(HOUSTON CHRONICLE) — The state’s regional Education Service Centers no will longer issue lesson plans – and will forbid their use after Aug. 31 – for a popular online curriculum system that became a lightning rod for conservatives who criticized it as anti-American, legislators announced Monday.

The move is expected to leave school districts across the state, including some in the greater Houston area, scrambling to replace CSCOPE, as the program is called, before the start of next school year. Districts that lack the staff or budget to design their own curriculum tend to rely on it.

The CSCOPE plans are in use at 877 districts, or 78 percent of school districts in Texas, said Kyle Wargo, the executive director of Regional Service Center 17 in Lubbock.

“Since we are a small district, we don’t have the resources to hire specialized people in that area,” said Somerset Independent School District Superintendent Saul Hinojosa, who credits CSCOPE with helping the district raise its test scores.

WASHINGTON — Ranking Member Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, didn’t mince words. He said IRS’s decision not to notify Congress of the agency’s targeting of tea party groups was “a lie by omission” and that the man in charge at the time just “sat on that guilty knowledge.”

Acting Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service Steve Miller replied, “Mr. Hatch, I did not lie.”

But during Tuesday’s Senate Finance Committee hearing Hatch insisted that Miller knew there was a list IRS officials were using for targeting conservatives when he failed to inform Congress of the abuse.

Hatch said “you knew what was going on, you knew we asked, you should have told us.”

The harsh criticism was bipartisan.

Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., quickly became irritated with former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman. Baucus asked why no one was fired in 2011 when the Washington IRS headquarters learned of the targeting of tea-party groups applying for tax-exempt status.

Shulman replied, “In June of 2011 I don’t believe I was aware of this.”

Clearly annoyed, Baucus shot back, “You were the commissioner. If you don’t know it, sounds like somebody isn’t doing their job,” he said.

Baucus then asked, “What created this culture of indifference to the American people?”

When Shulman didn’t directly answer the question, the chairman got straight to the point, referring to the office where the abuse apparently began, asking, “What happened in Cincinnati? What conditions caused that?”

“I can’t say that I know that answer,” Shulman said.

Lawmakers grew increasingly frustrated with Shulman when he kept saying he didn’t know what was going on because he was no longer at the IRS. When pressed, he did finally concede, “I agree that this is an issue that when someone spotted it they should have run up the chain, and they didn’t. And why they didn’t, I don’t know.”

Shulman resigned in November, but before that, he repeatedly and incorrectly told lawmakers that the IRS hadn’t targeted tea-party groups for extra scrutiny.

However, the Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration, J. Russell George, said he told Shulman about the investigation into the abuse on May 30, 2012.

Members of Congress repeatedly asked Shulman about complaints from tea-party groups from 2011 through the 2012 election. Shulman continually refused to acknowledge that IRS agents had targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny, often relaying his denials through deputies.

Shulman was adamant in denying any special targeting of conservatives at a congressional hearing on March 22, 2012.

“There’s absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens” to those who apply for tax-exempt status, said Shulman.

The IRS has said Shulman did not know about the targeting at the time of that hearing.

When asked about that at the House Ways and Means Committee hearing Friday morning, Miller said Shulman’s statement was “incorrect, but not untruthful.”

Miller also denied the IRS “targeted” conservative groups, saying that was a “pejorative term.”

But a congressman pointed out that “targeting” was the very term used repeatedly in the inspector general’s report on IRS abuse.

Shulman, George and Miller are all testifying before the Senate committee this morning.

George, the inspector general, said for the first time he has launched a probe into how the IRS handles tax-exempt applications from political groups.

In his opening remarks, Miller basically repeated his comments before the House committee on Friday, apologizing and again calling it “poor service” by the IRS. He blamed “foolish mistakes by people trying to be more efficient.”

Hatch said in his opening statement the committee was seeking to find out whether top officials at the IRS were willfully blind or whether they were holding out on reporting the abuse until after the 2012 election. Hatch said he inquired twice about reports of abuse and both responses from Miller did not even hint at the abuse.

The White House revealed Monday that Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and other senior officials learned last month about the Treasury Department inspector general’s inquiry into IRS abuse. The White House says they did not inform President Obama about the review and that he did not learn of the abuse until news reports on May 10.

White House Spokesman Jay Carney revealed Monday that White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler learned of the investigation on April 24 and then informed the chief of staff and other aides about the inquiry’s findings.

Miller took responsibility for the first time for the planted question used by Lois Lerner, the head of the tax-exempt division, to publicly reveal the targeting of conservatives. Miller said the planted question was his idea.

(POLITICO) Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said Tuesday that her state will rebuild, and she asked for prayers to aid the rescue and recovery.

”Will we be back? Absolutely. Oklahoma has gone through this a couple times, and we’re resilient, strong, courageous people,” Fallin said on “Good Morning America.”

The Republican governor continued: “You know, you probably remember the [Oklahoma City bombing in 1995], which I was in office back then [as lieutenant governor], we went through a tremendous tragedy and loss of life at that time. Oklahoma City has rebounded. It has rebuilt. Oklahoma people are very strong, and they will make it through this, but we’re going to need a lot of prayer and a lot of support to get back on our feet.”

 

(KDFW-TV) The Department of Defense confirms to NBC 5 Investigates that accused Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan has now been paid more than $278,000 since the Nov. 5, 2009 shooting that left 13 dead 32 injured. The Army said under the Military Code of Justice, Hasan’s salary cannot be suspended unless he is proven guilty.

If Hasan had been a civilian defense department employee, NBC 5 Investigates has learned, the Army could have suspended his pay after just seven days.

Personnel rules for most civilian government workers allow for “indefinite suspensions” in cases “when the agency has reasonable cause to believe that the employee has committed a crime for which a sentence of imprisonment may be imposed.”

“Can you please explain to me how ‘Darwinian evolution’ is different than ‘evolution and speciation via the laws of natural selection.”

We all believe in speciation and adaptation. Darwin often spoke if it, and we can see it all around us. Animals, insects, fish and even human beings adapt to their surroundings.

However, he also spoke of a change of “kinds,” or what he called change of “families.” He couldn’t find any observable and testable evidence for a change of kinds in nature or the fossil record, and neither can you. Darwinian evolution – a change of kinds – dinosaurs to chickens, whales to walking amphibians, etc., rests on nothing but blind faith, because it can’t be observed (it supposedly happened over millions of years). If you disagree, give me one example of observable evidence for it (the Scientific Method). Not hundreds of rabbit-trail links, not videos to watch – just one example that can be observed here and now – not over millions of years.

“Ray, can you point to one act of ‘good’ that no atheist can perform?” – Al E.

Sure. Let’s look at the command to love your neighbor as you love yourself. The word neighbor means any and every person. In the story Jesus told of what we call the “good” Samaritan, he wasn’t “good” at all. He just did that which God requires of us when we love our neighbor as ourselves. He found a beaten man, bathed his wounds, carried him to an inn, paid for his stay and said that if he spends any more he would pay the innkeeper the extra money. Let’s now see if you have done that by asking a few questions. Have you ever lied to another person or taken something that wasn’t yours? If you say that you have, then you haven’t loved your neighbor at all. You have lied to him and stolen from him. When we look closely, we will see that none of us have kept that commandment, and on the Day of Judgment we will find ourselves coming under God’s wrath for violating the law.

Never forget that the word “good” in God’s Book means “moral perfection.” We are guilty sinners through and through, heading for hell, but in Christ, God offers us heaven. If you are interested in everlasting life, check out www.needGod.com for more reasons why you need a savior.

“Ray, you are not intelligent enough to be an atheist. It requires reason, logic and an understanding of facts and the ability to see through logical fallacies. You possess none of those skills.” – Rick Mott

At the moment I am in a plane, 33,000 feet in the air, somewhere between Miami and Los Angeles. As I look around I see ordered seating, breath in air-conditioned air, see multiple TV screens, lighting, carpet and windows. Beyond my sight is a complexity of wiring that defies the imagination. What sort of fool would I be to believe that this plane had no maker; that it fell together from nothing, into a massive contraption that had the capability to supersede gravity and fly across the sky filled with human beings? I would be a candidate for the psychologist.

Now multiply that insanity a million times as you consider the earth’s air, its lighting, the birds, flowers, trees, giraffes, horses, cats, cows, dogs, frogs and hogs, all with male and female, all reproducing after their own kind. Think of the complexity of eyes, flies and guys, then consider the complexities of life that you can’t see, and you will get a glimpse of something you can see … that those who say that they are atheists and that they are intelligent atheists are delusional, in the truest sense of the word.

(NBC NEWS) When the sirens began blaring and teachers at Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., heard that a monstrous tornado was roaring toward their 57-year-old school and its youngest students, there was nowhere to hide.

They crouched in hallways and bathrooms, waiting, hoping and praying. Then “the school started coming apart,” one neighbor who sought shelter at the school told the Associated Press. A teacher told NBC station KFOR that she draped herself on top of six children in a bathroom to shelter them.

The massive twister scored a direct hit at 3 p.m. (4 p.m. ET), tearing off the roof of the mostly one-story public school, a cinder-block building that had no chance of withstanding shrieking winds that may have topped 200 mph — the powerful outer edge of what the National Weather Service said was at least an EF4 tornado, the second-most-powerful rating.

(THE HILL) — White House officials were notified of a Treasury Department inspector general report on the IRS but elected not to tell President Obama about it.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday that Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough and other senior officials knew of the general nature of the report but decided to keep the president in the dark about the report’s finding that the IRS had targeted conservative groups for extra tax scrutiny.

Carney said it was the White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler’s judgment that the matter should not be told to the president, and that she conveyed this sentiment to senior staff.

(NBC PHILADELPHIA) A woman and three men were hospitalized after a shooting in Southwest Philadelphia Wednesday night.

Police say a group of people were hanging out on the 2600 block of Dagget Street around 9:20 p.m. Suddenly, police say, someone took out a gun and fired 27 shots.

A 20-year-old man was struck in the head while another man in his early 20s was shot in the shoulder. Police also say a bullet entered the home of a 21-year-old woman on 65th and Buist. The woman, who police say was an innocent bystander, was struck in the head as she stood in the front bedroom on the second floor of the house. Police say the woman was getting ready to go to bed before she was shot.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) – First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities , toilet paper.

Blaming political opponents for the shortfall, as it does for other shortages, the embattled socialist government says it will import 50 million rolls to boost supplies.

That was little comfort to consumers struggling to find toilet paper on Wednesday.

 

(PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER) For eight weeks, they endured some of the most graphic images and gruesome testimony ever aired in a Philadelphia courtroom.

Then they spent nine days behind closed doors, poring over evidence from hundreds of abortions and debating if Kermit Gosnell was a murderer or a martyr.

When they were finally discharged Wednesday, the jurors who convicted him said they were spent but relieved – and were certain their verdicts were sound. More than anything, the foreman said, the jury became convinced that Gosnell knew he was killing babies at his West Philadelphia clinic, but didn’t care.

 

(NBC NEWS) North Texas residents began to take in the devastation on Thursday wreaked by a series of tornadoes that killed six and injured dozens more in what Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds described as a “nightmare” scenario.

The death toll could grow, with 14 people remaining unaccounted for, Deeds told a news conference in the early morning hours of Thursday. About 100 people were reported injured and as many as 250 were homeless after the swarm of twisters that ripped up trees and knocked down homes.

Granbury, a town of 8,000 about 65 miles southwest of Dallas, was thought to be among the worst-hit areas. Images of the town revealed leveled homes, badly damaged cars, uprooted trees and downed power lines.

(Yahoo!News) In a groundbreaking resolution, the Los Angeles Unified District school board voted Tuesday to ban suspensions for “willful defiance,” making it the first district in the state to do so.

This decision will stop suspensions for a variety of misbehaviors—anything from mouthing off to teachers, eating food in the classroom, or violating the school dress code—which critics have maintained are too broad and arbitrarily enforced. Instead, starting next year, principals will install alternative disciplinary measures while students remain in school.

The ban in LAUSD, the second largest school district in the country, marks a major shift from a zero-tolerance policy for minor infractions.

(American Spectator) As Kaylin just reported, Attorney General Eric Holder just told congressmen on the House Judiciary Committee that Deputy Attorney General James Cole authorized the subpoena of AP phone records.

Cole, it seems, is being positioned to take the blame for the scandal. Yesterday, the AP reported that it received a letter from Cole this week defending the subpoena:

(London Daily Mail) Letters from the IRS to tea party-related organizations in Oklahoma City and Albuquerque, New Mexico show that IRS headquarters in Washington, D.C., and two satellite offices in California, were directly involved with sending harassing letters to conservative organizations that sought tax-exempt status.

The IRS has acknowledged only the involvement of its Exempt Organizations office in Cincinnati, Ohio, which typically makes most decisions about granting or denying tax-exempt status to non-profit organizations.

And Wednesday afternoon, CNN cited a congressional source in reporting that the acting IRS Commissioner – whom President Obama fired later in the day – had identified two ‘rogue’ employees, both in Cincinnati, whom he thought were responsible for targeting right-wing organizations with tactics that were not applied to left-wing or non-political groups.

(Rasmussen Reports) Most voters believe the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups was politically motivated and think most of those involved should be severely punished.

Just 16% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the IRS investigations of these groups were a coincidence, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Fifty-seven percent (57%) think the investigations were politically motivated. Twenty-seven percent (27%) are not sure.

(Politico) President Obama “obviously likes giving speeches more than he does running the executive branch,” Chris Matthews said tonight.

Yes, you read that right: The MSNBC host who in 2008 felt a “thrill going up my leg” after hearing Obama speak has grown disenchanted. Tonight’s episode of Hardball saw Matthews delivering a rare, unforgiving grilling of the president as severe as anything that might appear on Fox News.

(Chicago Sun-Times) Tipsville . . .

Sneed is told that Attorney General Eric “Fast and Furious” Holder’s days are numbered.

Sneed hears President Barack Obama, who is this/close to Holder, has set his sights on Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick as a possible replacement “when the heat dies down on the latest hot-button scandals to hit the U.S. Justice Department,” said a top White House source.

PALM BEACH, Fla. – While a new poll says half of Americans and one-in four Democrats want Barack Obama impeached from office for a series of recent major scandals, the president’s archenemy in the media says working toward booting the commander in chief is simply a “wasted effort.”

“We can’t impeach Obama, it isn’t gonna happen,” radio powerhouse Rush Limbaugh said on his program Monday, “but we can impeach the Democratic Party and get it out of town by voting them out.”

The Obama administration has come under severe fire this month for its handing of the terrorist onslaught in Benghazi, Libya, the targeting of conservative and tea-party groups by the Internal Revenue Service, and the monitoring of phone records of journalists.

“As far as the public is concerned, Obama’s not in trouble,” Limbaugh said. “This isn’t gonna touch Obama. Benghazi’s not gonna touch Obama. Nothing else has touched Obama. The economy hasn’t touched Obama. The debt hasn’t touched Obama. The fact that nobody can find a decent job anymore hasn’t touched Obama. The fact that militant terrorists are all over the place attacking Americans hasn’t touched Obama. Why is this?”

All of America is buzzing about impeaching Obama. Now you can pre-order Aaron Klein’s latest blockbuster, “Impeachable Offenses: The Case for removing Barack Obama from Office.”

He continued, “In the first place, you are not going to see the media join any kind of movement to even cause Obama to be embarrassed to be in trouble.”

The host noted he was going “blue in the face” for the past five years trying to explain how Obama and his leftist colleagues can be defeated:

People have got to be told what liberalism is. If you wanna go after Obama, do it that way. Here’s who he is. He’s an unabridged radical liberal and what he believes in is exactly what’s happening here. Government getting bigger, country getting more in debt, you losing liberty, government coming after your guns. This is what Big Government does. …

For me the message is liberalism, Big Government out of control, and I’m perfectly comfortable using Obama in that. But in terms of focusing efforts to try to have Obama impeached or held personally responsible for these scandals is a bunch of wasted effort. That is a dream that’s only going to remain a dream. That just isn’t gonna happen. And, by the way, I would love to be wrong about this, and if I am wrong I’ll be the first … to tell you that I blew it. But I don’t think that’s gonna happen and I don’t think that it’s productive to go after Obama. Even if we’re able to impeach Obama, who’s gonna sit in there? Biden. Nothing’s gonna change. Government’s gonna keep getting bigger. We’ve got to get rid of Democrats! …

Removing Obama isn’t gonna happen. Holding Obama accountable, making Obama pay the price for what he’s done to the country the last five years – the way to do that is to kick Democrats out of office. The way to do that is to beat Democrats in every election you can.

As WND reported, a brand-new poll reveals half of Americans want Obama impeached, including a stunning one-in-four Democrats.

Sign the petition urging Congress to impeach Obama.

“It may be early in the process for members of Congress to start planning for impeachment of Barack Obama, but the American public is building a serious appetite for it,” said Fritz Wenzel, of Wenzel Strategies, which did the telephone poll Thursday. It has a margin of error of 4.36 percent.

“Half or nearly half of those surveyed said they believed Obama should be impeached for the trifecta of scandals now consuming Washington.”

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

President Obama has announced the ouster of Steven Miller, the acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, as the administration is embroiled in controversy for targeting conservative and tea-party groups.

“Today, Secretary [Jacob] Lew took the first step by requesting and accepting the resignation of the acting commissioner of the IRS, because given the controversy surrounding this audit, it’s important to institute new leadership that can help restore confidence going forward,” Obama said during a Wednesday evening broadcast from the White House.

“I’ve reviewed the Treasury Department watchdog’s report, and the misconduct that it uncovered is inexcusable. It’s inexcusable, and Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency, but especially in the IRS, given the power that it has and the reach that it has into all of our lives.”

“As I said earlier, it should not matter what political stripe you’re from, the fact of the matter is that the IRS has to operate with absolute integrity.”

“I’ll do everything in my power to make sure nothing like this ever happens again,” the president added.

While Obama claims Miller was asked to resign and did so, the Daily Mail reports that in an email to IRS employees, Miller claimed he would only be leaving next month because his assignment was finished.

“It is with regret that I will be departing from the IRS as my acting assignment ends in early June,” Miller wrote. “This has been an incredibly difficult time for the IRS given the events of the past few days, and there is a strong and immediate need to restore public trust in the nation’s tax agency.”

Earlier Wednesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Obama “expects the Treasury Department and IRS to take all the necessary actions to make sure this kind of thing cannot happen again,” Carney said. “And he insists this happen, because it is of the utmost importance in the president’s mind that people understand and believe that the IRS applies our tax laws in a neutral and fair way to everyone.”

The White House has come under intense fire since the IRS admitted Friday it had improperly put holds on the applications of tea-party groups.

Attorney General Eric Holder told a congressional committee the criminal inquiry would be a national investigation, and not limited to the Cincinnati office where the tea-party targeting originated.

The IRS is now claiming two “rogue” employees in the agency’s Cincinnati office are responsible for “overly aggressive” handling of requests by conservative groups for tax-exempt status, according to CNN.

A congressional source told the cable network that in a meeting on Capitol Hill before Miller’s resignation, Miller described the employees as being “off the reservation,” but it wasn’t clear what the alleged behavior involved.

Another source familiar with Miller’s discussions with congressional investigators says those rogue staffers have already been disciplined.

Miller reportedly stressed the problem with IRS handling of tax-exempt status for tea-party groups was not limited to these two employees.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., sounded incredulous at the suggestion high management at the IRS was not aware of the violations.

“Those responsible need to be punished. It’s hard for me to believe this was just a bunch of low-ranking apparatchiks that have been doing this,” McCain told Fox News.

“The tea parties are grassroots organizations, they’re not big lobbying outfits here in Washington, they’re not well funded. And of course they’re the most easily intimidated. So this is particularly egregious,” he added.

On Wednesday, Republican leaders in Congress wasted no time accusing the Obama administration of potentially criminal behavior in the handling of requests for tax-exempt status from conservative groups.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell suggested criminal behavior had occurred, saying that the “very serious” allegations involve “an effort to bring the power of the federal government to bear on those the administration disagreed with in the middle of a heated national election.”

“It actually could be, could be criminal and we are determined to get the answers,” McConnell said.

Speaker of the House John Boehner got more precise, asking, “My question is who’s going to jail over this scandal?”

Boehner says “clearly someone violated the law” in delaying applications from groups which lean to the political right.

Attorney General Eric Holder has already ordered a criminal probe into the matter, and said Wednesday at a congressional hearing the investigation will examine what took place at IRS offices nationwide, not just in Cincinnati.

“The facts will take us whereever they take us,” Holder said.

All 45 Republicans in the Senate have sent a letter to the White House demanding the administration “comply with all requests related to congressional inquiries without any delay.”

The message called the scandal “yet another completely inexcusable attempt to chill the speech of political opponents and those who would question their government, consistent with a broader pattern of intimidation by arms of your administration to silence political dissent.”
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He’s back, and He’s blotter than ever.

A Connecticut family is excited after finding what they believe is an image of Jesus Christ splattered in a blob of ink in their local newspaper.

“I didn’t see it at first, but as I was reading the paper, I said to my wife, the movie section is blotted out with ink and held it up for her to see,” Joseph McCaffrey told the Hour of Norwalk, Conn. “And she shouted, ‘It’s Jesus!’”

Want to learn the glorious truth about God’s intended destiny for you that you’ll likely never hear in church? You can get personally autographed copies of “The Divine Secret” by Joe Kovacs right now, or get autographed copies of both “The Divine Secret” and “Shocked by the Bible” bundled together!

Eager to spread the good news of the discovery, McCaffrey took a photo of the May 2 edition of the Hour and then passed it on to friends to solicit their opinion.

“Some see the image, some don’t, but the overwhelming majority said they could definitely see Jesus,” McCaffrey said. “But, if Jesus is really trying to send me a message, I wish he popped up in the Lotto section instead. Does he want me to see a movie?”

