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TAMPA BAY, Fla. – A subtle, but significant tweak to Florida’s rules regarding traffic signals has allowed local cities and counties to shorten yellow light intervals, resulting in millions of dollars in additional red light camera fines.
The 10 News Investigators discovered the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) quietly changed the state’s policy on yellow intervals in 2011, reducing the minimum below federal recommendations. The rule change was followed by engineers, both from FDOT and local municipalities, collaborating to shorten the length of yellow lights at key intersections, specifically those with red light cameras (RLCs).
Send to KindleCongressional hearings, White House damage control, endless op-eds, accusations, and defensive denials. Controversy over the events in Benghazi last September took center stage in Washington and elsewhere last week. However, the whole discussion is again more of a sideshow. Each side seeks to score political points instead of asking the real questions about the attack on the US facility, which resulted in the death of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Republicans smell a political opportunity over evidence that the Administration heavily edited initial intelligence community talking points about the attack to remove or soften anything that might reflect badly on the president or the State Department.
Are we are supposed to be shocked by such behavior? Are we supposed to forget that this kind of whitewashing of facts is standard operating procedure when it comes to the US government?
Democrats in Congress have offered the even less convincing explanation for Benghazi, that somehow the attack occurred due to Republican sponsored cuts in the security budget at facilities overseas. With a one trillion dollar military budget, it is hard to take this seriously.
It appears that the Administration scrubbed initial intelligence reports of references to extremist Islamist involvement in the attacks, preferring to craft a lie that the demonstrations were a spontaneous response to an anti-Islamic video that developed into a full-out attack on the US outpost.
Who can blame he administration for wanting to shift the focus? The Islamic radicals who attacked Benghazi were the same people let loose by the US-led attack on Libya. They were the rebels on whose behalf the US overthrew the Libyan government. Ambassador Stevens was slain by the same Islamic radicals he personally assisted just over one year earlier.
But the Republicans in Congress also want to shift the blame. They supported the Obama Administration’s policy of bombing Libya and overthrowing its government. They also repeated the same manufactured claims that Gaddafi was “killing his own people” and was about to commit mass genocide if he were not stopped. Republicans want to draw attention to the President’s editing talking points in hopes no one will notice that if the attack on Libya they supported had not taken place, Ambassador Stevens would be alive today.
Neither side wants to talk about the real lesson of Benghazi: interventionism always carries with it unintended consequences. The US attack on Libya led to the unleashing of Islamist radicals in Libya. These radicals have destroyed the country, murdered thousands, and killed the US ambassador. Some of these then turned their attention to Mali which required another intervention by the US and France.
Previously secure weapons in Libya flooded the region after the US attack, with many of them going to Islamist radicals who make up the majority of those fighting to overthrow the government in Syria. The US government has intervened in the Syrian conflict on behalf of the same rebels it assisted in the Libya conflict, likely helping with the weapons transfers. With word out that these rebels are mostly affiliated with al Qaeda, the US is now intervening to persuade some factions of the Syrian rebels to kill other factions before completing the task of ousting the Syrian government. It is the dizzying cycle of interventionism.
The real lesson of Benghazi will not be learned because neither Republicans nor Democrats want to hear it. But it is our interventionist foreign policy and its unintended consequences that have created these problems, including the attack and murder of Ambassador Stevens. The disputed talking points and White House whitewashing are just a sideshow.
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Ambassador Stevens carried through the streets of Benghazi for 5 hours while US media alleged he was being helped to the hospital? More Obama White House lies!
By Doc Vega
A lot has been said and written, but this promises to break the case wide open!
There have been many theories and accusations about the Benghazi fiasco that not only cost Ambassador J. Christian Stevens his life, but the lives of his staff and one Navy Seal body-guard as well. This action which led to a complete conflagration of terrorist attacks against US diplomatic buildings throughout the Middle East and North Africa still remains largely uninvestigated by the government, unprosecuted by AG Eric Holder’s Depart of Justice, and refuses to bring the guilty parties to justice while many know the truth and are not coming forward. Even though President Obama is implicated in this oversees tragedy still the truth has not emerged.
That has all changed. Finally, an authoritative figure with the proper credentials has stepped up to the plate to tell the true story of what did happen without the lies and cover-ups that have so far kept those guilty of murder from standing trial. The admission on the part of this man will likely blow the Benghazi scandal wide open and lead to arrests if we can get our legal system to act as it should. That, however, is a big if.
Related: Read Letter: Special Ops Vets Demand Benghazi Congressional Investigation
The story as it truly unfolded
According to a report from the Washington Times, retired 4 Star Admiral James Lyons reveals the entire plot that led to the deaths of Americans in Libya that could have been prevented, who gave the orders, and why events took place as they tragically did. Admiral James Lyons is probably the highest ranking figure ever to intervene in a federal government criminal case, and testify. Thanks to this man’s dedication to his country and the truth, we will finally know the truth and who was responsible.
In his words Lyons says that the attack on Benghazi was a bungled kidnapping attempt to be perpetrated upon Ambassador Stevens. This was to appear to be a hostage exchange for a terrorist prisoner who was to be released in trade for a supposedly captured US ambassador. The trade would have been for Omar Abdel Rahman an international prisoner, known as the Blind Sheikh.
This apparent abduction by terrorists of our ambassador and then negotiated trade for the Blind Sheikh would have been the “October Surprise” that would have elevated President Obama’s flagging popularity and boosted his approval ratings for a re-election. A dramatic prisoner exchange that saved our ambassador’s life However, something went horribly wrong. A cunning and illegal bit of treachery by the Obama White House turned into something entirely different. Obama’s October surprise turned into a carnage orchestrated by the White House itself as the President, Leon Panetta, and CIA Director, David Petraeus watched via a UAV real-time feed as a 7 hour attack on the Benghazi Embassy raged. Reportedly, stand down orders were given several times to different units within striking distance.
