Today at 11:30am Eastern, the Congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold another hearing on the Benghazi Terrorist Attack of 9/11/12.

Three witness testimonies are expected:

• Mr. Mark Thompson
  Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism
  US Department of State
• Mr. Gregory Hicks
  Foreign Service Officer and former Deputy Chief of Mission/Chargé d’Affairs in Libya
  US Department of State
• Mr. Eric Nordstrom
  Diplomatic Security Officer and former Regional Security Officer in Libya
  US Department of State

The Hearing will be live-streamed from Washington DC and is Available HERE – it should also be carried live on CSPAN

If you are watching today please share your thoughts and opinions in the comment section. In addition we will update throughout the day as testimony and questioning reveal any details of the crisis and White House cover-up that followed.

Will the truth finally be revealed?

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

Link

Like much of President Downgrade’s tenure the Syrian fiasco is one of insufferable consequences resulting from a ‘lead from behind’ strategy.

The window of opportunity for the U.S. to take action passed two years ago when the actual Syrian people, the ordinary freedom citizens, were crying out for help.  Over the course of the two years that followed those ordinary voices have been overrun by extremists who jumped into the vacuum created by a lack of action.

Now Syria has devolved into a brutal Assad regime being fought by an even more brutal group of al-Qaeda extremists, while supported by Egypt and Muslim Brotherhood elements.   The ordinary freedom movement is hiding amid destroyed homes, broken glass, and blood stained curtains.

Syria is Obama’s Iran 2.0 deja-vu.   In Iran 2009, the “Green Movement” suffered a similar fate to the ordinary Syrian seeking freedom.   President Obama ignored them both when the window was open – In Iran the Islamic iron gates locked down the opening, in Syria the same is taking place. (more…)

Good grief.   The Daily Mail has some remarkable pictures of the inside to the house where the three women were held captive.

Ariel Castro – 52                       Onil Castro – 50                      Pedro Castro – 54

Ariel Castro padlocked the doors leading to his basement, his attic and his garage and never allowed his family inside, his son has exclusively revealed to MailOnline.

Update 1.  At least five babies were born at the house, while one of the victims suffered as many as three miscarriages because she was so malnourished, police sources told NewsChannel5.

Other sources told WKYC that the captors would beat the women when they were pregnant, meaning that the babies would not survive.  (link)

Update 2.  A source further noted that Knight told police that there was another woman in the home when she got there, but one day she woke up and the woman was gone. There is writing on the wall in the basement which includes the name of a female and says, “Rest In Peace,” but police do not know if that is related to the case at this time.  (link)

Update 3.  One neighbor, Nina Samoylicz, said that one night two years ago, she and some friends saw a naked woman in Ariel Castro’s backyard. They tried to speak to her, and a man told the woman to get down, she said.

“So we said something to him, (and) he told her to get in the house and he ran behind the cars and got in the house,” Samoylicz said. They called police, but they weren’t taken seriously, she claims.

A week or two after that incident, Castro erected tarps in the backyard to seclude it, she said.  (link)

Chilling photographs from 2001 show a grinning Castro standing in front of a locked door – behind which unimaginable horrors may have been unfolding in the basement. (more…)

My sweet little granddaughter Sadie became a big sister to Mason yesterday at the ripe old age of 14 months. Sadie has been the only grandchild on our side of the family, and the only girl in our immediate family. Needless to say, she has been the center of attention, and the cause of untold joy. With the arrival of her brother, her world has been a little changed, and she is feeling out her place in this newly changed and a little bit uncertain reality. Yesterday was perhaps the most challenging day she has faced in her short little life, and she was, justifiably I think, somewhat out of sorts about it.

(more…)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate sided with traditional retailers and financially strapped state and local governments Monday by passing a bill that would widely subject online shopping — for many a largely tax-free frontier — to state sales taxes.

The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 69 to 27, getting support from Republicans and Democrats alike. But opposition from some conservatives who view it as a tax increase will make it a tougher sell in the House. President Barack Obama has conveyed his support for the measure.

Under current law, states can only require retailers to collect sales taxes if the store has a physical presence in the state. (more…)