McCaffrey’s wife, Wendy, told the paper that she and her husband attend Mass at the Church of the Good Shepherd, and consider themselves spiritual, but not overly religious.

“It’s like the ink-blot test, everyone sees something different,” Wendy said. “Or like looking at a cloud. You can see all sorts of images if you let your mind wander.”

Many people have claimed seeing images of Jesus in recent years.

Perhaps the most delicious one appeared inside this Kit Kat bar in 2009:

 

Is the face of Jesus shrouded in chocolate?

“I was amazed. I just took a bite and then I saw the face of Christ in it,” the finder told the Dutch website NU.nl. Other witnesses were less impressed, with one noting, “It looks more like Darth Vader.”

Meanwhile in Jonesborough, Tenn., all eyes in 2009 were on a pickup truck belonging to Jim Stevens.

 

Jim Stevens gazes at an image of what some say is Jesus, or perhaps 1970s singer Dan Fogelberg

 

It seems every day when morning dew would appear on his vehicle’s window, a clear image of a man would appear. The image would disappear when the moisture was gone.

“However, when the dew returns the next morning so does the image on the window. Even rolling the window up and down has not stopped it from reappearing,” noted the Johnson City Press.

“Of course, I’m not going to wash it,” said Stevens, whose vehicle could now perhaps be classified as a holy roller.

Dr. Paul Lakeland, director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Fairfield University, says visualizing the Creator of all things in everyday objects has become a way for people to bring their beliefs to reality, as they desperately want to see signs and wonders.

“Everyone’s religious life is connected to their imagination,” Lakeland told the Hour. “But I’ve seen this before. Someone has a bagel that looks like it has an image of the Virgin Mary on it … I do scoff at the sort of thing, but it doesn’t do anyone harm. However, they (the McCaffreys) shouldn’t have people line up at their home to see the ink blot.”

He indicated the Catholic Church often downplays any credence to similar sightings.

“There is a reason to be a bit skeptical because there are very few (images) that have seen the level of credibility as say, the Shroud of Turin,” Lakeland said. “But, it’s all in the eye of the beholder.”

Irrespective of people seeing Jesus in the newspaper, McCaffrey said he’ll continue to believe faith can be found in many locations.

“It’s definitely interesting,” McCaffrey said. “I’m not going to make a shrine for it, but we do plan on holding onto it. We’ll see how much notoriety it gets first.”

 

The Internal Revenue Service is now claiming two “rogue” employees in the agency’s Cincinnati office are responsible for “overly aggressive” handling of requests by conservative groups for tax-exempt status, CNN is reporting.

A congressional source told the cable network that in a meeting on Capitol Hill, acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller described the employees as being “off the reservation,” but it wasn’t clear what the alleged behavior involved.

Another source familiar with Miller’s discussions with congressional investigators says those rogue staffers have already been disciplined.

Miller reportedly stressed the problem with IRS handling of tax-exempt status for tea-party groups was not limited to these two employees.

Later in the day Wednesday, Miller was in effect fired from his post when asked to resign by Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., sounded incredulous at the suggestion high management at the IRS was not aware of the violations.

“Those responsible need to be punished. It’s hard for me to believe this was just a bunch of low-ranking apparatchiks that have been doing this,” McCain told Fox News.

“The tea parties are grassroots organizations, they’re not big lobbying outfits here in Washington, they’re not well funded. And of course they’re the most easily intimidated. So this is particularly egregious,” he added.

On Wednesday, Republican leaders in Congress wasted no time accusing the Obama administration of potentially criminal behavior in the handling of requests for tax-exempt status from conservative groups.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell suggested criminal behavior had occurred, saying that the “very serious” allegations involve “an effort to bring the power of the federal government to bear on those the administration disagreed with in the middle of a heated national election.”

“It actually could be, could be criminal and we are determined to get the answers,” McConnell said.

Speaker of the House John Boehner got more precise, asking, “My question is who’s going to jail over this scandal?”

Boehner says “clearly someone violated the law” in delaying applications from groups which lean to the political right.

Attorney General Eric Holder has already ordered a criminal probe into the matter, and said Wednesday at a congressional hearing the investigation will examine what took place at IRS offices nationwide, not just in Cincinnati.

“The facts will take us whereever they take us,” Holder said.

All 45 Republicans in the Senate have sent a letter to the White House demanding the administration “comply with all requests related to congressional inquiries without any delay.”

The message called the scandal “yet another completely inexcusable attempt to chill the speech of political opponents and those who would question their government, consistent with a broader pattern of intimidation by arms of your administration to silence political dissent.”

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A Republican congressman says pursuing the impeachment of President Obama for his mishandling of the response to the terror attack at the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, is still an option, and he vows to continue digging at the “lies of highest magnitude” from the White House.

“I would say yes. I’m not willing to take it off to take it off the table, but that’s certainly not what we’re striving for,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told CNN.

“We want truth, we want to bring the people who perpetrated the terrorism in Benghazi to be brought to justice, and we want to have the president do what he has said he would always do. And that is be open and transparent. Thus far, the White House has not done that.”

Earlier this week, Chaffetz was interviewed by the Salt Lake Tribune, and was asked if impeachment were within the realm of possibilities.

“It’s certainly a possibility,” he told the paper. “That’s not the goal but given the continued lies perpetrated by this administration, I don’t know where it’s going to go. … I’m not taking it off the table. I’m not out there touting that but I think this gets to the highest levels of our government and integrity and honesty are paramount.”

Chaffetz has been championing the call to probe the Sept. 11, 2012, onslaught at Benghazi that left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Other Republicans have also voiced impeachment as a potential final outcome.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said last week impeachment was possible over the “most egregious cover-up in American history.

“People may be starting to use the I-word before too long,” Inhofe told radio host Rusty Humphries, according to the Hill.

“The I-word meaning impeachment?” Humphries asked.

“Yeah,” Inhofe responded.

Additionally, radio host Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and one-time presidential candidate, predicted Obama won’t serve out his full second term because of his complicity in a cover-up with Benghazi.

However, conservative radio giant Rush Limbaugh threw cold water Wednesday on the impeachment notion.

“Folks, let me tell you something. This is what Eric Holder knows, and this is what Obama knows. No matter what, African-American officeholders are not gonna be removed in America in 2013,” Limbaugh predicted. “It isn’t going to happen. Nobody will even make the first move toward it. Nobody.”

“There might be impeachment proceedings, but there’s not gonna be any conviction, and there isn’t going to be any removal from office,” Limbaugh added. “The people of this country wouldn’t put up with it. …  The low-information voters would not put up with it no matter what happened.”

Other members of Congress who have uttered possible impeachment for a variety of reasons in recent years include Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.; Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.; Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas; Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas; Rep. Trey Radel, R-Fla.; and Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.

PALM BEACH, Fla. – In the wake of news reports that President Obama is blaming Rush Limbaugh for the political gridlock in Washington, the radio powerhouse is now offering to sit down with the commander in chief to hold face-to-face discussions.

“In the spirit of doing whatever I can to move things forward in this country,” Limbaugh said Tuesday afternoon, “I would like to make myself available to the president of the United States to sit down and talk with him at a place of his choosing and discuss the problems facing the country, and maybe working together, since I am the opposition, since I am the obstacle, since I am the reason he can’t get things done.”

“I’ll be glad to sit down with him, any time, any place that he wants. Perhaps we can hash this out and come to a … mutual understanding or agreement of how to get things off the dime and to move things forward.”

Audio of Rush Limbaugh’s comments can be heard here:

On Monday, Obama reportedly met with top-name fundraisers including entertainer Justin Timberlake and his wife, actress Jessica Biel, as well as designer Tommy Hilfiger at the Greenwich Village home of producer Harvey Weinstein.

Obama complained about the lack of progress on his agenda, specifically blaming Limbaugh.

“My thinking was when we beat [Republicans] in 2012 that might break the fever, and it’s not quite broken yet,” Obama said, according to the White House pool report. “I genuinely believe there are Republicans out there who would like to work with us but they’re fearful of their base and they’re concerned about what Rush Limbaugh might say about them. And as a consequence we get the kind of gridlock that makes people cynical about government.”

 

“Let me translate this for you,” Limbaugh responded during his top-rated radio program.

“What the president of the United States is really saying is that Republican senators, Republican members of the House of Representatives do not vote the way he wants them to because they’re afraid that I will tell the truth about them. If it were not for me, the news media would be able to protect him.

“In fact, what the president is saying is that these elected Republicans actually do want to help him. They do want to vote with him. They do want to join him in his agenda. But they can’t, since I will actually report what they’re doing, they have to worry that their constituents will hear the truth from me and get mad at them. If I weren’t around, they could vote for Obama and vote with Obama and the media would cover for them and there would not be any media criticism of them. This is what the president is saying. The president is telling his donors that there are plenty of Republicans that can’t wait to help him move his agenda forward if not for their fear of me.”

Limbaugh also noted, “This is the third olive branch that I have offered in this spirit of cooperation, assistance, and help.”

“You remember, ladies and gentlemen, I even extended an invitation to play golf with President Obama. The invitation was extended via Zev Chafets, the author of the book “An Army of One,” that book about me. Zev Chafets extended the invitation to Obama via David Axelrod. He called Axelrod, and he said, ‘Rush would love to play golf with President Obama and hash things out.’ Axelrod said to Zev Chafets, ‘No. He can go play with himself.’”

 

STUART, Fla. – Was a 26-year-old Florida teacher simply too sexy for the classroom?

Olivia Sprauer, an English instructor at Martin County High School claims she was ousted from her teaching position in April when her superiors learned she was posing in provocative photographs in her spare time.

Sprauer, originally from Stuart, Fla., but now living in Boca Raton, recently began moonlight modeling under the professional name of Victoria Valentine James.

In her biography on her modeling page, it’s quite evident she has little problem posing and exposing.

“I love being in front of the camera!” she declares.

“There is an inherent satisfaction in discovering what art the photographer and I can create! I am very fun to work with, and my creative nature can add a lot to a shoot, as well. Oh! And did I mention I absolutely love being photographed?

“I am more than comfortable shooting TASTEFUL nudes for the right projects and look forward to hearing from photographers interested in capturing the perfect photograph!”

 

Among her personal likes on her Facebook page include “Because Babes,” “Dark Sexy Secret” and “Eyecandy Ent & Modeling Tattoo Models.”

It is not known if Sprauer had become Facebook friends with any of her students.

Sprauer, a mother of two who started teaching in 2011, was called into principal Alfred Fabrizio’s office on April 29.

When presented with a photograph, she confirmed it indeed was her, and she was asked to resign that day, which she did without any resentment.

Sprauer knew it was risky when she started posing in bikini photos in February, but she chose to take the chance.

“When I decided to model, I said, ‘Well, teachers get fired for this sort of thing.’ I hadn’t really thought about it. If I thought it was just or not, but I knew that it was a possibility,” she told WPBF-TV, the ABC affiliate in West Palm Beach.

See video of Olivia Sprauer from WPBF-TV:

She explained posing for the pictures was extremely lucrative, saying, “The first time I got a traveling job, I made in a weekend what it takes me two weeks to make as a teacher.”

“I get asked a lot if I’m going to do adult film or erotic photographs, and I’m not. I haven’t and I don’t plan on it,” she added.

 

She told the station she does have other aspirations besides being photographed.

“My dream was to be a college professor and to be a writer, and I still want to do that,” Sprauer said. “So, I’m working on my graduate degree, and I’ll probably continue with my Ph.D. and maybe either be published by then or continue and try to be a professor at a university.”

The Martin County School District has been tight-lipped, only saying Sprauer resigned in April.

As far as Sprauer’s future in modeling, WPBF reporter Erin Guy said, “She tells me she has a lot of gigs lined up and she’s really excited about them.”

A top journalist for ABC News no longer considers himself a newsman, but rather, a newswoman.

Don Ennis, who works for the network at its New York City office, is going public with a new female identity of Dawn Ennis.

“Today I begin anew,” Ennis writes on his Facebook page, where a brand-new, “feminine” profile picture is displayed.

“Please understand: This is not a game of dress-up, or make-believe. It is my affirmation of who I now am and what I must do to be happy, in response to a soul-crushing secret that my wife and I have been dealing with for more than seven years, mostly in secret.”

The New York Post reported Ennis walked into his Manhattan office last Friday in a “little black dress” and a brunette bobbed wig to tell colleagues he wants to be known as Dawn.

Ennis, 49, of Danbury, Conn., is a father of three children, and he says he’s splitting from his wife of 17 years in order to become a woman.

Ennis claims he suffers from an “unusual hormonal imbalance,” and blames his mother, who allegedly fed him female hormones as a child to prolong a commercial acting career. He says while those hormones made the little boy look and sound young, he eventually developed female-style breasts.

The balding editor says doctors can’t explain or remedy the condition, and he has been undergoing hormone-replacement therapy to maintain “mysteriously a more female than male body.”

“I have a rare medical condition – nothing deadly or infectious – but it has resulted in an unusual hormonal imbalance, ” Ennis said. “One so profound that I don’t resemble the man you first met 10 years ago.”

Though he hasn’t had a surgical sex change, Ennis says his marriage to his wife, Wendy, is “wrecked,” and he moved out of their family home on Saturday, the day after informing his ABC colleagues.

 

“Despite the heartbreak, [Wendy] has encouraged me to start this new life that we both believe better fits who I now am,” Ennis says.

“Trust me, this is NOT the midlife crisis I was counting on – I’d much prefer to have bought a sports car. Even an affair, I think, would have been something we might have recovered from.”

Ennis is a 10-year veteran at ABC News, and admits the confession may be a bombshell.

“I’m sure if you had to pick someone we know in common who might be transitioning from male to female, I’m guessing I would not even crack the top ten,” he added.

To celebrate the change, Ennis brought a cake and glitter to work on Friday, and co-workers reportedly left flowers on his desk, with ABC News President Ben Sherwood writing a note of support.

Even before this week’s announcement, Ennis showed clues about his sexual identity on Facebook.

For instance, on Oct. 19, 2012, Ennis posted a photo of himself at ABC in a purple shirt, declaring, “I’m wearing purple to take a stand against bullying … And because I make this look good!”

 

The remark was met with some sarcasm by Clayton Vandiver, who responded, “In a newsroom taking a stand against bullying? Sorry, I just choked back down a little breakfast there.”

Reaction to the switch is already being posted online, including:

• “Gotta say, shocked! But if you’re happy, so am I.” (Peter Bernard)

• “He still looks like himself, only with a wig!” (Peter Sterling)

• “I gotta say … the AFTER picture looks way better. (Rocco)

Ennis is now shopping around for a book deal.

“I’m overwhelmed by the strong support I’ve received from my coworkers, and I’m looking forward to telling my story when I’m ready,” Ennis said.

In March, another network bombshell was dropped when two reporters for NBC News proclaimed they were lesbian lovers, and one was pregnant with a child.

 

Jenna Wolfe, a newscaster on the weekend “Today” show, made the initial announcement,

“My girlfriend, Stephanie Gosk, and I are expecting a baby girl the end of August,” Wolfe, 39, wrote in the debut post for her new pregnancy blog.

“We felt like we wanted to share our adventures with a wide-eyed, little person,” she wrote. “The more we talked about it, the better the idea seemed.”

Gosk, 40, called the announcement “a spectacular moment for us.”

“The beauty is that we live in a time where there’s no need for secrecy,” she told People. “For a long time I had feared I would never have a child.”

Other TV news reporters who have gone public with their homosexuality include Anderson Cooper of CNN, Sam Champion of ABC and CNN’s Don Lemon.

 

When Cooper came out of the closet last July, he stated: “I’ve always believed that who a reporter votes for, what religion they are, who they love, should not be something they have to discuss publicly. As long as a journalist shows fairness and honesty in his or her work, their private life shouldn’t matter. I’ve stuck to those principles for my entire professional career, even when I’ve been directly asked ‘the gay question,’ which happens occasionally. I did not address my sexual orientation in the memoir I wrote several years ago because it was a book focused on war, disasters, loss and survival. I didn’t set out to write about other aspects of my life.

“Recently, however, I’ve begun to consider whether the unintended outcomes of maintaining my privacy outweigh personal and professional principle. It’s become clear to me that by remaining silent on certain aspects of my personal life for so long, I have given some the mistaken impression that I am trying to hide something – something that makes me uncomfortable, ashamed or even afraid. This is distressing because it is simply not true.

“I’ve also been reminded recently that while as a society we are moving toward greater inclusion and equality for all people, the tide of history only advances when people make themselves fully visible. There continue to be far too many incidences of bullying of young people, as well as discrimination and violence against people of all ages, based on their sexual orientation, and I believe there is value in making clear where I stand.”

Although he anchors the top-rated cable newscast in the nation, Shepard Smith of the Fox News Channel ranks last in a brand-new Reader’s Digest Poll listing the top 100 most trusted Americans.

“The results are revealing, hopeful, and sometimes shocking,” says the Reader’s Digest, which teamed up with the research firm Wagner Group to survey more than 1,000 Americans and discover which individuals and the ideals they represent have earned public confidence.

Smith, anchor of “The Fox Report,” was ranked at No. 100, just below New York Times columnists Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman, who are at Nos. 98 and 99 respectively. But since no other Fox journalist even made the top 100, Smith’s ranking could be viewed as good news for him.

The magazine provides a slideshow of photos and quotes for each person in its ranking.

The quote attributed to Smith is, “I’m a journalist; I run to the fire, that’s what we do.”

The most trusted journalist in the nation is ABC’s Robin Roberts of “Good Morning America,” who ranks 12th overall.

“All [my parents] wanted was for us to be trustworthy citizens,” Roberts said. “And there’s a responsibility that goes with that, and it’s not something I take lightly.”

Despite Roberts’ high ranking, her co-host, George Stephanopoulos, is listed far below at No. 57.

He’s quoted as saying, “People have felt more removed from the political system and I think that is unfortunate, because I don’t believe it’s true. The fact is that every decision does have an impact.”

Other journalists making the top 100 list of trusted Americans are ABC’s Diane Sawyer at No. 25 and NBC’s Brian Williams at No. 29.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who ranks No. 50, said, “Be honest about what you see, get out of the way and let the story reveal itself.”

Cooper’s CNN colleague, Christiane Amanpour, is at No. 56, saying, “You give all sides a fair hearing, and you also make it absolutely clear what the facts are and what the truth is … At least for me, journalism isn’t about ‘on the one hand … on the other.’ In the end it’s about accountability – holding power accountable.”

Scott Pelley, anchor of the “CBS Evening News,” ranks at No. 63, noting, “I don’t think that young journalists realize how similar their job is to the job of a scientist. It’s a very similar sort of thing: you get down to the original information and you test it, and you test it again, and you peer review it, and you test it again – it’s very much like science. Science doesn’t care, by and large, what the answers are. It’s only interested in getting the right answer. And journalism should be very much that way.”

Savannah Guthrie of NBC’s “Today,” is on the list at No. 85, as is her co-host, Matt Lauer, who ranks at No. 87.

Lauer was quoted as saying, “I get letters from women and they say, ‘I love your Roman nose.’ If I weren’t on TV and I walked past that same woman, she’d go, ‘Did you see the beak on that guy?’”

Reader’s Digest noted, “We trust people we know more than anyone famous. We removed the three highest scorers from our list of 100 – which were ‘your own doctor’ (77 percent), ‘your own spiritual adviser’ (71 percent), and ‘your own child’s current teacher’ (66 percent) – to focus on the public figures who resonated with everyone. Still, beyond those scorers, actor Tom Hanks ranked as the most trusted figure in America.”

The magazine also said Sandra Bullock gracefully handled her cheating spouse and adopted a son, earning her the highest score as America’s most trusted woman (63 percent). Legends Denzel Washington (62 percent), Meryl Streep (61 percent) and Julia Roberts (57 percent) helped make movie stars one of the highly trusted professions.

Former President Jimmy Carter ranked as the most trusted politician on the list, coming in at No. 24 overall, and far ahead of current President Barack Obama, who is at No. 65.

Ranking very high on the list at No. 8 overall for trustworthiness is Alex Trebek, host of the TV game show “Jeopardy!”

“I’m curious about everything – even things that don’t interest me,” Trebek said.

NFL quarterback Tim Tebow ranks at No. 40, saying, “Following the crowd is not a winning approach to life. In the end it’s a loser’s game, because we never become who God created us to be by trying to be like everybody else.”

See the entire list at Reader’s Digest.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

PALM BEACH, Fla. – President Obama is sending secret, coded messages to Mexicans, letting citizens south of the border know that he agrees with their contention that much of the Southwestern U.S. rightfully belongs to Mexico, claims radio host Rush Limbaugh.

Last week, Obama addressed students at the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City, saying, “Our attitudes sometimes are trapped in old stereotypes. Some Americans only see the Mexico that is depicted in sensational headlines of violence and border crossings – and let’s admit it. Some Mexicans think that America disrespects Mexico, or thinks that America is trying to impose itself on Mexican sovereignty or just wants to wall ourselves off. And in both countries, such distortions create misunderstandings that make it harder for us to move forward together. So I’ve come to Mexico because I think it’s time for us to put the old mind-sets aside. It’s time to recognize new realities, including the impressive progress of today’s Mexico.”

Limbaugh says he was at first puzzled by Obama’s statement that America was imposing its sovereignty on Mexico, before it finally struck him.

“This sovereignty business, this is significant. This is not a throwaway. That’s a dog whistle,” he said.

“It’s a huge dog whistle to radicalized young Hispanic voters. What he did was send signals to that voting block beneath the radar, because most people not gonna understand what is sovereignty business. That block that’s underneath the radar – Telemundo, Univision – he’s telling them that he agrees with them that California should still be Mexico and that New Mexico should still be Mexico.”

