Clinton on Sept. 10, 2001: I could have killed bin Laden but 'I didn't'

Former President Bill Clinton, mere hours before the 9/11 terror attack, openly acknowledged that he turned down a chance to kill Usama bin Laden, according to a newly released recording. 
The former president can be heard admitting this in a speech to Australian business leaders on Sept. 10, 2001. 
Until now, Clinton's eerie words had not been made public. But a businessman who had access to the nearly 13-year-old recording handed it over to Sky News Australia, which broadcast it in a report Monday. 
"I'm just saying, you know, if I were Usama bin Laden -- he's a very smart guy, I've spent a lot of time thinking about him -- and I nearly got him once," Clinton said on the recording. 
"I nearly got him. And I could have killed him, but I would have to destroy a little town called Kandahar in Afghanistan and kill 300 innocent women and children, and then I would have been no better than him." 
"And so I didn't do it," he added. 
Clinton had recently left office at the time of the speech. 
This is not the first time that the notion was raised that the Clinton administration had the opportunity to detain or even kill bin Laden, but chose not to. Leading up to the final report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, otherwise known as the 9/11 Report, there were conflicting testimonies and information about whether the administration had taken Al Qaeda threats seriously and had turned down a chance to have bin Laden extradited to the U.S. on terrorism charges. 
In the end, the 9/11 panel found that there were several missed opportunities to go after bin Laden and Al Qaeda, including a point in which the Central Intelligence Agency had tracked bin Laden to a hunting camp in Afghanistan in 1999.  The Clinton administration declined to launch an attack for fear of hitting officials from the United Arab Emirates, who were at the camp on a hunting trip.

Unaccompanied illegal immigrant kids exposed federal agents to lice, scabies, tuberculosis and chicken pox, report says

But?

Unaccompanied illegal immigrant children with communicable diseases have given or exposed federal agents to lice, scabies, tuberculosis and chicken pox, according to a report issued Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General.
In two cases, the children of a border patrol agent got chicken pox contracted from their parents’ exposure to unaccompanied children with chicken pox, according to the report on conditions of detention centers and border facilities.
The report, the first in a series, is based on 87 unannounced visits to 63 detention centers being used to house unaccompanied alien children (UAC) in Texas, Arizona and California during July 1-16.
“Many UAC and family units require treatment for communicable diseases, including respiratory illnesses, tuberculosis, chicken pox, and scabies,” said the memorandum summarizing the report.
“UAC and family unit illnesses and unfamiliarity with bathroom facilities resulted in unsanitary conditions and exposure to human waste in some holding facilities.
“DHS employees reported exposure to communicable diseases and becoming sick on duty. For example, during a recent site visit to the Del Rio USBP Station and Del Rio Port of Entry, CBP personnel reported contracting scabies, lice, and chicken pox.
“Two CBP Officers reported that their children were diagnosed with chicken pox within days of the CBP Officers' contact with a UAC who had chicken pox. In addition, USBP personnel at the Clint Station and Santa Teresa Station reported that they were potentially exposed to tuberculosis.”
Sources previously told FoxNews.com of multiple instances in which Border Patrol agents were exposed to tuberculosis—and one instance in which an agent contracted a severe case of tuberculosis from illegal immigrants in his care.
Other sources told FoxNews.com that swine flu has been found at several detention centers in Texas.
According to the OIG report, one of the detention centers being used to house unaccompanied children did not have a trained medical tech on site and four did not provide detainees access to prescription medication.
OIG agents checked the sites for sanitation, availability of medical care, food services and other factors. Sites and their staff were found to be largely in compliance with rules and regulations.
The memo also reveals that DHS OIG is investigating a June 11 complaint to DHS Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and DHS OIG filed by the ACLU on behalf of 116 unaccompanied alien children.
The office currently is investigating 16 of those allegations while separate offices are investigating the others.
During their detention site visits, OIG agents did not observe misconduct or inappropriate conduct by DHS employees nor did they receive new complaints from any of the randomly interviewed unaccompanied children.
The OIG also found that the data system used by CBP to comply with the required documentation of the arrests and care and release of unaccompanied children was unreliable because of frequent system outages causing inconsistent reporting.
CBP’s data system is supposed to be used to track compliance with guidelines including meal times per day, phone usage, detainee medical conditions and detainee arrests and releases from CBP custody. 
OIG recommended Immigration and Customs Enforcement  find the resources needed to fix the system.

