What Will The Next Round Of Hearings On Benghazi Reveal?

"With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest, or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they'd they go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?” — Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, January 23, 2013.

On Wednesday the next round of hearings on the terrorist attacks of our consulate in Benghazi, Libya killing our Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, and former U.S. Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty on September 11, 2012. (For a comprehensive time-line of the attack click here.)

So what will this latest round of hearings reveal? Hopefully with the clearance give to the three latest State Department whistle-blowers the hearings will reveal truths that have been obfuscated by the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton to protect their political reputations, and in Hillary’s case her political future.

As in all political scandals the cover-up is worse than the issues that required the cover-up. This goes back to Tea Pot Dome, Iran-Contra, Watergate, and the Clinton sex scandal. All could have been nipped in the bud by the principals involved simply telling the truth. If you recall Bill Clinton was not impeached for having sex with Monica Lewinsky but for lying about it under oath and committing perjury when he emphatically said “I did not have sex with that woman.”

As Charles Krauthammer on "Special Report with Bret Baier" stated:

"If it turns out there are people who were material witnesses [concerning the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya] who could have known stuff who were turned away -- rather than perhaps ignored or negligence involved -- but if there was active turning away as a way to protect the administration, then you have a scandal on your hands."

An old-time trial lawyer once said, “When your case is weak, shout louder!”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shouted louder when asked about the Obama administration’s story last fall that the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. ambassador’s quarters in Benghazi was due to an anti-Islamic video that someone in the United States had put on the Internet, and thereby provoked a protest that escalated into violence.

She shouted at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “We had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they’d go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?”

Students of propaganda may admire the skill with which she misdirected people’s attention. But those of us who are still old-fashioned enough to think that the truth matters cannot applaud her success.

Let’s go back to square one.

After the attack on the American ambassador’s quarters in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, the Obama administration immediately blamed it on the anti-Islamic video.

Moreover, this version of what happened was not just a passing remark. It was a story that the administration kept repeating insistently. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice repeated that story on five different television talk shows on the same Sunday. President Obama himself repeated the same story at the United Nations. The man who put the anti-Islamic video on the Internet was arrested for a parole violation, creating more media coverage to keep attention on this theme.

“What difference, at this point, does it make?” Secretary Clinton now asks. What difference did it make at the time?

Obviously the Obama administration thought it made a difference, with an election coming up. Prior to the attack, the administration’s political theme was that Barack Obama had killed Osama bin Laden (with an assist from the Navy SEALs), vanquished Al Qaeda and was now in the process of putting the terrorist threat behind us.

To have the attack in Benghazi be seen as a terrorist attack — and a devastating one — would have ruined this picture, with an election coming up.

The key question that remains unanswered to this day is: What speck of evidence is there that the attack in Benghazi was due to the much-discussed video or that there was ever any protest demonstration outside the ambassador’s quarters?

If there is no evidence whatever, then the whole attempt to say that a protest over a video escalated into an attack was a deliberate hoax by people who knew better.

There is no point in the administration saying that they did not have all the facts about the attack immediately. All the facts may never be known. But the real question is: Did you have even a single fact that would substantiate your repeated claims that some video led to a protest in Benghazi that got out of hand and led to the attack?

Interestingly, Hillary Clinton herself was not featured in this campaign, even though as Secretary of State she was a key figure. Hillary was not about to create video footage that could come back to haunt her if she runs for president of the United States in 2016.

Until now the Obama administration, with the help of a sympathetic media, has been able to keep the Benghazi attack on the back burner. And as press secretary J. Carney recently stated: “that was a long time ago.”

So who are the whistle-blowers and who are the White House and State Department officials who prepared the talking points for the hapless Susan Rice and were pressuring the State Department officials who knew what happened on 9/11/12 to keep their mouths shut.

Let’s begin with the “whistle-blowers:”

• Gregory N. Hicks, a Foreign Service officer and former Deputy Chief of Mission/Chargé d’Affairs in Libya
• Former Marine Mark I. Thompson, acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism for the State Department.
• Diplomatic Security Officer Eric Nordstrom a former Regional Security Officer (RSO) in Libya. He was the top security officer in the country in the months leading up to the attacks.

They will appear before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by California Republican Darrell Issa.

Nordstrom previously testified before the oversight committee, which is chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., in October 2012. Of the three witnesses, he is the only one who does not consider himself a whistle-blower. At last fall's hearing, however, Nordstrom made headlines by detailing for lawmakers the series of requests that he, Ambassador Stevens, and others had made for enhanced security at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in the period preceding the attacks, requests mostly rejected by State Department superiors.

"For me the Taliban is on the inside of the [State Department] building," Nordstrom testified, angry over inadequate staffing at a time when the threat environment in Benghazi was deteriorating,

The other two witnesses have not been heard from publicly before.

Hicks is a veteran Foreign Service officer whose overseas postings have also included Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican and committee member, said Hicks was in Tripoli at 9:40 p.m. local time when he received one of Stevens’ earliest phone calls amid the crisis.

“We’re under attack! We’re under attack!” the ambassador reportedly shouted into his cell phone at Hicks.

Chaffetz, who subsequently debriefed Hicks, also said the deputy “immediately called into Washington to trigger all the mechanisms” for an inter-agency response.

“The real-life trauma that [Hicks] went through,” Chaffetz recalled to Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, “I mean, I really felt it in his voice. It was hard to listen to. He’s gone through a lot, but he did a great job.”

According to the State Department website, Thompson “advises senior leadership on operational counterterrorism matters, and ensures that the United States can rapidly respond to global terrorism crises.”

Five years before the Benghazi attacks, he lectured at a symposium hosted by the University of Central Florida and titled “The Global Terrorism Challenge: Answers to Key Questions.”

Joe DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney, and wife Victoria Toensing, a former chief counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee — Republicans — disclosed this week that in their private practice in the nation’s capital, they now represent pro bono two career State Department employees who regard themselves as “whistleblowers” and would be testifying before Issa’s committee at its next Benghazi hearing, on May 8.

The lawyers said their clients believe their accounts of Benghazi were spurned by the Accountability Review board (ARB), the official investigative body convened by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to review the terrorist attacks, and that the two employees have faced threats and intimidation from as-yet-unnamed superiors.

According to a Fox News report on the night of Sept. 11, as the Obama administration scrambled to respond to the Benghazi terror attacks, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a key aide effectively tried to cut the department's own counterterrorism bureau out of the chain of reporting and decision-making, according to a "whistle-blower" witness from that bureau who will soon testify to the charge before Congress:

“That witness is Mark I. Thompson, a former Marine and now the deputy coordinator for operations in the agency’s counterterrorism bureau. Sources tell Fox News Thompson will level the allegation against Clinton during testimony on Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California.

Fox News has also learned that another official from the counterterrorism bureau -- independently of Thompson -- voiced the same complaint about Clinton and Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy to trusted national security colleagues back in October.”

…

Thompson considers himself a whistle-blower whose account was suppressed by the official investigative panel that Clinton convened to review the episode, the Accountability Review Board (ARB). Thompson's lawyer, Joseph DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney, has further alleged that his client has been subjected to threats and intimidation by as-yet-unnamed superiors at State, in advance of his cooperation with Congress.

