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"The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature." With this citation from Madison, Cong. Walter Jones is calling for a debate and decision on whether America should go to war in Syria and Iraq, when Congress reconvenes after Nov. 4. Last week's events make Jones' request a national imperative. For former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says we are heading into a "30-year war" against the Islamic State and the emerging threats in Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, Libya and elsewhere. He faults Obama for not bombing Syria when...

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s memoir has a release date of next Tuesday, but it may make headlines for the next several days. According to Taegan Goddard at Political Wire, Worthy Fights blames the Obama administration for allowing Iraq to collapse, thanks to a political desire to pull out trumping the security needs that should have had us maintain our presence and exert our influence to keep Sunnis and Shi’ites working together: Panetta writes that “our side viewed the White House as so eager to rid itself of Iraq that it was willing to withdraw rather than lock in...

Full Title: Leon Panetta Violated NDAA, Changed Benghazi Sp Forces Mission Without Chris Stevens MANDATED Approval Gregory Hicks was the Deputy Chief of Mission on the ground in Tripoli the night of September 11, 2012 when our Benghazicompound and the secret CIA Annex was attacked. In January 2014, Hicks hit back against those blaming Ambassador Chris Stevens for his own death. He refers to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report, saying that the Committee interviewed him professionally and thoroughly, but the information below, on why Chris Stevens was forced to refuse military protection did not make it into the...

Last week the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued its report on the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya. The report concluded that the attack, which resulted in the murder of four Americans, was "preventable." Some have been suggesting that the blame for this tragedy lies at least partly with Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in the attack. This is untrue: The blame lies entirely with Washington. The report states that retired Gen. Carter Ham, then-commander of the U.S. Africa Command (Africom) headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, twice offered to "sustain" the special forces security team in Tripoli...

Former CIA Director Leon Panetta revealed classified information at a 2011 awards ceremony attended by Zero Dark Thirty filmmaker Mark Boal, according to documents obtained by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch. The CIA allowed Boal, the screenwriter of Zero Dark Thirty, to attend a June 24, 2011 award ceremony celebrating the successful raid on Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan that May. A transcript of Panetta’s speech that night obtained by Judicial Watch is labeled “top secret,” and significant portions of it are redacted. At the conclusion his speech, Panetta told the audience, “You have made me proud...

Newly declassified documents show that former CIA Director Leon Panetta revealed secret information to "Zero Dark Thirty" scriptwriter Mark Boal, who was allowed to attend Panetta's speech at CIA headquarters marking the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

f the HealthCare.gov site cannot be fixed by the end of November, Leon Panetta said President Obama "may very well have to accept some changes in order to make sure that we can continue to implement it." Panetta, a former Congressman and top aide to President Clinton, ran both the Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Department during Mr. Obama's administration. He said that even though speedy repairs will be tough, the administration doesn't need to take down the federal website where consumers can shop for and purchase health insurance, but that they should be able to fix the system while...

NEW YORK – While the US has “implemented unprecedented sanctions and pressure on Iran, we may very well have to use military force to back up our policy,” Leon Panetta said on Thursday night. The former US defense secretary and CIA director made the remarks while addressing around 600 people at the Anti-Defamation League’s 100th annual meeting Panetta, who was receiving the ADL’s William and Naomi Gorowitz Institute Service Award, said the US needs to “maintain a healthy skepticism” when negotiating to suss out Iran’s true level of commitment to negotiations over its nuclear program. “It is the Supreme Leader

WASHINGTON — It's been a constant quandary for the Obama White House: Should the president reach out to his Republican opponents or isolate them? Should he compromise to move his agenda or try to split the GOP ranks? Carrot or stick? [BIG SNIP] Democrats continue to debate how the president should approach that process — offering concessions or lines in the sand. This week, former Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta told reporters he thought Obama should put "everything on the table," as well as do more to build relationships with Republicans......... [Neera] Tanden [president of the Center for American Progress]...

Leon Panetta served in Washington with nine presidents, starting with Lyndon Johnson. He has been a member of Congress, Office of Management and Budget director, White House chief of staff, director of the Central Intelligence Agency and secretary of defense — the last two under President Obama. He is a man who knows Washington and knows how to choose his words. So Panetta’s implicit rebuke of the president’s hands-off approach to the budget crisis at a breakfast Monday was striking. Indeed, implicit may be an understatement. Asked repeatedly whether he was being correctly understood as critical of President Obama, Panetta...

