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Top intelligence officials struggled to explain to lawmakers Thursday why their initial talking points after the Libya attack minimized the role of militant groups, putting pressure on former CIA Director David Petraeus to set the record straight in another round of closed-door hearings Friday. Lawmakers on the House and Senate intelligence committees heard testimony Thursday in private meetings with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Acting CIA Director Mike Morell. But Fox News was told there were heated exchanges on the House side, particularly over the talking points that administration officials relied on in the days after the Sept....

November 15, 2012 Romney and McCain slam Obama As President Obama spent his first post-election press conference saying that he wanted to reach across the aisle to work with Republicans, he found himself debating two former GOP presidential contenders: Mitt Romney, who blamed his defeat in part on Obama’s “gifts” to supporters, and Sen. John McCain, who pledged to block a possible nomination of Susan Rice as secretary of state. NBC’s Chuck Todd reports.

Postelection talk of "lessons learned" is often exaggerated and misleading, and so it is in 2012. A week after President Obama won re-election, two themes are dominant. First, that Mr. Obama kept his job because key elements of his base—notably young people, African-Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans—turned out for him. Second, that the growing size of these voting blocs represents a decisive challenge for the Republican Party. Both points are true, but most observers are overstating the gravity of the GOP's problem. In particular, they are paying too little attention to how weak a candidate Mitt Romney was, and how much...

The venture finance operation that raised money for crony capitalist investorsKleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers, and their green tech firms like electric car companyFisker Automotive ($193 million paid in stimulus loan guarantees) and fuel cell manufacturerBloom Energy, is shutting down, according to a Fortune report. Advanced Equities, Inc. had recently been reprimanded by the Securities and Exchange Commission and by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) for misleading investors and for breach of contract with its brokers. Fortune cited sources that said AEI brokers were told last week that Monday would be their last day. Crain’s Chicago Business confirmed that...

Initial jobless claims rose to 439,000, their highest level since May 2011. And no, it isn't due to SuperStorm Sandy. Rather, it was increases in Ohio and Pennsylvania that led the surge. Continuing jobless claims spiked as well, their highest point since March 2012. Meanwhile, the Empire State Manufacturing Survey of General Businesss Conditions improved from -6.16 in October to -5.22 in November. The Philadelphia Fed Business Outlook of General Conditions fell to -10.7 from an October reading of +5.7. Meanwhile, The Dow Jones Industrials continue their post election slide. Oogh!

A recent hearing sponsored by the Treasury and Labor Departments marked the beginning of the Obama Administration’s effort to nationalize the nation’s pension system and to eliminate private retirement accounts including IRA’s and 401k plans, NSC is warning.

President Obama praised the resilient New York attitude and the efforts of rescue workers during his talk after touring areas of Queens and Staten Island that were ravaged by Hurricane Sandy.‘I´m very proud of you, New York. You guys are tough you bounce back,’ he said while visiting New Dorp Beach in Staten Island. After a brief helicopter tour of Queens- passing over particularly devastated areas like Rockaway Beach and Breezy Point- they arrived in Staten Island where they examined the damage by foot.

Obama's first post-election press conference, if you could call it that, tells us a great deal about his attitude and the approach he intends to pursue in his second term, which is the same failed policy mix on steroids. Obama's re-election, of course, gives him the right to pursue these policies, but it doesn't deny elected Republicans the right or relieve them of the duty to oppose them. If Obama can glean any intelligible mandate from his victory, it is that relentless negative campaigning, demagoguery, divisive identity politics, deceit and superior political strategists targeting essential voters and voting districts work....

Obama, touring parts of New York City slammed by Hurricane Sandy, was chided by a girl for ignoring the disaster. As the president waded through a supply center, a girl who was waiting for goods told a reporter, "We need help--he should of been here a long time ago,"

....On Sept. 12, Director of National IntelligenceJames R. Clapper told the White House that a spontaneous demonstration over the Internet video grew into a violent attack. Two days later, Mr. Petraeus echoed that account in closed-door comments to senators, according to news reports. At the time, Mr. Petraeus had ended an extramarital affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, who was at the center of an FBI investigation over threatening emails to a women she saw as a romantic rival. Conservatives have asked whether the Petraeus scandal prompted the director to toe the administration line. Mr. Petraeus has since resigned. Senators...