Sources close to the congressional investigation who have been briefed on what Thompson will testify tell Fox News the veteran counterterrorism official concluded on Sept. 11 that Clinton and Kennedy tried to cut the counterterrorism bureau out of the loop as they and other Obama administration officials weighed how to respond to -- and characterize -- the Benghazi attacks.

"You should have seen what (Clinton) tried to do to us that night," the second official in State's counterterrorism bureau told colleagues back in October. Those comments would appear to be corroborated by Thompson's forthcoming testimony.”

The Fox report by James Rosen continues:

“The counterterrorism officials, however, concluded that Clinton and Kennedy were immediately wary of the attacks being portrayed as acts of terrorism, and accordingly worked to prevent the counterterrorism bureau from having a role in the department's early decision-making relating to them.

Also appearing before the oversight committee on Wednesday will be Gregory N. Hicks, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya at the time of the Benghazi terrorist attacks. Like Thompson, Hicks is a career State Department official who considers himself a Benghazi whistle-blower. His attorney, Victoria Toensing, a former chief counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, has charged that Hicks, too, has faced threats of reprisal from unnamed superiors at State. (Toensing and diGenova, who are representing their respective clients pro bono, are married.)

Portions of the forthcoming testimony of Hicks -- who was one of the last people to speak to Stevens, and who upon the ambassador's death became the senior U.S. diplomat in Libya -- were made public by Rep. Issa during an appearance on the CBS News program "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

Hicks told the committee that he and his colleagues on the ground in Libya that night knew instantly that Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and that he was astonished that no one drafting the administration's talking points consulted with him before finalizing them, or before U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice delivered them on the Sunday talk shows of Sept. 16.”

So who is Patrick Kennedy, a name this is not too well known to followers of this developing scandal? According to the Department of State web site:

“Patrick F. Kennedy, a Career Minister in the Foreign Service, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Under Secretary of State for Management on November 6, 2007. As Under Secretary for Management, he is responsible for the people, resources, budget, facilities, technology, financial operations, consular affairs, logistics, contracting, and security for Department of State operations, and is the Secretary’s principal advisor on management issues. He is chair of the department-wide Greening Council, responsible for overseeing implementation of the Secretary’s Greening Diplomacy Initiative (GDI), to improve the sustainability of the State Department’s facilities and operations.

Prior to assuming his position as Under Secretary for Management, he was Director of the Office of Management Policy, Rightsizing, and Innovation from May 2007; Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Management from April 2005 to May 2007; and from February 2005 to April 2005, he headed the Transition Team that set up the newly created Office of the Director of National Intelligence.”

The State Department was at fault for failing to have a clear emergency response plan in the hours following the Benghazi attack, which might have otherwise saved the lives of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans who died in the incident on Sept. 11, 2012.

That is the conclusion of Brandon Webb, a former Navy SEAL after reviewing Fox News’ claims that a special ops team wasn’t called in to help even though it was stationed less than six hours away.

“I don’t disagree with anything that that anonymous special operations operator said on Fox News. The issue is all along that the State Department is at fault,” said Webb, co-author of “Benghazi: the Definitive Report.”

In his role as Under Secretary of State for Management Kennedy is a virtual czar over the operations and personal at the State Department. According to interviews I have heard on various talk radio shows with people who are familiar with the operations of the State Department Kennedy rues with a iron fist and views his role as protecting the reputation of the State Department no matter what.

According to a Newsmax report Rep. Darrell Issa of California charged on Sunday that the Obama administration made a political decision to deny that terrorists were responsible for the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

“Gregory Hicks, who was second in command at the Benghazi mission, will testify along with Mark Thompson, acting deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism, and Eric Nordstrom, diplomatic security officer and former regional security officer in Libya.

"I thought is was a terrorist attack from the get-go," Hicks was quoted as telling investigators. "I think everybody in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning."

But U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five Sunday morning news shows five days later blaming the attack on a spontaneous protest that erupted after a similar protest in Egypt. The Egyptian protest was blamed on an anti-Muslim video made in the United States.

Prior to Rice’s appearance on "Face the Nation" at that time, Libya's newly elected president Mohamed Magarief had just told host Bob Schieffer that the attack was caused by terrorism.

For Rice to immediately contradict him was a "loss of face" in his own country and throughout the world, Hicks said. "The net impact of what has transpired is the spokesperson of the most powerful country in the world has basically said that the president of Libya is either a liar or doesn't know what he's talking about.

"My jaw hit the floor as I watched this," Hicks told investigators. "I've never been as embarrassed in my life, in my career, as on that day. I never reported a demonstration; I reported an attack on the consulate. Chris' last report — if you want to say his final report — is 'Greg, we are under attack.'"

"You can't insult a foreign leader in a greater way than happened literally here just those few days later," Issa told Schieffer on Sunday.”

..

One of the issues Issa's committee will focus on is why talking points were changed in the days after the attack.

State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland had expressed fear that the talking points would be used by members of Congress to criticize the State Department for not paying attention to agency warnings about the need for more security, according to Schieffer.

"We know one thing," Issa responded. "The talking points were right, and then the talking points were wrong."

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should have been "on the same sheet of music with the Libyan government," Issa said, "and she wasn't."

Hicks himself hasn't been given access to the classified report, Issa said, so his assertions that the report is wrong are based on the public report.

Issa called the State Department's probe "questionable" in that it clearly meets the statutory requirement to do an investigation, but "it doesn't answer any real questions, or place blame on people who were involved in this failure."

He described the effort by the Obama administration "a misinformation campaign at best, and a cover-up at worst."

So who is the man behind the cover-up and who changed the CIA talking points for U.N Ambassador Susan Rice — an action that ultimately caused her to withdraw her nomination as Secretary of State. His Name id Ben Rhodes.

Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard has a must read column regarding the Benghazi cover-up by White House officials.

CIA career officials clearly and repeatedly identified Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda-linked Islamic terrorists as the culprits behind the murder of four Americans.

Of course, this would cause embarrassment for the Obama team, especially in the few weeks before the election. They had been boasting for years that Al Qaeda had been decimated, the "tide of war" was receding; they had been on a mission to whitewash the prospect of Islamic terrorism as a threat to America (see Lauri Regan's superb column ("Can a President who has promised to stand with Muslims protect America?). Obama's Cairo speech before an audience that included Muslim Brotherhood officials that he compelled Egypt to include, was a paean to Islam. It was also, to a great extent, a work of fiction that included grandiose and subsequently disproven claims about the positive contributions Islam has made to America and the world.

According to the L.A. Times that speech was written by Obama's foreign policy speechwriter and now National Security Council team member, Ben Rhodes.

That is the man who Hayes "outs" as a key person behind the Benghazi cover-up. (You can see how the original CIA report was changed by Rhodes in Hayes’ article)

He reportedly altered the CIA talking points to delete references to Islamic terrorists, "attacks" (they became "demonstrations") and other negative references to Islamism. Also, someone at the White House level apparently dreamt up the idea of blaming an inconsequential video for triggering a spontaneous protest, that in the frenzy of events, led to the murder of Americans. These CIA talking points were eviscerated to whitewash the role of Islamic terrorism.