Bodansky: What If Bashar Didn't Do It? [Syria Chemical Attack] September 03, 2013 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: All right. So here's the deal. Last week, Obama reverses himself and says that he's not gonna go into Syria. Remember, they're using nerve gas. John Kerry goes out there, 1,500 people, 2,400 people, a lot of kids, nerve gas, sarin gas, got the proof.Look, I'm gonna get into all the hypocrisy.Yes, Kerry dining with Bashar back in 2009 and talking about what a great guy Bashar was. The bottom line is this administration is as incompetent as Jimmy Carter. There's only one...

THE capital is in the throes of déjà vu and preview as it plunges back into Clinton Rules, defined by a presidential aide on the hit ABC show “Scandal” as damage control that goes like this: “It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true, it’s old news.” The conservatives appearing on Benghazi-obsessed Fox News are a damage patrol with an approach that goes like this: “Lies, paranoia, subpoena, impeach, Watergate, Iran-contra.” (Though now that the I.R.S. has confessed to targeting Tea Party groups, maybe some of the paranoia is justified.) Welcome to a glorious spring weekend of accusation and...

So my vacation plans to Cyprus have been canceled. Something about the government there seizing everybody's wallet because the country is bankrupt. Another nanny state bites the dust. When will they ever learn? Never. Here in the good old USA, there are 76 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus -- folks such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, New York Rep. Charles Rangel, California Rep. Maxine Waters and Florida Rep. Alan Grayson. Sanders is the only honest one in the bunch. He comes right out and admits he's a socialist. He'll take all your stuff while telling you tales of Ethan...

There were two extraordinary disclosures in Thursday's testimony of Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey before the Senate Armed Services Committee. One is that there was no communication between them and Barack Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the seven hours of Sept. 11, 2012, when Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were attacked and murdered in Benghazi. This is a vivid contrast with those photos we've seen of the president and his leading advisers watching the video of the attack on Osama bin Laden. At a 5 p.m. meeting, when...

A new administration policy? Barack Obama disarmed the US Marines at the Inaugural parade this year. Dishonored and disarmed: Bolts are clearly missing from these Marine rifles during President Obama’s inauguration parade. This is an unmistakable insult to the honor of the Marine Corps ... It’s not the first time the Obama Administration disarmed US Marines at an event. In March 2012, US Marines were told to leave their weapons outside the tent during Leon Panetta’s speech in Afghanistan.

LANSDOWNE, Va. — Former President Bill Clinton came to the House Democratic retreat here armed with a warning: The Republicans won’t make it as easy for Democrats to win in 2014. “I think that we should assume going forward that the people who disagree with us, honestly in our approach, will not make it quite as easy to draw the contrast on the things they do and say [as] they did last time,” Clinton told House Democrats in a wide-ranging and largely informal talk that lasted nearly 45 minutes. Clinton noted he held 133 campaign events for Democrats in 2012,...

Last week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stepped down from her lofty position amidst a sycophantic outpouring of hot air as journalists and fellow politicians abandoned their roles and assumed positions as Hillary courtiers, duly attending to the bidding of their lord and mistress. This would include, but was not limited to singing praiseful odes to her ladyship, ignoring her errors, helping to cover up her mistakes, and attempting to damage the reputations of any person who refused to play along with the charade. At the center of the love-fest was the former Secretary herself, appearing before a Senate panel...

President Barack Obama was nowhere to be found the long and fatal night of September 11, 2012 when Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were assassinated in an attack on the U.S. Mission Outpost in Benghazi, Libya.  Finally, five months after the terrorist assault, the American people and the families of those brave slain Americans find out that even though live video was being streamed back to Washington, even though requests for backup had been sent, the President left it to others to deal with the issue. "He (Obama) knew generally what was deployed out there but as to...

Today is Saturday, February 9, 2013. As this is written, police in California are hunting former officer Christopher Dorner who has gone on a murderous rampage. He left behind a long “manifesto” setting out a list of perceived insults, indignities and slights going back to his childhood and threatening to kill those his disturbed mind feels to be responsible. While watching FNN this morning, a psychiatrist declared that all the evidence points to this fellow being a NARCISSIST. He offered that one of the major symptoms of narcissism is an unwarranted elevated sense of great self-worth/self-esteem. He then predicted that...

**SNIP** But Clinton’s testimony before House and Senate panels is likely to be mostly forward looking, said National security expert Rudy deLeon. “What we are expecting to hear, in the secretary’s own voice, is the plan she has to reinvigorate and enhance diplomatic security services," he said. "What we are reminded of is how delicate the security situation is, and how attentively we need to stay focused.” Will the Benghazi attack be a permanent and defining stain on Clinton’s tenure at the State Department? Former U.S. NATO Ambassador Robert Hunter does not think so. “I do not think her image...