WASHINGTON – The CIA’s top officer in Kabul was exposed Saturday by the White House when his name was inadvertently included on a list provided to news organizations of senior U.S. officials participating in President Obama’s surprise visit with U.S. troops.

The White House recognized the mistake and quickly issued a revised list that did not include the individual, who had been identified on the initial release as the “Chief of Station” in Kabul, a designation used by the CIA for its highest-ranking spy in a country.

The disclosure marked a rare instance in which a CIA officer working overseas had his cover — the secrecy meant to protect his actual identity — pierced by his own government. The only other recent case came under significantly different circumstances, when former CIA operative Valerie Plame was exposed as officials of the George W. Bush administration sought to discredit her husband, a former ambassador and fierce critic of the decision to invade Iraq. (more…)

USA TODAY – It also follows intense criticism over the treatment of veterans at VA hospitals, including reports that officials are trying to cover up evidence of long wait times and that some veterans have died while awaiting treatment.

In his weekend radio address, Obama said the nation must work harder to ensure that military veterans get the benefits they’ve earned.

“They’ve done their duty,” Obama said, “and they ask nothing more than that this country does ours.”

The president is not scheduled to meet with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, with whom the president has had a difficult relationship.

Air Force One landed at Bagram Air Field on Sunday night, local time, after a secret overnight trip that began Saturday night in Washington, D.C. (more…)

Actually what Rep. Walorski is really doing is outlining exactly why the GOP is ridiculously represented by weak and ineffective leadership like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.

How much more value would it be for conservatives to have actual, and tolerable, leadership who could engage the media -without looking like pompous jackasses- and outline the real obstructionism?    

Heck, even the most partisan of GOP supporters would admit the ability of Boehner and McConnell to frame a discussion without sounding like they just drank a fifth of scotch with a mouth full of marbles is non-existent.   The problem is not the conservative message, it’s the ineptitude of the messenger. 

(WASHINGTON DC)  –  While the president pounds his fist and proclaims he’s “madder than hell” over the Veterans Affairs scandal and then just asks for more time to review and investigate, House Republicans are getting pretty tired of the do-nothing Senate and a president who claims to only learn about problems in his administration on cable news.

Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., sits on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee in the House and she told [Larry O’Connor] Wednesday on WMAL radio in Washington, D.C., that the House has passed a dozen bills for reform of the VA and they are collecting dust on [Sen.] Harry Reid’s desk: (more…)

I’m going to outline the soup to nuts case of an Iran-Contra type weapons program that ultimately is at the heart of why President Obama and Secretary Clinton went to such lengths to cover-up the Benghazi operations. [context matters – sorry about the length.  /SD]

In December 2011 the New York Times published an article outlining the U.S. State Department initiative to buy shoulder fired missiles (MANPADS) away from the “rebels” in Libya.   (Story Here)

In February 2012 the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew J. Shapiro said:

“Once the stalemate broke [in Libya] and the fighting rapidly shifted in the [Libya’s Transitional National Council] TNC’s favor in August, we immediately deployed a State Department expert from the MANPADS Task Force to Benghazi.

Mark Adams, who you will hear from shortly on the panel, is the head of our MANPADS Task Force and spent considerable time on the ground in Libya … The initial primary objective was to reach an agreement with the TNC to set up a MANPADS control and destruction program that would enable us to set up what we call our Phase I efforts. Phase I entailed an effort to rapidly survey, secure, and disable loose MANPADS across the country. To accomplish this, we immediately deployed our Quick Reaction Force, which are teams made up of civilian technical specialists”.   (link)

Ultimately, The question for the Gowdy Special Committee is what were we doing with those missiles we were purchasing?   Where did they go ?   Was that operation the entire construct of the joint State Dept/CIA objective in Benghazi?…  And if so, was the missile capture an Iran-Contra type weapons scheme to divert missiles from Libya, through Turkey, into the hands of the Syrian “rebels”.