There was a White House whitewash that should not be dismissed over events that occurred a 'long time ago;" contrary to Hillary Clinton saying that responsibility for the deaths of Americans serving their nation does "matter." And despite Secretary of State's John Kerry's dismissiveness towards the Benghazi murders — "we got a lot more important things to move on to" — justice for the America's dead demands we find who is responsible.

Ben Rhodes should be called to account for trying to divert blame away from Islamic terrorists and the Obama team members whose feckless negligence led to the Benghazi massacre.

Rhodes earned a master's degree in fiction-writing from New York University just a few years ago. He did not have a degree in government, diplomacy, national security; nor has he served in the CIA, or the military. He was toiling away not that long ago on a novel called 'The Oasis of Love" about a mega church in Houston, a dog track, and a failed romance.

Carol Lee of Politico wrote in May, 2009, that”

“Not long ago, Rhodes was one of the obscure guys who wrote Obama’s campaign speeches in Starbucks and played video games into the early morning hours. Now he attends national security meetings and takes writer’s refuge in a secret office on the third floor of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

Rhodes is still largely unknown compared to Jon Favreau, Obama’s 27-year-old chief speechwriter and one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people. But he has come a long way in a few years — from mulling over that novel, about a megachurch in Houston, a dog track and a failed romance, to writing a closely watched president’s most significant speeches.”

Wow — what a meteoric rise! What qualifies him to have been given such power to lie to the American people? Why does he have so much influence with Barack Obama?

Maybe it is just his avid willingness to do the bidding of his bosses, regardless of truth.

Why do I make this claim? Well, for one reason, Hayes notes he did it regarding Benghazi. But there is a pattern here that he puts his education as a fiction writer to work for political purposes.

Years ago, Democratic Senator and Obama-mentor Lee Hamilton plucked him from obscurity to write what became the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report. That report was rightly criticized for many reasons, among them was the stacking of its "expert list" with various pro-Arab apologist. Incidentally, the commission ignored its mandate to focus on Iraq and instead devoted a lot of words to attack Israel. Some of the experts who were interviewed were appalled by the final written report because they felt it did not reflect facts, their testimony, or reality.

Who wrote this whitewash? Who was responsible for hitting the delete button of some of the expert testimony? Who tried to divert responsibility for terrorism away from where it belongs?

None other than Ben Rhodes — a man who has finally found a use for his fiction-writing education (since he failed as a novelist); to whitewash Islamists and the Obama administration.

I hope the House calls Rhodes as a witness in this week's hearings regarding the Benghazi massacre and the miscarriage of justice in Washington. Will his fiction-writing on behalf of Obama come to light?

He bears responsibility for a great deal of what has gone wrong in American foreign and national security policy for the past few years.

Obama cautioned against rushing to judgment and said that he and his team's mistakes were no cover up but rather the result of the fog of war, or something like it. An inquest would be conducted. The bottom of this would be gotten to.

The slow walk was on.

Romney subsequently shied from the subject. The one time he made mention of the attack in a debate with Obama, the president caught him on a technicality and moderator Candy Crowley of CNN helped to humiliate the former Massachusetts governor.

The press, mostly either cowed or uninterested on the subject, let the issue drop too. Obama's strategy was successful. Political disaster was averted.

But having been re-elected, the election strategy re: Benghazi is causing something of a hangover for the president.

Now that we have had the first large-scale terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11, public anxiety about Islamists and terrorism is way up. With that backdrop, Republicans are re-opening the inquest into the Benghazi attacks. This time the questions aren't so much about non-existent riots or why Americans in an Islamist country weren't on higher alert.

This time it's about allegations of a cover-up. Did Obama officials muzzle critics in service of the president's re-election goal? Was the inquest full and fair? What did the president know, and when did he know it?

Given it all to do over again, Obama likely would repeat his pre-election approach to Benghazi: denounce critics, go slow and minimize any broader significance of the attack. After all, he did win a second term.

But that does not mean he will not pay a price for it.

I will be watching the hearings, as I watched the Watergate hearings, on Fox or C-Span with interest. I hope that the House Committee will do the same job that the Senate did with Watergate and build a case in the manner of a prosecutor. I would also like to see Patrick Kennedy called to testify as to his actions in muzzling the whistle-blowers. The State Department needs a very thorough house cleaning.

Unlike the Senate 1973 Watergate Hearings, chaired by that “old country lawyer Sam Ervin and covered by a friendly press, this House Committee will have to deal with a hostile media and Obama’s celebrity personality. Chairman Issa, who I have met several times, will have to be on the top of his game it the truth be known. Issa, a high-tech business entrepreneur, is no country lawyer so he will need a staff that is extremely qualified to did to the bottom of the bureaucratic barrel. Also, you must keep in mind that the Republican members of the Senate Select Committee were not there to defend Nixon — they were there to get at the truth no matter who got damaged. This is not the case today with the Democrats. Like good progressive leftists they will attempt to cover for Obama.

The media is interested, now that silence is not necessary to get President Obama re-elected. Congressional Democrats seem nervous. Will these hearings drain even more political energy from a second Obama term that has already been described as "dead in the water?" Will they seal the political fate of Hillary Clinton? Or were Obama and Clinton correct in their gamble that public consternation over deadly incompetence and outrageous dishonesty would quickly fade once the public pardoned Obama and his team by re-electing him?

Once the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi is seen for what it was — a highly coordinated and highly successful operation by terrorists who were said to have been vanquished — that calls into question the Obama administration’s Middle East foreign policy.

As Debra Saunders wrote in Real Clear Politics on January 24, 2013:

“So here's what matters. It matters if al-Qaida-inspired terrorists planned this attack. It matters if the same group was involved in the Algeria killings. It doesn't matter if a few guys angry about a video somehow found themselves in the company of armed militants intent on killing a U.S. ambassador.”

That is why it still matters.

Welcome to the Soviet Union

“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted. — Vladimir Lenin

This story should warm Mary Elizabeth Williams’ heart. Williams of course is the Salon.com blogger who recently informed her readers that “we” all need to get over the idea that parents should be the ones caring for children. According to Williams, and her partner in silliness, Melissa Harris-Perry of MSNBC, “the community” should be the one to do that job. Neither Williams nor Harris-Perry ever explained just why parents shouldn’t care for their children. I can only assume the two consider the statement indisputable and therefore in need of no support. Needless to say, they didn’t ask any actual parents for feedback on the idea. Nor did they let readers know just who this “community” is that’s supposed to start caring for the nation’s 74.2 million children under the age of 18. Hey, when you have such a brilliant idea, it’s OK to let someone else work out the details.

Here’s an example of the actions of the “community” about whose “care” of children Williams and Harris-Perry are so thrilled. According to a report by Sacramento’s ABC News:

A Sacramento mom and dad, Anna Nikolayev and husband Alex have a little son they named Sammy. Sammy has a heart murmur, but apparently not one that risks his health. At age five months, he got the flu, so his mother and father took him to Sutter Memorial Hospital. Sutter kept him what seems to me an inordinate period of time — two weeks — during which Anna began to get the idea that Sammy wasn’t getting the best of care.

For example, one day Anna asked why a nurse was giving her son antibiotics.

“I asked her, for what is that? And she’s like, ‘I don’t know.’ I’m like, ‘you’re working as a nurse, and you don’t even know what to give to my baby for what,’” Anna explained.

