Tonight at 9:00pm Eastern President Obama will deliver a speech to the nation outlining his strategy to defeat a rising Islamic terror threat known as ISIS. Oddly some of the speech has already been leaked by the White House:
UPDATE – FULL SPEECH VIDEO:

FULL WH TRANSCRIPTION OF SPEECH HERE

“With a new Iraqi government in place, and following consultations with allies abroad and Congress at home, I can announce that America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat. Our objective is clear: we will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy.

I want the American people to understand how this effort will be different from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil.

Rather, it is a “counter-terrorism campaign” that “will be waged through a steady, relentless effort to take out ISIL wherever they exist using our air power and our support for partner forces on the ground,” he will say. It’s a strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, and is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years”.

It was only a few weeks ago, August 9th, when President Obama told the New York Times it was/is “a fantasy” to support “moderates” within Syria and expect them to be able to defeat radical Sunni Islamists.  Now, it appears, he is reversing course and saying the previous “fantasy” will be his specific approach. (more…)

We first discovered it on June 28th 2014 as an outcome of another research project we were working on. We have tried to draw as much attention to it as we can. Thankfully the Daily Caller is closing in, The Wall Street Journal is stumbling in that direction, and The American Center for Law and Justice’s Jay Sekulow has finally connected the dots.

How can the DOJ conduct an investigation into unlawful aspects of the IRS targeting of specific 501(c)(4) groups, when the DOJ is the initiating body for the illegality they are seeking to investigate ?

The IRS scandal is NOT about the IRS. Yes, the IRS did indeed target conservative groups; however, they were NOT the originating entity in the overall plan to create a list of targets.
The U.S. Department of Justice was the originating governmental agency who constructed the plan to make a target list and then weaponize various government agencies against those on the list.

As said, we stumbled onto the DOJ trail of evidence back in June when we reviewed one of very few disclosures given by Lois Lerner’s attorney William Taylor III. In a moment of clarity, which was not caught by the interviewer, William Taylor responded to questioning by stating that his client, Lois Lerner, was merely responding to a request from the Department of Justice, when she sent confidential tax files to the DOJ.

Taylor said Lerner didn’t know and sent them because Justice requested the documents: “She [understood] the donor information on Schedule B had been removed. In some cases, we later learned, it may not have been.” (link)

Lois Lerner sent the DOJ 1.1 million pages of 501(c)(4) tax filing data. Including a very specific set of “33 Schedule B attachment files”. The Schedule B’s were specific to Large Conservative 501(c)(4) groups operating and organized to oppose the agenda of President Obama. The Schedule B’s include the donor lists of specific people and sub-groups attached to the 501(c)(4).
In essence the donor group or names of every person who supported the larger conservative group. (more…)

As we have been saying for months, if you peel back the concentric layers that make up the IRS scheme you will find the DOJ was the entity compiling an illegal targeting list, not the IRS.   We outlined the initial discovery trail HERE, and why it matters HERE.

That’s why the Eric Holder DOJ is working diligently to cover-up their own verifiable attachment to the entire process. In this latest mistake the DOJ was asking congress to intentionally leak material given to the House Oversight Committee so they could produce a media response and get out ahead of the story.

How can the DOJ conduct an investigation into unlawful aspects of the IRS targeting of specific 501(c)(4) groups, when the DOJ is the initiating body for the illegality they are seeking to investigate ?

WASHINGTON DC – A lead House Republican is accusing the Justice Department Office of Public Affairs of improperly trying to coordinate with House Democrats on the release of subpoenaed documents in the IRS investigation.

Justice Department Director of Public Affairs Brian Fallon (pictured left) called the House Oversight Committee Friday evening and mistakenly spoke to Republican staff thinking he was speaking to Democrats, according to a spokesman for Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).

In that call, Fallon said his agency was about to turn over some IRS documents. He stated that he was not being allowed to release the material directly to the media, but that he wanted to get it into the hands of certain reporters “before the [Republican] Majority” had the chance to share it. That’s according to a letter Issa sent yesterday to Attorney General Eric Holder.

“The [Justice Department’s Fallon] then asked the [Republican] Committee employee if the Committee would agree to release the material to selected reporters and thereby allow the [Justice] Department to comment publicly on it.”–Issa to Holder (more…)

CNN Pundit Paul Callan points out the problems with Eric Holder rushing in his civil rights division to Ferguson, Missouri.

(CNN) — If the United States Department of Justice has any real interest in obtaining justice in the tragic shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement of a new civil rights investigation in Ferguson, Missouri, (population 21,000) was a step in the wrong direction.