Limbaugh indicated Obama counts on the mainstream of America not hearing or understanding what he’s saying in speeches meant for foreigners.

“But we just blew his cover decoding this,” he continued. “I won’t be surprised if we get some blowback on this. They’ll start calling me a bunch of names and accusing me of making things up or accusing me of harboring hate for all these people. Accusing me of, once again, Limbaugh goes off on an extreme tangent, expect something like that, because this is huge. There are radicalized Mexicans [who believe] California’s still theirs, particularly Southern California. Arizona, New Mexico, radicals. And Obama’s just fueled ‘em. He just told ‘em he agrees with ‘em.”

Limbaugh called the coded messages “a big deal,” adding:

He didn’t talk about Mexico immigration policy. He didn’t talk about Mexico’s need to reform its government, its socialist policies. He didn’t talk about how America helps Mexico financially. He didn’t talk about how we feed and clothe and educate and provide health care to even those from Mexico who are illegally in the United States. The sovereignty business, if you wanted to go to an extreme, you could almost say that Obama has it actually backwards, that it’s Mexico imposing its sovereignty on us. Because we are being made to feed, clothe, and house and provide health care for its citizens. Is Mexico doing that for American citizens? Huh! Try to go down there and become a Mexican. You can’t do it. Their immigration laws, you don’t even want to mess with it, folks. You do not want to mess with it. They do not play games with their immigration.

When has a president of the United States ever attacked America’s sovereignty? I think this is a first. I am not aware of any president ever attacking America’s sovereignty. And in coded language, which is what this was, he’s winking and nodding and dog whistling to the radicalized – not all of them – the radicalized Hispanics. (imitating Obama) “I get it, I get it, we should never have taken Mexico. It’s really yours. I get it, I get it. We’ve been mean. We’ve been imposing our way too long.” Time for a new mind-set.

In one final political dig, Limbaugh noted, “By the way, the warmonger president who took Mexico, James Polk, was a Democrat. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican.”

The CNN news anchor perhaps best known for poking fun at the “strange leg crossings” of the female anchors on Fox News is now the victim of street crime, having been robbed by a black teenager in Atlanta.

WSB-TV reports Carol Costello was walking on Piedmont Avenue Thursday around 4:30 p.m. when some teens ran up to her from behind and snatched her iPhone while she was talking on it.

Costello said she lost sight of the robbers, but gave police a description of the one who snatched her phone.

He’s described as a black male with dark skin, around 5 feet 8 inches tall. He is skinny with black, curly hair. The teen was wearing a light gray or light blue sweatshirt with thin dark blue stripes.

Costello vented about the incident on her Facebook page Friday, saying:

Good Morning. In retrospect, what happened to me yesterday is insignificant in light of what happened in the Boston. Still, I feel the need to vent. And isn’t that what friends are for?

I was robbed. And I am angry. I was walking down a beautiful, leafy Atlanta street, talking on my IPhone.

Guess what happened next? Three teenagers ran up behind me. One of them grabbed my IPhone. Stupidly I struggled to hold on-to it. But, he was a big guy. And he pulled out a chunk my hair. I let go.

As he ran down the street, laughing, I hurled a few expletives his way. I felt no fear at the time, I was just angry. Now I’m angry, shaken and sad. What a lousy life those kids have ahead of them.

Turns out, according to ABC news: “cities across the country are on alert as officials warn of an uptick in stolen Apple products, dubbed “Apple picking.” Thieves steal IPhones, wipe them clean, then sell them for up to one-thousand bucks. So, a warning for you. Do not talk on your IPhone as you walk down the street. Oh, and let go of the stupid device if someone tries to steal it.

The public is flooding Costello with reaction on her Facebook page, with notes of sympathy as well as warning.

• “I’m SO sorry to hear about your ordeal! As someone who was robbed at knifepoint by 2 teenagers myself, I can identify with how you feel, but the MAIN thing is that you are ALIVE, as material possessions can always be replaced. Bad things happen to GOOD people, just ask Jesus!” (Brian Springer)

• “Remember your anger the next time you see a news story which blames crime on poverty or budget cuts or Zeus.” (David Harper)

• “Shame you weren’t armed and then able to protect your property. These kids now think they can get away with this and who knows what will happen to the next person they attack.” (David Hunt)

• “It could have been soooo much worse. You need to carry a firearm, period! So now it has happened to you, now maybe you understand why some people feel the way they do.” (Jason Thompson)

• “This should help put it in perspective. At least you can be angry, those who lost their lives in Libya will never have that opportunity. All these fans feel sorry for you, yet you ignore those who gave their lives for you.” (Lawrence Ward)

• “I love it, Carol. Now you “newspeople” will start reporting on what is really going on in America. Take off your BLINDERS, CAROL.” (Richard Stefan)

As WND reported last September, Costello became headline news when she took a poke at the way the women on the Fox News Channel cross their legs.

 

 

Costello had written on her Facebook page: “Good Morning! Each morning we are amazed at the excellent posture and strange ‘leg crossings’ on Fox’s early, early news. I have tried to get my legs to do that…but, it hurts. What can I say, it’s a slow Monday!”

The remark prompted a string of interesting responses on Facebook.

Adrian Freeman noted: “It must be real slow to be talking about Fox’s postures and legs. Maybe next you can talk about their flossing techniques.”

Donna DiMauro Wyko said, “Wow, why so ‘catty’ about the Fox ladies? Maybe because they are not only good looking but, also are intelligent and informed? Fox always presents both sides of their stories. Yes, there is a reason that they’re number 1 and it’s NOT because the ladies have long legs!”

David Nelson wrote, “Yeah, Fox does make sure the legs of the female hosts show. They don’t need such nonsense. I still prefer Fox and I wish they would have higher standards. It is a little distracting at times.”

And Andrew Markoff wondered, “How are we supposed to believe anything that you say if you can’t cross your legs just like that?”

Since the remark, country singer and songwriter Austin Cunningham released a video and song titled “The Girls on Fox News,” in which he celebrates both the beauty and brains of the female anchors on both the Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network.

Watch and listen to the song by clicking on the video below:

A Christian human rights group’s effort to bring peace to Syria’s Christians through prayer has been answered by bombs and rockets.

That’s the assessment of Open Doors spokesman Jerry Dykstra, who says there were multiple attacks.

“Dozens of rockets, shells, and mortars exploded near places set aside for a day of prayer in Syria. Unsecured roads made it difficult for Christians to travel to the sites set aside for public prayer services,” Dykstra said.

Dykstra adds that weather conditions also created a challenge.

“Also, unusual rain, lightening, and a sudden drop in temperature further hampered the events,” Dykstra said. “However, our sources in Syria tell us that prayer services went forward anyway.”

The prayer time was promoted by Open Doors – at church sites both in Syria as well as the United States. The focus was the disasters that have been inflicted on Christians in Syria because of the civil war, where essentially a radical al-Qaida-type faction is rebelling against a different Muslim power structure, catching Christians in the middle.

Open Doors reported that there was a huge participation among the churches remaining in Syria.

Because of the civil war, some stories also are slow in being reported in the free world.

One such story comes from Alliance Church of Damascus pastor Edward Awabdeh. Awabdeh says he and his wife have decided that they will stay in Syria, no matter the risk.

“Fighting gets closer and closer to where we live. It’s now at some hundreds of meters of a distance,” he said. “Back in March, mortar grenades exploded next to our other church building in Jaramana around 17:00 hours. There were people in the church but no people hurt of the congregation. Every day we have several explosions around that church.

“On the 14th of March we returned to Damascus. My wife Rana said to me it was not a good idea, so close to the second anniversary of the revolution on 15 March. She wanted to stay till 16 March,” Awabdeh said. “But we went back. We got out of our car at our church building in Damascus, a bullet fell on Rana’s jacket.”

“You see, we had to stay,” Rana said.

“You see how God is protecting you,” Awabdeh added.

The pastor said that even in the middle of a civil war, they are still able to have peace in their heart and mind. The pastor says that in spite of the constant danger and shelling, his church is strong.

“The church is doing very well. Many are involved in the ministry, and we are getting together, there is a big commitment,” Awabdeh said. “It is very obvious that God is doing something. We hear people that come to our church now saying: Although we lost everything, we won Christ. This is the time for the church, we feel this strongly as our time.”

He said now it is time for the church to work – to give hope, spread peace and support refugees.

“Humanly speaking it is not easy to find peace. Last night the whole building was shaking because of the bombings. Honestly, it is amazing the peace me and my wife feel, there is no explanation for that, besides the Lord,” Awabdeh said.

“We also have a big sense of pastorship, of pastoring the people, stay side by side with them, to encourage them. Our presence is also a message: we have to stay, we have to trust in His protection. We’re not living by anxiety; the Lord is giving us a wonderful time,” Awabdeh said.

However, Awabdeh says there is the heartbreaking side.

“On the other hand many of the church had to leave because of the risks and their safety. We lost some real core people. That makes us sad; that breaks our hearts,” Awabdeh said.

“They are flesh of our flesh, they were very effective people. Right now some 30 percent of the people have left; two out of five elders, three out of seven worship leaders, three out of five youth leaders,” Awabdeh said.

“It is risky, yes. There are explosions, all is very unpredictable. When you need to drive through the city you run a high risk. Roads are closed. Twenty-four hours a day there is shooting and shelling,” Awabdeh said. “But for us Christians it is not the same, we have a different ‘GPS’ leading us. Thank God for his presence in our lives, for his hand, for his peace. God really laid his hands on us.”

He said he believes many of those who left will return if and when the situation stabilizes, although some have emigrated to other points and won’t be back.

A Syrian-born American citizen who is using the name Zak to protect his family still in Syria told WND his family is concerned about the retaliation that will take place against Christians if the rebels take power.

Zak says his family believes that the U. S. is mistaken to believe the rebels are preferable to Assad.

“If at the deepest levels of our intelligence operations there has been an understanding or belief that these radicalized elements could be neutralized when need be (after Assad falling), no one is buying it,” Zak’s family said.

“They will turn on us, they will harm innocent people as well as our interests as a nation. Events counter to our values and principles as a nation would be minimalized so as not to appear to be a direct result of our policies and strategic efforts in supporting it,” Zak’s family said in a statement.

“It would become not about what is happening, it would be about what is being reported as truth that matters,” they said.

Zak also agrees with reports that American news outlets have largely ignored the plight of Syrian Christians. Zak adds that his family is also upset with the U. S. government for supporting the rebels.

“The West has essentially made a deal with the devil. They’ve put immediate political interests ahead of human interests and our nation’s principles. We’ve altogether ignored the reality of what our policies will ultimately mean to the Syrian people and Christians there,” Zak said.

“To my family and friends, there is absolute and unquestioned agreement that if the Assad regime falls there will be extended chaos. Those with an extremist ideology will take control because no one in the West will take the massive necessary steps to prevent it,” Zak said.

“If this happens, what really takes place and human rights issues will become hidden behind a push to report on efforts to stabilize the country through political discourse. It will not be reported but in passing,” Zak said.

Sudan’s Islamic government was dealt a blow this week when its attempted strike against rebel groups Sudan Revolutionary Front and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North was beaten back.

The strike was in retaliation for the SRF’s successful campaign to capture the North Kordofan village of Um Buwaba. One report says the Sudanese army lost over 400 soldiers in the counterattack.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide, USA President John Eibner says the victory is big: “The SPLA-N scored a significant military success on the ground.”

International Christian Concern’s Africa specialist William Stark told WND that despite efforts by Sudan President Omar al-Bahir to paint the rebels as Christian troublemakers, the SPLA-N and the SRF aren’t completely Christian.

“In Sudan, the SPLA-N situation is primarily a political conflict that has some religious elements,” Stark said.

Yet Open Doors-USA spokesman Jerry Dykstra says the Sudanese government is calling for a holy war against the rebels and increasingly turning the teeth of its attacks on Christians.

“Since the Sudan Revolutionary Front’s successful take of Um Rawaba in North Kordofan, the government of Sudan has embarked on the mobilization of people and have called for support to jihad,” Dykstra said in a statement to the press.

Dykstra adds that the successful military operation only intensified an existing anti-Christian campaign.

“Sudanese Christians have seen a drastic increase in pressure, with the closing down of churches and expulsion of foreign workers,” Dykstra said in a statement for the press.

Dykstra adds that the regime is turning its anger on the Orthodox Church in Sudan.

“It seems that the Church in Khartoum may expect renewed scrutiny and accompanying pressure,” Dykstra said.

“The Sudan Tribune reported on Tuesday that the chairman of the Islamic Centre for Preaching and Comparative Studies, Ammar Saleh, slammed his government for not taking decisive action against missionaries operating boldly in the country,” Dykstra said.

“According to Saleh, cases of apostasy and atheism are on the rise in Sudan, while authorities are negligent in addressing the issue. According to the independent media agency, Saleh appealed to the official bodies and the community to take a stand against Christianization,” Dykstra also said through a press statement.

A report issued by Open Doors, USA says that Islamic authorities in Sudan claim that 109 people have converted to Christianity.

Stark says the government counteroffensive was expected. The Christians can expect retaliation even more.

“Ever since Sudan and South Sudan split, the Khartoum government has been seeking to become more Islamic. Shortly after the separation of the two countries, President Al-Bashir told his supporters that he would make sure that Sharia was an influential part of the new government,” Stark said. “This was not just rhetoric. Churches have been closed down, foreign Christians have been deported and Christian literature has been hunted down and destroyed by government employees.”

Stark says the combined SPLA-N and SRF offensive is part of larger strategy to potentially win separation from Sudan for the Nuba Mountain and Kordofan regions.

“The SPLA is active in the Nuba Mountains, which feel that the Nuba Mountains region should have been part of South Sudan,” Stark said. “This sentiment is probably true because ethnically and religiously, the Nuba Mountains are more similar to South Sudan as opposed to Sudan.”

Stark adds that there is one major reason Khartoum wouldn’t let the Nuba Mountains go.

“The reason the Nuba Mountains were included in Sudan instead of South Sudan is because of the oil fields located there,” Stark said.

Stark says the government’s counteroffensive will attempt to punish the Nuba people.

“Because this group is active in the Nuba Mountains, the Khartoum government is bombing the region, indiscriminately. This obviously affects the civilian population,” Stark said.

Eibner agrees – the people can expect more bombing.

“Knowing the political culture of Khartoum, they will want to retaliate in a big way as soon as possible and to do so with a lot of rhetoric against the infidel enemy,” Eibner said.

Reports coming from Sudan indicate that retaliation has been swift and brutal.

Nuba Reports says that Sudanese Air Force bombers have launched air strikes against civilian targets.

One of the attacks was on the village of Kumu, killing one person. A second attack was on an elementary school.

“Two people were wounded when four bombs struck a primary school for orphans in Kauda,” the Nuba Reports story said. “The bombs – dropped from a Sudanese Air Force Antonov – struck the Father Cliff Primary School for Orphans around 1:45 p.m., while students were taking their lunch break.”

Analysts say the recent kidnapping of an aid worker in Kenya, who apparently is being held for ransom, has the marks of al-Shabaab, a group of Islamists who have terrorized the region of Africa that also includes Somalia.

Authorities say the relief worker, Julia Juincy, of the U. S. Agency for International Development, was taken when her car broke down while she was traveling from Garissa to Habesein in northern Kenya.

Police spokesman Emmanuel Chiluma reported that Juincy called to say she was leaving Garissa, but never arrived at her destination. Her car was found along the highway.

Detectives say her cell phone has been traced to the Kenyan village of Nkubu.

International Christian Concern’s Africa analyst William Stark says the incident bears the marks of the Islamist group.

“Al-Shabaab has been known to kidnap Western aid workers and did so in October of 2011,” Stark said. “That’s one of the factors which prompted Kenya to make a military incursion into Somalia.”

“It seems that al-Shabaab took this woman because they want to hold her hostage and make some money,” Stark said.

This is not new to al-Shabaab.

The BBC reported in June 2012 that al-Shabaab carried out a raid and kidnapping in a Kenyan border town.

Reported at the time was that a Kenyan driver was killed and four foreign aid workers kidnapped near a refugee camp in Kenya close to the border with Somalia.

The foreigners are from Canada, Norway, Pakistan and the Philippines, and worked for the Norwegian Refugee Council. They were traveling in a convoy when they were ambushed by gunmen in Dadaab.

The report followed a 2011 “Daily Motion” report of the kidnapping of two Spanish doctors with Doctors Without Borders.

The kidnappings are taking place at the same time as a developing pattern of anti-Christian violence in Kenya.

WND reported in April 2012 about an attack in the coastal city of Mtwapa, about 100 miles from the Kenya-Somalia border.

A band of Muslims launched a grenade attack against a crowd of 150 Christians attending an open-air meeting near the Kenyan town of Mtwapa, killing two and wounding more than 30, authorities report.

Human-rights groups say that the Muslim attackers were hyped into action by a militant Muslim preacher holding an alternate rally only 900 feet from the Christian gathering.

Two Senate Democrats apparently have blocked a resolution that would have condemned Philadelphia abortion murder case defendant Kermit Gosnell.

The proposed resolution cited Gosnell for the “untrained and uncertified personnel performing abortions, nonmedical personnel administering medications, grossly unsanitary and dangerous conditions, violations of law regarding storage of human remains, and above all, willful murder of infants born alive by severing their spinal cords.”

Instead, a substitute resolution expresses the sense of the Senate that “abusive, unsanitary, or illegal health care practices should be … prevented.”

The original cited Gosnell by name; the substitute only references “a physician at the Women’s Medical Society of Philadelphia.”

It was Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Barbera Boxer, D-Calif., who stopped consideration of the resolution by dismissing the reports of infanticides that took place at Gosnell’s business.

The senators successfully substituted SR 133 with SR 134, a resolution that all medical facilities that commit abusive activities be investigated and prosecuted. The Blumenthal-Boxer resolution cites several cases of apparent malpractice and says “incidents of abusive, unsanitary, or illegal health care practices should be condemned and prevented and the perpetrators should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

The original resolution, authored by Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee and co-sponsored by 20 other senators, would have encouraged Congress and all 50 states to “gather information about and correct abusive, unsanitary, and illegal abortion practices and the interstate referral of women and girls to facilities engaged in dangerous or illegal second- and third-trimester procedures.”

It cited the nation’s belief “that every human life is precious from its very beginning” and also said:

• “No women should ever be abandoned, by policy or practice, to the depredations of an unlicensed, unregulated, or uninspected clinic operating outside of the law.”
• ‘The report of the grand jury … of the policies and practices of Dr. Kermit Gosnell … found multiple violations of law and public policy.”
• “The report … documented a pattern, over a period of two decades, at the Women’s Medical Society of Philadelphia of untrained and uncertified personnel performing abortions.”

The resolution also noted that “Planned Parenthood facilities in Delaware have been described by former employees as resembling a ‘meat market.’”

The nation, the resolution said, must prevent such situations.

Catholic Association President Maureen Ferguson, in cooperation with other pro-life groups, denounced the Democratic senators’ actions and said the resolution properly exposes the reality of what went on in Gosnell’s clinic.

“The Gosnell trial has given us a rare window into both the legal and illegal abortion practices in the United States,” Ferguson said. “It’s horrifying, looking on the inside at what we know. It’s heartbreaking. It (the Gosnell trial) sheds great light on the practices that have been hidden from the eyes of Americans for so long.”

Lee’s press secretary, Brian Phillips, said the purpose of Lee’s resolution was to draw attention to the unregulated abortion facilities that operate like Gosnell’s Philadelphia business, which reportedly brought him millions of dollars.

“The first step is to highlight these atrocities and let the American people know that they’re not rare and that it does go on in a number of places around the country,” Phillips said. “Many of the states have laws against these practices. So, we need to alert the people that the laws governing these places are not the same as the laws governing other health care facilities.

“It’s possible that people have a misconception about that (that abortion clinics are regulated like other health care facilities), so you need to educate the people as to what’s really going on in their state,” Phillips said.

Lee is also the sponsor of S886, the Pain Capable Abortion Ban for the District of Columbia. Senate Bill 886 has 32 co-sponsors, all Republicans.

The bill would make it illegal to perform abortions in the District of Columbia after 20 weeks of gestation.

Gosnell allegedly performed abortions on babies that were past 24 weeks in violation of Pennsylvania law. Phillips says Lee is aware that passing a law does not automatically ensure compliance.

However, Phillips says Lee’s bill would provide necessary regulation of abortion clinics in the District of Columbia, which he believes is the first step towards ending late-term abortions.

“You can have a law saying that abortion should not be performed past 20 or 24 weeks, but if those clinics are able to get around the law, because no one is checking up on them, and there are no regulations requiring the states to do so, then the law is effectively meaningless,” Phillips said.

“So the first thing we need to do is to educate people as to what the laws really are and that just having a law saying you can’t do an abortion after 24 weeks isn’t enough. There needs to be more regulation on these clinics,” Phillips said.

Ferguson says that even though Lee’s bill S886 will only cover Washington, it’s a solid first step.

“Congress has jurisdiction over D.C. because it’s a federal enclave, so it’s appropriate for them to regulate abortion in that instance,” Ferguson said. “Congress does have an oversight role. We know that from the testimony, Gosnell is not an outlier, and is not alone in these practices. Sadly, this is the reality of abortion in the United States.

“Congress should be commended. Just today, the House Commerce Committee and the House Judiciary Committee sent letters to all 50 states’ attorneys general and health departments seeking information on the enforcement of the various regulations,” Ferguson said.

Ferguson says it’s been medically proven that babies can feel pain at 20 weeks.

“Protection is a basic human right, and these women, too, they need to be better protected than the protection they’re getting at these abortion clinics,” Ferguson said.

Phillips said Lee would like the states to follow the 20-week ban.

“The senator very much believes this is an issue that should be handled at the state level. It is not his position at the moment to write some federal legislation that would require all 50 states to follow,” Phillips said.

