Boehner Idle as GOP Calls for Select Committees on Benghazi

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has not yet acted on calls from within his own party to form select committees to uncover more information on the attack which killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya in 2012.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have suggested the formation of select committees since November 2012, one month after the assault which killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other State Department employees. Such select committees could provide a channel for Benghazi survivors to come forward and tell their stories to Congress without legal repercussions from the federal government.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told USA Today on Wednesday, "I want to know who the survivors are and for the appropriate committees to interview them." He explained further, "We know it was clear from the beginning it was a terrorist attack. I want to know what kind of help they asked for."
Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator John McCain (R-AZ), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), a member of the armed services committee, all called for a joint select committee to investigate Benghazi in November. The South Carolina Senator is threatening to hold up the nomination of CIA pick John Brennan if the White House will not release more information on the attack.
Both Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), along with other Democrats, rebuffed the idea of a joint select committee to investigate the Benghazi attack.
“At this point, I think that the standing committees of the House, whether they be the (State Department) oversight committee or the intelligence committee, are working diligently on these issues,” Boehner said shortly after his Senate colleagues floated the idea in November.
The GOP senators were not the only ones blown off by Republican leadership on the House side to create a select committee to study the deadly Benghazi attack. In November, Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA), a member of the House Appropriations Committee, called for a select committee to investigate the attack.
According to Wolf’s November press release, the congressman “reminded Speaker Boehner of a September 25 letter to President Obama signed by eight House members requesting more information about the attack and the administration’s response.”
Speaker Boehner did not heed Wolf’s call for a select committee in the last Congress. In late January, Wolf refiled the resolution to establish a House Select Committee to investigate the Benghazi attack. Boehner has yet to comment or act upon the resolution.
Breitbart News sent an inquiry to Speaker Boehner's office on Thursday afternoon that has gone unanswered.

Marine Le Pen, French Front National Leader Met By Protestors At Cambridge Union Speech

by HuffPost
19th Feb 2013

Marine Le Pen - leader of the French Front National - was greeted by an anti-fascist protest as she addressed a Cambridge University debating group on Tuesday.

The daughter of Jean Marie Le Pen, who took over the party leadership from her father in 2011, addressed students at the Cambridge Union debating society this afternoon.

Her appearance sparked controversy, with anti-fascist group Unite Against Fascism (UAF) organising a demonstration of about 200 people outside the famous venue.

Sabby Dhalu, a member of Unite Against Facism, told HuffPost UK: "It is a shame Britain's intelligentsia have not learnt the lessons of history. Cambridge Union's decision to invite Marine Le Pen is giving her and the Front National a platform and publicity.

"Irrespective of what the union's intentions are, giving preachers of hate a platform encourages and emboldens fascists on the street, especially in Cambridge where the EDL will be demonstrating on Saturday."

Officers from Cambridgeshire Police attended to prevent trouble.


Le Pen, 44, who has been an MEP since 2004, spoke about the future of the European Union and French politics.

A spokesman for the Cambridge Union Society defended the decision to invite her to speak.
He said: "We welcome the opportunity to discuss, debate, and challenge an individual who has had an unquestionable impact on French and European politics.

"Whether you agree with her politics or not, this event represents one of the very few opportunities a British audience has had to directly engage with Mrs Le Pen, who finished third in the last French presidential election, behind Hollande and Sarkozy, and who currently sits in the European Parliament as a democratically elected representative."

One news site reported Le Pen was applauded by students at the end of her question and answer session, which followed her 35-minute long speech.

In a blog for The Huffington Post UK, Cambridge international student Jinho Clement said despite finding her views "repulsive", he believed "the best way to address this problem is to engage with it".

"For the sake of people like me who don't know much about people like Le Pen, it makes a lot of sense to invite her to Cambridge. 'Free speech' ensures that societies like the Union can provide a forum for discussions like these."
 
Rosalyn Old, president of Cambridge University's Student Union (CUSU), has voiced her opposition to the debating society's decision to invite Le Pen to speak. Old withdrew from speaking at a previous union event in protest, saying: "The invitation by the Union Society to Marine LePen is more than just insensitive, it will have a direct effect on the safety of many of our students. It disregards the realities of fascism and the current context of Cambridge."

The Union Society is well known for hosting controversial speakers, who have in the past included former IMF chief Dominique Strauss Kahn and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

[ed. So the "Unite Against Fascism" militants get to dictate who is "desirable" or not? Society loses if we allow that to continue..."]

