Just thought I’d highlight the contrast of funeral attendance.   A Saint Louis Thug shot while assaulting the police gets three White House officials at his funeral; meanwhile a two star General is killed in combat and…. well, you get the picture.   Carry on.
WASHINGTON –  Three White House officials will attend the funeral Monday of Michael Brown, the unarmed Ferguson teen shot and killed by a police officer Aug. 9.

According to a White House official, Broderick Johnson, who heads the White House’s My Brother’s Keeper Task Force, will attend the service along with Marlon Marshall, a St. Louis native who attended high school with Brown’s mother. Heather Foster, who works with Marshall in the White House Office of Public Engagement, will also be in the pews at Brown’s funeral.
Brown was shot six times by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson.  (more…)

(PENTAGON) […]  Earlier this week, a Chinese fighter jet pulled off a similar stunt with a U.S. spy plane. On Monday, Aug. 18, a Chinese Su-27 fighter jet intercepted a U.S. P-8 Poseidon surveillance plane near Hainan Island. The P-8 had likely been monitoring a massive Chinese military exercise nearby, and the Su-27 flew dangerously close to its American opponent, a clear mark of the Chinese government’s displeasure at U.S. surveillance activities off the Chinese coast.

At a briefing Friday, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby provided more details on the encounter. The Chinese jet flew directly in front of the P-8 at a 90-degree angle about 40 feet from the modified Boeing 737. Kirby said the Su-27 passed the P-8 with its belly facing the plane, most likely to display its weapons’ load to the American pilots. The Chinese plane then pulled up alongside the P-8 and performed a barrel roll over the U.S. plane.
No word on whether the Chinese aviator flipped the bird in the direction of the Americans. (read more)

Hence, as explained yesterday, that’s why the White House released the details of the failed rescue attempt..

(WASHINGTON DC) White House deputy press secretary Eric Schultz was asked at today’s press briefing why the administration was unwilling to negotiate with terrorists in James Foley’s case, yet traded five Taliban for the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
“I think, again, what the president made clear at the time of the Guantanamo transfer was that his commitment to the men and women that serve overseas is a bedrock one, that we will leave no man or woman behind. That’s what he was keeping faith with, and that’s something that’s unshakeable for him,” Schultz said. (more…)

The media claim “it’s not breaking the law when Obama does it”.   And congress does what ?  ((((crickets))))

(Via WFB)  The Obama administration violated federal law when it released five senior Taliban leaders from prison without notifying Congress, as is legally mandated, according to an investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The GAO concluded in a report issued Thursday that the Obama administration failed to provide proper notification of the Taliban release and illegally used taxpayer funds that were not appropriated to enable the inmate transfer, according to the report.
The Obama administration in May secretly struck a deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan to free from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba five of its top leaders in exchange for the return of captured U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl, who was later accused by fellow soldiers of having deserted the Army prior to his capture. (more…)

Harf, Let me clear it up for you.
The White House leaked it.
Why ? Because they were petrified of the political optics of contrast. The Obama administration had just used the excuse, “by any means possible” to trade the release of the Gitmo5 terrorists for Private Bergdahl. The White House understood the optic of an American hostage being killed as retaliation for military strikes against ISIL as a risk of the newly created Obama reality – negotiating with terrorists.
The White House leaked the rescue effort in a feeble attempt to show they did try something.

So the White house compromised a covert operation for political cover and gain. It’s how the McDonough team work. The only risk they worry about is the political risk of how it makes them look. All politics all the time. Period.

IRAQ – A new video posted online Tuesday purportedly shows Islamic State militants beheading an American journalist.
The nearly five minute video, titled “A Message to America,” depicts a man believed to be missing photojournalist James Foley being beheaded by a militant.

The video opens with a message from the Islamic State, attacking President Barack Obama for recently directing airstrikes against the terror group.
“Obama authorizes military operations against the Islamic State effectively placing America upon a slippery slope towards a new war front against Muslims,” the video said.
Then the shot pans over to Foley, who speaks into the camera.
“I call on my friends, family and loved ones to rise up against my real killers: the U.S. government,” Foley said in the video. (more…)

As with all complex stories the valuable discoveries come with time.

This Brief has been updated to include newly spotlighted research on Syria and ISIL. Most importantly the previously unknown “Second Presidential Finding Memo” to the CIA in 2012 specifically directed to arm/aid ISIL in Syria. The new information from the month before the Benghazi attack explains the motive of the Turkish delegation toward Chris Stevens.
Grab a cup of coffee because it’s a long read with over 350 citations and reference source links for conformational 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…)

(Via CNN NEWS) Kurdish forces fired mortars and explosives at extremist militants Sunday as the battle to retake a strategic dam in northern Iraq raged on.

Fighters for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria set up high powered explosives around buildings and detonated them, Kurdish Intelligence chief Masrour Barzani said.

Kurdish forces fought back, sparking clashes. Smoke could be seen rising in the distance.

ISIS, the extremist militant group that calls itself the Islamic State, seized the strategic Mosul Dam this month.

U.S. warplanes joined the effort to retake the dam amid growing concern it is not maintained and could rupture, a U.S. official told CNN. (more…)

(Via Biz Pac Review) Many Americans were disappointed in the lack of White House presence at this week’s funeral for the highest-ranking officer killed in combat since Vietnam.

Major General Harold Greene, the 2-star general killed in Afghanistan August 5, was laid to rest Thursday at Arlington National Cemetery, according to myfoxdc.com.
It was a beautiful service that was only missing one important attendee: (more…)

Yesterday Ukrainian artillery destroyed a “significant” part of a Russian armored column that crossed into Ukraine during the night, President Petro Poroshenko told British Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday, according to the presidential website.

Now today (Via Telegraph)  Pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine are being bolstered by 1,200 troops who “trained for four months in Russia”, according to the separatists’ leader.
A video recording of Alexander Zakharchenko speaking to delegates in the rebel-held city of Donetsk appeared to confirm reports of Moscow’s military support to the separatists, who have been fighting Ukrainian government troops since April.
Ukraine’s government claimed on Friday to have destroyed part of a column of Russian military vehicles that crossed its border, with Nato accusing Moscow of launching an “incursion”. (more…)