“All abortion doctors talk about stopping the beating heart of the unborn child. In every abortion, there’s a beating heart. There’s a living and developing human being and we need to educate our fellow citizens about that fact,” Ferguson said.

 

Editor’s Note: The graphic descriptions and images here may be upsetting to readers.

PHILADELPHIA – As the nation awaits a verdict in the abortion murder case against Kermit Gosnell, new revelations of his 40-year career continue to surface. And what they reveal about the abortion industry isn’t a pretty picture.

Found in Gosnell’s background is the “Mother’s Day Massacre.” The event was given the name because Gosnell and his partner, Harvey Karman, bused 15 poor women from Chicago to Gosnell’s Philadelphia clinic to do the abortions on Mother’s Day in 1972.

Operation Rescue Senior Policy Advisor Cheryl Sullenger told WND in an interview that Gosnell and his partner not only did the abortions before Roe v. Wade, they were using an experimental method.

“It was called the super coil, a plastic ball with razor blades on it. They would insert the coil into the woman’s uterus to induce an abortion,” Sullenger said. “I don’t think any of the women knew they were guinea pigs, that they were being used as an experiment.”

The blades were gel-coated and laid down. The device was designed so that when the woman’s body temperature melted the gel, the blades sprang up to cut the baby, thus inducing the abortion.

“Most of the women experienced complications and needed additional medical treatment,” Sullenger said. “One women ended up needing a radical hysterectomy.

“That’s why they call it the Mother’s Day Massacre,” Sullenger said.

That, she said, was the beginning of Gosnell’s long career in the abortion industry.

Most of the attention in the Gosnell trial has focused on the four babies that are the subject of the four first-degree murder charges, Babies “A,” “C,” “D” and “E.”

However, Gosnell’s “House of Horrors” apparently was the location of other gruesome activity. Among the more macabre discoveries was Gosnell’s collection of baby body parts and how they were kept.

Philadelphia Medical Examiner Dr. Sam Gulino told a Washington Post reporter that he had to deal with frozen baby body parts.

“It was really an unprecedented situation. It was the first time I had to deal with fetal remains that had been frozen. All I could do was allow the remains to thaw so that I could examine them,” Gulino told the paper.

Altogether, Gulino told the Post, he had received all or part of 47 fetuses, most of them aborted well into the second trimester. At least a couple, he determined, likely would have been viable outside the mother’s womb.

That’s just the beginning of the list of bizarre discoveries.

The Blaze compiled a list of abuses Gosnell and his staff are alleged to have committed:

1. Gosnell allegedly treated his minority clients with much less respect than his white patients. Considering that he was named, according to the AP, in more than 40 malpractice suits, the clinic head would purportedly perform abortions for Caucasian women in cleaner locations (he assumed whites were more likely to complain about him).
2. In addition to the murderous allegations being waged against Gosnell, eight former employees of the clinic have pleaded guilty (some to third-degree murder) and have spoken in great lengths about the terrifying conditions at the clinic.
3. A 15-year-old girl allegedly helped facilitate abortions – including on potentially live babies – at the clinic. Ashley Baldwin, now 22, claims she worked nearly 50 hours per week. Even more shocking, she allegedly helped give women the drugs needed for the procedure – and apparently assisted throughout. Baldwin said that she saw aborted babies move on at least two occasions following abortions (in one instance, she said “the chest was moving”).
4. Gosnell purportedly used untrained and low-paid staff to conduct nearly 1,000 abortions each year. The charge for a procedure in the horrific conditions mentioned? Between $350 and several thousand, depending on how far along the pregnancy was. Prosecutors believe he made millions from the practice. Authorities claim the clinic brought in about $15,000 per day.
5. Speaking of “untrained,” prosecutors claim, according to the Gospel Coalition, that Gosnell is not certified to work in either gynecology or obstetrics.
6. In the grand jury report, the clinic was said to smell of animal urine and blood stains were on blankets and furniture inside of the office. Not surprisingly, sterilized instruments were unheard of inside the establishment. And somehow the state had failed to inspect – or even visit – the clinic since 1993.
7. In March, Adrienne Moton, a medical assistant at the clinic, provided sickening details about her alleged actions at the clinic, claiming that she snipped the spines of at least 10 babies; she said that another worker – and Gosnell himself – did the same. But that’s not the worst part. Moton also claimed that she once killed a baby after it was delivered in a toilet by cutting its neck with scissors. Moton plead guilty and has been in prison since 2011.
8. Another former employee, Sherry West, shared yet another horrifying story. She claims that she was once called to the back room at the clinic, where aborted babies’ bodies were apparently kept on a shelf. Once there, West heard a live baby among the bodies cry out. The screaming child “really freaked” her out, she told the court. “I can’t describe it. It sounded like a little alien,” she said, noting that she previously referred to the babies as “specimens,” because it was easier to mentally handle what was going on at the clinic.
9. Then theres Robyn Reid’s story. She was only an 87-pound teen when she went to the clinic in 1998. Accompanied by her grandmother, she was looking for an abortion. But once she made it to the office, Reid changed her mind. But Salem-News.com writes that the doctor allegedly forced an abortion on her. “Gosnell ripped off her clothes and restrained the girl. When she regained consciousness 12 hours later at her aunt’s home, she discovered that an abortion had been performed against her will,” the website reports.

The jury is also deliberating on a third-degree murder charge for the death of 41-year-old Bhutanese immigrant Karnamaya Mongar.

In his closing arguments, Prosecutor Ed Cameron reminded the jury of the woman’s past.

“She survived 20-years in a refugee camp after fleeing her country (Bhutan). She was privileged to come to the land of the free. She found a new life here, but that came to an end when she met Dr. Gosnell,” Cameron said.

“The defense says she died of a respiratory infection, but we have testimony that says she was very healthy. She died because she kept getting more drugs,” Cameron said. “We had a toxicologist testify that the levels of the drug meperidine (Demarol) exceeded safe levels. In his view the drugs killed her.”

Crime Library reported that University of Pittsburgh Medical School Anesthesiology Department Chairman Dr. Andrew Herlich testified that in Mongar’s case, drug doses were “outrageous.”

“Mr. Herlich opined that if average-sized adults, with no particular sensitivities to the drugs, were given two custom doses within four hours, most would stop breathing,” Crime Library reported.

Further evidence that Mongar was murdered came from the autopsy, LifeNews.com reported in March.

“Assistant Medical Examiner Gary Collins confirmed that the woman, 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar … died from the abortion due to Gosnell and his staff’s medical incompetence in terms of administering a proper amount of anesthesia rather than her dying of some other cause.”

However, Mongar wasn’t the only Gosnell patients to die as the result of a botched abortion.

LifeNews.com reported in April the death of Semika Shirelle Shaw.

“Semika Shirelle Shaw was killed in March, 2000; two days after Gosnell perforated her uterus during an abortion. She developed sepsis and died, leaving two children motherless. A lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount two years later.

“Marie Smith is lucky to be alive after having had a botched abortion by Gosnell in 1999. She developed a high fever and slipped into unconsciousness a week after her abortion. She was rushed to the hospital where the source of her condition was confirmed,” the report said.

Said Smith: “They showed me X-rays and said he [Gosnell] left an arm and a leg inside me. I almost died. I thought he knew what he was doing, but I guess I was wrong.”

Gosnell has been named in over 40 lawsuits in the past 20 years.

One was filed by Dana Haynes, who had an abortion by Gosnell in November 2006. Haynes alleges that Gosnell lacerated her uterus, cervix and her small bowel during the abortion, LifeNews.com reported.

Trial testimony also focused on clinic staff and their lack of qualifications to perform the duties Gosnell assigned. Prosecution witness Kareema Cross, who worked at the clinic from 2005 through 2009, said she went to school to become a medical assistant and that she was not certified to give medication.

Cross testified: “No, I didn’t learn how to give medication. I was never certified to give medication.”

The lack of training and certification is reported to have been one of the major causes of problems at Gosnell’s clinic. As a result of the lack of training and experience, Cross testified that patients were frequently overmedicated.

“Most of the staff gave medication, but we weren’t certified. We would give the medication and frequently the patients complained about their arms swelling from too much medication,” Cross testified.

Some of the clinic staff left their jobs because of fears caused by medication errors. LifeNews.com reported that clinic worker Latosha Lewis said that she left the clinic because she overdosed a patient.

“She stopped doing so in 2007 because she overdosed a woman and was worried about whether she would ever come out of anesthesia. She also said she stopped administering Cytotec, a drug that caused powerful and often unpredictable contractions around the same time,” LifeNews said.

It said Lewis also testified that the equipment was outdated and that Gosnell often reused disposable medical instruments.

“Lewis indicated that Gosnell’s equipment was outdated and never inspected, and that he often reused disposable curettes, which is the sharp-ended tube that enters the womb in abortion procedures and applies suction for the removal of the pre-born baby and other tissues and fluids,” LifeNews said.

Cross testified she was also not certified to do ultrasounds. However, Cross said her lack of experience and training didn’t stop Gosnell from giving her that job as well.

“I wasn’t trained on how to do ultrasounds. At the clinic, Dr. Gosnell trained me on how to use the ultrasound device, for about ten minutes. Then he turned me loose to do them,” Cross testified.

Cross testified that she couldn’t give the exact number of ultrasounds she performed.

WND reported that trial testimony frequently revealed how often Gosnell was absent from the clinic, especially during the late-term abortions.

“We did a lot of second trimester abortions. I can’t say exactly how many. He was almost never there during a second trimester abortion,” Cross testified.

The issue of medication was again raised during the portion of the testimony on second trimester abortions.

Cross said workers would simply give medications based on a chart hanging on the wall.

“There was no monitoring equipment to know how much medication [was] giving intravenously. The medication we would give was Lorazepam,” Cross said.

Lorazepam is classified by the National Institutes of Health as an anti-anxiety drug.

“There was no monitoring equipment in the room. There were no monitors, no blood pressure monitors,” Cross said. “We had a defibrillator but I don’t know that we ever used it.”

Throughout the trial, questions were raised concerning how many people and organizations knew about Gosnell’s operation.

In February 2010, Pennsylvania’s Planned Parenthood CEO Dayle Steinberg told Philadelphia’s WHYY that she wasn’t aware of the clinic’s conditions.

“We do anticipate that women who might have scheduled appointments for abortion procedures at the Women’s Medical Society will be calling Planned Parenthood,” Steinberg said during the WHYY interview.

WHYY reported Steinberg confirmed knowing Gosnell had provided abortions in Philadelphia for many years, that she hadn’t heard of problems.

However, after Gosnell’s clinic was raided, Steinberg’s story changed. Phllly.com, the Philadelphia Inquirer and WHYY website reported Steinberg saying, “The Gosnell trial has shifted the focus off the high-quality services we provide. These are criminal, horrendous . . . acts and should be appropriately punished.”

Revelations about the clinic condition also prompted Steinberg to admit that staff at her clinics were frequently treated to Gosnell clinic horror stories. Steinberg told Philly.com, “We would always encourage them to report it to the Department of Health.”

WND also reported that Dr. Martln Luther King, Jr.’s niece, Alveda King, believes that the prosecution did its duty.

King believes that Gosnell should be found guilty because of his recklessness in dealing with the patients.

“The prosecution has demonstrated that there was always consciously a disregard for the women and the babies,” King said. “The prosecution has shown that there are at least seven babies who died as a result.

“I believe there were many more who were injured, harmed, and killed by Dr. Gosnell and his staff’s conscious disregard of all the women and those babies.”

Prosecutor Ed Cameron clearly believes the case against Gosnell has been proven, and that reckless disregard for the patients has been shown.

WND reported that Cameron illustrated his point by contrasting how his dog was treated when he was put down, Gosnell’s treatment of his patients – mothers and babies.

“My dog got better treatment than these babies and these women,” Cameron said. “First they gave him a shot to help him sleep. Then they took him to a room, and once he was asleep, they gave him the shot so that he would not wake up.

“They treated my dog with dignity,” Cameron said. “My dog was cremated. [Gosnell] took these babies and put their parts in Lime-Aid jars.

“Those babies didn’t stand a chance,” Cameron told the jury.

In his closing statement, Cameron also said the ultimate issue is human dignity.

“Pennsylvania law requires that once a baby leaves the mother, he be treated with dignity and respect like a human being,” Cameron said. “But the question we need to ask that man sitting over at the table: Are you human? To med these women up and to cut these babies’ necks is not human.”

Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, is calling the case a “watershed moment.”

“The discovery of his horrific practices helped shed light on an abortion industry that has run amok without oversight or accountability for decades, and has prompted significant changes in abortion laws and attitudes toward enforcement in several states,” he told LifeNews.

Clinic worker Ashley Baldwin testified about watching Massof slit the necks of babies that moved or breathed “five or 10″ times. Massof, repeating what he had been taught by Gosnell, told her that that it was standard procedure to cut the spine in all cases.

Baldwin’s testimony:

Q: These larger babies, when Dr. Steve was there, did he ever – was he ever there when any of the larger babies precipitated?

A: Yes.

Q: Babies that would move?

A: Yes.

Q: So, Dr. Steve – what would Dr. Steve do with babies that moved?

A: The same thing.

Q. The same thing. And how many time did you see Dr. Steve?

A: A lot. He told me that – don’t worry about it. They are not living. It is just a reaction.

At one point, Cross testified, staff member Lynda Williams placed a baby on the counter, and it was breathing and moving its arms when Williams pulled on them.

After playing with the baby, Williams slit its neck, Cross said.

Gosnell’s clinic isn’t the exception, Priests for Life National Director Father Frank Pavone told WND in an interview that Gosnell’s clinic is the “rule.”

“This trial simply exposes the abortion industry for what it is. Gosnell’s clinic isn’t unique. I’m afraid it’s the norm,” Pavone said.

King would agree.

“So because Dr. Gosnell is the most visible tip of the iceberg today – he’s the rule not the exception to the rule. He’s visible evidence of the rule – that abortion kills babies, sometimes kills women, it hurts human beings,” King said.

Pavone believes that there’s more at stake than the fate of Gosnell. Abortion itself is on trial.

“When we hear the things that are coming out of the testimony, nothing is shocking us because we’ve heard it all before,” Pavone said. “The fact that Roe v. Wade made abortion legal did not make it safe. We see all sorts of corruption in unregulated facilities. Sadly this is only more of the same.”

Newsbusters noted that the local tax-funded National Public Radio station WHYY described Gosnell as “a physician who had worked in our community for 30 years, cared for women in all of that time.”

But the NPR station also noted that the jury “didn’t hear from one character witness or one person who was put on the stand to say that he was a competent physician.”

Actress Patricia Heaton took to Twitter to give her opinion: “Gosnell is just the less sanitary version of what goes on every day … the cheapening of human life. Lord have mercy.”

WND also reported earlier that the discoveries at Gosnell’s clinic were startling. A partial list reported by WND includes:

• Rusty and filthy abortion equipment has been brought into the courtroom to document unsanitary conditions.
• Medical records appear to have blood and other stains on them.
• Gosnell’s staff acted as though they were doctors, even though some had little or no medical training.
• Medications, including anesthetics, found in the office had expired years earlier.
• A defense attorney blamed a woman, Bhutan immigrant Karnamaya Mongar, for her own death, since she left several blanks on her medical form. Prosecutors said she spoke little English and likely was unaware she needed to provide information.
• Patients appeared to repeatedly get overdoses of drugs for their abortion procedures, including Mongar.
• Photographs of the bodies of babies, revealed gaping wounds in the back of their necks. According to testimony, Gosnell or staff members routinely snipped their spinal cords to make sure they were dead. Operation Rescue said: “The babies were all intact and had the appearance of being partially mummified or dried. The brownish-black skin had shrunk as it dried, revealing the upper spinal column that authorities say was pierced with scissors in order to snip the spinal cords of newborn babies born alive during abortions by Gosnell.”
• Photographs were introduced of babies’ feet, or even whole legs, Gosnell had preserved in jars.

Prolife activist Lila Rose, whose LiveAction.org has released undercover videos revealing how abortion businesses say they would not help an infant born alive during an abortion, said the government needs to investigate the procedures.

“We believe in human rights for everyone – human rights for the child in the womb, the child outside the womb, and true protection and medical care for women. Not the brutality that goes on during these procedures,” she said during a rally Wednesday in Washington.

Congress also is beginning to consider further restrictions on abortions in the District of Columbia as a result of the controversy over the born-alive babies.

And Pavone wrote in the Washington Times that the procedure of abortion not only kills the unborn, but also the abortionist.

Pavone wrote:

“David Brewer, a former abortionist, tells his story: ‘I can remember that day watching the first abortion . I saw a little tiny head, and I saw a piece of a leg, and I saw a tiny hand, and I saw an arm. You know, it was like somebody put a hot poker into me . I had a conscience and that hurt. That was a very hard experience for me to go through, emotionally. So I did what a lot of us do throughout our life, we don’t do anything. I didn’t talk with anybody about it. and do you know what happened? I got to see another abortion. You know what? That one hurt, too. But I kept seeing abortions, and it hurt a little bit less every time I saw one. Do you know what happened next? I got to sit down and do one . The first one that I did was kind of hard. It was like hurting again like a hot poker. But after a while, it got to where it didn’t hurt’ (Testimony at ‘Meet the Abortion Providers’ conference in Chicago).

“So yes, I am not at all surprised that Dr. Gosnell is cool, calm and collected, smiling even as he listens to those accusing him of murder. Abortion destroys the abortionists themselves.”

PHILADELPHIA – The jury in the Kermit Gosnell abortion murder trial ended the first day of deliberations with no verdict.

The case was handed to the jury by Judge Jeffrey Minehart who charged the panel on the points of law members are to consider during their deliberations.

Minehart told jurors to focus on how the testimony relates to Pennsylvania’s 24-week abortion statute, the 24-hour waiting period statute and the personhood statutes.

They are also to disregard any information that was not entered into evidence during the trial.

Lawyers and legal analysts present estimate that the deliberations could be lengthy, noting that the seven-woman, five-man jury has to work through a 30-page verdict sheet.

That sheet includes four first-degree murder charges, one third-degree murder charge, and 24 counts of violating Pennsylvania’s 24-week abortion law.

Even as the panel begins the task of determining Gosnell’s guilt, more details of Gosnell’s lengthy career as an abortion practitioner keep coming to light.

Journalist Kirsten Powers wrote for USA Today that 20-year-old Desiree Hawkins was prepared to testify against Gosnell as a defense rebuttal witness.

Hawkins was willing to come forward when she discovered that one of the pairs of feet Gosnell kept as a souvenir was the pair of feet from her 23-week old baby.

Powers writes that Gosnell laughed at Hawkins during the abortion.

“She also would have avoided the trauma visited upon her by Gosnell. Hawkins described the licensed medical professional as laughing at her during the procedure as she cried and begged him to stop because of the pain,” Powers wrote.

Hawkins told Powers that Gosnell said, “Stop being a baby,” to her when she cried because of the pain during the abortion.

It’s also been reported that Pennsylvania’s Planned Parenthood CEO may have been misleading about Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society clinic.

In February 2010 Dayle Steinberg told WHYY News, “We do anticipate that women who might have scheduled appointments for abortion procedures at the Women’s Medical Society will be calling Planned Parenthood.”

“Steinberg says she knows that Gosnell has provided abortions in Philadelphia for many years, but says she hadn’t heard of any problems at clinic until the allegations surfaced in recent days,” WHYY said, quoting Steinberg.

Later, Phllly.com, the Philadelphia Inquirer and WHYY website reported Steinberg saying, “The Gosnell trial has shifted the focus off the high-quality services we provide. These are criminal, horrendous . . . acts and should be appropriately punished.”

Steinberg admitted that while Gosnell’s clinic was in operation, women would come to Planned Parenthood and describe the dirty conditions at Gosnell’s clinic.

“We would always encourage them to report it to the Department of Health,” Steinberg said.

In his closing remarks, Prosecutor Ed Cameron reminded the jury that even former unlicensed clinic doctor Steve Massof told of Gosnell’s increasingly lax attitude.

Cameron repeated Massof’s testimony, “Over time, the place was going down hill. Dr. Gosnell would talk on his Blue Tooth and eat cereal while doing the procedures.”

Cameron added that custodian Jim Johnson testified about the procedures.

Johnson said. “The toilets were always stopping up from baby parts,” according to Cameron.

Cameron also covered clinic patient Lisa Dungee’s testimony regarding Gosnell staff members’ violations of the 24-hour waiting period law.

“Dungee never got a 24-hour waiting period. She said she signed the form and Dr. O’Neill (Gosnell’s co-defendant) gave her a pill the first visit,” Cameron said.

“The files were wrong. She said that no one ever called her for a follow-up. After she left the clinic, Lisa Dungee never got a follow-up call or care,” Cameron said.

The prosecution brought in medical experts to testify regarding clinic procedures.

OB/GYN specialist Dr. Karen Fessillin testified about Gosnell’s misuse of ultrasounds and concerning how frequently ultrasound equipment malfunctioned.

Quoting from Fessillin’s testimony, Cameron said, “The ultrasound equipment didn’t work.”

“You never do the procedure if there is a heartbeat. They [did] the procedures when there were heartbeats. Many of the women were in labor because Gosnell would induce labor,” Cameron said, quoting from Fessillin’s testimony.

PHILADELPHIA – In an emotional moment in closing arguments by Prosecutor Ed Cameron in the abortion murder case against practitioner Kermit Gosnell, Cameron told the jury it must decide if the longtime abortionist even was “human.”

“Pennsylvania law requires that once a baby leaves the mother, he be treated with dignity and respect like a human being,” Cameron said today. “But the question we need to ask that man sitting over at the table: Are you human? To med these women up and to cut these babies’ necks is not human.”

