Happy Birthday! Marine Corps Turns 237

Would like to wish a happy birthday to the United States Marine Corps, founded 237 years ago on November 10th, 1775.

Our thanks go out to all who have served and continue to serve, putting their personal safety at risk and home lives on hold to defend the rights of all Americans. Our company hopes to honor their valor with the work that we do, fighting those who would devalue their service and undo the liberty they have preserved for generations.

Ron Kessler on Petraeus Resignation: There Are Several Cover-ups Going On (Video)

Ronald Kessler, Chief Washington Correspondent for Newsmax, spoke with FOX News tonight about the Petraeus resignation. Kessler said,

“There are several cover-ups going on here. One is the claim that the President Obama was not aware of what was going on with the FBI investigation… Simply look at the facts. Is there any way the FBI would launch an investigation on the CIA Director without telling the president? The second cover-up was the fact that the FBI was told to hold off on this until after the election. I was told in early October that the FBI was outraged about this… It started in a very strange way. The FBI came across emails on his military email account in which he referred to doing something under the desk. And there was a misinterpretation that that meant corruption, something under the table. It actually meant sex under the desk.“

Something to hide? Hillary Clinton ‘turns down offer’ to testify during Benghazi hearings

So Hillary Clinton has something to hide? Maybe she hasn’t been able to wash off all the blood stains on her hand from Benghazi yet. She was ‘offered’ the chance to testify during the Benghazi hearings next week and she declined. Why would she decline if she had nothing to hide? She should be subpoenaed to testify, but I doubt the Republicans will grow a set and do that.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has turned down an invitation to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee next Thursday on the Benghazi attack.

A committee update this evening indicated that Michael Courts, acting director of International Affairs and Trade for the Government Accountability Office, will be testifying followed by a RAND Corp. analyst.

The committee indicated further witnesses could be added, but the State Department confirmed that Clinton won’t be one of them.

“She was asked to appear at House Foreign Affairs next week, and we have written back to the chairman to say that she’ll be on travel next week,” said department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. She did not answer a question about whether Clinton would be willing to fly back from Australia to address either the Foreign Affairs panel or the Senate and House closed-door intelligence committee hearings getting to the root of the Benghazi scandal.

“The Committee plans to hold the second segment of this hearing the week of November 26, 2012 and will request Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton testify before the Committee at that time,” the Foreign Affairs Committee said in an advisory.

Big Shocker (NOT!) Decision to have David Petraeus resign held on to after election to avoid potential embarrassment to Obama

Shocking, I tell you, shocking! The decision to have David Petraeus resign was held on to after election for political purposes, because it would have looked bad for Obama.

Still, the White House, with concurrence by the FBI and Justice Department, held off on asking for Petraeus’ resignation until after the election. His resignation occurred three days after the election, avoiding the possibility that Obama’s ill-fated appointment of Petraeus could become an issue in the election.
FBI agents on the case were aware that such a decision had been made to hold off on forcing him out until after the election and were outraged.
“The decision was made to delay the resignation apparently to avoid potential embarrassment to the president before the election,” an FBI source says. “To leave him in such a sensitive position where he was vulnerable to potential blackmail for months compromised our security and is inexcusable.”
Michael Kortan, the FBI’s assistant director for public affairs, said he had no comment.

You wanted Obama America, you got it! He’s all yours!

Senate/House Intelligence Kept in Dark on Petraeus Investigation

Even though there are laws requiring investigators to inform Senate/House Intelligence committees when senior members of the Executive branch are under surveillance, it appears those laws were not followed in the development of the case against CIA Director David Petraeus.

 
These statues came into play after Watergate, and were designed to keep intelligence committee members abreast of whom they could and couldn't call upon for needed testimony at certain times.

The fact that these rules weren't followed explains why the Senate/House intelligence committees were so taken aback to find that suddenly, the key figure for the Nov 15 Benghazi hearings, will not even be there.
Because of this breakdown in following the law, investigators did not keep lawmakers apprised of the growing investigation of Petraeus. And even though the investigation into Paula Broadwell, which eventually caught Petraeus, lasted for months, it was not portrayed to Congressional officials until about six hours before the CIA announced it.

One Congressional official made privy to the information at that time said, "It was portrayed to us as...if the FBI had stumbled across this."

This explains the shock of intelligence committee members who abruptly learned that Petraeus will not attend the Nov. 15 Benghazi hearing, in which high-ranking members of the Intelligence and State communities were to go on record, under oath, concerning Benghazi.

Who Authorized FBI Surveillance of Gen. Petraeus?

