No surprise really.  The laziest, and doofiest, defense secretary ever – just got axed by the laziest president ever.  Go Figure.

Chuckie’s greatest hits:  “ISIS, ISIS Baby” –  “GITMO 5 All You Brother” – “The World Is All Splodey” – “Love Letters From Rand Paul” – “Me and My Friends of Hamas” – “What Dis Confirmation?” – “I Really Didn’t Want This Job“.
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is stepping down under pressure, the first cabinet-level casualty of the collapse of President Obama’s Democratic majority in the Senate and a beleaguered national security team that has struggled to stay ahead of an onslaught of global crises.
The president, who is expected to announce Mr. Hagel’s resignation in a Rose Garden appearance on Monday, made the decision to ask his defense secretary — the sole Republican on his national security team — to step down last Friday after a series of meetings over the past two weeks, senior administration officials said. (more…)

The Mike Rogers/Dutch Ruppersberger report was predictable in the extreme; anyone who has researched the surrounding issues of the Benghazi backstory knew to expect it:

…”with Rep Trey Gowdy’s Chairmanship of a Select Committee on Benghazi anticipated to start up again in January, and with House Intel Chair Rogers exiting from congress, the authors of this report hold a motive to undercut Gowdy’s investigation into the missing 2011/2012 intelligence oversight that would normally be part of Rogers/Ruppersberger’s responsibility.”…

In addition, the media skipping gleefully in circles while waving the Rogers/Ruppersberger report, was similarly predictable – as seen here in this recent CNN interview.

However, despite how much the media want to avoid the sunlight there are too many people who understand the motives of Mike Rogers, including his own financial stake in the Benghazi security contract. Here’s a great op-ed outlining some of that understanding. It is well worth reading: (more…)

The Purge Mentality Comes To Saint Louis

Many people are alarmed that the FBI has announced an expectation for “extremist protesters” with a specific intent for violence in/around Saint Louis/Ferguson Missouri.
However, this is not the first time this year such an alarming declaration has been made.  After the ABC article spotlighting the Ferguson/Saint Louis unrest, we’ll share the earlier episode everyone seems to forget:

SAINT LOUIS – As the nation waits to hear whether a Missouri police officer will face charges for killing unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., the FBI is warning law enforcement agencies across the country that the decision “will likely” lead some extremist protesters to threaten and even attack police officers or federal agents.
Peaceful protesters could be caught in the middle, and electrical facilities or water treatment plants could also become targets. In addition, so-called “hacktivists” like the group “Anonymous” could try to launch cyber-attacks against authorities. (more…)

BREAKING NEWS: New ISIS video purportedly shows beheading of American hostage http://t.co/3pyj3Tc8fU

— Fox News Alert (@foxnewsalert) November 16, 2014

Before becoming an aid worker, Kassig was an Army Ranger. He was deployed to Iraq in 2007, and later honorably discharged for medical reasons.

The video shows a black-clad man with a British accent standing over a severed head.

“This is Peter Edward Kassig, a U.S. citizen of your country,” the man says to the camera. “Peter, who fought against the Muslims in Iraq while serving as a soldier under the American army doesn’t have much to say.”

Kassig is a humanitarian aid worker who converted to Islam while in captivity. He also changed his name from Peter to Abdul-Rahman. He was en route to Deir Ezzour, in Syria, while working for his aid organzation when he was first “detained.”
[…]  The new video is both longer and far more gruesome than others released by the terror organization. (more…)

Update below (more…)

Yeah, apparently Congress is well, not too terribly concerned about the missing AUMF.   Either that, or, well, they were quite comfortable relying on Hank “Tippy Guam” Johnson to ask all of the insightful questions….

If you were to review the participation at today’s House Armed Services Committee for the testimony and Q&A of Defense Secretary Hagel or Joint Chief’s Martin Dempsey, you might walk away thinking our military were not in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and dealing with Ebola in West Africa.  Russia invading Ukraine, Iran getting nuclear weapons, Libya in a state of civil war, U.S. Embassy evacuated in Yemen, terrorists on the border…..
…Yeah, three effen’ hours of their time is just too much to ask for.  Oh, but they’ll parade around the military like some kind of optical pawn of patriotism.  And, yet people wonder why events like Benghazi and operation zero footprint are possible.  Seriously.

Given the current state of relations between NATO member Turkey and the rest of the Western World it is not surprising to see our soldiers at risk in the region.   However, this is infuriating.
ISTANBUL (AP) — Anti-American protesters shouting “Yankee, go home!” roughed up three U.S. Navy sailors Wednesday in Istanbul near where their warship was docked on an inlet of the Bosphorus Strait in the Black Sea.

About 10 protesters shouted at them, calling them killers and said they should leave Turkey. The protesters, who carried a banner of the Youth Association of Turkey, threw red paint at the sailors and briefly succeeded in putting white sacks over their heads. (more…)

EGYPT – Under increasing pressure from the military, Egypt’s deadliest jihadist group pledged allegiance to the Islamic State organisation in a bid to boost recruitment and bolster its fight against the army, analysts say.
Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem) has waged an insurgency from its Sinai Peninsula stronghold that has killed scores of Egyptian police and soldiers since the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last year.
In response, the army has launched a huge operation in Sinai targeting jihadists and last month began building a buffer zone on the border with Gaza to stem the flow of militants and weapons from the strip. (more…)

(more…)

Here’s The Full Benghazi Brief

Grab a cup of coffee because it’s a long read with over 350 citations and reference source links for confirmational material. We think you’ll get hooked and find 95% of your Benghazi questions answered. And if you can find a factual flaw I’ll buy the coffee.. SD

We know from the Bret Baier interview with Hillary Clinton that she was physically located at her 7th floor office in Washington DC on the night of the attack. Unfortunately we also know during the November 2012 Thanksgiving holiday a mysterious fire took place in that building. Well, actually directly above her exact office – cause undetermined.
A “fire” which preceded an unfortunate slip and fall for the Secretary, resulting in a concussion, which led to the discovery of a blood clot, that ultimately delayed her congressional testimony before a Senate Hearing into the events of the night in question.
We know the Libyan uprising began on February 10th of 2011, and we also know that sometime around the end of February 2011 President Obama signed a presidential directive authorizing the State Dept and CIA to begin a covert operation to arm the Libyan “rebels”.
We also know of a Second Presidential Finding Memo authorizing additional CIA covert action in 2012, this time in Syria. However, unlike the 2011 Libyan operation we do not know the operational name of the second action in 2012 Syria.
We know the Libyan “rebels” were positioned in two strategic places. Benghazi, and the port city of Darnah, both located in Northeastern Libya.
We know this 2011 Libyan covert operation came to be known as “Operation Zero Footprint“, and fell under the military command authority of NATO not (important to repeat), NOT, the U.S. Military. (more…)