Cameron emphasized the point by recalling when he had to have his dog put to sleep.

“My dog got better treatment than these babies and these women,” Cameron said. “First they gave him a shot to help him sleep. Then they took him to a room, and once he was asleep, they gave him the shot so that he would not wake up.

“They treated my dog with dignity,” Cameron said. “My dog was cremated. [Gosnell] took these babies and put their parts in Lime-Aid jars.

“Those babies didn’t stand a chance,” Cameron told the jury. “Show courage and tell Dr. Gosnell that what he did was wrong.”

He said the specifics of the charges and the facts in evidence aren’t complicated.

“You decide a case by what happened here. You decide a case based on the law that applies to the case, not based on what happened somewhere else,” he said.

Even the legality of abortion isn’t complicated, he said.

“Outside the mother, all things change. It has to be treated as such. If you hasten the death, that is murder. The commonwealth (Pennsylvania) places a high value on human life,” he said.

He said the basics include state laws regarding human life, a ban on abortion until after a 24-hour waiting period and a ban on abortion after 24 weeks.

He said the evidence shows there were violations.

“Every single one of these is after 24 weeks. And many of these abortions were done on the same day the consent form was signed. They came in, signed the form and were given the abortion medication,” he said.

“This is crucial, because several of our witnesses in the case are bearing the pain of the abortion. They feel guilty because in abortion, there are no do-overs. Once the abortion is done, it’s done.”

Cameron apologized to the court for referring to one baby in question as the toilet baby, the baby former clinic worker Kareema Cross testified she saw moving.

“I saw the baby in the toilet. It moved. It breathed. It had a head as big as a pancake,” Cross testified.

Cameron also summarized other witnesses’ statements.

Defense attorney Jack McMahon said in his closing argument that the abortion industry is not on trial.

“This case is not about abortion. This is not a referendum on abortion,” he said.

However, Priests for Life national director Father Frank Pavone says that’s wrong.

“When we hear the things that are in the grand jury report, that are coming out in the testimony, sadly nothing is shocking us because we’ve heard it all before,” Pavone said. “It’s like a tune that’s been played for decades.

“I’ve been saying that this is not the exception, this (the details of the Gosnell case) is the norm. I wrote a piece for the ‘Philadelphia Inquirer’ that they published recently that shows, and I quoted Peter Singer, the controversial ethicist.” Pavone said. “He said birth cannot be so significant of a moral dividing line. In other words, if you can kill the baby before birth, it’s the same baby after birth.

“So the question Singer said is that there are only two consistent positions. There’s ‘A,’ oppose abortion, or ‘B’ allow infanticide. Now when Roe v. Wade says the unborn is not a person, why can’t you flush it down the toilet? If it’s just medical waste, then like all these abortion clinics, they just throw the babies in the trash,” Pavone said.

“This case is all a logical extension of what we’ve had ever since Roe v. Wade came down,” Pavone said.

Pavone said that the trial also shows that the abortion industry has not fulfilled its promise to make abortion “safe.”

“Those of us who have been looking closely at this for decades, the fact that making abortion legal has not made it safe,” Pavone said. “Roe v. Wade said abortion is legal and it should be performed in ways that maximize the safety of the woman.

“But in fact, the abortion industry has not implemented that part of Roe v. Wade. So we see all kinds of corruption and unregulated facilities. Sadly, this (case) is more of the same,” Pavone said.

“The encouraging part of this is that it’s coming out and the story is being told. And aside from what happens to these two defendants, the bigger question is what is America learning about abortion,” Pavone said. “Has making it legal made it safe? Can it ever be made safe, or are we dealing with a deeper problem in the corruption of those who do abortions?” Pavone said.

As WND reported, McMahon insisted the evidence shows that “not one, not one of those babies were born alive.”

He acknowledged abortion is bloody and horrible, but he argued that fact doesn’t make his client guilty.

“When you see fetuses with a hole cut in them, that affects you. If it didn’t, something would be wrong with you. But that’s what abortion is.

“Abortion is bloody; it’s real. However, you have to decide if Dr. Kermit Gosnell is guilty of murder. You have to remember that he is presumed innocent,” McMahon said.

The lawyer emphasized the principle of reasonable doubt, calling it a “powerful concept.”

“Reason, mind, if it makes no sense, there is reasonable doubt. The question is, did the evidence push the line beyond the line of reasonable doubt?”

He accused the prosecution of twisting information.

“They want to manipulate you. They are guilty of an irresponsible use of power and rhetoric,” he said. “Look at what they’ve done. They brought this chair, this furniture out of storage and put it in here for the court to see. They brought the oldest ones, not the newer ones.

“Then they showed us photos of cats, bloody instruments, and bloody sheets. They didn’t show you the clean ones. Why? Because they wanted to manipulate you.”

McMahon said the representations in the case of babies crying, breathing or moving were wrong.

“Not one of those babies were born alive. One jerk of an arm does not mean that there is movement,” he said.

Newsbusters noted that the local tax-funded National Public Radio station WHYY described Gosnell as “a physician who had worked in our community for 30 years, cared for women in all of that time.”

But the NPR station also pointed out that the jury “didn’t hear from one character witness or one person who was put on the stand to say that he was a competent physician.”

Actress Patricia Heaton took to Twitter to give her opinion: “Gosnell is just the less sanitary version of what goes on every day … the cheapening of human life. Lord have mercy.”

PHILADELPHIA – The breathing movements apparently weren’t really that. The muscles moving weren’t really that either. And just ignore the cries – according to defense counsel for Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, on trial for the murder of a woman and four babies revealed by prosecutors to have been born alive and then killed.

Defense lawyer Jack McMahon spent hours today hammering his points to the jury in closing arguments. The jury could get the case as early as tomorrow.

“These are the facts. This is the evidence that not one, not one of those babies were born alive,” McMahon shouted.

He acknowledged abortion is bloody and horrible, but he argued that fact doesn’t make his client guilty.

“When you see fetuses with a hole cut in them, that affects you. If it didn’t, something would be wrong with you. But that’s what abortion is.

“Abortion is bloody; it’s real. However, you have to decide if Dr. Kermit Gosnell is guilty of murder. You have to remember that he is presumed innocent,” McMahon said.

The lawyer emphasized the principle of reasonable doubt, calling it a “powerful concept.”

“Reason, mind, if it makes no sense, there is reasonable doubt. The question is, did the evidence push the line beyond the line of reasonable doubt?”

McMahon said the case really isn’t about abortion.

“That’s not the issue,” McMahon said. “The issue is whether or not Dr. Kermit Baron Gosnell is a murderer.

“The presumption of innocence has been stomped on in this case like no other case in the history of American jurisprudence. There has been the most terrible rush to judgment in this case like never before,” McMahon said. “That’s not right. That’s not fair, and the same thing could happen to us all.”

He accused the prosecution of twisting information.

“They want to manipulate you. They are guilty of an irresponsible use of power and rhetoric,” he said. “Look at what they’ve done. They brought this chair, this furniture out of storage and put it in here for the court to see. They brought the oldest ones, not the newer ones.

“Then they showed us photos of cats, bloody instruments, and bloody sheets. They didn’t show you the clean ones. Why? Because they wanted to manipulate you.”

McMahon said the representations in the case of babies crying, breathing or moving were wrong.

“Not one of those babies were born alive. One jerk of an arm does not mean that there is movement,” he said.

Prosecution witness Kareema Cross had testified that she saw a baby born alive.

“She delivered and the baby came out big, about 12-16 inches. He came out, and Dr. Gosnell put him in a box, a plastic box. But the baby was so big his arms and legs hung out of the box,” Cross said.

“Gosnell took the box from the room. After this, the baby pulled his arms together. Dr. Gosnell took pictures, then he snapped the baby’s neck,” she said.

She added, “Dr. Gosnell said that this baby was so big he could have walked me to the bus stop.”

A grand jury report said that Baby “C” was born while Gosnell was not at the clinic. Witnesses say the child lived for more than 20 minutes after the botched abortion.

The report also said that after Dr. Steve Massof left the clinic, clinic worker Lynda Williams took over the task of slitting the babies’ necks after they were born.

Priests for Life National Director Father Frank Pavone was in the courtroom during the closing arguments. He told WND that conditions at Gosnell’s clinic isn’t an anomaly.

“This trial simply exposes the abortion industry for what it is. Gosnell’s clinic isn’t unique. I’m afraid it’s the norm,” Pavone said.

Pavone believes it is abortion itself that is on trial.

“When we hear the things that are coming out of the testimony, nothing is shocking us because we’ve heard it all before,” Pavone said. “The fact that Roe v. Wade made abortion legal did not make it safe. We see all sorts of corruption in unregulated facilities. Sadly this is only more of the same.”

Newsbusters noted that the local tax-funded National Public Radio station WHYY described Gosnell as “a physician who had worked in our community for 30 years, cared for women in all of that time.”

But the NPR station also noted that the jury “didn’t hear from one character witness or one person who was put on the stand to say that he was a competent physician.”

Actress Patricia Heaton took to Twitter to give her opinion: “Gosnell is just the less sanitary version of what goes on every day … the cheapening of human life. Lord have mercy.”

PHILADELPHIA – Closing arguments in the Gosnell murder trial are set for Monday, when defense attorney Jack McMahon will present the case for the defense first and prosecutor Ed Cameron will sum up the prosecution’s case, likely in the afternoon session.

The defense surprised a packed courtroom last Wednesday by resting the defense’s case without calling a single witness in abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell’s defense.

McMahon told the reporters who surrounded him at the end of the trial phase, “It is what it is. We didn’t call any witnesses. We couldn’t call any witnesses.”

McMahon added, “We did it for strategic reasons.”

The judge’s gag order on the trial prevented McMahon from saying what those “strategic reasons” may be.

WND reported last Wednesday that trial judge Jeffrey Minehart admitted that he had made a mistake by dismissing the murder charge over Baby “C” and reinstated the charge.

Baby “C” is the baby that clinic staff members testified was too big for the “shoebox” he was put into and who clinic workers all say was seen breathing for 20 minutes before he died.

Baby “C” was the subject of debate last Tuesday during the motion-to-dismiss phase.

The defense argued that all charges should be dropped, saying, “It’s ridiculous to say a baby is alive just because you see it move.”

But in testimony the previous week, clinic staff member Kareema Cross told the court that she saw Baby “C” move and breathe. Voluntary movement and respirations are two of the criteria Pennsylvania’s abortion law requires for evidence that a baby is born alive.

Cross testified that she believed the baby was unusually large.

“She delivered, and the baby came out big, about 12-16 inches. He came out, and Dr. Gosnell put him in a box, a plastic box. But the baby was so big his arms and legs hung out of the box,” Cross said. “Dr. Gosnell took the box from the room. After this, the baby pulled his arms together.

“Dr. Gosnell took pictures, then he snapped the baby’s neck,” Cross said. “Dr. Gosnell said that this baby was so big he could have walked me to the bus stop.”

During cross examination by Gosnell’s defense attorney, Cross remained firm in her testimony about Baby “C.”

In a review of the photographs Cross took, McMahon asked to see the photo of Baby “C.” The photo showed a baby too large to fit into the plastic box.

As WND reported, during the course of the Gosnell trial, “startling” details about the sanitation and conditions at the clinic were discovered in testimony.

The list includes:

• Rusty and filthy abortion equipment has been brought into the courtroom to document unsanitary conditions;
• Medical records appear to have blood and other stains on them;
• Gosnell’s staff acted as though they were doctors, even though some had little or no medical training;
• Medications, including anesthetics, found in the office had expired years earlier;
• A defense attorney blamed the woman, Bhutan immigrant Karnamaya Mongar, for her own death, since she left several blanks on her medical form. Prosecutors said she spoke little English and likely was unaware she needed to provide information;
• Patients appeared to repeatedly get overdoses of drugs for their abortion procedures, including Mongar;
• Photographs of the bodies of babies, revealed gaping wounds in the back of their necks. According to testimony, Gosnell or staff members routinely snipped their spinal cords to make sure they were dead. Operation Rescue said: “The babies were all intact and had the appearance of being partially mummified or dried. The brownish-black skin had shrunk as it dried, revealing the upper spinal column that authorities say was pierced with scissors in order to snip the spinal cords of newborn babies born alive during abortions by Gosnell”;
• Photographs were introduced of babies’ feet, or even whole legs, Gosnell had preserved in jars.

Barring any new motions, the jury is expected to get the case on Tuesday.

This case goes to the jury at the same time that Life News is reporting an undercover video at a Bronx abortion clinic reveals a worker telling a woman whose baby was born in a botched abortion to flush the remains down the toilet.

The pro-life group Live Action released the video on its website. Live Action Founder and President Lila Rose says Gosnell is not an anomaly.

“Dr. Kermit Gosnell is not an aberration,” Rose said in the Life News report. “The gruesome and brutal practices exposed in Gosnell’s ‘House of Horrors’ are business as usual for the abortion industry in America. Nationwide, it’s just another day at the office.”

The strife caused by the civil war in Syria is affecting all people there, but an analyst for International Christian Concern fears that Christians have the most to lose.

In fact, ICC Middle East analyst Aidan Clay says Christians appear poised to lose no matter who wins in the civil war between jihadist rebels and an Islamic power structure belonging to President Bashar al-Assad.

Most recently, officials have confirmed that two Orthodox archbishops have been kidnapped, allegedly by Syrian rebels.

They are Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Aleppo Boulos Yazjic and Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Aleppo Yohanna Ibrahim. They reportedly were kidnapped while on a humanitarian mission to Aleppo.

Clay said the ICC is deeply concerned about their safety.

“Though people from every political, ethnic, and religious background are suffering and targeted in Syria’s civil war, Christians have found themselves in a very unique and frightening situation, having widely chosen not to take up arms or to openly support either the rebels or the regime,” Clay said.

“While many Christians have publicly denounced the brutality of President Assad and by no means support the regime, most Christians see little hope in an alternative government which, they fear, will be led by Islamists who will hinder or outright abolish the religious freedoms long experienced by Christian in Syria,” Clay said.

He said the latest kidnappings refresh fears for people.

“While this is not the first time church officials have been kidnapped, Archbishops Boulos Yazigi and Yohanna Ibrahim are the most senior church leaders abducted in Syria’s civil war to date,” Clay said.

Clay says this is not the first kidnapping carried out by the Syrian rebels.

“We remember the murder of Fadi Jamil Haddad, a Greek Orthodox priest, who had been killed outside of Damascus in September after trying to secure the release of a kidnapped victim,” Clay said.

“Armenian priest Michel Kayyal and Greek Orthodox priest Maher Mahfouz were also kidnapped by armed rebels in February,” Clay said. “Moreover, there have been several prominent Muslim clerics who have been abducted and killed in the conflict.”

Clay observes that there is a growing similarity between the civil war in Syria and the ongoing strife in Iraq.

“Syria’s war is increasingly mimicking the war in Iraq where some 200 Christians were kidnapped for ransom between 2003 and 2012, according to the Hammurabi Human Rights Organization,” Clay said.

Clay adds that failure to pay ransom has a heavy price.

“If the family is unable to pay ransom, the Christian is often killed,” Clay said.

A Syrian-born American who identifies himself only as “Zak” to protect relatives still living in Syria says although they’re in danger, his family would rather stay in Syria than emigrate to the U.S.

Zak said there are emotional and business roots that prevent Syrian Christians from leaving, including his family.

“Those that have some land property when they leave, they will never see it. Land that’s been in a family for generations lost,” he said.

In response to the kidnappings, a Russian Orthodox archbishop says that the state of the Christians in Syria rises to the level of a “humanitarian crisis.”

In a statement for the Lebanese television network MTV, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk is asking the Syrian government to intervene.

“We call on the Syrian authorities to do everything possible so that the kidnapped bishops are returned,” Hilarion said.

Clay said with the war dragging out, Syria’s Christian community will eventually follow in the footsteps of other Middle Eastern Christian enclaves.

“Many fear that if the war continues without resolution, Syrian Christians will follow the path of other ancient Christian communities throughout the Middle East such as Iraq where more than half the Christian population has fled and some 900 Christians have been killed following the outbreak of war in 2003,” Clay said.

“Syria appears to be following the same path. Already, most of the Christian community has reportedly fled Homs following the city’s takeover by rebel forces. ICC stands hand-in-hand with Christians in Syria and prays for the immediate release and safekeeping of the two bishops,” Clay said.

Christians have been the regular targets of the rebels since the beginning of the civil war.

WND reported in December that some analysts believe the civil war is a cover for killing Christians.

Although the rebels have denied involvement in the attacks on Christian neighborhoods, Open Doors believes the attacks are aimed at Christians, rather than supporters of Assad’s government.

Zak adds that the Syrian Christian community holds the U. S. partly responsible for the Syrian situation.

“The opinions of people there I speak to are typically directed towards us. For whatever the issue or our involvement, it’s always us at the bottom or center of it,” Zak said. “How can America do this? Why do they let this happen? Why are they sending them (the rebels) money and weapons?”

PHILADELPHIA – The judge in the abortion murder trial here for practitioner Kermit Gosnell today said he made a mistake in dismissing a charge – and he reinstated the murder charge for Baby “C,” the baby that was too big to fit into the “shoebox.”

Baby “C” is also the baby that clinic staffers saw breathing for 20 minutes after the baby was delivered.

Baby “C” was the subject of debate yesterday during the motion to dismiss phase. Defense Attorney Jack McMahon argued that all charges should be dropped saying, “It’s ridiculous to say a baby is alive just because you see it move.”

But in testimony last week, clinic staffer Kareema Cross testified that she saw Baby “C” move and breathe, two of the criteria Pennsylvania’s abortion law requires for evidence that a baby is born alive.

Cross testified that this is the baby who was so big he didn’t fit in the box.

“She delivered and the baby came out big, about 12-16 inches. He came out, and Dr. Gosnell put him in a box, a plastic box. But the baby was so big his arms and legs hung out of the box,” Cross said.

“Dr. Gosnell took the box from the room. After this, the baby pulled his arms together,” Cross testified.

“Dr. Gosnell took pictures, then he snapped the baby’s neck,” Cross said. “Dr. Gosnell said that this baby was so big he could have walked me to the bus stop.”

During cross examination by Gosnell’s defense attorney, McMahon, Cross remained firm in her testimony about Baby “C.”

In a review of the photographs Cross took, McMahon asked to see the photo of Baby “C.” The photo showed a baby too large to fit into the plastic box.

Common pleas court Judge Jeffrey Minehart did drop a couple of the counts against Gosnell yesterday.

Gosnell’s defense rested a short time later without calling any witnesses on behalf of the abortionist.

“It is what it is,” McMahon said, “We chose not to call any witnesses. I didn’t call any witnesses; I couldn’t call any witnesses.

“But we did it for strategic reasons,” McMahon said.

Closing arguments are scheduled for Monday.

The trial focused on the multiple counts against the 72-year-old abortionist over his “Women’s Medical Center” that has been dubbed the “House of Horrors” for the events that occurred there.

He was accused of snipping the spinal cords of seven babies who were born alive at the facility, although witnesses have described that that same procedure was used to dispatch dozens of infants, as well as the drug overdose death of a patient.

Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, is calling the case a “watershed moment.”

“The discovery of his horrific practices helped shed light on an abortion industry that has run amok without oversight or accountability for decades, and has prompted significant changes in abortion laws and attitudes toward enforcement in several states,” he told LifeNews.

President Obama, who has declined to weigh in, through his spokesman, on the case, meanwhile, was planning to attend a fundraising gala later this week for Planned Parenthood, the U.S. abortion industry’s biggest player.

Cecile Richards, president of the organization, said, “President Obama has done more than any president in history for women’s health and rights.”

In a statement that did not include the word abortion, she said, “He understands that access to birth control and preventive health care are economic issues for women and their families. We fought alongside him to ensure that women’s health access was expanded in the landmark Affordable Care Act, and now we have to fight hard to ensure that the full promise of health care reform is realized for millions of women.

“We are honored to President Obama join us…”

Obama, however, said he was changing his plans and still would address Planned Parenthood although no longer in the prime time he had been allocated.

The details revealed during the trial have left Americans following the charges horrified.

For example, clinic worker Ashley Baldwin said Gosnell snipped the neck of many babies who could have lived.

The details of another instance are recorded in the grand jury report.

One report: “The baby had precipitated (emerged from the mother) when the doctor was not in the clinic. Lynda Williams (another clinic staff member) placed the baby in a basin on the counter where the instruments were washed and called the doctor to come.”

The details build: Baldwin heard an infant’s cry, and saw the baby move on the counter.  Estimated the baby’s length at 12 inches.

Gosnell arrived and all that soon stopped.

“He snipped the neck, and said there is nothing to worry about, and he suctioned it,” came the testimony.

The report also records the procedure for what would happen to the babies who were born when Gosnell was not at the clinic.

If Gosnell was absent, his employees would kill viable babies. Ashley Baldwin saw Steve Massof slit the necks of babies that moved or breathed ‘five or 10″ times. Massof, repeating what he had been taught by Gosnell, told her that that it was standard procedure to cut the spine in all cases.

Baldwin told the grand jury that she witnessed the similar procedure on several other occasions. An exchange between the prosecutors and Baldwin is also recorded in the grand jury report.

Q: These larger babies, when Dr. Steve was there, did he ever – was he ever there when any of the larger babies precipitated?

A: Yes.

Q: Babies that would move?

A: Yes.

Q: So, Dr. Steve – what would Dr. Steve do with babies that moved?

A The same thing.

Q. The same thing. And how many time did you see Dr. Steve?

A: A lot. He told me that – don’t worry about it. They are not living. It is just a reaction.”

The grand jury report also says that after Steve Massof left the clinic, clinic worker Lynda Williams took over the task of slitting the baby’s necks after they were born.