According to Anna, a doctor later said Sammy shouldn’t have been on the antibiotics.

That type of negligence would give any caring parent pause. After all, hospitals make mistakes in care every day. Studies of the American health care system mark up a troubling number of deaths to medical negligence. The Journal of the American Medical Association puts the number at 230,000 per year just from hospital negligence alone.

Plus, two weeks in the hospital for the flu sounds a lot like the behavior of a business enterprise that’s trying to increase its billings. That take on the situation is corroborated by the fact that hospital personnel wanted to put Sammy into pediatric ICU in advance of performing heart surgery.

At that point, Anna took the baby out of Sutter Memorial without being discharged and over to Kaiser Permanente for a second opinion. Her entirely reasonable action apparently didn’t sit well with someone at Sutter. My guess is that at least part of the reason is that doctors at Kaiser said Sammy looked fine and sent him home with Anna and Alex.

Medical records from the doctor treating Sammy at Kaiser Permanente said the baby was clinically safe to go home with his parents. The doctor added, “I do not have concern for the safety of the child at home with his parents.”

And when that happens, some skeptics, like those who work at health insurance companies, might start asking questions about the lengthy course of care Sammy was getting at Sutter. They might also decide the treatment wasn’t reasonable and necessary, and not to pay the bills. At this point, I’m going to guess that threat to getting paid is what motivated Sutter to call the police. Sutter told the police that the Nikolayevs were neglecting their son’s care, the police dutifully showed up at Kaiser, found out what the situation was and went away.

The police showed up there. They saw that the baby was fine,” Anna said. “They told us that Sutter was telling them so much bad stuff that they thought that this baby is dying on our arms.”

So police saw the report from the doctors, said, ‘okay guys, you have a good day,’ and they walked away,” Anna said.

But that wasn’t’ the script Sutter was reading from. Apparently, the idea that there was nothing about Sammy that needed lots of expensive medical attention didn’t sit well with them. Certainly Anna and Alex’s assertion of their rights as parents didn’t. So Sutter tried again. With Alex, Anna and Sammy at home the next day, the police showed up again, this time in the company of Child Protective Services.

“I was pushed against the building, smacked down. I said, ‘am I being placed under arrest?’ He smacked me down onto the ground, yelled out, ‘I think I got the keys to the house,’” Alex said.

Then police let themselves inside.

On home video shot with a camera Anna set up herself, police can be seen entering her front door on Wednesday.

“I’m going to grab your baby, and don’t resist, and don’t fight me ok?” a Sacramento police officer said in the video.

“He’s like, ‘okay let your son go,’ so I had to let him go, and he grabbed my arm, so I couldn’t take Sammy. And they took Sammy, and they just walked .”

To watch the video of little Sammy being taken at gun point by CPS click here, it’s horrifying and resembles the actions of a totalitarian state.

At this point, the police aren’t talking and CPS claims it’s a case of “severe neglect.” That’s “severe neglect” of the kind the Kaiser doctor didn’t notice in giving the little lad a clean bill of health. That’s “severe neglect” whose real meaning is “we can do anything we want to and no one can stop us.” CPS claimed “We conduct a risk assessment of the child’s safety and rely heavily on the direction of health care providers.”

Did CPS consult the Kaiser doctor? Apparently not. But one thing is certain, little Sammy was taken from his parents and shifted into the care of — can you guess — Sutter Memorial Hospital.

The story does not end here. The Nikolayevs, immigrants for Russia, hired an attorney and took their case to court. They are celebrating after a Sacramento county judge ordered their 5-month-old son be taken out of protective custody and transported to a Stanford hospital in Palo Alto, News 10 reported.

“The decision came one week after police and Child Protective Services removed Anna and Alex Nikolayev’s son, Sammy, from the couple’s house. The reason: They had sought a second medical opinion for their child.

The Nikolayevs can now see Sammy whenever they want and have control over the child’s medical decisions, but CPS will continue to monitor the situation.

“It’s like a special day for us,” Anna told News 10, a local ABC affiliate. “We’re like a unit with our son again.”

Now, by order of the judge, Sammy will stay at Stanford Medical Center, where he will get a second medical opinion. However, the couple must allow CPS to visit their home once Sammy is discharged, and they must agree to never take him from a hospital against medical advice.”

All Sammy’s parents wanted to do was get second opinion before subjecting him to heart surgery. This is something any responsible and ration parent would do.

Megyn Kelly, of Fox News, interviewed Anna and Alex Nikolayev and their lawyers, Joe Weinberger and Robert Powell, on America Live on April 30^th.

"They still want to control our life," said Anna, responding to Megyn's question about why authorities should still be able to make regular visits to check up on Sammy.

Weinberger said the Nikolayevs did what any parents would do in seeking a second opinion before deciding a major surgery for their child.

"It's not like they went home and sat around. They went to another hospital," said Weinberger, noting that the parents had an "antagonistic" relationship with the first doctor.

Alex Nikolayev said he received a call from his wife the next day, saying cops were outside and going to break the door down.

"I asked them if they had a warrant. Next thing you know I'm basically being pushed, dropped to the ground," he said, recalling that officers handcuffed him, then took away his keys and tried to enter the house. At that point, he said he called his wife from outside and told her to call 911.

Weinberger said he believes authorities have been lying and trying to cover up "to justify an action that is completely unjustifiable," vowing that a lawsuit is "absolutely" forthcoming.

Please watch the full interview here to hear the heart-wrenching account of government gone out of control.

A California lawmaker is now calling for a full audit of the state’s Child Protective Services after the agency helped police take Sammy from his parents. California Assemblyman Tim Donnelly is (R-Twin Peaks) behind the push for an audit of Child Protective Services. “If this mother committed any crime, it’s caring about her child too much. The mother is the only rational figure here, and so I am demanding answers from CPS,” Donnelly said.

Donnelly said since looking into the Nikolayev case, he's also heard from many parents with similar complaints against CPS. He hopes to investigate each case as he did when he first heard about Anna and Alex and started contacting officials at both Sutter Memorial and CPS.

"The first question I asked them is, 'Are these parents abusive? Do you suspect that they are guilty of neglect or something along those lines,' and they said, 'Absolutely not; 99.9% these are just normal parents,' and I said then, "What the Hell are you doing?'" Donnelly said.

"They should have done the reports. They should have done all those researches before they would walk in our home, and took our son from our hands," Anna said.

The Department of Health and Human Services that oversees CPS declined Donnelly's request for more information. Now, the legislator, who sits on the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, plans to take a closer look at the agency he says has raised deep suspicions.

You can watch News 10 interview with Donnelly here.

Today with agencies such as the CPS along with our K-12 public school system and their constant increasing of political correctness in the schools and curriculums parents have less and less control, or even influence, over their children and their education. This influence and control is slowly shifting more and more to the state. Sure, we need, as a civil and caring society watch out for children who are physically and sexually abused and are victims of drug addicted parents. But this has to be done with caution and oversight in order to avoid abuses from the system as happened to the Nikolayevs. Perhaps before making a Gestapo-like raid, a warrant should be obtained and abiding by the IV Amendment to the Constitution. Suspected criminals are afforded this right but it seems the Nikolayevs were not. The unbridled power of the CPS should not be allowed.