Good Plan Joke

House approves lawsuit against Obama over alleged abuse of executive power

 Who me ????

The House on Wednesday approved a highly contentious lawsuit against President Obama over his alleged abuse of executive power, teeing up an election-year legal battle sure to spill onto the midterm campaign trail.
The House backed the lawsuit resolution on a vote of 225-201, with all Democrats opposed.
Republicans say the lawsuit is necessary to keep the president in constitutional check, after he allegedly exceeded his authority with unilateral changes to the Affordable Care Act.
Democrats branded the effort a political charade aimed at stirring up GOP voters for this fall's congressional elections. They also said it's an effort by top Republicans to mollify conservatives who want Obama to be impeached -- something House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he has no plans to do.
“We have no plans to impeach the president. We have no future plans. Listen, it's all a scam, started by Democrats at the White House,” Boehner said Tuesday.
Following the vote, National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Greg Walden issued  a statement saying, “President Obama swore an oath to uphold the Constitution—an oath he has not fully lived up to. Today, the House took an important step to defend the Constitution and hold the president accountable.”
White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer sent an email saying, “The House of Representatives just took a vote -- and it wasn't to raise the minimum wage, put in place equal pay, create jobs, or reform our broken immigration system.
Instead, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives just voted to sue the President for using his executive authority. This lawsuit will waste valuable time and potentially millions of taxpayer dollars.”
Republicans said their planned legal action was warranted because, they argue, Obama has violated his constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws. They say that instead, he has enforced laws as he wants to, dangerously shifting power to the presidency from Congress.
"The people's representatives will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness of this president," said Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo. "We will do whatever it takes to hold him and future occupants of the Oval Office accountable."
Democrats dismissed the proposed lawsuit as a legally groundless exercise that could end up costing taxpayers millions of dollars in legal fees and other expenses. But they've tried linking the suit to impeachment talk by conservatives like former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and turning it into a fundraising device.
Democrats have sent pleas for contributions to their supporters warning that the GOP is out to impeach Obama and ruin his presidency. Using that pitch, Democrats raised $1 million Monday, according to the head of the House Democratic campaign organization, Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y.
The lawsuit will focus on how Obama has carried out his health care overhaul.
Republicans say Obama has illegally changed the law using executive actions. The White House and Democrats say he's acted legally and within the latitude he's empowered to use as chief executive.
In particular, Republicans have objected that Obama has twice delayed the law's so-called employer mandate, which he did under pressure from business groups. The provision requires companies with 50 or more employees working at least 30 hours weekly to offer health care coverage or pay fines, while businesses with fewer than 50 workers are exempt.
The requirement was initially to take effect this year. Now, companies with 50 to 99 employees have until 2016 to comply, while bigger companies have until next year.
Republicans say there are other examples of Obama exceeding his powers. These include failing to notify Congress in advance when he traded five Taliban members held at the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for the captive Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, and unilaterally preventing the deportation of some children who illegally immigrated to the U.S.
They also point to Obama's comments in January that 2014 would be a "year of action" to implement his priorities, which he said he would do "with or without Congress" by using his "pen and the phone."
"Such a shift in power should alarm members of both political parties because it threatens the very institution of the Congress," said a GOP-written report accompanying the legislation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Israel calls up 16,000 reservists, vows to investigate strike on UN school in Gaza