Former worker Kareema Cross said she later saw Lynda Williams slit the neck of a baby (“Baby C”) who had been moving and breathing for approximately 20 minutes.

Gosnell had delivered the baby and put it on a counter while he suctioned the placenta from the mother. Williams called Cross over to look at the baby because it was breathing and moving its arms when Williams pulled on them. After playing with the baby, Williams slit its neck.

Marie Smith is another of Gosnell’s patients who almost died as a result of a botched abortion.

Smith was 19 when she had an abortion at Gosnell’s clinic. Three days after the abortion, she developed a fever and lost consciousness at her mother’s house.

She was taken to the emergency room where doctor’s discovered the cause of her infection.

“They showed me X-rays and said he [Gosnell] left an arm and a leg inside me. I almost died. I thought he knew what he was doing, but I guess I was wrong,” Smith told a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Operation Rescue’s Senior Policy Adviser Cheryl Sullenger wrote later that Smith is one of the fortunate ones.

“Marie Smith is lucky to be alive after having had a botched abortion by Gosnell in 1999,” Sullenger wrote.

Unlicensed medical school graduate Eileen O’Neill, Gosnell’s codefendant on murder charges, is reported to have given abortion drugs to clinic patients.

Lisa Dungee, a Gosnell clinic patient in 2009, testified to the court that O’Neill gave her the abortion pill before the end of the required 24-hour waiting period for an abortion and that she didn’t receive any pre-abortion counseling.

LifeNews.com reported that Dungee testified on the stand that, “When I came in to the facility, I already had my mind made up about what I wanted to do, so yes, I signed it,” Dungee said.

LifeNews also reported that Dungee didn’t deliver the four-week old baby until over 24-hours after taking the first abortion pill. The report says that O’Neill’s defense lawyer James Berardinelli has maintained that, “since Dungee did not actually expel her four-week baby until 24 hours after she took the first abortion pill, then the 24-hour waiting period had been observed.”

It was unclear whether the abortionist would provide testimony for himself.

WND reported earlier that the discoveries at Gosnell’s clinic were startling. A partial list reported by WND includes:

• Rusty and filthy abortion equipment has been brought into the courtroom to document unsanitary conditions.
• Medical records appear to have blood and other stains on them.
• Gosnell’s staff acted as though they were doctors, even though some had little or no medical training.
• Medications, including anesthetics, found in the office had expired years earlier.
• A defense attorney blamed a woman, Bhutan immigrant Karnamaya Mongar, for her own death, since she left several blanks on her medical form. Prosecutors said she spoke little English and likely was unaware she needed to provide information.
• Patients appeared to repeatedly get overdoses of drugs for their abortion procedures, including Mongar.
• Photographs of the bodies of babies, revealed gaping wounds in the back of their necks. According to testimony, Gosnell or staff members routinely snipped their spinal cords to make sure they were dead. Operation Rescue said: “The babies were all intact and had the appearance of being partially mummified or dried. The brownish-black skin had shrunk as it dried, revealing the upper spinal column that authorities say was pierced with scissors in order to snip the spinal cords of newborn babies born alive during abortions by Gosnell.”
• Photographs were introduced of babies’ feet, or even whole legs, Gosnell had preserved in jars.

PHILADELPHIA – Alveda King, the niece of famed civil-rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., says she is dismayed by a judge’s ruling to acquit Kermit Gosnell on four of the abortion murder charges against him.

King, who is director of African American Outreach for Priests for Life, is astounded because she says the prosecution proved its case over and over

The requirements for prosecutors Ed Cameron and Joanne Pescatore aren’t complicated, she said.

“To prove the baby has been born alive, the baby has to have completely come out of the mother,” King said.

“Then, and only one of these has to be proven, there has to be breathing or voluntary movement or some such evidence of life,” King said. “For the defense lawyer to say the arm only moved one time and it was only one arm, or the leg only moved once and it was one leg. Or, there was only sound for a moment.

“That only proves that these were voluntary movements in those babies, not involuntary movements,” King said. “So there is according to the law that infanticide has occurred.”

King also says that Gosnell should be found guilty because of his recklessness in dealing with the patients.

“The prosecution has demonstrated that there was always consciously a disregard for the women and the babies,” King said. “The prosecution has shown that there are at least seven babies who died as a result.

“I believe there were many more who were injured, harmed, and killed by Dr. Gosnell and his staff’s conscious disregard of all the women and those babies.”

King was responding to Judge Jeffrey Minehart’s ruling which acquitted Gosnell on the infanticide charge in the death of Baby B. Minehart also threw out the murder charges in the deaths of Babies “B”, “C”, and “G.”

The trial will continue on counts of infanticide against Babies “A,” “C,” “D,” “E,” “F,” and “G,” and the four murder charges against Babies “A,” “D,” “E,” and “F.”

“I am praying for Dr. Gosnell and everyone involved in the abortion industry. I used to be pro-choice many years ago before the scales fell off of my eyes,” King said. “So because Dr. Gosnell is the most visible tip of the iceberg today – he’s the rule not the exception to the rule. He’s visible evidence of the rule – that abortion kills babies, sometimes kills women, it hurts human beings.

“So much evidence is being given, and across America right now, there are abortion facilities that are killing babies, hurting women, sometimes killing women,” King said. “They are being under-regulated and unregulated. A blind eye is being turned to the harm they’re doing.”

Gosnell’s defense lawyer, Jack McMahon, defended his motion by saying that it was the duty of the prosecution to show malice. McMahon says the prosecution fell short.

“The testimony has to show malice and the testimony has not shown that Dr. Gosnell acted differently to the women who died from how he treated any of the others,” McMahon said.

McMahon also argued that the prosecution didn’t prove that Gosnell violated the 24-hour, informed consent rule.

Cameron said the prosecution has proven that Gosnell’s actions “offend reasonable sensibility.”

“All you have to do is look at the statute. The statute says that once the baby leaves the mother, it should be treated with dignity and respect as a human being,” Cameron said. “Dr. Gosnell didn’t do that. What he did offends common sensibility. He did not dispatch the babies with dignity; he put their body parts in a jar.

“All the statute requires is that there be a beating heart and voluntary movement. In each case, we showed that there was a beating heart and that there was voluntary movement,” Cameron said.

Cameron adds that this was especially true with the case of Baby “C.”

“Baby C had arms pulling. Lynda Williams invited people to come watch. She said, ‘Hey look at this,’ as she asked people to come look,” Cameron said. “Williams pulled the arms, then Baby C pulled back.”

Baby C was then taken from the room and killed.

Then there was Baby G. Cameron quoted clinic Dr. Steve Massof, who said, “The baby was laying on its side. I saw it breathe.”

Cameron moved on to Baby E.

“Baby E was crying. It had a whine. To make a noise, it has to breathe,” Cameron said. “It was a repeated course of conduct.”

WND reported earlier that Operation Rescue President Troy Newman agrees with King that Gosnell’s clinic exposes the horrors of abortion.

“The discovery of his horrific practices helped shed light on an abortion industry that has run amok without oversight or accountability for decades, and has prompted significant changes in abortion laws and attitudes toward enforcement in several states,” he told LifeNews.

The trial will also continue for Gosnell’s co-defendant, unlicensed doctor Eileen O’Neill. O’Neill is also charged with fraud by deception because she provided medical services and billed insurance companies even though she is not licensed to practice medicine in Pennsylvania.

Lawyers defending an American pastor jailed by the Islamic regime in Iran say there have been more beatings and little medical treatment available.

Saeed Abedini is locked up Iran’s notorious Evin Prison.

Jordan Sekulow, executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice, said Abedini’s physical condition is worsening amid continued beatings from prison guards.

“Following a brief visit from family members today, we have learned Pastor Saeed continues to suffer from the effects of a brutal beating one week ago and continues to be denied medical care,” Sekulow said.

Reports also indicate Abedini is experiencing extreme physical fatigue and attacks of fainting and physical weakness.

“That (most recent) attack came after Iranian officials refused to provide him with medical care to treat already existing internal bleeding,” Sekulow said. “The new beating has resulted in further injuries which are causing him frequent fainting spells.”

WND reported in March that the Iranian government was promising medical care for Abedini.

However, the promise is going unfulfilled, according to Sekulow.

“Pastor Saeed repeated today what he has been told by prison guards – that he is not likely to receive any medical treatment for another two months,” Sekulow said.

The continuing denial of medical attention is alarming to Abedini’s family in Iran and in the United States.

“His family is deeply concerned about his health, which continues to deteriorate. He is receiving no medical treatment for internal bleeding and has sustained additional injuries from a recent beating,” said ACLJ spokesman Gene Kapp.

Fox News is reporting that along with the beatings, prison guards are subjecting the pastor to “psychological abuse.”

Abedini’s wife, Naghmeh Abedini, said: “He is now continually attacked and threatened. The Iranian government should know that we are watching and aware of what they are doing to Saeed inside Evin prison. We need to speak louder until Saeed is home safely on U.S. soil.”

Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., is demanding Secretary of State John Kerry intervene. The congressman also said the Iranians should be grateful for the pastor’s work.

“Pastor Abedini’s arrest, trial and now conviction for his Christian and humanitarian efforts in Iran are completely unjust and are another sad example of Iran’s blatant disregard for religious freedom, the rule of law and its international commitments,” Aderholt said in a statement.

“Pastor Abedini is an American citizen, who has done nothing but try to bring good to Iran, through his humanitarian efforts, including founding an orphanage and practicing the faith in which he believes. He should be released immediately and sent home to the United States to be with his wife and children,” Aderholt said.

Kapp said the Iranians will fail in their goal of defeating the pastor.

“He has steadfastly refused to renounce his faith in Christ, which is what the Iranians want him to do. His faith is sustaining him in this brutal prison,” Kapp said.

Sekulow noted Abedini heard about the Boston Marathon terrorist bombing.

“As his health condition worsens, Pastor Saeed told family members that he heard about the terrorist bombings in Boston on the prison radio, expressed his concern, and said he is praying for America during this difficult time,” Sekulow said.

Kerry recently called on Iran to release Abedini from prison after months in which the U.S. government ignored the plight of the American citizen.

Kerry released the statement while traveling in the Middle East.

“I am deeply concerned about the fate of U.S. citizen Saeed Abedini, who has been detained for nearly six months and was sentenced to eight years in prison in Iran on charges related to his religious beliefs. I am disturbed by reports that Mr. Abedini has suffered physical and psychological abuse in prison, and that his condition has become increasingly dire. Such mistreatment violates international norms as well as Iran’s own laws,” Kerry’s statement said.

“I am also troubled by the lack of due process in Mr. Abedini’s case and Iran’s continued refusal to allow consular access by Swiss authorities, the U.S. protecting power in Iran. I welcome reports that Mr. Abedini was examined by a physician and expect Iranian authorities to honor their commitment to allow Mr. Abedini to receive treatment for these injuries from a specialist outside the prison. The best outcome for Mr. Abedini is that he be immediately released,” the statement said.

The high-level intervention, should it actually produce results, may be coming just in time.

Abedini was given the eight-year sentence for “activities against the state.” Since he was confined, the ACLJ’s sources have given regular reports of the pastor’s precarious health situation.

The health concerns were also addressed by the U. S. Ambassador to the U.N. Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe in comments made to the U. N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva. The ambassador called for Iran to release Abedini.

Donahoe also called on the government of Iran “to provide without delay the urgent medical attention Mr. Abedini needs.”

PHILADELPHIA – The judge in the abortion murder trial for practitioner Kermit Gosnell has dismissed several of the counts in the case, including one of infanticide and three of murder.

The decision came today from Judge Jeffrey Minehart after Jack McMahon, Gosnell’s defense attorney, argued for the dismissals.

Also dropped were several counts of abuse of a corpse.

The trial, however, will continue on the rest of the counts that stem from the 72-year-old abortionist’s business in Philadelphia, the “Women’s Medical Center” that has been dubbed the “House of Horrors” for the events that occurred there.

He was accused of snipping the spinal cords of seven babies who were born alive at the facility, although witnesses have described that that same procedure was used to dispatch possibly hundreds of infants, as well as the drug overdose death of a patient.

Five other murder counts remain, and according to Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, who has been monitoring the case, it is a “watershed moment.”

“The discovery of his horrific practices helped shed light on an abortion industry that has run amok without oversight or accountability for decades, and has prompted significant changes in abortion laws and attitudes toward enforcement in several states,” he told LifeNews.

Minehart dropped the infanticide charge regarding “Baby B,” a baby born in a toilet, as well as murder charges for “Baby A,” “Baby C” and “Baby G.”

“”The prosecution has to show malice, the fact that Dr. Gosnell acted with intentional disregard for the safety of the mother and treated them differently than he did with the others,” McMahon said. “The prosecution has failed to do that.”

McMahon also cited Pennsylvania’s “24-Week Law.”

“Yes, Dr. Gosnell did abortions past the 24-week limit, but not one of those who he’s accused of harming were past 24 weeks.”

Prosecutor Ed Cameron said the counts fall within the law.

“The statute reads that if the crime offends common sensibilities, then the person is guilty. These acts offend reasonable sensibility,” Cameron said.

“The statute says that once the baby leaves the mother that the baby should be treated with dignity as a human being. That if they die, they should be disposed of with dignity. It is clear that Dr. Gosnell didn’t do that,” Cameron said.

“Cameron said that there are three signs that have to be present.

“It’s an either or. There has to be a beating heart and there has to be breathing. There also has to be voluntary movement,” Cameron said, “Even one of the doctors testified that they saw the baby breathing.”

In the case of “Baby B” and “Baby C,” Cameron argued that there was voluntary movement.

“The baby moved his arms. Lynda Williams said, ‘Hey look at this,’ as she called people to witness what she was doing,” Cameron said. “Williams pulled the baby’s arms and the baby pulled back.”

“That’s voluntary movement,” Cameron said.

“In the case of ‘Baby A’, Cameron said a clinic worker saw the baby move and breathe.

“It was a repeated course of conduct. Dr. Gosnell acted recklessly and with no regard for the safety of the women or the babies,” Cameron said.

President Obama, who has declined to weigh in, through his spokesman, on the case, meanwhile, is planning to attend a fundraising gala later this week for Planned Parenthood, the U.S. abortion industry’s biggest player.

Cecile Richards, president of the organization, said, “President Obama has done more than any president in history for women’s health and rights.”

In a statement that did not include the word abortion, she said, “He understands that access to birth control and preventive health care are economic issues for women and their families. We fought alongside him to ensure that women’s health access was expanded in the landmark Affordable Care Act, and now we have to fight hard to ensure that the full promise of health care reform is realized for millions of women.

“We are honored to President Obama join us…”

The details revealed during the trial have left Americans following the charges horrified.

For example, clinic worker Ashley Baldwin said Gosnell snipped the neck of many babies who could have lived.

The details of another instance are recorded in the grand jury report.

One report: “The baby had precipitated (emerged from the mother) when the doctor was not in the clinic. Lynda Williams (another clinic staff member) placed the baby in a basin on the counter where the instruments were washed and called the doctor to come.”

The details build: Baldwin heard an infant’s cry, and saw the baby move on the country. Estimated the baby’s length at 12 inches.

Gosnell arrived and all that soon stopped.

“He snipped the neck, and said there is nothing to worry about, and he suctioned it,” came the testimony.

The report also records the procedure for what would happen to the babies who were born when Gosnell was not at the clinic.

If Gosnell was absent, his employees would kill viable babies. Ashley Baldwin saw Steve Massof slit the necks of babies that moved or breathed ‘five or 10″ times. Massof, repeating what he had been taught by Gosnell, told her that that it was standard procedure to cut the spine in all cases.

Baldwin told the grand jury that she witnessed the similar procedure on several other occasions. An exchange between the prosecutors and Baldwin is also recorded in the grand jury report.

Q: These larger babies, when Dr. Steve was there, did he ever – was he ever there when any of the larger babies precipitated?

A: Yes.

Q: Babies that would move?

A: Yes.

Q: So, Dr. Steve – what would Dr. Steve do with babies that moved?

A The same thing.

Q. The same thing. And how many time did you see Dr. Steve?

A: A lot. He told me that – don’t worry about it. They are not living. It is just a reaction.”

The grand jury report also says that after Steve Massof left the clinic, clinic worker Lynda Williams took over the task of slitting the baby’s necks after they were born.

Former worker Kareema Cross said she later say Lynda Williams slit the neck of a baby (“Baby C”) who had been moving and breathing for approximately 20 minutes.

Gosnell had delivered the baby and put it on a counter while he suctioned the placenta from the mother. Williams called Cross over to look at the baby because it was breathing and moving its arms when Williams pulled on them. After playing with the baby, Williams slit its neck.

Marie Smith is another of Gosnell’s patients who almost died as a result of a botched abortion.

Smith was 19 when she had an abortion at Gosnell’s clinic. Three days after the abortion, she developed a fever and lost consciousness at her mother’s house.

She was taken to the emergency room where doctor’s discovered the cause of her infection.

“They showed me X-rays and said he [Gosnell] left an arm and a leg inside me. I almost died. I thought he knew what he was doing, but I guess I was wrong,” Smith told a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Operation Rescue’s Senior Policy Adviser Cheryl Sullenger wrote later that Smith is one of the fortunate ones.

“Marie Smith is lucky to be alive after having had a botched abortion by Gosnell in 1999,” Sullenger wrote.

Unlicensed medical school graduate Eileen O’Neill, Gosnell’s codefendant on murder charges, is reported to have given abortion drugs to clinic patients.

Lisa Dungee, a Gosnell clinic patient in 2009, testified to the court that O’Neill gave her the abortion pill before the end of the required 24-hour waiting period for an abortion and that she didn’t receive any pre-abortion counseling.

LifeNews.com reported that Dungee testified on the stand that, “When I came in to the facility, I already had my mind made up about what I wanted to do, so yes, I signed it,” Dungee said.

LifeNews also reported that Dungee didn’t deliver the four-week old baby until over 24-hours after taking the first abortion pill. The report says that O’Neill’s defense lawyer James Berardinelli has maintained that, “since Dungee did not actually expel her four-week baby until 24 hours after she took the first abortion pill, then the 24-hour waiting period had been observed.”

It was unclear whether the abortionist would testimony for himself.

WND reported earlier that the discoveries at Gosnell’s clinic were startling. A partial list reported by WND includes:

• Rusty and filthy abortion equipment has been brought into the courtroom to document unsanitary conditions.
• Medical records appear to have blood and other stains on them.
• Gosnell’s staff acted as though they were doctors, even though some had little or no medical training.
• Medications, including anesthetics, found in the office had expired years earlier.
• A defense attorney blamed the woman, Bhutan immigrant Karnamaya Mongar, for her own death, since she left several blanks on her medical form. Prosecutors said she spoke little English and likely was unaware she needed to provide information.
• Patients appeared to repeatedly get overdoses of drugs for their abortion procedures, including Mongar.
• Photographs of the bodies of babies, revealed gaping wounds in the back of their necks. According to testimony, Gosnell or staff members routinely snipped their spinal cords to make sure they were dead. Operation Rescue said: “The babies were all intact and had the appearance of being partially mummified or dried. The brownish-black skin had shrunk as it dried, revealing the upper spinal column that authorities say was pierced with scissors in order to snip the spinal cords of newborn babies born alive during abortions by Gosnell.”
• Photographs were introduced of babies’ feet, or even whole legs, Gosnell had preserved in jars.

PHILADELPHIA – The defense is going to get its turn when the Kermit Gosnell murder trial resumes this week.

A gag order put in place by trial Judge Jeffrey Minehart prevents the defense from saying who will be called as witnesses in Gosnell’s defense. Gosnell stands accused of various crimes related to his abortion practice, including eight counts of murder: one related to a patient who died under his care and seven for newborns allegedly killed after being born alive, though another worker at the clinic admitted to snipping the spines of over 100 babies born alive.

The prosecution finished its case last week, concluding with the detailed and graphic testimony of former clinic worker Kareema Cross. When asked by prosecutor Ed Cameron if she ever saw a baby born alive, Cross replied that it happened frequently.

“Oh, yes, a lot of times I saw the baby move,” Cross said. “They would be trying to get out of the fluid.

Cross said she also saw the babies’ chests rising and falling, even though Gosnell denied it.

“He said they weren’t breathing, but I saw that their chests were moving up and down,” Cross said. “This happened more than 10 times.”

Cross said she could even hear them cry.

“I heard them cry, but it was more like an umm, like a whine,” Cross said.

Cross also told what would happen when Gosnell would take the babies from the room.

“Dr. Gosnell would put the babies into a container. He would take them out of the room and clip their necks,” Cross said.

Under blistering cross examination by Gosnell’s defense lawyer Jack McMahon, Cross didn’t back down on whether the babies were still breathing.

The cross examination eventually led to the issue of what is commonly called a “partial birth abortion.” Cross said Gosnell did them.

“On occasion, Gosnell would do a partial birth abortion on a baby who was still breathing,” Cross said.

She referred to the procedure saying that Gosnell would use “suction,” meaning to remove the brain using a vacuum tube.

During his cross examination, McMahon also asked about the baby that was born and fell into the toilet.

“In the grand jury testimony you said you didn’t know if the baby was moving, or swimming around, in the toilet,” McMahon said.

“I said I wasn’t sure,” Cross said.

After McMahon sat down, Cross spoke up, “I saw the baby move in the toilet. It was like he was swimming around.”

McMahon wasn’t finished, questioning Cross on the baby born to patient Shaquanna Adams.

“You told the grand jury that you didn’t know what happened to the baby born to Ms. Abrams,” McMahon challenged.

Cross repeated her testimony that the baby born to Adams was over 12 inches long and was too large for the box Gosnell used to carry the baby from the room.

Cross added, “The baby was breathing and didn’t die right away. Dr. Gosnell took the baby from the room and snipped its neck.”

Cross worked at Gosnell’s Women’s Health Center from 2005 through December 2009.