According to an article by Chris Branson, an attorney in Houston Texas writing on the ten things you should do if CPS shows up at your home. Branson relates what was told him by a CPS social worker:

"I wish I could shout from the highest mountain to parents to vigilantly learn their rights! If they knew what their legal rights were there would be significantly lower numbers of child removals. Social workers, unlike policemen making an arrest, are not required to inform the parents of their legal rights. All we had to do to remove a child was to show up at the home and tell the parents we came to remove the kids. Often times we would take a police officer with us (never telling the parents he was there for MY protection, not to enforce an order or warrant). 99% of the time we never had to get a warrant or court order to remove kids because the parents would be so intimidated by the officer that they would just hand their kids over and show up for court the next day. But if they had legally known their parental rights, they could simply have told me that I could not take the children unless I had a court order signed by the judge or had a warrant to remove the kids. The majority of times parents were just intimidated and gave consent for the whole process to begin; completely unknowing of what rights they just waived."

The problem in Sacramento was that the CPS the Nikolayevs being immigrants probably were not as familiar with the Bill of Rights as they should have been thus allowing the CPS to run roughshod over their rights while the police — who should have known better — allowed it to happen

This is only one of the most recent and public embodiments of CPS working underhandedly in concert with so-called authorities and health practitioners to literally kidnap children from their parents.

The story goes a long way in depicting the collectivist mindset being promulgated and embraced by the left, the most recent example of which had MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry declaring all children belong to the “community,” in other words, to the state. “We have to break through our private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families,” Harris-Perry recently stated in an awkward 30-second indoctrination piece aired during breaks on MSNBC.

The right to choose what’s best for your own child is a speck fading gradually in the rear view mirror, and as Sarah at the Healthy Home Economist correctly surmised, the day has come where walking through hospital doors means immediately surrendering your right to dictate what’s best medically for your child:

“Parents are increasingly becoming irrelevant when it comes to decisions regarding their children’s medical care. Jodi and Scott Ferris experienced a similar traumatic event when they questioned the Hep B vaccination for their baby at Penn State Hershey Medical Center. Their baby was also taken by CPS.

The moral of this story? Tick off doctors and nurses at a hospital and they could very well sic CPS on you – with police breaking down your door in short order.

Think long and hard before taking your children to the hospital my friends. Once you go through that door, the medical decisions about your child are no longer within your control.”

Do you think seeking a second opinion is cause for CPS involvement, or should parents have a right to decide which doctors treat their child? Soon this overreaching control by the state will begin to affect home schooling, not for the benefit of the child but for the benefit of the school. The schools and the teachers unions will want that state and federal money allocated to the student to fill their coffers. Welcome to the Soviet Union.

Blame It On The Tea Party

“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.” — Vladimir Lenin

There is a constant barrage of claims from the Left and RINO Republicans that the Tea Party is a group of dissidents that are akin to terrorist who do not have the best interest of the county at heart. They are accused of being against gun control, wanting a reduction in the size and scope of government, onerous EPA regulations, wanting lower taxes, unregulated immigration, and wanting the repeal of ObamaCare. All of this is true. But, they are people who assemble for peaceful protests, visits to offices of their legislature, and support candidates for political or administrative office that agree with their principles.

Tea Party member come in all stripes. There are seniors and young people. There are whites, Hispanics, and Blacks. There are Gays and straight folks. There are doctors, lawyers, engineers, farmers, industrial workers, housewives, and even a few college professors. The one this they all have in common is a love of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution.

They are usually better informed as to the politics of the nation and what is happening in Washington, D.C., their state capital, their city hall, and local school board. And they don’t like what is happening to the country.

In 2010 their influence changed the political makeup of the U.S. House of Representatives along with many state houses and state legislatures. The election of Senators Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, and Ted Cruz were due to the efforts of the Tea Party. This is what our Founders wanted, a vibrant Republic where the citizens made the wished known through the ballot box

Yet as late as yesterday Harry Reid (D-NV), majority leader of the Senate, accused the Tea Party of being archaists and obstructionists to Obama’s agenda and more interested in making a point that making progress — progress to what?

In 2010 the left-wing press accused the Tea Party of acting violently and racists towards a Black Congressman — something that never happened, Andrew Breitbart of Beitbart.com offered $100,000 to anyone who had video of such an occurrence. None ever came forth. Believe me, for 100 grand I would have presented such a video if I had one. This was allegation was just one of many thrown around by the Left – Allegations that were never proven.

On the other hand we have the Left and how they approach politics. They don’t believe in our system of constitutional government. They believe, like Lenin in street riots and the destruction of private property to make their agenda known. In most cases they don’t even know what they want. The Occupy Wall Street movement of 2012 was a prime example of this. They occupies public places without permits and trashed them. When asked by responsible reporters what they wanted most could no not give a cogent answer. All the wanted was free college, forgiveness of the college loans, a high paying job commensurate with their inflated worth, and the destruction of the capital system. The irony in their demands was that without the capitalist system their chances of getting that high paying job were zero. Yet the left-wing Democrats latched onto OWS movement in order to show their sympathies for this bunch of pot-smoking, disgruntled college students and losers.

The annual May Day parade of losers turned violent in Seattle, much as it did last year. It’s a thematically appropriate way to commemorate world socialism, although rather rough on the innocent bystanders. In addition to the violence, you’ve also got the rich irony of Starbucks patrons wearing designer labels using high-end smartphones to organize a rally “against capitalism, all nation states, and borders,” as their recruiting poster declared. No one could parody this pathetic “movement” more effectively than it satirizes itself.

Several dozen protesters, many using bandanas to cover their faces, began clashing with police in downtown Seattle hours after a peaceful immigrant-rights march ended. Protesters threw rocks and bottles at police officers and news crews.

As they moved through downtown Seattle to another nearby neighborhood, they flung construction street barriers, trash cans and newspaper bins on the streets in an attempt to block advancing police officers. Windows of local businesses were broken and vehicles with people in them were banged around.

The violence stemmed from a march that billed itself as an “anti-capitalism” protest. Initially, the protesters concentrated on a business sector of downtown Seattle.

Despite lacking a permit to march, Seattle police escorted them as through downtown.

“That first march came downtown. It was absolutely peaceful…it was almost a festive affair and they had some serious messages, too, that they wanted to express. No incidents whatsoever,” McGinn said. “The second march was very different, and it wasn’t just merely because it was unpermitted. I think it also had to do with the nature of the individuals in it and what they wanted to do.”

Not that there’s much point in trying to have a rational discussion with these people, but it’s amusing that they don’t seem to understand that anarchy is the harbinger of the centralized domination they fancy themselves protesting. Anarchists are merely the roadies who set the stage and hook up the equipment for the big-name totalitarian bands, whose sets always run long past the point where the audience is ready to die trying to escape. Anarchy isn’t “total freedom,” as the banner held aloft in the post declares; it is the prelude to total submission.

In Seattle, “total freedom” turned out to mean smashing a lot of windows and throwing rocks at the police. Oddly, there doesn’t seem to be much U.S. media coverage of the festivities yet, but the Independent of Ireland filed a report:

“Protesters threw rocks, bottles and chunks of asphalt at officers, officials said, smashing store and car windows, overturning trash cans and lining up newspaper display racks to block streets.