A plot of pure deception
With what should have been only a staged kidnapping of Ambassador J. Christian Stevens, instead, Navy Seals Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty refused a stand down order and began doing their job of protecting the ambassador using force. Immediately the well-trained Seals began inflicting heavy casualties upon the terrorists who thought they were merely in a cake walk to abduct Ambassador Stevens without mishap. As a result of the plan going awry, a massive attack arose from the anger of the terrorists who felt they had been betrayed by President Obama. In the aftermath of the battle which saw Navy Seal Glen Doherty was killed after the embassy had been overrun along with the ambassador’s staff. Ambassador Steven’s whose body showed up 5 hours later at a Benghazi hospital supposedly overcome by smoke as the initial press reports indicated was, in fact, raped, tortured, and dragged around Benghazi in retaliation for the botched Obama White House plan.
Obama hands over Libya to Al Qaeda
Was this just a freak occurrence that belies the true nature of dealings in Libya with American diplomatic efforts, just one glitch in normal standard operating procedure? No, according to former Admiral Lyons and many others such as Glen Beck, who have all uncovered evidence that lead to much more sinister deeds being undertaken. Evidence of a working relationship between the US and its alleged terrorist enemies had already delivered Libya to the Al Qaeda terrorist organization through infiltration of the government, media, and general society prior to the rebellion against Muammar Gaddafi that toppled the dictator last year. That the US has worked with Al Qaeda awarding them security contracts for all US embassies and consulates as well as border protection has instead allowed Libya to become a haven for numerous terrorist operators who have automatic access to Libya’s territory to carry out their training. All this with the support and blessing of the Obama administration. This is not only unthinkable, but beyond excuse or rationalization. There should already be indictments for many in the state department, in the DOJ, all the way up to the oval office, yet, so far nothing has been done.
Treason plain and simple
It goes even farther than that. Evidence indicates that Ambassador Stevens was being used as an arms dealer to supply Jihadists in the region to support yet another uprising in Syria. Just prior to the murder of our ambassador, he was trying to locate guns that had been walked across Libya’s border to other countries just as the ATF had done in operation Fast and Furious on the border of Mexico. These are not the actions of inexperience or bad intelligence. They are the actions of traitorous intention. President Obama will, no doubt, be linked to these deaths and operations if Congress will only act, and do its duty in prosecuting a treasonous president who is endangering national security.
There is no where else for a Congressional investigation to turn other than naming the conspirators, determining when officials knew, and assembling the evidence that murder was committed on behalf of the White House to silence those who knew and could testify. Through out the Obama presidency over the last four years the administration has master minded operations that have caused numerous controversies and crises.
When will the GOP take action?
The Republicans have missed opportunities to discredit the President, to impeach Obama in the wake of waging war against Libya without Congressional approval, and allowed executive privilege to quash subpoenaed demands for evidence on Fast and Furious never released by AG Eric Holder. John Boehner, Speaker of the House, has refused to exercise initiative whenever the GOP could have used much-needed momentum to stem the tide against the incessant assaults against state’s rights, constitutional rights, and the traditional institutions of America. Will the recent damning evidence now uncovered over the Benghazi fiasco thanks to Admiral James Lyons be implemented to convict the President of potential high treason, or will we see yet another case of criminal acts ignored and hidden at the expense of the American people? If you bother to take interest and act as a responsible citizens contact your congressman and demand action!
Send to KindleSend to KindleYour CRIMINAL Gov’t: Obama Quietly Passed Law Making Insider Trading Easier for US Politicians
Apr18
by Patrick Henningsen, 21st Century Wire:
Remember the good old days, when the good men and women of America got into politics to help serve their country, and not for the money?
Imagine if you were able to pass a law that would regulate your own behavior and ultimately define the consequences of that behavior. That’s what all politicians in Washington DC do on a regular basis.
When it comes to regulating their investments whilst in office, they are able to pass laws that allow them to use special foreknowledge (that only lawmakers and government regulators have) for personal gain.
It’s all about finding that golden loophole. Once upon a time it was called“insider trading”… hardly a crime on Wall Street anymore (props to Goldman Sachs), and neither in Washington DC, or so it seems, according to the President and his legislative branch.
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With every passing day, it becomes clearer and clearer the Cyprus deposit confiscation “news” was the most unsurprising outcome for the nation’s financial system and was known by virtually everyone on the ground days and weeks in advance: first it was disclosed that Russians had been pulling their money, then it wassuggested the president himself had made sure some €21 million of his family’s money was parked safely in London, then we showed a massive surge in Cyprus deposit outflows in February, and now the latest news is that a list of 132 companies and individuals has emerged who withdrew their €-denominated deposits in the two weeks from March 1 to March 15, among which the previously noted company Loutsios & Sons which is alleged to have ties with the current Cypriot president Anastasiadis.
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In a move that is reminiscent of the tyrannical actions of Abraham Lincoln that led to the War of Northern Aggression, Barack Obama says that he will not wait on states to enforce Obamacare. Instead his administration has announced its intent is to completely disregard the state’s Tenth Amendment rights to nullification of the Obamacare law, via their passed legislation and state constitutions. In fact, his administration has said that in states where they refuse to comply with federal healthcare mandates that agents from the Department of Health and Human Services will assume absolute control over the state’s health insurance industry.
Politico reports,
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