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US Secretary of State John Kerry again warned Wednesday that time was slipping away to reach a Middle East peace deal, and for the first time said there may only be a year or two left. Appearing before US lawmakers for the first time since becoming America's top diplomat in February, Kerry said his three trips to the region already were proof of his commitment to try to find a way to resume peace talks, AFP reported. The Obama administration is "trying to find out what is possible," Kerry told the House foreign affairs committee, as he laid out the...

More than 700 Special Operations veterans are urging members of Congress to back a select committee to investigate last year’s Benghazi terrorist attack, according to a letter first obtained by Fox News. The letter from the group, “Special Operations Speaks,” supports the appointment of a special committee tasked with the single mission of investigating the attack that left Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead, and shut down the CIA operation in an annex of the Benghazi consulate, in the Sept. 11, 2012 attack. “Congress must show some leadership and provide answers to the public as to what actually...

To: Members of The U.S. House of Representatives Subject: The Benghazi attacks on 9/11/ 2012 The undersigned are a representative group of some 700 retired Military Special Operations professionals who spent the majority of their careers preparing for and executing myriad operations to rescue or recover detained or threatened fellow Americans. In fact, many of us participated in both the Vietnam era POW rescue effort, The Son Tay Raid, as well as Operation Eagle Claw, the failed rescue attempt in April of 1980 in Iran, so we have been at this for many years and have a deep passion for...

The FCO organizes press conferences like weddings, visitors on one side, hosts on the other, and inevitably the first question that came whistling from the British side of the aisle was about the Falklands’ planned March 10 to 11 referendum. Islanders will be asked, “Do you wish the Falkland Islands to retain their current political status as an overseas territory of the United Kingdom?” That they will answer with a resounding “Yes!” is not in doubt. That’s the sort of enthusiasm Brits wanted from Kerry too. Instead they got this: Let me be very clear about our position with respect...

... Speaking at a town hall meeting Tuesday, Kerry spoke a few sentences of passable German to the delight of a crowd in a packed Internet cafe before regaling the audience with tales of his boyhood in Berlin in 1954. He recalled a clandestine bicycle ride into communist East Berlin. "I saw the difference between east and west. I saw the people wearing darker clothing. There were fewer cars. I didn't feel the energy or the movement." When he returned home, Kerry said, his father "got very upset with me and said: `You could have created an international incident. I...

There is a problem with Election Day registrations: the people registering are not checked for eligibility before their votes are counted. That is why the Minnesota Voters Alliance and other plaintiffs are before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that Minnesota must confirm the eligibility of all voters before counting their ballots. That includes the more than 500,000 who register on Election Day in presidential-election years. Our lawsuit is based on the plain text of Article VII, Section 1 of the Minnesota Constitution, which says, "The following persons shall not be entitled or permitted to vote at any election...

None of his fellow solons was impolite enough yesterday to ask U.S. Sen. John Forbes Kerry the only question anybody really wants him to answer. “Senator, are you really worth $193 million?” [Snip Nobody questioned Kerry about his famous initial 1971 appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recounting the stories of other Vietnam veterans (which he’d been told, he made sure to say) “of times that they personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable radios to human genitals, cut off limbs, blew up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of...

By SARA MURRAY WASHINGTON—Ambassador Susan Rice's attempt to repair her standing with Senate Republicans fell short Tuesday, as a trio of GOP senators emerged from a meeting with her even more harshly critical of the comments she made following the U.S. consulate attack in Libya. Ambassador Susan Rice's attempt to repair her standing with Senate Republicans appeared to fall short Tuesday, as a trio of GOP senators remained harshly critical of comments she made following the U.S. consulate attack in Libya. Sara Murray has details on The News Hub. Photo: AP. Susan Rice meets with three GOP senators who have...

Remember when Hillary Clinton unexpectedly suffered from a concussion due to a stomach flu a few weeks ago? She missed her scheduled testimony on the Benghazi attacks, she missed the appointment of John Kerry… she even missed the State Department Christmas Party… so where in the world is she? According to her advisors, she has been advised to take bed rest, but she hasn’t been seen or heard from in weeks. The problem here is that is seems like she’s avoiding her responsibility as Secretary of State. It’s all too strange that she hasn’t said anything about the Benghazi attacks…...

A senior administration official said on Friday that President Barack Obama will nominate Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. as his next secretary of state this afternoon from the White House. The 69-year-old, who began his tenure in the Senate in 1985, is expected to be a shoo-in during the Congressional confirmation process and will fill the vacancy left by outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The expected announcement will come after the president's top choice for the spot, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, took herself out of the running for the post given the controversy over her reaction to the attacks on...