'Personhood' campaign earns key victory

by Jack Minor
17th February, 2013

In a major victory for the pro-life movement, a vote by the North Dakota Senate to provide protection for the unborn appears to place the state on track to be the first to pass a personhood amendment to the state constitution.
North Dakota has long favored pro-life legislation and the state only has one abortion clinic – in Fargo.
In 2009 and 2011, resolutions calling for placing a personhood amendment on the ballot passed the state House, but were defeated in the Senate. This year pro-lifers adopted a different tactic by first attempting to pass it in the Senate, which was considered to be the more difficult of the two chambers in which to win passage.
The effort has paid off, with the Senate voting to approve SCR 4009, which would change Section 1 of the state constitution to read, “The inalienable right to life of every human being at any stage of development must be recognized and defended.”
If the House approves the resolution, as it has done previously, the issue would go before the voters in 2014. State Sen. Margaret Sitte, a Republican and sponsor of the bill, says she expects voters to pass the bill handily.
On the same day, the Senate passed legislation requiring abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at an area hospital in the event of complications arising from an abortion. WND has reported on several instances where abortion clinics have had to call for emergency services following medical complications from an abortion.
Critics have lamented that the bill could force the state’s sole abortion business to close.
Passage of the Senate bill could be a game changer for the personhood movement, which strives to pass legislation declaring the definition of a person as beginning at the moment of conception. The personhood movement is based on a statement by Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade.
Watch as people, confronted with the facts of abortion, change their minds literally in minutes, in “180,”  and see a remarkable dramatization of the Roe v. Wade arguments in “Come What May.”
“If this suggestion of personhood is established,” Blackmun wrote, “[The abortion] case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the amendment,” Blackmun wrote.
“North Dakota is leading the way for equal rights and protections for all human beings,” Jennifer Mason , a spokesperson for Personhood USA said. “After the struggles to pass life-affirming amendments in the Senate in the past four years, we are very pleased that the North Dakota Senate has chosen to protect all living human beings. This is a historic day in North Dakota.”
Planned Parenthood and other abortion activists vigorously fight personhood whenever it is introduced. In Mississippi, abortion advocates overcame a 31-point gap in just a few days to defeat a personhood amendment with the support of Planned Parenthood affiliates around the country.
Planned Parenthood Action Fund in New York contributed $209,000, while Planned Parenthood Federation of America in New York donated $524,000 to defeat the personhood amendment.
Planned Parenthood affiliates in Georgia, Wisconsin, North Carolina, California, Illinois, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Washington, Florida, Utah, Pennsylvania and Texas all contributed to defeating the initiative.
Planned Parenthood receives over $1 billion a year from abortion and abortion-related services. The organization also receives over $350 million annually from taxpayers.
The amendment was also defeated with the help of “gay” rights activists.
The day after the vote in Mississippi, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund issued an announcement admitting it sent activists to Jackson, Miss., to help “stand in solidarity” with Planned Parenthood and other abortion opponents by manning a phone bank.
In the face of such staunch opposition, personhood has suffered a series of setbacks in other states where similar pressure was brought to bear on lawmakers.
In 2011, a bill requiring the state to protect all life “from the moment of conception” was passed by Republicans on an Iowa House subcommittee. However, it never came to a full vote on the House floor.
In 2012 the Oklahoma Supreme Court refused to let citizens have the right to even vote on a personhood amendment when it issued an order prohibiting the gathering of signatures to place an amendment on the ballot.
Last year, the Virginia Senate backed off from approving a personhood bill claiming more time was needed to study the issue.
In Montana, personhood supporters were unable to gather enough signatures to place the issue on the ballot.
In Colorado, voters have twice voted against a personhood amendment, however, the ballot initiative comes closer to passing each time it has come before voters. Last year, an attempt to place it on the ballot a third time was prevented after a sampling of signatures indicated the amendment likely did not have enough signatures to appear on the ballot.
Personhood supporters say they are undeterred by these defeats and liken their struggle to Wilberforce’s fight against slavery.
“We know this is not going to be an easy battle, and the pro-abortion supporters will fight tooth and nail to preserve their right to kill the unborn,” Dennis Hoshiko, a Greeley resident active with the personhood movement says. “When Wilberforce fought against slavery, it was a slow process and at first the public was against him. Over time, his arguments won the day. It is the same thing with personhood. We are slowly but surely winning the argument.”
Abortion laws are archaic, based on 40-year-old science and technology, Mason noted.
“Our understanding of pregnancy and human development since Roe v Wade has changed dramatically. There is no question now that the unborn child is a human being and a person, who has a right to legal recognition and protection.”