Police in riot gear, some riding in armored SWAT vehicles, responded by repeatedly firing “blast ball” grenades, which emit smoke tinged with pepper spray.

“We’re a bigger, better city than this,” Mayor Mike McGinn said at a news conference. “I’m disappointed that this is the picture the world sees of us.”

Most of the 150-200 protesters who had stayed on the street after darkness fell for a “non-permitted” protest had dispersed by midnight.

“We did not start to take action until that group itself started to act violently towards the officers and the community at large,” Assistant Police Chief Paul McDonagh said.”

150 to 200 people? The Glorious Peoples’ Revolutionary Army is looking pretty sad these days. Next year, if they want to draw a bigger crowd of like-minded supporters, they should consider holding their “demonstration” in North Korea. They would have their socialist brothers and sisters eating from the palms of their hands! (Literally, if they bring food.)

KING 5 News in Seattle has more details, including a tally of the arrests and injuries:

“Olivia One Feather of Covington joined the crowd Wednesday night because she wanted to see how police handled the protest. She said she wasn’t impressed, adding that she was pepper sprayed in the face while trying to video record officers.

“They don’t have any manners. They don’t say please or give you time to get out of the way,” she said.

Of the protesters, she added, “They’re doing what we need to do to stand up to ourselves. These are our streets and we have the right to take them.”

What, your streets? Public streets belong to all and the impairment of ingress and egress is a crime against public order. But, these morons don’t seem to understand or even know it. There have been many state court rulings defining the right of passage on public ways and a federal appellate court ruling in Frantz v. Gress.

By the way, misguided Republicans who think supporting amnesty for illegal aliens will somehow win them political support should note that Commie Day was also a big day for amnesty shills, who staged demonstrations in Seattle and elsewhere.

The violence marred a May Day that immigrant-rights activists hoped would put a focus back on immigration reform. Thousands of people marched about 2½ miles from the Central District toward Seattle’s downtown Jackson Federal Building after a May Day rally supporting immigrant rights and labor.

Many carried signs, with messages such as “We are America,” and “There are no illegal humans.” One sign suggested forgetting about marijuana and instead asking the United States to “Legalize my mom,” a reference to Washington’s recent legalization of marijuana.

You can read more reports and view videos of the Seattle demonstrations at Hot Air, Breitbart and The Blaze.

Of Course you have consider that Seattle is one of the most left-wing cities in the United States. Several years there were violent demonstration against the World Trade Organization aka The Battle in Seattle. It is also home to Starbucks and John Reed the commie newspaperman who, in 1917, went to The Soviet Union and proclaimed the wonders of the Communist Revolution and in 1920 was buried as a “Hero of the Soviet Union” near the Kremlin Wall. Much could be said about Reed, but as Obama’s Press Secretary J. Carney said about Benghazi; “that was a long time ago.” He was one of Lenin’s “useful idiots” as the bone-headed demonstrators in Seattle and Chicago are.

Are We Heading for Benghazigate?

“[A] good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous.” — George Washington, letter to Steptoe Washington — 1790

Yesterday during President Obama’s meandering press conference he stated, when asked by a reporter, that he was not aware of any efforts by the government to muzzle the four alleged State Department and CIA whistle-blowers who wanted to testify to Congress as to what they knew of the Bengasi terrorist attack that killed or Ambassador and three others. If yu believe Obama’s statement I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you at a good price.

For months now, Republican lawmakers have been wondering about the status of the survivors of last September’s terrorist attack in Benghazi that resulted in the death of the four Americans, and why it is that Congress has not been afforded more access to them. In March, Sen. Lindsey Graham suggested that the Obama administration was engaged in specifically blocking access to these witnesses, and that the witnesses had even been told to “keep quiet” — a notion that the administration blithely dismissed and Democrats once more pooh-poohed as the mere partisan pish-tosh of those petty Republicans.

When Ambassador Chris Stevens was planning to visit Benghazi last September, the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, which the State Department had hired to help protect Americans there, delivered a message: They were no longer going to support the movement of U.S. personnel in the city — including the movement of Stevens.

"In addition," said a report released last week by the chairmen of the House committees on Foreign Relations, Oversight, Armed Services, Judiciary, and Intelligence, "on Sept. 8, 2012, just days before Ambassador Stevens arrived in Benghazi, the February 17 Martyrs Brigade told State Department officials that the group would no longer support U.S. movements in the city, including the ambassador's visit."

A footnote in the report attributes this information to an internal State Department email. The footnote says: "Email from Alec Henderson to John B. Martinec, 'RE: Benghazi QRF agreement,' (Sep. 9, 2012, 11:31 p.m.)."

Martinec was then the State Department's regional security officer (RSO) at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli and, thus, the ambassador's top security adviser.

Despite this email, Stevens went ahead with his trip to Benghazi, arriving there on Sept. 10. At the time, there were three State Department diplomatic security officers deployed on temporary duty at the department's Benghazi mission. Stevens brought another two with him from Tripoli — bringing the total State Department security contingent in Benghazi to five people.

“The Board found that Ambassador Stevens made the decision to travel to Benghazi independently of Washington, per standard practice," said the State Department's Accountability Review Board report released on Dec. 18."

“Plans for the ambassador's trip provided for minimal close protection security support and were not shared thoroughly with the embassy's country team, who were not fully aware of planned movements off compound," said the ARB report.

On Oct. 10, 2012, the House Oversight and Governmental Reform Committee took testimony from Eric Nordstrom, who served as the RSO at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli from Sept. 21, 2011, until July 26, 2012 — leaving the country six weeks before the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack. The committee did not take testimony from John Martinec, who was RSO at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli on Sept. 11, 2012.

Nor has any congressional committee taken testimony from the five State Department Diplomatic Security officers in Benghazi with Stevens on Sept. 11, 2012.

Why not? These are American heroes. Why can't America hear their stories?

“The board determined that U.S. personnel on the ground in Benghazi performed with courage and readiness to risk their lives to protect their colleagues, in a near impossible situation," said the State Department ARB report.

“While our country spent Sept. 11, 2012, remembering the terrorist attacks that took place 11 years earlier, brave Americans posted at U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, were fighting for their lives against a terrorist assault," said a report released on Dec. 30 by the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Last Friday, House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa publicly released a letter he sent to Secretary of State John Kerry detailing a number of ways the State Department was interfering with his committee's investigation of Benghazi. These included refusing to give the committee unfettered access to Benghazi-related documents and declining to even advise would-be State Department whistleblowers that they have a legal right to talk to Congress.

Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., has proposed a plan to end State's stonewalling. He is the principal sponsor of legislation to create a House Select Committee on the Terrorist Attack in Benghazi. This committee would be comprised of members of both parties and have full power to subpoena documents and compel testimony from personnel in the State Department and other government agencies.

Already, 134 House Republicans — a majority of the Republican caucus — have joined as co-sponsors of Wolf's legislation.

"It is clear that the administration just wants the issue of Benghazi to go away, but I sincerely hope that Congress will not aid this White House cover-up of the mistakes made by high-level members of the administration that cost four brave Americans their lives," Wolf said Tuesday.

The December 2011 issue of State Magazine — the State Department's in-house publication — proudly named the diplomatic security agents who travelled with Chris Stevens to Benghazi that year when he established a special mission there during the Libyan revolution. Any American with an Internet hookup can look up the identities of these State Department heroes — and even see photographs of some of them.