The Washington Post reported last week that Philadelphia’s chief medical examiner Sam Gulino discussed an “unprecedented situation.” Gulino reported receiving “scores” of baby parts to examine after the 2010 raid of Gosnell’s clinic.

Gulino told of receiving two formaldehyde-filled jars, one with the left foot, the other with the right foot, of a 22-week baby.

“It was really an unprecedented situation. It was the first time I had to deal with fetal remains that had been frozen,” Gulino said, according to the Washington Post report.

“All I could do was allow the remains to thaw so that I could examine them,” Gulino said, which was followed by a gasp from the people in the gallery.

WND reported last week that the discoveries at Gosnell’s clinic were startling. A partial list reported by WND includes:

• Rusty and filthy abortion equipment has been brought into the courtroom to document unsanitary conditions.
• Medical records appear to have blood and other stains on them.
• Gosnell’s staff acted as though they were doctors, even though some had little or no medical training.
• Medications, including anesthetics, found in the office had expired years earlier.
• A defense attorney blamed the woman, Bhutan immigrant Karnamaya Mongar, for her own death, since she left several blanks on her medical form. Prosecutors said she spoke little English and likely was unaware she needed to provide information.
• Patients appeared to repeatedly get overdoses of drugs for their abortion procedures, including Mongar.
• Photographs of the bodies of babies, revealed gaping wounds in the back of their necks. According to testimony, Gosnell or staff members routinely snipped their spinal cords to make sure they were dead. Operation Rescue said: “The babies were all intact and had the appearance of being partially mummified or dried. The brownish-black skin had shrunk as it dried, revealing the upper spinal column that authorities say was pierced with scissors in order to snip the spinal cords of newborn babies born alive during abortions by Gosnell.”
• Photographs were introduced of babies’ feet, or even whole legs, Gosnell had preserved in jars.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick wants a state income tax increase that would raise the rate from 5.25 to 6.25 percent.

But his proposals also include eliminating deductions on a number of personal expenses. Among those deductions Patrick wants to eliminate are deductions for any income derived from college scholarships.

Patrick says he’s closing loopholes and that his tax plan, offset by a proposed reduction in the state sales tax, will raise $1.3 billion annually.

Weymouth Republican state Sen. Bob Hedlund says the governor is making a mistake by trying to tax scholarships.

“He’s been saying since he was elected that he wants to promote education, but in an effort to avoid cutting any spending, he’s planning to tax the very thing that helps people get an education,” Hedlund said.

Hedlund adds that he doesn’t believe the governor’s budget will make it out of the legislature because Democratic House Speaker Robert DeLeo has proposed his own budget.

Greater Boston Tea Party Coordinator Christine Moribito believes that while Hedlund says the governor’s budget may be dead, that doesn’t mean the specific proposals are.

She adds that in Massachusetts, tax proposals seem to live on, no matter how misguided.

“Yes, that’s true (that the scholarship tax isn’t dead). All of the proposed tax increases are ridiculous. We don’t need to raise taxes on anything,” Moribito said.

“We need to be concerned about the debt we’re leaving for the next generation not passing on increased tax burdens,” Moribito said.

Political analyst, columnist, and radio talk show host Jeffrey Kuhner says that Patrick’s proposal to tax scholarships is anti-growth and an assault on Americans.

“Frankly, I don’t think we should tax anything. We’re overtaxed. We should be cutting taxes to grow the economy,” Kuhner said. “The state government has more than enough money if they would go after the waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Massachusetts’ fiscal conservatives are railing against the governor and the legislature’s tax proposals, but they’re doing it without the help of Massachusetts’ social conservatives.

Many Massachusetts social conservatives believe they’re being shut out by the Greater Boston Tea Party, a movement that some social activists believe is trying to completely avoid the moral issues.

Massachusetts Family Association President Kris Mineau agrees and says the Greater Boston Tea Party is making a major tactical blunder.

“I think the Tea Party movement is making a big mistake in totally avoiding the social issues, especially those upholding the traditional values of life and marriage,” Mineau said.

Mineau says it’s perfectly acceptable to use the money issues as leverage to garner more participation. He adds that the budgetary woes have their roots in the ethical principles.

“We agree that the rallying points are about the national debt and the largess of government, but both issues have strong root causes related to life and marriage,” Mineau said.

Mineau gives some examples.

“Since Roe v Wade 40 years ago, there are 55 million fewer citizens in America. That means 55 million fewer taxpayers to support Medicare and Social Security, never mind the productive and creative geniuses we’ve lost,” Mineau said.

“The nuclear family, a married father, mother and children, is the best department of health, education and welfare, not the government. Married couples earn more money and enjoy better health than do singles over a lifetime,” Mineau said.

“A child raised in a home with a married father and mother does markedly better in all measurements of health, academic achievement and social behavior, and carries those strengths into adulthood,” Mineau said.

“Conversely, dysfunctional, unmarried or divorced households costs American taxpayers $113 billion annually due to welfare, substance abuse and crime. Massachusetts spends almost $1 billion annually,” Mineau said.

A satellite television ministry that broadcasts into the Middle East is being forced to restructure its financial operations to prevent its assets from being seized by the government in Cyprus, which has melted down economically, officials say.

SAT-7 TV, a satellite ministry that broadcasts Christian programs in Arabic, is being forced to make the changes to avoid the worst of the impact of the decision by the Cypriot government to seize private assets from banks.

In a new message sent to supporters, SAT-7 President Dr. Terrence Ascott says the ministry has been adversely impacted by the Cyprus situation.

“The banking crises of the past few weeks have made day to day operations in Cyprus very difficult,” Ascott said.

Sat-7 Television USA President Dr. Rex Rogers says the crisis is causing a delay in some financial transactions.

Rogers says SAT-7 was a target for the government’s financial maneuvering, and the government already has taken a huge amount of cash – estimated at about 40,000 euros.

Rogers says the ministry is asking donors to look at alternative channels to contribute.

“The call is not necessarily for all of the money to go to our Denmark account. We said that because of the present banking crisis in Cyprus, we would ask that any gifts be sent to local SAT-7 support offices in the USA, Canada or UK,” Rogers said.

The transition – collecting money in different accounts and then using them to pay the ministry’s operating expenses, will take some time.

“Yes, it will. It will delay payments, salaries and other transactions,” Rogers said.

But he knows he’s not alone.

“We are aware of a couple other Christian organizations who have lost significant sums of money in this crisis. Likely there are others as well,” Rogers said.

Rogers believes that billions of euros are involved and that the proposed solution is also risky.

“It appears from the latest reports that Cyprus will need to raise 13 billion euros to secure a … loan from the European Union and IMF,” Rogers said. “Also, a large portion of the 13 billion appears to be coming from unsecured deposits in the two largest banks, but exact numbers have not been released yet.”

The organization said it will continue broadcasting, and will continue to have some operations in Cyprus.

“We will of course always need some local banking in Cyprus and over the coming months, we are expecting to go through many more changes, including a change in bankers, bank cards, banking procedures, and etc.,” Ascott said. “It will take time to see what the economic impact of all this will be on the country, and whether or not the current insecurity in the local banking sector can be addressed.”

WND previously reported that the banking meltdown in Cyprus was affecting ministries.

Religious Freedom Coalition President William Murray said the future looked bleak because many Christian human rights and aid groups use Cyprus banks to ensure aid reaches the intended Middle Eastern and south Asian countries.

“Ministries like mine have to run money through Cyprus so the recipients in Muslim nations are not targeted for getting money from the crusaders,” Murray said.

Other Christian-based human rights groups also use Cyprus.

“Several humanitarian groups were going to lose a lot of money if that heavy tax was put on their deposits. This would hurt those groups who are trying to help the poor and refugees in the Middle East,” Murray said.

Those hurt would be refugees and the poor in Middle Eastern countries.

SAT-7 has been working since 1996 to raise the awareness in Middle East and North Africa about God’s love.

It currently has five channels, SAT-7 Arabic, Sat-7 Pars, Sat-7 Kids, Sat-7 Plus and Sat-7 Turk.

Each channel regularly broadcasts programming that shows viewers God’s love and gives local churches in the region a platform on which to educate and encourage their communities.

The broadcasts also are used to combat misconceptions about Christianity and work interdenominationally.

It also has offices in Europe, the UK, Canada and the United States. It has more than 100 staff members working throughout the Middle East.

(Warning: This article contains graphic details concerning abortions and may disturb some readers.)

PHILADELPHIA – Testimony by a former worker at Kermit Gosnell’s abortion business in Philadelphia hasn’t exactly been helpful in his defense against eight counts of murder – one for a woman who died during an abortion and seven more for babies who, against odds, allegedly were born alive and then killed.

That’s because although it’s a gruesome and technical point, babies are supposed to be killed before they are removed from the mother’s body to qualify as an abortion.

But today, Gosnell’s defense counsel was unable to shake the testimony of a worker who said she saw the babies breathing after they were born.

The prosecution in the case rested after their final witness today, and the defense arguments are expected to take the stage next week.

Today, defense attorney Jack McMahon cross -examined witness Kareema Cross, trying to undermine her testimony from a day earlier. Cross said she “saw their chests were moving up and down” after the infants were born.

Witnesses testified that Gosnell or other clinic workers would use a scissors to snip the baby’s spinal column to make certain they were dead.

Under McMahon’s cross-examination, Cross continued to say that she heard the babies whine and saw their chests rise and fall.

“Yes, I saw their chests move up and down,” Cross said, shakily at times under McMahon’s suggestion that Cross wasn’t sure.

McMahon asked Cross about a statement that Gosnell was alleged to have made to her about the impact the medications have on the unborn babies.

Cross testified, “He said that either way, I was told that with or without the new medications, the baby is going to die.”

Cross said Gosnell referred to the unborn child as a “baby,” not a “fetus.”

McMahon asked Cross about the Pennsylvania law mandating that no abortions be done after 24 weeks. Cross repeated her previous testimony.

“Abortions were routinely done at 24 to 25 weeks,” she said.

The issue turned to partial birth abortions. Cross said, “On occasion, Gosnell would do a partial birth abortion on a baby who was still breathing.”

McMahon asked about a baby born into a toilet and a baby born to Shaquanna Abrams.

“In the grand jury testimony you said you didn’t know if the baby was moving, or swimming around, in the toilet,” McMahon said.

“I said I wasn’t sure,” Cross said.

Then after McMahon sat down, Cross said, “I saw the baby move in the toilet.”

“You told the grand jury that you didn’t know what happened to the baby born to Ms. Abrams,” McMahon challenged.

Cross maintained her testimony.

“The baby boy from Abrams breathed and moved in the container. The baby did not die right away,” she said.

Operation Rescue Senior Policy Adviser Cheryl Sullenger was at the trial, and she said she believes that Cross was courageous in coming forward.

“It does take courage to do that, because a lot of clinic workers when they see conditions like that … they’re afraid they’re going to lose their jobs, they’re wondering about their next paycheck,” Sullenger said.

Sullenger said she’s also grateful for Cross having the will to take the photographs to document the clinic’s filthy condition.

“She was very courageous to come forward and take those pictures. I just wish that anyone would have paid attention to her when she complained,” Sullenger said.

What bothers most, she said, is “the fact that it’s so many babies were killed after they were born in the filthy conditions that were at the abortion clinic. There were literally hundreds over the years – hundreds and hundreds.”

She said the workers did wrong, too, and they knew it, but she said Gosnell chose a type of person to employ for that reason.

“I believe Dr. Gosnell sought out women for hire who were, that were low income, low education. They were in financial crises and were desperate for employment,” she said. “So he would hire people like that and exert control over them so they felt like they couldn’t leave.

“There’s no doubt that he’s the kingpin in all of this and has the responsibility for all of the stuff that took place,” Sullenger said.

She said hearing the details about the abortion business “was painful; it was brutal.”

“It was barbaric. It was cold-hearted the way that he joked about the babies being big enough to walk him to the bus stop or to walk him home.”

Even as the prosecution was wrapping up its case, 72 members of Congress signed a letter demanding that major news outlets end their blackout of the abortion trial.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., joined Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise in enlisting 70 of their colleagues to sign the letter.

“The broadcasters’ blackout of the Planned Parenthood infanticide lobbying scandal and the Gosnell ‘House of Horrors’ murder trial are the biggest and most politically motivated media cover-ups in our nation’s history,” Blackburn said in a statement.

“Censorship and media bias allows the corrupt abortion industry to profit at the expense of innocent women and children. The mainstream media has a responsibility to report the truth, not turn a blind eye to the biggest civil rights issue of our time,” Blackburn said.

“If someone went into a hospital and shot seven babies and a mother with an AK-47, the media coverage surrounding the trial would rival a natural disaster,” Scalise told the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

“Yet seven babies and a mother are dead at the hands of an abortion doctor using a scalpel, and the mainstream media’s silence on this story is deafening. By failing to cover this story and turning their backs on the culture of abortion in this country, the media has failed in their duty to provide unbiased coverage of this horrific tragedy,” Scalise said.

New York Times’ editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal was unrepentant about his company’s effort to ignore the horrors of the Gosnell case.

“There’s no rule that a newspaper, or that paper’s editorial page, has to run one piece about a bad clinic for every piece celebrating a good one,” he wrote. He referenced the Times’ editorializing about the reopening of a “women’s health clinic” in Wichita, Kan. The last clinic there shut when George Tiller, the abortionist who specialized in late-term abortions and was charged for allegedly doing illegal procedures, was murdered.

“Dr. Tiller was performing safe and legal abortions when he was gunned down in the foyer of his own church. The reopening of his clinic, which will not perform late-term abortions, is an act of courage on the part of Julie Burkhart, a former colleague of Dr. Tiller, and others. She is already receiving death threats from people who believe that murder is an acceptable way of protesting legal, constitutionally protected abortions,” wrote Rosenthal.

He said the real issue isn’t Gosnell’s actions in snipping the spinal cords of born-alive infants but attempts to restrict “women’s access to reproductive health services, including birth control, cancer screening and other services.”

A day earlier, Cross had told of babies breathing after they were born, even crying out and flinching when Gosnell used a scissors to cut their necks.

And there was testimony from Cross about one photo of a cabinet.

“This picture is a bunch of jars in a cabinet,” Cross said.

The prosecutor asked, “What was in the jars?”

“The jars had babies’ feet in them.”

Another photograph, an enlargement, showed a baby’s foot in a plastic specimen bag.

At one point, Cross testified about a patient named Shaquanna Abrams who came for a second-trimester abortion.

“Did you ever see those babies move?” asked prosecutor Joanne Pescatore.

“Yes, once in the toilet,” said Cross.

“It was swimming a bit,” she said, “basically, trying to get out of the toilet.”

“Dr. Gosnell took the box from the room. Dr. Gosnell took pictures of the baby, then he snapped the baby’s neck,” Cross said.

She added, “Dr. Gosnell said that this baby was so big he could have walked me to the bus stop.”

Sullenger’s organization has been monitoring the weeks of testimony already in the case:

• Rusty and filthy abortion equipment has been brought into the courtroom to document unsanitary conditions.
• Medical records appear to have blood and other stains on them.
• Gosnell’s staff acted as though they were doctors, even though some had little or no medical training.
• Medications, including anesthetics, found in the office had expired years earlier.
• A defense attorney blamed the woman, Bhutan immigrant Karnamaya Mongar, for her own death, since she left several blanks on her medical form. Prosecutors said she spoke little English and likely was unaware she needed to provide information.
• Patients appeared to repeatedly get overdoses of drugs for their abortion procedures, including Mongar.
• Photographs of the bodies of babies, revealed gaping wounds in the back of their necks. According to testimony, Gosnell or staff members routinely snipped their spinal cords to make sure they were dead. Operation Rescue said: “The babies were all intact and had the appearance of being partially mummified or dried. The brownish-black skin had shrunk as it dried, revealing the upper spinal column that authorities say was pierced with scissors in order to snip the spinal cords of newborn babies born alive during abortions by Gosnell.”
• Photographs were introduced of babies’ feet, or even whole legs, Gosnell had preserved in jars.
• Testimony revealed Gosnell was reusing plastic tubes for abortions.
• Crime scene investigator John Taggart testified about retrieving a large garbage disposal that was under the sink in the wash room. Operation Rescue president Troy Newman explained the significance: “I had seen it before in the abortion clinic in Wichita, Kan., that Operation Rescue bought and closed, then renovated into a usable pro-life office. Aborted baby remains were likely ground up in the disposal then flushed down the sink.”
• A former Gosnell employee, Steven Massof, testified the abortion business was chaotic and that he saw more than 100 babies born alive who had their necks snipped in what he described as “a beheading.”
• He also testified at times “it would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place.”

The outrage began when the grand jury, prompted by allegations of drug misuse, looked into Gosnell’s operations and activities.

When the FBI raided the location, the grand jury report stated, “There was blood on the floor. A stench of urine filled the air. A flea-infested cat was wandering through the facility, and there were cat feces on the stairs.”

The grand jury asked: “How did this go on so long? Pennsylvania’s Department of Health has deliberately chosen not to enforce laws that should afford patients at abortion clinics the same safeguards and assurances of quality health care as patients of other medical service providers.”

Report author Dave Andursko noted the list of unethical practices is extensive.

“The callous killing of babies outside the womb, the routinely performed third trimester abortions, the deaths of at least two patients, and the grievous health risks inflicted on countless other women by Gosnell and his unlicensed staff are not the only shocking things that this grand jury investigation uncovered. What surprised the jurors even more is the official neglect that allowed these crimes and conditions to persist for years in a Philadelphia medical facility,” Andursko wrote.

Related columns:

“The Philly Angel of Death” by Ted Nugent

“‘Dr.’ Gosnell and Obama’s heart of stone” by Alan Keyes

TEL AVIV – The Israeli media have been quoting Arab news media reports claiming a Russian convoy of game-changing S300 missile batteries are already in Syria.

Citing Arab intelligence sources last week, WND was first to report that some S300 missile batteries reached Syria two weeks ago.

At the time, Israeli security sources said there was no information to support the Arab claim.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been leading efforts to block the S300 sale, flying to Russia last week to meet with President Vladimir Putin on the matter as well as other security concerns.

Now the Israel media is quoting the London-based Arab paper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, which claimed the S300 missiles are currently in Syria under Russian supervision. The report claimed the missiles are not yet operational.

Israel’s Channel 2 further reported Syrian soldiers completed their training on the S300 on Russian soil.

Read all about what Russia is telling Jerusalem regarding more airstrikes.

Speaking to WND yesterday, the same Arab intelligence sources who first claimed some S300 batteries were already delivered to Syria now say other advanced Russian anti-aircraft missiles arrived in Syria in the last few days.

The sources said a Russian delivery of 9K720 Iskander missiles reached Syria last week. The system is an older version of the S300.

Asked about the latest report, Israeli security officials did not immediately comment on the matter.

S300 missile batteries are able to intercept manned aircraft and guided missiles.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that Syria has been making payments on a 2010 agreement with Russia to purchase four batteries for $900 million, with delivery expected within three months.

The Journal reported the S300 package included six launchers and 144 operational missiles, each with a range of up to 200 miles.

The foreign-headquartered company that recently purchased the leading U.S. electronic voting firm is boasting that it was highlighted in a report on how technology is making the election process more efficient, secure, transparent, accessible and reliable.

The report, WND has learned, was authored by a firm with links to billionaire activist George Soros.

The information comes after WND reported two weeks ago that SCYTL recently acquired the software division of a non-profit election organization tied to Soros’ Open Society Institute.

Yesterday, WND reported SCYTL announced its technology will be deployed at more U.S. jurisdictions ahead of the 2014 midterm elections.

Now SCYTL has issued a news release boasting that a firm called Ovum spotlighted SCYTL in the publication of a reported titled “On the Radar: SCYTL – An End-to-End Election Modernization Platform.”

SCYTL says the report “highlights the reality of elections heading towards an inevitable reliance on technology to make current election process far more efficient, secure, transparent, accessible, and reliable.”

“Ovum reflects Scytl’s perfect fit into this trend with the provision of an end-to-end election modernization platform that caters to all election management cycles: Pre-election, Election Day, Post-election, and overall Governance.”

Ovum’s views “in the report align with Scytl’s vision and strategy,” the company said.

The press release quoted Nishant Shah, research analyst at Ovum and author of the report.

Shah stated, “We believe Scytl’s wide variety of offerings, investment into certifications, and emphasis on security, auditing, and testing position the company as a dominant provider in election modernization.”

Shah’s biography page at Ovum’s website says he facilitated large-scale public-private partnerships in international health for the Global Business Coalition. He also worked with the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS issues.

Soros is the Global Business Coalition’s founding supporter.

Shah’s bio further notes the analyst provided management services support to technology investees of the Acumen Fund in Pakistan. Soros’ daughter, Andrea Soros Colombel, serves on Acumen’s board. She is also a member of the global board of Soros’s Open Society Foundation.

Another Ovum author is Margaret Goldberg. Her Ovum bio notes that prior to joining the firm, she interned for three years at the Soros Economic Development Fund.

In January 2012, SCYTL, based in Barcelona, acquired 100 percent of SOE Software, the leading software provider of election management solutions in the U.S. The sale garnered national attention after it was spotlighted by the popular Drudge Report.

Foreign vote-count firm expands U.S. reach

Two weeks ago, another SCYTL company news release boasted that its “electronic pollbook solution recently achieved a significant milestone by eclipsing the 100th implementation in the United States.”

“This number continues to grow with many jurisdictions planning to implement electronic pollbook technology ahead of the 2014 election cycle,” continued the release.

The electronic pollbook allows U.S. election officials and poll workers to manage the electoral roll on Election Day efficiently and conveniently.