The second-term curse goes like this: A president (e.g., Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and so on) wins reelection, but then his presidency implodes over the next four years — mired in scandals or disasters such as Watergate, Iran-Contra, Monica Lewinsky, the Iraqi insurgency, and Hurricane Katrina. Apparently, like tragic Greek heroes, administrations grow arrogant after their reelection wins. They believe that they are invincible and that their public approval is permanent rather than fickle. The result is that Nemesis zeroes in on their fatal conceit and with a boom corrects their hubris. Or is the...

Sen. John McCain launched a fierce counterattack on Barack Obama yesterday after Obama arrogantly called McCain’s criticism of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice “outrageous” and said critics of Rice should “go after me.”

The NRA has been saying all along that Barack Obama would unleash an assault on our Second Amendment freedoms if he won a second term. It sure didnÂ’t take long for him to prove us right. Just hours after Obama won re-election last Tuesday, his administration endorsed a new effort by the global gun grabbers at the United Nations to draft a gun ban treaty early next year. The official starting point for the new talks is last yearÂ’s failed draft, which contains provisions that threaten our sovereign right to keep and bear arms through an international gun registration scheme.And...

(via Instapundit): In David Petraeus’s final days at the helm of the Central Intelligence Agency, his relations with chiefs of other U.S. agencies, including his boss, National Intelligence Director James Clapper, took a contentious turn. At issue was whether the CIA should break its silence about its role in Benghazi, Libya, to counter criticism that increasingly was being leveled at the agency and Mr. Petraeus, said senior officials involved in the discussions. Mr. Petraeus wanted his aides to push back hard and release their own timeline of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi and a...

....In David Petraeus’s final days at the helm of the Central Intelligence Agency, his relations with chiefs of other U.S. agencies, including his boss, National Intelligence Director James Clapper, took a contentious turn. Mr. Petraeus wanted his aides to push back hard and release their own timeline of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi and a nearby CIA safe house, seeking to set the record straight and paint the CIA’s role in a more favorable light. Mr. Clapper and agencies including the Pentagon objected, but Mr. Petraeus told his aides to proceed, said the senior...

A very important article came out from the Wall Street Journal yesterday titled “FHA Nears Need for Taxpayer Funds,” and it outlines the serious financial problems facing the Federal Housing Administration. For those that are unaware or need a refresher, the FHA has been the key element to the phony “housing recovery” the government has been trying to create. In the wake of the collapse of 2008, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac blew up and what was left to pick up the pieces was the FHA. No private player would issue loans with down payments of 3%, but this was...

"President Obama; that's why people aren't buying stocks," says Todd Schoenberger, managing principal at The BlackBay Group. 1. Companies aren't going to hire with the increased expenses associated with Obamacare 2. People aren't going to have money for discretionary spending when taxes going up for the 1% 3. Small business owners won't expand 4. Higher tax rates for individuals making over $250,000 a year will result in a general lack of ambition.

Didn't take long for the defenders of the freebie culture to race in defense of one Susan Rice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dJlCoHDJKUYou see how this works? If they are black you must not offend lest you be deemed a racist. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAxlI2Rg2E8Uh oh Senator McCain...you are a RACIST! I mean you dare to allege that this "young african-american woman" isn't very bright? How dare you. Doesn't matter that she went on show after show the day after the attack and mislead the American people. They knew this wasn't some mob protesting a video, hell...I knew it the day after and I'm not very bright...

10:07 am - November 15, 2012 — Updated: 10:07 am - November 15, 2012 Wake Forest Baptist Hospital to eliminate 950 jobs Associated Press WINSTON-SALEM — Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center says it will lay off 76 employees this week and cut a total of 950 jobs by the end of June. Chief executive Dr. John McConnell said Wednesday most of the cuts are administrative positions, but some faculty members could lose their jobs due to cuts in federal research funding.

By Paul McDougall InformationWeek November 15, 2012 11:37 AM Texas Instruments said it will lay off about 1,700 workers, or about 5% of its total workforce, as part of a restructuring that will see it exit the market for mobile chips that power smartphones and tablets, including Amazon's Kindle Fire. The company said it would instead focus its OMAP (Open Multimedia Applications Platform) business on embedded systems that power business tools and other products that don't evolve as rapidly as mobile gadgets.