Even by the standards of the friday afternoon news dump tradition, yesterday's news that Gen. David Petraeus had resigned from the CIA was a stunner. The most heralded military officer of his generation fell from grace after it was revealed he'd had an affair with his biographer. The affair was discovered earlier this year soon after the FBI began monitoring his email. This raises a very serious question. Who authorized the FBI to monitor the e-mail of the Director of the CIA?

 
The Director of the CIA is one of the central individuals responsible for America's national security and intelligence. His communications would, by their very nature, be one of the nation's closest guarded secrets. According to FBI sources, the Bureau began surveillance of his email communication in the Spring of this year, after an email Petraeus sent to his biographer, Paula Broadwell, was misinterpreted to reference possible corruption. 

First question: How did that initial email come to light?

Second question: Who authorized the Bureau to pore over all his email communication? We are talking, after all, about the Director of the CIA. That cannot have been a decision made by a junior staffer at DOJ. I doubt that even the Director of the FBI could authorize the surveillance of a critical member of America's national security team.
Is this a decision Eric Holder can make? Or, does it come under the exclusive purview of the White House?

Third question: Who were the agents given access to Petraeus' communications? Presumably, they read a lot of emails that weren't related to the past affair and likely contained top secret and classified information. What security clearance did these agents have?

According to several news accounts, the FBI investigation uncovered thousands of emails between Petraeus and Mrs. Broadwell. The nature of their relationship would have been clear immediately.

So, exit question. If the investigation began in the Spring, why did the Bureau sit for so long on the revelations about the affair? We are told now that an extramarital affair by the Director of the CIA is itself a breach of national security. If that's true, why didn't the FBI move immediately to force his resignation?
Of course, in an election year, this is a question which answers itself.

FBI Agents Were Outraged That Obama Decided to Delay Petraeus’ Resignation Until After the Election

Apparently, FBI agents were outraged that Obama decided to delay the resignation of David Petraeus until after the election.

Biographer Paula Broadwell, the woman who General David Petraeus reportedly had an affair with, as they fly to Helman Province, Afghanistan in June 2011. Image credit: CSM Marvin L. Hill. (Daily News)
Newsmax reported, via Power Line:

At some point after Petraeus was sworn in as CIA director on Sept. 6, 2011, the woman broke up with him. However, Petraeus continued to pursue her, sending her thousands of emails over the last several months, raising even more questions about his judgment.
FBI agents on the case expected that Petraeus would be asked to resign immediately rather than risk the possibility that he could be blackmailed to give intelligence secrets to foreign intelligence agencies or criminals. In addition, his pursuit of the woman could have distracted him as the CIA was giving Congress reports on the attack on the Benghazi consulate on Sept. 11.
Still, the White House, with concurrence by the FBI and Justice Department, held off on asking for Petraeus’ resignation until after the election. His resignation occurred three days after the election, avoiding the possibility that Obama’s ill-fated appointment of Petraeus could become an issue in the election.
FBI agents on the case were aware that such a decision had been made to hold off on forcing him out until after the election and were outraged.
“The decision was made to delay the resignation apparently to avoid potential embarrassment to the president before the election,” an FBI source says. “To leave him in such a sensitive position where he was vulnerable to potential blackmail for months compromised our security and is inexcusable.”

Disgrace: Barack Obama Broke Promise to Honor Cold War Veterans

President Barack Obama once promised, as a U.S. Senator, to honor veterans of the Cold War, who have never received official recognition and are therefore prevented from full participation in many Veterans Day celebrations. But he never fulfilled that promise--neither in the Senate or the White House--leaving Cold War veterans in the cold.

 
This weekend, the Wall Street Journal documented the promise, made in 2006 to Frank Almquist, an Illinois constituent who had served in the Army in the 1980s. A medal for Cold War veterans seemed "appropriate," Obama wrote, and wrote that he hoped "this impasse can be broken soon." He never took up the task.
The U.S. has thus far failed to honor those who served in the long struggle against communism, which began almost as soon as the Second World War had ended. Though communist regimes--especially Stalin's Soviet Union and Mao's China, and satellites such as Pol Pot's Cambodia--committed more murders than the Nazis, few Americans are aware of the absolute moral evil that communism represents, or the sacrifices made to stop it.
The fact that the U.S. government has never formally recognized Cold War veterans has meant they have been excluded from veterans' groups such as the American Legion, which only includes veterans from periods of "hot" wars, regardless of where or how the veterans served. The U-2 pilots who provided essential intelligence; the soldiers who kept watch in Berlin; the sailors who were silent sentinels aboard submarines, tracking Soviet movements, ready to strike--all have gone unheralded, and largely uncelebrated, even on Veterans Day.
It is possible that the reluctance to honor Cold War veterans springs from a political motive. Many on the left opposed the tough line taken against communism by Presidents from Truman to Reagan; many still think of communism as a legitimate alternative economic model that was never given a real chance at success due to western opposition and political failures in implementation. An entire generation of American youth has been educated in the years since the Cold War ended without much idea of how it was fought, by whom, or why.
The official position of the Obama administration is that the Cold war "was not actually a war," in the words of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Legislative Affairs Elizabeth King. For all his happy talk at about assisting veterans, President Barack Obama has left thousands of the nation's heroes on the sidelines.
They won the longest and most important war of our nation's history, freeing millions from totalitarianism. But the nation they served has yet to commend them--and the president has, disgracefully, failed to honor his promise.