But, as of today, the State Department has only named four of the Americans who were in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012. These are the four the terrorists succeeded in murdering: Stevens, Information Management Officer Sean Smith and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.

In a March 16^th interview with Fox News Senator Graham said “"the bottom line is they feel that they can't come forth, they've been told to be quiet." The Fox News report goes on:

“Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, in an extensive interview with Fox News, alleged that the injured survivors of the Benghazi terror attack have been "told to be quiet" and feel they can't come forward to tell their stories -- as he urged the House to subpoena the administration for details if necessary.

The South Carolina senator said he’s “had contact” with some of the survivors, calling their story “chilling.” He told Fox News that "the bottom line is they feel that they can't come forth, they've been told to be quiet."

The White House is denying any attempt to exert pressure on the surviving victims.

"I'm sure that the White House is not preventing anyone from speaking," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, when asked about the survivors.

But Graham said he thinks the administration is “trying to cover it up,” citing the valuable information the survivors hold.”

The latest update from Fox News, however, reports that at least four career officials from the State Department and CIA are lawyering up as they prepare to provide “sensitive” information about the Benghazi attack to Congress, and that Obama administration officials have served some of these witnesses with not-so-subtle hints about the consequences of coming forward: Nice career you’ve got there. Shame if anything were to happen to it. The Fox News report states:

“Victoria Toensing, a former Justice Department official and Republican counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee, is now representing one of the State Department employees. She told Fox News her client and some of the others, who consider themselves whistle-blowers, have been threatened by unnamed Obama administration officials.

“I’m not talking generally, I’m talking specifically about Benghazi – that people have been threatened,” Toensing said in an interview Monday. “And not just the State Department. People have been threatened at the CIA.”

“It’s frightening, and they’re doing some very despicable threats to people,” she said. “Not ‘we’re going to kill you,’ or not ‘we’re going to prosecute you tomorrow,’ but they’re taking career people and making them well aware that their careers will be over [if they cooperate with congressional investigators].” …

Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican from California who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday to complain that the department has not provided a process by which attorneys like Toensing can receive the security clearances necessary for them to review classified documents and other key evidence.”

Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy said on Sunday that more Benghazi hearings are coming in short order — and that he thinks they’re likely showcase some “explosive” revelations (if, that is, the media should condescend to take notice in any other capacity than the ever-dismissive, “My, these Republicans are certainly determined to discredit Hillary Clinton!”):

“There are more Benghazi hearings coming; I think they’re going to be explosive,” Mr. Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican who is a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told Fox’s Uma Pemmaraju.

Mr. Gowdy wasn’t able to give out too many details, but he hinted that the public for the first time might hear from witnesses to the terror attack that left four Americans dead. …

Mr. Gowdy added that in a trial, “direct evidence, direct testimony by eyewitnesses is always the most compelling.”

“Trust me when I tell you you will want to follow the hearings that are coming up,” he reiterated.”

This kabuki dance has been going on for 8 months since Ambassador Stevens was brutally murdered in Bengasi during a planned terrorist attack that was blamed on a YouTube video. While Obama was campaigning for his reelection and Hillary Clinton was trying to cover her behind the main stream media gave both of them a pass.

A special operations member who witnessed the attack on the U.S. Mission unfold in Benghazi, Libya on September 11 last year, as well as debriefed those who took part in the response, spoke with Fox News’ Adam Housley on Monday night and revealed information that directly contradicts the administration’s insistence that there was not enough time nor resources to send to Benghazi to help State Department employees, contractors, and intel operatives who were under a terrorist attack. FNC kept their source’s identity hidden, as witnesses to the Benghazi attack have reportedly been intimidated by the administration into silence. The assault left four Americans dead, including U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens.

“I know for a fact that C110 was doing a training exercise not in the region of northern Africa but in Europe and they have the ability to react and respond,” the special ops member told FNC.

The C110 is a 40-man special operations commanders and extremists force. They are capable of rapid response and deployment and are specifically trained for Benghazi attack-like incidents. The night of the attack, according to the special op, they were training 3 & 1/2 hours away in Croatia.

“We have the ability to load out, get on birds, at a minimum stage. C110 had the ability to be there, in my opinion, in 4 to 6 hours from their European theater to react. They would have been there before the second attack,” he said, adding, “And you hear a whole bunch of advisers say, ‘We wouldn’t have sent them there, because the security was an unknown situation.’ If it’s an unknown situation, at a minimum, you send forces there to facilitate the exfill—medical, injuries. We could have sent a C130 to provide medical evacuation for the injured.”

All true — but consider that what we think of as the attack on the Benghazi consulate was actually two separate attacks. The first on the consulate began at 9:30 pm, when the first shots were fired, and was over by 11 pm. Security reinforcements from Tripoli arrived at the fallback annex at 1:45 am, about 4 hours after the first attack began and slightly under 3 hours after it ended. Shortly after, a second attack hits the annex and lasts for a little over an hour, when Glenn Doherty and Tyrone Woods were killed.

Now, if the C110 group had been called to Benghazi from Europe right at 9:30 pm, they might have arrived in time to fight the second attack on the annex — but only just barely, based on the estimate of this survivor/witness; 4 hours would have been 1:30 am. The security detail from Tripoli, which was much closer, had only just arrived in time for the second firefight, at 1:45. Bear in mind, though, that the Tripoli detachment came on their own rather than waiting for orders from State, which were not forthcoming anyway:

Instead, seven men who were American reinforcements in Tripoli, along with Agent Glenn Doherty, commandeered a jet and flew to Benghazi. Ultimately, Doherty and Tyrone Woods would be killed on the roof of the CIA annex.

The special op member told Fox News, “If it wasn’t for that decision, I think we would be talking completely different about this situation. I think you would be looking at 20 plus hostages captured by AQ or you would be looking at a lot of dead Americans in Benghazi.”

In other words, they weren’t even calling Tripoli, let alone Europe.

The better question in this case isn’t the status of response forces in Europe. It’s why the State Department ignored multiple security warnings from the late Ambassador, why the Obama administration couldn’t figure out that the anniversary of 9/11 would be a critical day to prepare against attacks, and why the US ignored the warning signs that had led all other Western nations to leave Benghazi before our consulate got sacked. By the time of the actual attack on 9/11, it was too late in more ways than one for the US to respond. The red lights had been flashing for weeks or even months, and everyone ignored them almost to the last moment.

The better question in this case isn’t the status of response forces in Europe. It’s why the State Department ignored multiple security warnings from the late Ambassador, why the Obama administration couldn’t figure out that the anniversary of 9/11 would be a critical day to prepare against attacks, and why the US ignored the warning signs that had led all other Western nations to leave Benghazi before our consulate got sacked. By the time of the actual attack on 9/11, it was too late in more ways than one for the US to respond. The red lights had been flashing for weeks or even months, and everyone ignored them almost to the last moment.

Former U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova appeared on the radio show “Mornings on the Mall” on WMAL-FM in Washington, D.C. Monday, where he told hosts Larry O’Connor and Brian Wilson that the U.S. Department of State is preventing Benghazi whistle-blowers from getting adequate legal representation.

