(Via The Weekly Standard)  Even as the White House strove last week to move beyond questions about the Benghazi attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2012, fresh evidence emerged that senior Obama administration officials knowingly misled the country about what had happened in the days following the assaults.

The Weekly Standard has obtained a timeline briefed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence detailing the heavy substantive revisions made to the CIA’s talking points, just six weeks before the 2012 presidential election, and additional information about why the changes were made and by whom. (more…)

BEIRUT – Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad retook a central district in the city of Homs on Thursday, driving a wedge between two isolated pockets of rebel resistance in Syria’s third largest city, fighters and activists said. (more…)

A civilian cargo aircraft crashed at Bagram Air Field near the Afghan capital Kabul on Monday, killing all seven people aboard. The plane came down shortly after take-off and crashed within the boundaries of the US-run airbase, a NATO spokesperson at the base said. The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the crash, but the coalition dismissed the claim as “false” in a statement to AP. The cause of the crash is being investigated by emergency crews, but no sign of insurgent activity in the area was spotted at the time, the statement added.

Speculation from Army Flight Crew Chief and Friend of the Treehouse – (more…)

KABUL, Afghanistan — For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.

All told, tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of President Hamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader.

“We called it ‘ghost money,’ ” said Khalil Roman, who served as Mr. Karzai’s chief of staff from 2002 until 2005. “It came in secret, and it left in secret.” (more…)

“We are not recommending any policy other than one exception. That is, if the United States decides to arm the Syrian rebels with lethal weapons, not just defensive weaponry, that those rebels and those weapons be very carefully vetted. We had a very bad experience with Libya where shoulder-fired missiles went disappeared very quickly and showed up in our backyard. We don’t want that to happen again in Syria.”

APRIL 27th 2013 –  It was revealed for the first time today that the body of murdered Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was recovered by a secret two man Special “Ops” team that was not affiliated with any of the other security entities involved in the Benghazi attack..

This team, acting under their own initiative and armed with their own weapons, undertook this mission despite very little intelligence available for this exceedingly hostile and volatile environment. The information came to light this morning on WVOX’s Vernuccio/Allison radio show.

The previously undisclosed information was provided by former Army Ranger Jack Murphy who is the co-author along with Brandon Webb of Benghazi: The Definitive Report. (more…)

WASHINGTON DC – Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) on Saturday promised that “explosive” congressional hearings over the Benghazi, Libya attacks are on the way.

“There are more Benghazi hearings coming, I think they’re going to be explosive,” Gowdy said on Fox News.

Gowdy, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the hearings are going to be “coming quickly” and seemed to hint that the public might for the first time hear from witnesses to the September assault that left four Americans dead. (more…)

– Today seems a fitting day to review this again –

One of the frustrating realities of our polarized time is the media creating a skewed and left leaning view of all things political. However, even with this headwind, each day many more people choose to engage in and honest discovery and understanding of what’s going on. Whether because they stumble upon a concern, or whether they happen across some information that makes them rethink their prior position and views, it can lead to an engagement with us from a perspective of their only reality view having been determined by the lens of the media.

Indeed that can be, and often is, an incredibly frustrating conversation because they bring an embedded and sometimes flawed bias into their narrative. One of the more common misunderstandings stems from the media hatred of George W Bush and his actions, aptly called Bush Derangement Syndrome (BSD).

What I want to do here is not change anyone’s mind, but rather to remind people what led to some of Dubya’s decisions in his own words.

I must first emphasize at the time of Dubya’s tenure in the White House I was not a supporter of many “Bush policies”, however, I did understand his reasoning.

Sometimes research into “why” was needed to understand this reasoning, but there were valid reasons nonetheless. It is unfair for the liberal media, or for any Johnny-come-lately to re-write his motivation as illicit, it was not. In hindsight some of his policies and approaches may have been wrong, but it generally is unfair to look in the rear view mirror to judge. Again, at times it is important to stop the conversation, pause, and remind ourselves what was going on at the time. (more…)

Under the premise expressed by Law Enforcement of “exigent circumstances” the U.S. Constitution’s 4th amendment deserves a revisit.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.  [Fourth Amendment – U.S. Constitution] 

The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. It was adopted as a response to the abuse of the writ of assistance, which is a type of general search warrant, in the American Revolution. Search and seizure (including arrest) should be limited in scope according to specific information supplied to the issuing court, usually by a law enforcement officer, who has sworn by it. The Fourth Amendment applies to the states by way of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (more…)

(Via Fox News)  The U.S. Army is directing troops to remove a Bible inscription that a vendor etched into the serial numbers of weapon scopes, Fox News has learned.

Click image(s) to enlarge

Soldiers at Fort Wainwright in Alaska told Fox News they received a directive to turn in their scopes so the Bible references could be removed.

The scopes were made by Trijicom and referenced New Testament passages in John 8:12 and Second Corinthians 4:6. The verses appeared at the end of the scope serial numbers – “JN8:12” and “2COR4:6.” (more…)