Israel's military announced Thursday that it had called up 16,000 reservists to potentially join its ongoing offensive against Hamas militants in Gaza. 
The call-up, which brings the total number of troops called up by Israel to 86,000, could signal a potential widening of Operation Protective Edge, which began July 8 as an effort to halt rocket attacks by Hamas against southern Israel and destroy tunnels used by Hamas militants to cross from Gaza into Israel for the purpose of attacking soldiers and civilians. 
A lasting cease-fire in the region appears no nearer. The Associated Press reported that Egyptian officials met Wednesday with an Israeli envoy about Israel's conditions for a cease-fire, including disarming Hamas, according to a high-ranking Egyptian security official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to discuss the delicate diplomatic efforts.
The Times of Israel reported that Egypt is refusing to host a Palestinian delegation unless Hamas ceases fire. For its part, Hamas has said it will only halt fire once it receives guarantees that a seven-year-old Gaza border blockade by Israel and Egypt will be lifted. Meanwhile, The Times of Israel reported that Israeli's Security Cabinet met Wednesday and approved ongoing strikes against Hamas. 
The troop announcement also came as Israel's military said it would investigate whether tank shells struck a United Nations-run school in a Gaza refugee camp, an event that drew condemnation from the U.S. and the U.N. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told the BBC that Israel would issue an apology if it determined that fire from its troops struck the school. 
"We have a policy; we don't target civilians," Regev told the BBC, before adding "It's not clear to us that it was our fire, but we know for a fact there was hostile fire on our people from the vicinity of the school."
Pierre Kraehenbuehl, chief of the U.N. aid agency for Palestinian refugees, told the Associated Press that Israel must try harder to ensure that civilians are not hurt, especially in Gaza, where 1.7 million people are squeezed into a small coastal territory. His agency has opened 80 of its schools to more than 200,000 Palestinians fleeing the violence.
"What maybe the world forgets ... is that the people of Gaza have nowhere to go," he said. "So when the fighting starts and they move, it is not as if they can cross a border to somewhere." 
Israel has accused Hamas of using residents of Gaza as human shields by launching rockets from the territory's most densely populated cities. 
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, using somewhat less diplomatic language that Kraehenbuehl, called the school shelling "outrageous" and "unjustifiable," and demanded an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, adding, "Nothing is more shameful than attacking sleeping children."
Gaza health authorities say at least 16 people were killed in the school attack and 1,360 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the offensive, though it is unclear how many were civilians and how many were Hamas militants. 56 Israeli soldiers have died since the start of the offensive, as well as two Israeli civilians and a Thai worker.  
On Wednesday, White House spokesman Eric Schutlz told reporters the Obama administration expected a "full, prompt, and thorough investigation" into the shelling, but stopped short of directly blaming Israel. 
"We are extremely concerned that the thousands of internally displaced Palestinians, who have been called on by the Israeli military to evacuate their homes, are not safe in these UN-designated shelters in Gaza," Schultz told reporters. "We also condemn those responsible for hiding weapons in the United Nations facilities in Gaza. All of these actions violate the international understanding of the UN’s neutrality."
At the State Department, spokeswoman Marie Harf described a purported leaked transcript of a weekend call between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as "complete crap," claiming that the intention of the leak to hurt the U.S.-Israeli relationship.
"I don't know toward what end. I don't know who did it," she said. "But I don't know what other conclusion you can draw from that." Both the U.S. and Israeli government deny the authenticity of the transcript, which came amid stinging reports in some Israeli media outlets accusing Kerry of aligning himself too closely to Hamas and being dismissive of Israeli complaints. 

Colorado

Head of Benghazi probe says no witnesses off limits, including Clinton

The Republican head of the Benghazi Select Committee warned Tuesday that no witnesses would be off limits in its upcoming probe and that he would consider going to court, if necessary, to compel testimony.
"I can't skip over a witness that I think we ought to talk to simply because there is an assertion of either privilege or immunity,"Chairman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina told Fox News in an exclusive interview.
He said that while he has received good cooperation to date, and the issue had not yet arisen, "if you mean to say that 'not only can they not talk, they don't have to come,' you have to litigate that."
Gowdy said the investigation will be driven by facts, characterizing as strongly bi-partisan his work with the committee's ranking Democrat, Elijah Cummings of Maryland, to review documents and identify witnesses.
He also said he anticipates the first public hearing will be held in September and will focus on the State Department investigation into the 2012 attack and whether its recommendations have been implemented.
Asked whether he wants Hillary Clinton to testify, Gowdy said, "I want everyone who has access to relevant information, and it is, I think, impossible to argue that the secretary of State at the time would not have access to relevant information..."
Gowdy said he was not trying to single out any particular witness. He insisted he was just as interested in the former acting director of the CIA, Michael Morell, who was accused of misleading Congress over the flawed “talking points” that blamed a protest for the assault, as he was in the unnamed CIA public information officer who made a significant edit of the points.
"Either talk to all of them," Gowdy said, "Or concede you are not interested in getting all the facts."
Gowdy also said he hoped former CIA Director David Petraeus, who remains under FBI investigation nearly two years after he resigned, would participate voluntarily.
"This is going to be serious, fact-centric. There are not going to be leaks. There are not going to be selective releases,” he said. “Hopefully, if the investigation is still ongoing, he (Petraeus) may conclude, he has an absolute right to conclude, that he is still going to participate."
Asked if the scope would extend to other current and former government and Congressional figures, including presidential adviser Ben Rhodes, former UN ambassador Susan Rice, and D.C.consulting group Beacon Global Strategies, Gowdy replied, "how can I run an investigation and at the end say that it was thorough and complete and fact-centric and fair if I began to rule out people that we're going to talk to?”
Beacon Global Strategies members include Clinton's principal gatekeeper, Philippe Reines, her former adviser for political and military affairs at State, Andrew Shapiro, the former chief of staff to Leon Panetta at CIA and the defense department, Jeremy Bash, as well as Michael Allen, the former staff director for the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee that investigated Benghazi.
The online bios of its founders and managing directors suggest no group knows more about the terrorist attack and the Obama administration’s response as well as having a vested interested in the scandal’s impact on Clinton’s presidential ambitions.
Gowdy said the fact-driven approach has derailed any attempts to minimize the importance of the committee's work. "The initial efforts to marginalize us as just a political exercise dedicated to drumming up the base, those efforts were not successful...Democrats are not only cooperating. They are suggesting, in some instances, other ideas for hearings. "
While the committee, which now stands at 13 staff but should reach its target of 20 by September, is focused on a detailed timeline to identify gaps in the facts, Gowdy said he believes closed or private depositions of witnesses as opposed to open hearings would provide the most information.
"Five minutes has proven time and time again to be an inadequate amount of time to get to the truth,"Gowdy explained. "I'm certainly not good enough in five minutes to unlock all the mysteries in the world. I might not be doing five hours but I would rather use whatever investigatory tool allows me the most amount of time with a witness or potential witness and I think that will be depositions as opposed to public hearings."
On Tuesday, the committee members met behind closed doors with the victims’ relatives including Pat Smith, the mother of foreign service officer Sean Smith.
"It's the one thing that I wanted was this investigation to get the answers,” Smith said. “And the people say that they're gonna do their best so this is what I'm hoping for."

Passions heated over proposed EPA rule on plant emissions

As a part of its controversial proposed rule to limit carbon emissions from existing power plants, the EPA held simultaneous public comment sessions in Washington, Atlanta and Denver Tuesday. The comments, designed to help shape the formulation of the final rule, may have complicated that task, given the often diametrically opposed opinions expressed.
At the Washington event, one of the speakers, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., told the panel, "The planet is running a fever and there are no emergency rooms."
His admonition to address the urgent climate crisis contrasted with satellite data that shows no global surface warming for 17 years and 10 months. That, in turn, is at odds with NASA's findings that 2013 tied as the seventh warmest year since 1880.
Also at the Washington event, Anne Burchard of the Sierra Club warned climate change-induced extreme weather was already upon us. "We no longer need storms or hurricanes to produce flooding - it is becoming an everyday occurrence, "she said.
Contradicting her remark was NOAA data that shows tornado intensity and frequency well below normal, and other records that show the US in a hurricane drought.
The proposed EPA rule will require all power plants to limit carbon to 1,000 pounds per megawatt-hour of electricity - easily achieved with natural gas but unobtainable by present day coal plants.
Skeptics warned Tuesday the rule will kill domestic coal use, increase energy prices and force businesses to move abroad.
"Forcing energy intensive manufacturers off shore because of high energy costs accomplishes nothing environmentally and damages the domestic economy and employment, said Paul Cicio of Industrial Energy Consumers of America.
At the Denver hearing, Katharine McCormick of the Natural Resources Defense Council and a resident of Iowa, pointed to her state’s broad use of wind turbines to refute that point. "It's worth noting," she said, "that Iowa has some of cheapest electricity in the nation."
Both opponents and proponents of the rule touted carbon-conscious California as a case study for their cause.
Fred Palmer, representing Peabody Energy, a coal company,told the Washington panel, "Efficiency in California, which has been lauded by many, has been achieved by destruction with large manufacturing fleeing the state."
Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., told the panel that Palmer’s facts were wrong. "There's been erroneous testimony," she said. "California's electricity bills are 25 percent below average."
In fact, according to the Energy Information Administration, when all sectors -- residential, commercial, industrial and transportation -- are taken together, California's average of 13.60 cents per kilowatt hour is higher than the national average of 10.21 cents per kilowatt hour.
The back and forth will continue until Oct 16, the deadline for written comments. The EPA will release the final rule next year.