And if the whistle-blowers don’t have attorneys, many of them are unlikely to speak out.

DiGenova explained:

“Victoria Toensing, my partner, has just been retained by one of the Department of State whistle-blowers who are going to appear before the Issa committee. On April 26, Congressman Issa sent a letter to the new Secretary of State John Kerry demanding that the lawyers who are going to represent these whistle-blowers be given clearances so they can talk to their clients in the committee about classified information. The Department of State is refusing to grant clearances to Victoria and other people who want to represent the whistle-blowers in an attempt to prevent the testimony. There’s going to be a constitutional showdown here. Congress is going to win. The administration’s effort to cover up what happened at Benghazi is going to fail.

“The whistle-blowers are out there. These are great Americans; they are heroes. They were on the ground in Benghazi, they want to tell their story, and the administration is going to do everything it can to stop them from testifying under oath in public. They want to protect Hillary [Clinton] and the president, that’s what this is all about.”

Amazingly, DiGenova says, Toensing has received top secret clearance from other high-profile cases as recently as this year, but the government will not clear her on Benghazi.

“This is so outrageous,” DiGenova said, arguing there would be mass outrage if the president were Republican.”

On Tuesday, Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John McCain (R-AZ) called for a Senate select committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the Benghazi terrorist attack. Their press release criticized the administration for alleged intimidation of witnesses from the incident:

“Revelations about witnesses being afraid to testify and military assets that could have been deployed in a timely fashion justify appointing a joint select committee. In light of these new revelations it is imperative that we learn everything we can from what happened before, during and after the attacks. We cannot allow those who serve our nation to feel abandoned when under attack, or by Congress afterwards.”

In his press conference on Tuesday President Obama said he was “not familiar” with reports of intimidation and threats to such witnesses. According to Toensing, the attorney for one of the State Department employees, “her client and some of the others, who consider themselves whistle-blowers, have been threatened by unnamed Obama administration officials I'm not talking generally, I'm talking specifically about Benghazi — that people have been threatened. And not just the State Department. People have been threatened at the CIA.”

According to an interview on Fox and Friends on Tuesday morning Toensing declined to name her client. She also refused to say whether the individual was on the ground in Benghazi on the night of Sept. 11, 2012, when terrorist attacks on two U.S. installations in the Libyan city killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens.

However, Toensing disclosed that her client has pertinent information on all three time periods investigators consider relevant to the attacks: the months that led up to the attack, when pleas by the ambassador and his staff for enhanced security in Benghazi were mostly rejected by senior officers at the State Department; the eight-hour time frame in which the attacks unfolded, and the eight-day period that followed the attacks, when Obama administration officials incorrectly described them as the result of a spontaneous protest over a video.

"It's frightening, and they're doing some very despicable threats to people," she said. "Not 'we're going to kill you,' or not 'we're going to prosecute you tomorrow,' but they're taking career people and making them well aware that their careers will be over [if they cooperate with congressional investigators]."

If Benghazi is "old news" and congressional hearings are "a partisan witch hunt," why the threats? Why keep the 34 men and women who were in Benghazi and evacuated after the attacks from talking to Congress?

Benghazi isn't the only bloody disaster being covered up by the Obama administration. As I reported in two blog posts (9/27/2012 and 10/26/2012) last fall, three days after the deadly siege on our consulate in Libya, the Taliban waged an intricately coordinated, brutal attack on Camp Bastion in Afghanistan. Two heroic U.S. Marines — Lt. Col. Christopher Raible and Sgt. Bradley Atwell — were killed in the battle. Many surviving Marines have been honored for their brave, quick-thinking actions to save their comrades and civilians caught in the crossfire.

As Michelle Malkin reports in her latest column:

“Family members are angry that military brass are still trying to suppress details of the fateful budget and strategic decisions that led to the attack. But they won't stay silent. "This is political," one Camp Bastion relative told me this week. "Just like Benghazi, they don't want people to know."

In case you were sleeping or had forgotten: The meticulously coordinated siege at Camp Bastion by 15 Taliban infiltrators -- dressed in American combat fatigues and armed with assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons -- resulted not only in two deaths and nearly a dozen injuries, but also in the most devastating loss of U.S. airpower since Vietnam. Camp Bastion is Britain's main military base in Afghanistan; it's adjacent to our Marines' Camp Leatherneck.

Eight irreplaceable U.S. aircraft were destroyed or put out of action during the raid. A trio of refueling stations was decimated; a half-dozen hangars were damaged. The attack came exactly six months after a failed jihadi suicide attack targeting former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

Camp Bastion family members are hearing that U.S. and British military leaders left their loved ones vulnerable to attack by outsourcing watchtower security on the base to soldiers from Tonga, who were known to fall asleep on the job. Deborah Hatheway, aunt of Sgt. Atwell and the family's spokesperson, is naming names and mincing no words. She says Major General Charles "Mark" Gurganus, who recently returned to the U.S. after commanding coalition forces in Afghanistan, was ultimately responsible for skimping on security patrols. "He might as well have made it easier for the Taliban by cutting the perimeter fence himself and putting out the welcome mat," Hatheway told me.

This is the same Gurganus who ordered Marines to disarm -- immediately after the failed jihadi attack on Panetta last year -- because he wanted them "to look just like our (unarmed) Afghan partners."

The question isn't whether the Obama administration's narrative about what happened before, during, and after the attacks is unraveling. It is. The question is does anyone in the rest of the media care about the truth?

When Rep. Trey Gowdy said over the weekend that new hearings on Benghazi by the Government Oversight Committee would be "explosive," he apparently wasn't exaggerating. There is also the special operations member who has claimed that the Obama administration could have flown military assets to Benghazi within 4 hours — plenty of time to deal with the second attack on the safe house.

This is why the administration just wishes Benghazi would just go away. So much of what they said about it has been contradicted or shown to be false, that getting to the truth is now a necessity. Americans died and Congress wants answers. This next round of hearings should give us some interesting ones.

Of course Obama said that he "will look into it." Or as Hillary Clinton coldly stated in testimony in front of the Senate Committee, “there dead now, so what difference does it make.” I am sure Democrats challenging her in 2016 (if she runs) will use this phrase over and over again.

In both of these cases the mainstream media has been silent as to the potential of a cover-up. Harken back to 1972 when several persons were arrested for breaking into the Democratic National Committee’s Headquarters at the Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C. It did not take the press long to determine that these burglars were employed by the White House and thus began the scandal known as Watergate, a scandal that would lead to weeks of Congressional hearings and the eventual resignation of Richard Nixon from the Presidency. Suppose for a moment the reporters has called the White House and Nixon’s Chief of Staff had told them he knew of no such event and he would look into it and the reporters accepted that reply and went on chasing other stories. The difference between then and now is that the MSM, especially the Washington Post and New York Times, did not like Richard Nixon and the same MSM has too much invested in Barack Obama to push the Benghazi or Camp Bastion cover-ups.

With the majority of House Republicans co-sponsoring Wolf's legislation for a special committee, the only thing standing between the American people and the real story of Benghazi is a leadership decision from House Speaker John Boehner.

Boehner must impanel this special investigative committee so it can compel the administration to tell the full truth about Benghazi — the American people, especially the families of the fallen and wounded deserve it.