The department’s ham-handed effort to improve the political “optics” of active federal involvement may, ironically, create the reasonable doubt that will ultimately clear the shooter, Officer Darren Wilson.
The Department of Justice is likely to be impeding justice by proceeding prematurely with a federal investigation while local law enforcement authorities struggle with the facts of the complex and controversial case.
The DOJ investigations (there now appear to be two that have been officially announced) are highly prejudicial to the local prosecutor’s presentation of the case to the grand jury. The non-sequestered grand jurors who return home every night after scrutinizing evidence in the case are almost certain to hear of the existence of the new federal investigation.
After all, the investigation was personally announced by the attorney general himself after the President publicly commented on the case. The grand jurors might reasonably wonder why the federal government would open a civil rights investigation at the very same time they are hearing evidence about Ferguson’s most famous homicide. (more…)

We pointed this out last night and apparently it was so brutally obvious even Andrea Mitchell had to admit it:

The bigger story is actually who is not present. Within the list of the absent you can identify President Obama’s approach. (more…)

Do you remember when President Obama was debating Mitt Romney and he said this:

Well check out the list of advisors attending tonights’ Think Tank dinner:
We are doomed. RT @Bridget_PJM: The let’s-strategize-on-ISIS dinner list tonight, via the White House pic.twitter.com/kJI02cdBhI
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) September 9, 2014
(more…)

If you wanted to find a copy of the CNN/ORC Poll that Jake Tapper referenced during his Monday evening “The Lead” TV show, good luck.
Young Tapper stated the results of a CNN poll released today were “devastating to [president] Obama“. Apparently Tapper is correct because you won’t find the poll data on any CNN website.
And you won’t find any high visibility mention of it either.
If you dig far enough you’ll find an article on Syria / ISIS that references it, but that’s as far as it goes.  And if you read all the way down the article you find:

[…] Obama’s upcoming speech comes as two Americans were murdered and grisly images and stories of the terrorist group needlessly killing enemies have emerged from Iraq and Syria. So far, Americans are not happy with how Obama has addressed the ISIS situation. The CNN/ORC poll shows that only 30% of Americans think that he has a clear plan for dealing with ISIS.
Overall, the President’s approval rating is 43%, while 55% disapprove how he is handling his role as commander in chief. (link)

BINGO – Now we know why the actual poll data is missing. Candy Crowley must have it under her office cushion.
Nothing to see here folks, move along… move along.

The key issue is not that ISIS is using U.S. made weapons.  Given ISIS geographic conquests it would be expected, vis-à-vis Iraq, they were able to capture weapons and armament.     No, it’s the *type* of weapons, specifically boxed M16’s, which identifies the covert shipments to Syria we outlined within the Benghazi Brief.   

In 2012 those small arms were shipped to Syria as a result of President Obama’s authorization.  Saudi Arabia and Qatar were providing the financing, Turkey provided an initial storage base near Adana where the nerve center for supporting what became ISIS was set up.   The UN peacekeeper Kofi Annan was pulled out of Syria, and U.S. weapons were poured in.

On September 5th 2012 a Libyan flag ship called Al Entisar docked in the Turkish port of Iskenderun, it carried small arms and rockets from the U.S. originally destined for the Free Syrian Army.  However, by that point the FSA had collapsed and most of the leaders defected to join what is now ISIS.

(Via Raw Story) Islamic State fighters appear to be using captured US military issue arms and weapons supplied to moderate rebels in Syria by Saudi Arabia, according to a report published on Monday.

The study by the London-based small-arms research organisation Conflict Armament Research documented weapons seized by Kurdish forces from militants in Iraq and Syria over a 10-day period in July.

The report said the jihadists disposed of “significant quantities” of US-made small arms including M16 assault rifles and included photos showing the markings “Property of US Govt”. (more…)

There are moments in edited TV content when a keyed-in viewer can see a cut intended to make a “comfort edit”, smoothing out the narrative. The Chuck Todd interview with President Obama was riddled with them. Even when being interviewed by a fellow ideological traveler.

But first to content:
On ISIS:
@00:24 “this administration has” – President Obama using third person distancing tactic discussing an uncomfortable negative. When the topic is positive, or viewed as favorable currency, the term “my administration” is used.
@01:05 “what I have done over the past several months” – President Obama knowing he was caught flat-footed, having called ISIS “JV”, and having admitted not having a strategy is now trying to give appearance of them having been working on this all along.
@01:45 “the next phase, is to start going on some offense” – Again, framing incompetence as if there was a previous outline/plan in place. This is similar to the re-writing of the Syrian RED LINE strategy, ‘yeah, yeah, we, um, we meant to um, create that Russian intervention WMD thing’. Embarrassingly juvenile for a President. (more…)

Now that we all know the full scope of the background story behind the State Department and CIA in Benghazi (See: The Benghazi Brief) it might be additionally interesting to watch this exclusive ‘on the ground’ report of 9/11/12 hosted by Bret Baier as he interviews the security team who suffered the consequences of operation Zero Footprint.

(Via Fox) This weekend, Fox News Reporting will bring you a special on the untold story of the Benghazi terror attack.
It has been nearly two years since the fatal attack. Now, hear for the first time from the men who fought that battle.
“Fox News Reporting: 13 Hours at Benghazi” is based off a new book, to be released next week, called “13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened In Benghazi” by Mitchell Zuckoff with the Annex Security Team.
The special premieres Friday, Sept. 5 at 10p ET. It re-airs Saturday, Sept. 6 at 1a, 5p and 9p ET, and again on Sunday, Sept. 7 at 12a, 8p and 11p ET.  (link)