We’re told she collapsed and hit her head and got a concussion, and that’s why she can’t testify about Benghazi this week. And we’re supposed to just take her word for it. Investor’s Business Daily editorializes: Outside the frothy bubble of U.S. political concerns lie only the hard realities of the real world. That’s why hard questions should be asked — and real answers demanded — of U.S. secretaries of state and those who would be them. That’s not the case with either Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who puts up excuse after excuse to avoid testifying on the U.S.’...

For once, I am inclined to believe Hillary Clinton. The U.S. Secretary of State, suffering from a sick stomach, has reportedly fainted and bumped her head. As a result, her spokespeople have already announced that she will be unable to testify at the Benghazi hearings, although she was not due to appear until December 20, many days after the vaguely reported fainting spell. Already, the internet is resounding with a chorus of "How convenient!" (See here and here, for example.) Many, upon hearing this news, are assuming that Clinton, who has been hedging for a month on whether to appear...

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says President Barack Obama should nominate Colin Powell as secretary of state as a “bipartisan” gesture toward mending fences with Republican senators who rejected U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice for the post. “I actually think it would not be a bad idea for President Obama to seriously consider seeing if Colin Powell would come back out of retirement because Colin did endorse him,” Gingrich told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Thursday night. “That might be a bipartisan step that would move us in a direction of a different kind of dialogue,” he said, suggesting that Powell’s moderate...

Susan Rice is not the best choice to lead State DepartmentAmbassador to the United Nations Susan Rice’s deceptive Benghazi spin ought to be enough to sink her bid for promotion. Mrs. Rice’s infamous talking points insisted that a YouTube video, rather than preplanned terrorism, prompted the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya. Yet there’s plenty more in her past that calls into question her fitness as a potential replacement for Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state. Mrs. Rice made the rounds on Capitol Hill last week in an attempt to round up support. She met...

The portfolio of embattled United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice includes investments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in several energy companies known for doing business with Iran, according to financial disclosure forms. Rice, a possible nominee to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she steps down, has come under criticism for promulgating erroneous information about the September 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. Rice has the highest net worth of executive branch members, with a fortune estimated between $24 to $44 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. A Free Beacon analysis of Rice’s...

Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) on Wednesday became the latest GOP senator to raise questions about Susan Rice. After an almost two-hour meeting with the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Collins said she's unconvinced by Rice's explanation of her role after the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya. “I continue to be troubled by the fact that the UN ambassador decided to play what was essentially a political role at the height of a contentious presidential election ... by agreeing to go on the Sunday shows to present the administration's position,” the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee said.

U.S. intelligence believes that assailants connected to al Qaeda in Iraq were among the core group that attacked the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, a U.S. government official told CNN. That would represent the second al Qaeda affiliate associated with the deadly September 11 attack that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Previously, intelligence officials said there were signs of connections to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the North African wing of the terror group. The revelation that members of al Qaeda in Iraq are suspected of involvement in the Libya attack comes at a time when...

Abu Hamza The infamous Arab Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masry, dubbed the 'hate cleric,'[1] in 1994, he began traveling back and forth to Bosnia in order to support Jihadist activities there. And, in 1995, he founded the Jama'at Ansar al-Shari'a (Supporters of Sharia, SOS), organization in order to promote the establishment of Sharia law worldwide.[2] In 2006, he was jailed in Britain for inciting murder and racial hatred.[3] He has been charged with 11 counts of criminal conduct related to the taking of 16 hostages in Yemen in 1998, advocating violent jihad in Afghanistan in 2001 and conspiring to establish...

Two Republican state senators announced Thursday, Oct. 4, that they have filed a complaint with the Office of Administrative Hearings over Secretary of State Mark Ritchie's conduct related to the state's proposed voter-ID amendment. Mike Parry of Waseca and Scott Newman of Hutchinson said they were filing the complaint on their own behalf. They say Ritchie, an opponent of the proposed amendment that would require voters to present a photo ID at the polls, has made false statements and improperly used his office to work against the amendment's passage. A spokeswoman for Ritchie said shortly after noon on Thursday that...

Today, Special Operations Speaks, a PAC formed by ex-Special Ops officers from four branches of the military, released a cartoon mocking President Obama for spiking the football on the Osama Bin Laden kill. The cartoon depicts Obama as a schoolchild, president of the student council; he has nothing but scorn for a group of students training for military service. Then he spots a girl being shot at by a group of thugs. He promptly orders the other students to do something about it, and after they do, he takes full credit – and actively spikes a football.