Figures. Obama Administration Hid Record Food Stamp Numbers Until After Election

47.1 million Americans were on food stamps last month – an all-time record.


The Obama Administration kept this from the public for several days – until after the election.
The Obama Administration hid the record food stamp numbers from the American public until after the election.

Zero Hedge reported:

While there had been speculation that the BLS may delay the release of its October nonfarm payroll number until after the election, it turned out there was no reason to worry. Perhaps this is because the number, while at stall speed, was not quite as horrible as some had expected (even if the change in average hourly earnings did tumble to new all time lows) and so boosted Obama’s reelection chances. There was, however, another closely tracked number which perhaps is far more indicative of the economic “growth” in the past 4 years, which certainly had a delayed release. The number of course is that showing how many Americans are on foodstamps, and usually is released at the end of the month, or the first day or two of the next month. This time the USDA delayed its release nine days past the semi-official deadline, far past the election, and until Friday night to report August foodstamp data. One glance at the number reveals why: at 47.1 million, this was not only a new all time record, but the monthly increase of 420,947 from July was the biggest monthly increase in one year.

Report: 2-J’s Jr Forced To Quit Congress?…… Plea Deal

CHICAGO (CBS) – A former U.S. attorney representing embattled Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. is negotiating a plea deal with the federal government, CBS 2 has learned.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine has the exclusive details.
 
The plea deal would end Jackson’s 17-year career as a congressman representing Chicago’s South Side and suburbs.

At the center of negotiations is white-collar criminal defense attorney Dan Webb, who served as Chicago’s top federal prosecutor in the 1980s, when several Cook County judges were indicted for public corruption under the “Operation Greylord” investigation.

Webb, the chairman of Winston & Strawn LLP in Chicago, has been the point person for Jackson in talks with the U.S. Justice Department in Washington.

The tentative deal includes:

–Jackson resigning for health reasons.
–His pleading guilty to charges involving misuse of campaign funds.
–The congressman’s repayment of any contributions that were converted to personal use, such as home furnishings, improper travel or gifts.
At least some jail time would appear to be inevitable for Jackson, the son of civil-rights icon Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. and spouse of Chicago 7^th Ward Ald. Sandi Jackson.

Webb was also involved in the high-profile political plea deal for the late Dan Rostenkowski, who pleaded guilty to converting a congressional postage allowance into cash for himself. Rostenkowski got 17 months in jail but kept his $126,000-a-year pension for the rest of his life.

The onetime chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee died two years ago.
Jackson’s pension for 17 years in Congress would be between 65,000 and $80,000 a year, plus health benefits. But he’s only 47 and won’t be eligible for pension payouts until 62.

Jackson’s pension is also part of the current negotiations.

The Congressman is currently being treated for a bi-polar disorder, both at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and as an outpatient at his home in Washington. He has been on medical leave since June and did not campaign in-person to be re-elected to his 2^nd Congressional District seat. He won his bid Nov. 6.

Those who have seen and spoken with Jackson say there are serious doubts as to whether health issues would ever permit his return to Congress.

As for a timetable for the agreement, a source familiar with those negotiations said as soon as possible and probably by the end of the year.

Webb, reached Friday, had no comment.

If Jackson resigns, as expected, a special election will determine his successor. Jackson himself replaced the disgraced U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds in 1995.

Tenured Professor Openly Denies Communism’s Atrocities, Defends Josef Stalin

"Do we wonder why our children think the way they do"--MC

Not only does the media and academia ignore the atrocities of communists, now we have tenured professors openly denying the murderous history of history’s thugs. Listen to this guy Professor Grover Furr, during a debate at Montclair State University in New Jersey, defend Josef Stalin. Even worse, he was cheered for this outrageous denial.

What you said is a bulls–t. It’s wrong. It’s a lie. . . . I have yet to find one crime that Stalin committed.

Watch this lunatic’s rant: