American Crossroads
AdWeek reported that this year’s worst selling People magazine was the one with Hillary Clinton on the cover. Here are some that sold more copies than the one with Clinton on it.
Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley is leaving office next month after two terms. In his wake, the Washington Post is reporting he’s leaving behind a fiscal nightmare. The state has a budget shortfall of nearly $1.2 billion. [Read more…]
On “Morning Joe,” former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod says that Elizabeth Warren will “influence how Hillary frames her candidacy” because Clinton has yet to “define what it is that she’s running for.” Axelrod also mocks Ready for Hillary PAC, saying “You hear Ready for Hillary. It’s like Ready for what?”
Today on the Senate Floor, Harry Reid was complaining about having to work saying that he hadn’t slept at his “home” in Nevada since May.
Maybe the problem is not the Senate’s leisurely schedule but instead that his real home is at the Ritz Carlton in Washington D.C.
According to Politico, the “man behind the political cash grab” who negotiated the deal that would substantially increase the maximum contributions that donors could make to party committees is Perkins Coie’s Mark Elias:
A powerful Democratic lawyer helped craft a provision that was slipped into a year-end spending bill allowing political parties to raise huge new pools of cash – including some for legal fees that are likely going to be collected by his own firm.
Marc Elias, a partner at the Seattle-based law firm Perkins Coie, was called in to advise outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s aides on the campaign finance proposal on Tuesday, as they negotiated it with representatives from House Speaker John Boehner’s office, multiple sources confirm.
Elias is also the attorney for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the populist senator who has rallied opposition against this deal.
Yesterday, the Associated Press reported that delays in response to FOIAs has prompted Citizens United to file a lawsuit against the State Department. The documents include flight records during Hillary Clinton’s tenure at State. [Read more…]
Citizens United is suing the State Department “for failing to disclose flight records showing who accompanied Clinton on overseas trips,” according to the Associated Press: [Read more…]
During today’s House committee hearing on the Benghazi attacks, Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Greg Starr and State Department Inspector General Steve Linick testified about their findings. Here were a few key moments: [Read more…]
The embassy security failures under Secretary Hillary Clinton’s watch at the State Department weren’t limited to the outpost in Benghazi, according to a new report.
Based on a previously undisclosed review from the State Department’s Inspector General on security at high-threat diplomatic posts, The Wall Street Journal paints a damning picture of embassy security under Clinton and reports that vulnerabilities were “more widespread than previously known.” The report raises serious questions about Hillary Clinton’s mismanagement of national security issues heading into the 2016 presidential campaign.
State Department investigators discovered numerous security deficiencies in global hot spots when reviewing U.S. diplomatic facilities in 2012 and 2013, suggesting problems were more widespread than previously known.Inspections of five newly opened compounds in 2012 found failings that included deviations from security standards, along with design, construction and maintenance flaws.
The review, which hadn’t been made public before, was undertaken from April to October 2012, toward the end of Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. It provides the best snapshot of security when the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked in September 2012, leading to the deaths of four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.
Congressional panels investigating the Benghazi attacks concluded that State Department officials didn’t beef up security despite requests from diplomats in Libya. The reviews suggest such problems went well beyond Benghazi.
Here is the full review, parts of which had been undisclosed prior to America Rising requests to unseal the documents.
IG Report – Compliance With Physical and Procedural Security Stadards at Selected High Threat Post
In a Senate Committee hearing on ISIS, Secretary of State John Kerry is asked about his predecessor, Hillary Clinton’s comments that the U.S. should “empathize” with its enemies. Kerry did his best to spin, claiming Clinton was not referring to enemies engaged in active combat against each other.
In fact, in fuller context, Clinton’s remarks were precisely in reference to enemies engaged in deadly combat against each other. Clinton’s reference to “what we call smart power,” followed her example of negotiations between the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Liberation Front, an Islamic insurgent group that had waged a decades long bloody guerilla campaign that had claimed over 120,000 lives.