THAT is the substantive issue the Special Committee should seek. (more…)

The White House legal advisor who framed the administrations legal references for drone killing of American citizens is due to be confirmed without allowing his drone memos to be reviewed prior to confirmation vote.  Yeah, we have a problem with that…. 

WASHINGTON DC – Bolstered by the promised public release of a secret legal memo, Senate Democrats are ready to approve a top federal judgeship for a former Obama administration official who helped formulate the justification for the drone killings of suspected American terrorists overseas.

The Senate was expected Thursday to approve David Barron to join the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in Boston.

Barron cleared a pivotal hurdle Wednesday when senators voted 52-43 to end opponents’ efforts to derail the nomination. In that roll call, Barron was opposed by every voting Republican and two Democrats, Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. (more…)

• Elijah Cummings of Maryland
• Adam Smith of Washington
• Adam Schiff of California
• Linda Sanchez of California
• Tammy Duckworth of Illinois

WASHINGTON DC – […]  The announcement comes after Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) met for an hour Tuesday to negotiate over the probe .

Appointing five members to the panel is an evolution for Pelosi, who initially didn’t want to dignify the committee by naming any Democrats to sit on it. Her perspective changed, however, after fellow Democrats said she should appoint at least a few Democrats to counter claims by Republicans. Some Democrats also felt the party should be represented if Republicans subpoena high-level Obama administration officials, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The committee, which the House agreed to create earlier this month in a party-line vote, has seven seats for Republicans and five for Democrats.  (read more)

Full Story HERE

(more…)

Someone, (probably a Russian infantry unit that had to scram because they are technically not supposed to be there), left a fully operational -albeit apparently stalled- BMP-2 Infantry Combat Vehicle in the middle of an intersection in Mariupol, Ukraine.

Abandoned.    Fully operational – but abandoned.

Apparently, curiosity got the best of the locals (who are probably sympathetic to the Russians who had to quickly disappear).   What happens next is not funny, but I’ll admit I just couldn’t stop laughing:

Watch the video.   With two precursor tips.  #1) Pay attention to the @50 sec. mark (duh, obviously).   But more importantly #2) listen to the person shout @1:05 (in English).

(more…)

Say what you will about President G.W. Bush but he always puts the consideration of others at the forefront.  Many, including myself, strongly disagreed with T2 policies – but Dubya’s outward humility in position was/is beyond reproach. 

TELEGRAPH – […] As President Barack Obama spoke at the unveiling of the museum in New York on Thursday, the man who was president at the time of the attacks was noticeable by his absence.  According to the museum Mr Bush was invited to the ceremony, but his spokesman Freddy Ford said he was unable to attend because of a scheduling conflict.

It later emerged that the former president was in Bentonville, Arkansas attending a separate ceremony for 14 living recipients of the Medal of Honour. The event also raised money for the Congressional Medal of Honour Society and Foundation. (more…)

Many people, myself included, are thankful for the appointment of a Benghazi Select Committee with hopes that Trey Gowdy and the other 11 members will finally bring sunlight on one of the most obvious constructs of an intentional cover-up in modern history.

There are many questions unanswered -despite the two years past- because political control of the narrative was more important to the White House than actual delivery of the who’s, what’s, where’s and more importantly the “why’s”.

‘Control of the narrative’ is what led to the construction of the false story about a Mohammed U-Tube video as the impetus of the attack in Benghazi.

@SheriefSfarid We've never heard of this movie, what is it?

— U.S. Embassy Cairo (@USEmbassyCairo) September 9, 2012

‘Control of the narrative’ is what kept Hillary Clinton off the Sunday morning talk shows the weekend after the attack.   The structural lying was left to Susan Rice.

‘Control of the narrative’ is what led to White House Communications Director Ben Rhodes structuring the Susan Rice talking points.   ‘Control of the narrative’ is what led to National Security Council Spokesperson Tommy Vietor changing the wording on the talking points on behalf of his boss Tom Donilon.

(more…)