bush's rating hit a new low of 36 percent.

"The president's job-approval rating has taken a downward turn again, falling to only 36 percent," the Blitzer excerpt began, according to the Limbaugh transcript. "This represents his lowest rating ever in the CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll … The president's poll numbers are pretty bad, pretty awful right now, rock bottom …"

"Today, Barack Obama's approval number's at 37 percent, and they are not talking about it," Limbaugh said Wednesday. "The AP story in which that poll result is announced has the following headline: "Poll: GOP Gets the Blame in Shutdown." They have a poll that shows that 71 percent of the American people are blaming the Republicans for the shutdown.

"In the same poll, 50 percent are blaming the Democrats for something, but the media says: ''Look, 20 percent spread. Boy, the Republicans are really taking it on the chin for the government shutdown.' But the poll does not say people are upset with the shutdown.

"It's journalistic malpractice," Limbaugh concluded, "except it's not — because it's not journalism."

Among other findings, the AP poll showed that more than 4 in 10 Republicans identified with the tea party and were more apt than other Republicans to insist that their leaders hold firm in the standoff over reopening government and avoiding a default of the nation's debt in coming weeks.
Indeed, the poll showed that everyone making headlines in the dispute has earned poor marks for their trouble, whether Democrat Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, or Republican John Boehner, the House speaker, both with favorability ratings of 18 percent.
And much of the country draws a blank on Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas despite his 21-hour Senate speech before the shutdown. Only half of the poll respondents were familiar enough with him to register an opinion. Among those who did, 32 percent viewed him unfavorably, 16 percent favorably.
Other findings in the AP Poll:

• Sixty-eight percent said the shutdown is a major problem for the country, including majorities of Republicans (58 percent), Democrats (82 percent) and independents (57 percent).
• Fifty-two percent said Obama is not doing enough to cooperate with Republicans to end the shutdown; 63 percent say Republicans aren't doing enough to cooperate with him.
• Republicans are split on just how much cooperation they want. Among those who do not back the tea party, fully 48 percent say their party should be doing more with Obama to find a solution. But only 15 percent of tea-party Republicans want that outreach. The vast majority of them say GOP leaders are doing what they should with the president, or should do even less with him.
• People seem conflicted or confused about the showdown over the debt limit. Six in 10 predict an economic crisis if the government's ability to borrow isn't renewed later this month with an increase in the debt limit — an expectation widely shared by economists. Yet only 30 percent say they support raising the limit; 46 percent were neutral on the question.
• More than 4 in 5 poll respondents felt no personal impact from the shutdown. For those who did, thwarted vacations to national parks, difficulty getting work done without federal contacts at their desks, and hitches in government benefits were among the complaints.

"So frustrating," Martha Blair, 71, of Kerrville, Texas, said of the fiscal paralysis as her scheduled national parks vacation sits in limbo. "Somebody needs to jerk those guys together to get a solution, instead of just saying no."

Blair's nine-day trip to national parks with a tour group won't happen if the parks are still closed next month. "I'm concerned," she said, "but it seems kind of trivial to people who are being shut out of work."
In Mount Prospect, Ill., Barbara Olpinski, 51, a Republican who blames Obama and both parties for the shutdown, said her family is already seeing an impact and that will worsen if the impasse goes on. She's an in-home elderly-care director, her daughter is a physician's assistant at a rural clinic that treats patients who rely on government coverage, and her husband is a doctor who can't get flu vaccines for patients on public assistance because deliveries have stopped.
"People don't know how they are going to pay for things, and what will be covered," she said. "Everybody is kind of like holding their wallets."

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