SCYTL’s electronic pollbook solution will be utilized in small and large election jurisdictions throughout the nation, including in Washington, D.C.; Galveston County, Texas, along with 50 other Texas counties; Kane County, Ill.; and Peoria, Ill.

“We are very excited that our superior platform and unique solution have earned the trust of more than 100 election jurisdictions who have successfully utilized our electronic pollbook in major elections,” said Marc Fratello, CEO of SOE Software.

“We also look forward to expanding our offering to other election jurisdictions across the United States,” added Fratello.

More Soros ties

WND recently reported SCYTL acquired the software division of a non-profit election organization tied to George Soros’ Open Society Institute.

SCYTL said it is purchasing the software division of Gov2U, described as a non-profit organization dedicated to developing and promoting the use of technology in the fields of governance and democracy.

A SCYTL press release says: “Gov2U created its software division in 2004 and, since then, it has developed a wide array of innovative award-winning eDemocracy solutions that have been implemented in multiple countries across Europe, Africa and America at the local, regional and federal government levels.”

The Spain-based company says the “main purpose of these tools is to engage citizens in participatory processes through the use of online and offline platforms, bringing more transparency and legitimacy to decision-making processes.”

Gov4U is currently partnered with Soros’ Open Society to support and develop a group called the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness.

The group runs a website, OpeningParliament.org, which says it is a forum “intended to help connect the world’s civic organizations engaged in monitoring, supporting and opening up their countries’ parliaments and legislative institutions.”

Gov4U, meanwhile, has eight partners of its own listed on its website, including the Soros-funded and partnered National Democratic Institute, or NDI.

Aside from receiving financial support for Soros, NDI has co-hosted scores of events along with Soros’ Open Society. The two groups work closely together.

NDI and the Open Society, for example, worked together to push for electoral and legislative reform in Romania.

NDI boasts that with Open Society Institute funds it conducted a political leadership training series for Romanian activists to “bring tangible improvements to their communities.”

NDI describes itself as a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nongovernmental organization working to establish and strengthen political and civic organizations, safeguard elections and promote citizen participation, openness and accountability in government.

NDI previously stated it was founded to draw on the traditions of the U.S. Democratic Party.

WND found that NDI is also listed as the only U.S.-associated organization of Socialists International, the world’s largest socialist umbrella group.

NDI was originally created by the federally funded National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, which itself founded joint NDI projects with the Open Society. Another NDI financial backer is the United States Agency for International Development, USAID.

U.S. elections, national security concerns

With the purchase of SOE Software, SCYTL increased its involvement in the U.S. elections process. SOE Software boasts a strong U.S. presence, providing results in more than 900 jurisdictions.

In 2009, SCYTL formally registered with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission as the first Internet voting manufacturer in the U.S. under the EAC Voting System Testing and Certification Program.

Also that year, SCYTL entered into an agreement with another firm, Hart InterCivic, to jointly market its pollbook.

SCYTL’s ePollBook already has replaced the paper precinct roster in Washington, D.C.

In the 2012 presidential election, SCYTL was contracted by the states of New York, Arkansas, Alabama, West Virginia, Alaska, Puerto Rico and Mississippi to provide the overseas ballots.

During the midterm elections in November 2010, SCYTL successfully carried out electoral modernization projects in 14 states. The company boasted that a “great variety” of SCYTL’s technologies were involved in the projects, including an online platform for the delivery of blank ballots to overseas voters, an Internet voting platform and epollbook software to manage the electoral roll at the polling stations.

The states that used SCYTL’s technologies during the midterms were New York, Texas, Washington, California, Florida, Alabama, Missouri, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Nebraska, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Just prior to the midterm’s however, the new electronic voting system in Washington, D.C., was hacked.

As a program security trial, the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics reportedly encouraged outside parties to find flaws in its new online balloting system. A group of University of Michigan students then hacked into the site and commanded it to play the school’s fight song upon casting a vote.

It’s not the first time SCYTL’s systems have been called into question.

Voter Action, an advocacy group that seeks elections integrity in the U.S., sent a lengthy complaint to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in April 2010 charging the integration of SCYTL systems “raises national security concerns.”

“Foreign governments may also seek to undermine the national security interests of the United States, either directly or through other organizations,” Voter Action charged.

The document notes that SCYTL was founded in 2001 as a spinoff of a research group at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, which was partially funded by the Spanish government’s Ministry of Science and Technology.

Along with Barcelona, SCYTL has offices in Washington, D.C.; Singapore; Bratislava; and Athens.

• Project Vote noted that in 2008, the Florida Department of State commissioned a review of SCYTL’s remote voting software and concluded in part that:
• The system is vulnerable to attack from insiders.In a worst case scenario, the software could lead to 1) voters being unable to cast votes; 2) an election that does not accurately reflect the will of the voters; and 3) possible disclosure of confidential information, such as the votes cast by individual voters.
• The system may be subject to attacks that could compromise the integrity of the votes cast.

Voting through Google, Apple?

As WND reported in May 2012 the company announced the successful implementation of technology that allows ballots to be cast using Google and Apple smart phones and tablet computers.

SCYTL unveiled a platform that it says encrypts each individual ballot on a voter’s Google or Apple mobile device before the ballot is then transmitted to an electronic voting system.

Using this technology, “Scytl is now able to guarantee end-to-end security – from the voter to the final tally – not only for computer-based online voting but also for mobile voting,” stated a press release by the company.

“By leveraging its pioneering security technology with Google and Apple’s mobile device platforms, Scytl has become the premier election technology provider to offer an online voting system that guarantees the highest standards in terms of both voter privacy and ballot integrity both on personal computers and mobile devices,” said Gabriel Dos Santos, Scytl’s vice president of software engineering.

The U.S. currently does not use voting platforms with mobile devices. SCYTL sees such methods as the future of electronic voting.

With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott

The foreign-headquartered company that recently purchased the leading U.S. electronic voting firm has just announced its technology will be deployed at more jurisdictions ahead of the 2014 midterm elections.

A SCYTL company news release boasted that its “electronic pollbook solution recently achieved a significant milestone by eclipsing the 100th implementation in the United States.”

“This number continues to grow with many jurisdictions planning to implement electronic pollbook technology ahead of the 2014 election cycle,” continued the release.

The electronic pollbook reportedly allows U.S. election officials and poll workers to manage the electoral roll on Election Day in an efficient and convenient manner.

SCYTL’s electronic pollbook solution will be utilized in small and large election jurisdictions throughout the nation, including in Washington, D.C.; Galveston County, Texas, along with 50 other Texas counties; Kane County, Ill.; and the city of Peoria, Ill.

“We are very excited that our superior platform and unique solution have earned the trust of more than 100 election jurisdictions who have successfully utilized our electronic pollbook in major elections,” said Marc Fratello, CEO of SOE Software.

“We also look forward to expanding our offering to other election jurisdictions across the United States,” added Fratello.

In January 2012, SCYTL, based in Barcelona, acquired 100 percent of SOE Software, the leading software provider of election management solutions in the United States. The sale garnered national attention after it was spotlighted by the popular Drudge Report.

Soros ties

Last week, WND exposed how SCYTL recently acquired the software division of a non-profit election organization tied to George Soros’ Open Society Institute.

SCYTL said it is purchasing the software division of Gov2U, described as a non-profit organization dedicated to developing and promoting the use of technology in the fields of governance and democracy.

A SCYTL press release says: “Gov2U created its software division in 2004 and, since then, it has developed a wide array of innovative award-winning eDemocracy solutions that have been implemented in multiple countries across Europe, Africa and America at the local, regional and federal government levels.”

The Spain-based company says the “main purpose of these tools is to engage citizens in participatory processes through the use of online and offline platforms, bringing more transparency and legitimacy to decision-making processes.”

Gov4U is currently partnered with Soros’ Open Society to support and develop a group called the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness.

The group runs a website, OpeningParliament.org, which says it is a forum “intended to help connect the world’s civic organizations engaged in monitoring, supporting and opening up their countries’ parliaments and legislative institutions.”

Gov4U, meanwhile, has eight partners of its own listed on its website, including the Soros-funded and partnered National Democratic Institute, or NDI.

Aside from receiving financial support for Soros, NDI has co-hosted scores of events along with Soros’ Open Society. The two groups work closely together.

NDI and the Open Society, for example, worked together to push for electoral and legislative reform in Romania.

NDI boasts that with Open Society Institute funds it conducted a political leadership training series for Romanian activists to “bring tangible improvements to their communities.”

NDI describes itself as a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nongovernmental organization working to establish and strengthen political and civic organizations, safeguard elections and promote citizen participation, openness and accountability in government.

NDI previously stated it was founded to draw on the traditions of the U.S. Democratic Party.

WND found that NDI is also listed as the only U.S.-associated organization of Socialists International, the world’s largest socialist umbrella group.

NDI was originally created by the federally funded National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, which itself founded joint NDI projects with the Open Society. Another NDI financial backer is the United States Agency for International Development, USAID.

U.S. elections, national security concerns

With the purchase of SOE Software, SCYTL increased its involvement in the U.S. elections process. SOE Software boasts a strong U.S. presence, providing results in more than 900 jurisdictions.

In 2009, SCYTL formally registered with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission as the first Internet voting manufacturer in the U.S. under the EAC Voting System Testing and Certification Program.

Also that year, SCYTL entered into an agreement with another firm, Hart InterCivic, to jointly market its pollbook.

SCYTL’s ePollBook already has replaced the paper precinct roster in Washington, D.C.

In the 2012 presidential election, SCYTL was contracted by the states of New York, Arkansas, Alabama, West Virginia, Alaska, Puerto Rico and Mississippi to provide the overseas ballots.

During the midterm elections in November 2010, SCYTL successfully carried out electoral modernization projects in 14 states. The company boasted that a “great variety” of SCYTL’s technologies were involved in the projects, including an online platform for the delivery of blank ballots to overseas voters, an Internet voting platform and epollbook software to manage the electoral roll at the polling stations.

The states that used SCYTL’s technologies during the midterms were New York, Texas, Washington, California, Florida, Alabama, Missouri, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Nebraska, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Just prior to the midterm’s however, the new electronic voting system in Washington, D.C., was hacked.

As a program security trial, the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics reportedly encouraged outside parties to find flaws in its new online balloting system. A group of University of Michigan students then hacked into the site and commanded it to play the school’s fight song upon casting a vote.

It’s not the first time SCYTL’s systems have been called into question.

Voter Action, an advocacy group that seeks elections integrity in the U.S., sent a lengthy complaint to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in April 2010 charging the integration of SCYTL systems “raises national security concerns.”

“Foreign governments may also seek to undermine the national security interests of the United States, either directly or through other organizations,” Voter Action charged.

The document notes that SCYTL was founded in 2001 as a spinoff from a research group at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, which was partially funded by the Spanish government’s Ministry of Science and Technology.

Along with Barcelona, SCYTL has offices in Washington, D.C., Singapore, Bratislava and Athens.

Project Vote noted that in 2008, the Florida Department of State commissioned a review of SCYTL’s remote voting software and concluded in part that:

• The system is vulnerable to attack from insiders.
• In a worst case scenario, the software could lead to 1) voters being unable to cast votes; 2) an election that does not accurately reflect the will of the voters; and 3) possible disclosure of confidential information, such as the votes cast by individual voters.
• The system may be subject to attacks that could compromise the integrity of the votes cast.

Voting through Google, Apple?

As WND reported in May 2012 the company announced the successful implementation of technology that allows ballots to be cast using Google and Apple smart phones and tablet computers.

SCYTL unveiled a platform that it says encrypts each individual ballot on a voter’s Google or Apple mobile device before the ballot is then transmitted to an electronic voting system.

Using this technology, “Scytl is now able to guarantee end-to-end security – from the voter to the final tally – not only for computer-based online voting but also for mobile voting,” stated a press release by the company.

“By leveraging its pioneering security technology with Google and Apple’s mobile device platforms, Scytl has become the premier election technology provider to offer an online voting system that guarantees the highest standards in terms of both voter privacy and ballot integrity both on personal computers and mobile devices,” said Gabriel Dos Santos, Scytl’s vice president of software engineering.

The U.S. currently does not utilize voting platforms using mobile devices. SCYTL sees such methods as the future of electronic voting.

With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott

TEL AVIV – The Iranian-backed Hezbollah is established training camps near the Syrian capital of Damascus to prepare for possible guerrilla warfare targeting Israel’s northern Golan Heights, according to informed Middle Eastern security officials.

The officials said the camps are training Palestinian groups as well as special units connected to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s Baath party for operations against Israel if such actions are green-lighted by Assad in the near future.

The officials said that for the time being, Russia has urged Assad against taking any action targeting Israel.

Assad is also being held back from widening the conflict with the Jewish state for the time being since his army has made great advances toward quelling the jihadist-led rebel insurgency targeting his regime.

Large explosions rocked Damascus two weeks ago with Syria blaming Israel for the strikes, which reportedly targeted a military research center in Jamraya, near Damascus.

The reports followed confirmations by anonymous Israeli officials that the Israel Air Force carried out a strike against Syria earlier this month targeting a shipment of advanced missiles bound for Hezbollah.

The New York Times quoted U.S. officials saying the strike targeted Iranian Fateh-110 missiles headed for Hezbollah.

Syrian Information Minister Omran Zoabi was quoted by state-run media saying the Israeli air strikes “opens the door to all possibilities.”

Lebanese media quoted Seyed Hassan Firouzabadi, the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, as saying: “Resistance forces will respond to the Israeli aggression.”

JERUSALEM – Did the State Department scrub information about a dramatic incident the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack in which U.S. Embassy staff 400 miles away in Tripoli evacuated their residential compound under possible terror threat?

The threat was taken so seriously that, according to a key embassy staffer, communications equipment was dismantled and hard drives were smashed with an ax.

The scene was first brought to light in congressional testimony last week by Gregory Hicks, the former U.S. deputy chief of mission in Libya, but it remains largely unreported by news media.

The incident also was not mentioned in the State Department probe nor was it previously reported in news accounts of the attack, which the Obama administration first claimed was a result of popular protests about an anti-Muhammad video.

In his testimony, Hicks said that about three hours after the attack began on the U.S. facility in Benghazi, the embassy staff in Tripoli noticed Twitter feeds asserting that the terror group Ansar al-Sharia was responsible. Hicks said there was also a call on the social media platform for an attack on the embassy in Tripoli.

“We had always thought that we were … under threat, that we now have to take care of ourselves, and we began planning to evacuate our facility,” he said.

“When I say our facility, I mean the State Department residential compound in Tripoli, and to consolidate all of our personnel … at the annex in Tripoli.”

Hicks said that he “immediately telephoned Washington that news afterwards and began accelerating our effort to withdraw from the Villas compound and move to the annex.”

He recalled how his team “responded with amazing discipline and courage in Tripoli in organizing withdrawal.”

Continued Hicks: “I have vivid memories of that. I think the most telling, though, was of our communications staff dismantling our communications equipment to take with us to the annex and destroying the classified communications capability.

“Our office manager, Amber Pickens, was everywhere that night just throwing herself into some task that had to be done. First she was taking a log of what we were doing,” he said.

“Then she was loading magazines, carrying ammunition to the – carrying our ammunition supply to … our vehicles, and then she was smashing hard drives with an ax.”

The vivid, nearly unprecedented scene, however, was not reported in the State Department’s description of the Tripoli embassy’s response the night of the Benghazi attack.

The section of the State Department probe titled “Embassy Tripoli Response” simply says that upon notification of the attack in Benghazi, the U.S. Embassy set up a command center and notified Washington.

A later section in the State Department probe describes how a seven-person response team from Tripoli arrived in Benghazi to lend support but could not get to the Benghazi facility due to a lack of transportation.

The section also says the Tripoli embassy worked with the Libyan government to have a Libyan Air Force C-130 take the remaining U.S. government personnel from Benghazi to Tripoli.

With additional research by Joshua Klein

TEL AVIV – A Russian convoy of game-changing S300 missile batteries reached Syria last week, claimed Arab intelligence sources speaking to WND.

Israeli security sources said there is no information to support the Arab claim.

The information comes as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times  reported Israel relayed a message to the Obama administration describing as imminent a Russian deal to sell the advanced anti-aircraft missile systems to Syria.

The S300 missile batteries are able to intercept manned aircraft and guided missiles.

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Texas the administration is aware of the reports and is disappointed in Russia’s continued support of the Syrian regime.

“We have consistently called on Russia to cut off the Assad regime’s supply of Russian weapons including air defense systems that are destabilizing to the region,” Carney said. “We have also long said that Russia could play a more constructive role in Syria.”

According to the Journal report, Syria has been making payments on a 2010 agreement with Russia to purchase four batteries for $900 million with delivery expected within three months.

The Journal reported the S300 package included six launchers and 144 operational missiles each with a range of up to 200 miles.

TEL AVIV – There is a common threat that links the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack to both the Boston Marathon bombings and the terror assault on the In Amenas gas facility in southern Algeria in January.

The thread runs through al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, one of the most deadly members of the al-Qaida conglomerate. AQAP previously attempted several major attacks within the U.S.

The group was the first al-Qaida member to comment on the Benghazi attack, releasing a statement arguing the assaults on the U.S. mission and nearby CIA annex were revenge for the death of Abu Yahya al-Libi, one of the most senior al-Qaida operatives.

AQAP did not directly claim responsibility for the Benghazi attacks.

Al-Libi, of Libyan descent, was believed to have been killed in Pakistan in June 2012.

Lost in the news media coverage about the U.S. response to the Libya attacks was that one day before the assaults, on Sept. 10, 2012, al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri released a video calling for attacks on Americans in Libya to avenge the death of al-Libi.

The 42-minute video announced the death of al-Libi. Released on a jihadi online forum less than 18 hours before the Benghazi attack, Zawahiri urged jihadists, and particularly those in Libya, to avenge the killing of al- Libi.

“His blood urges you and incites you to fight and kill the crusaders,” he said.

Last week, CNN quoted sources disclosing several Yemeni men belonging to AQAP took part in the Benghazi attacks.

One senior U.S. law enforcement official told CNN that “three or four members of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula” took part in the attack.

Another source quoted by CNN as being briefed on the Benghazi investigation said Western intelligence services “suspect the men may have been sent by the group specifically to carry out the attack.”

“But it’s not been ruled out that they were already in the city and participated as the opportunity arose,” continued the CNN report.

CNN further quoted one source revealing counter-terrorism officials learned the identity of the three men and later traced them to northern Mali, where they are believed to have connected with the jihad organization led by Moktar Belmoktar.

Belmoktar, an Algerian, is a senior leader of the Islamic Maghreb. He claimed responsibility for the Algeria gas facility attack in January in which 38 people were killed during a three-day siege.

Another intelligence source told CNN that Belmoktar had received a call in the aftermath of the Benghazi attack from someone in or close to the city.

The person on the other end of the call stated, “Mabruk, Mabruk!” meaning “congratulations” in Arabic, according to the source.

Boston bombing link

Meanwhile, AQAP has also been tied to the Boston bombing.

AQAP is behind Inspire magazine, the periodical thought to have provided bomb-building instructions for Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the accused Boston Marathon terrorists.

AQAP previously attempted attacks on U.S. soil. One such attempt was the 2009 Christmas Day plot by a Nigerian recruited by the group to blow up a plane flying into Detroit. That attack failed when the suspect’s device malfunctioned.

In October 2010, AQAP reportedly attempted to blow up planes destined for the U.S. using printer bombs disguised as air cargo. The plan was thwarted after a tip from Saudi intelligence.

In April 2012 it was reported that a British informant working for Saudi counter-terrorism thwarted an AQAP plot to bomb a U.S-bound airliner.

JERUSALEM – As the House Oversight Committee hears from witnesses presenting a chronological timeline that starkly contrasts with initial statements by the Obama administration on the Benghazi attacks, it is instructive to recall how the administration spent $70,000 in taxpayer funds on an ad denouncing an anti-Muhammad film.

The ad aired on Pakistani television amid White House claims that the Benghazi attacks were caused by popular protests against an obscure Muhammad film released on YouTube.

It would later emerge that no such protests took place and that the Obama administration almost immediately had evidence the Benghazi attacks were carried out by jihadists.

The ads reportedly aired on seven Pakistani networks. They also came in response to protests in Pakistan that were reportedly a reaction to the film. However, it was the claim of popular protests in Benghazi at the time that garnered the biggest public reaction from the White House.

The Sept. 19, 2012, ads feature Obama and Clinton making statements against the film in the wake of the Benghazi attacks, which transpired one week prior.

“Since our founding, the United States has been a nation of respect, that respects all faiths. We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others,” Obama says in the ad, which is stamped “paid content.”

Clinton then denies any official U.S. involvement in producing the “Innocence of Muslims” video.

“We absolutely reject its contents,” she says.

The Obama administration blamed the YouTube video for what it claimed were popular protests that engulfed the Benghazi mission.

On Sunday, Sept. 16, 2012, three days before the ads were released, United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five morning television programs to discuss the White House response to the Benghazi attacks. In nearly identical statements, she asserted that the attacks were a spontaneous protest in response to a “hateful video.”

Rice’s spot on “Face the Nation” was preceded by the new president of Libya, Mohammed al-Magariaf, who said his government had “no doubt that this was pre-planned, predetermined.”

Still, other Obama administration officials made similar claims about the film being behind the Benghazi attacks.

Scores of news reports, video and intelligence evidence that was immediately available to the government had demonstrated there were no popular protests outside the Benghazi facility and that the attacks were carried out by jihadists.

The claims about the anti-Muhammad film being behind the Benghazi attacks are also now called into question by a top State Department official who said he knew immediately the attacks were terror strikes, not a protest turned violent, according to interview transcripts released Sunday.

“I thought it was a terrorist attack from the get-go,” said Greg Hicks, a 22-year foreign service diplomat who was the No. 2 U.S. official in Libya at the time of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks. “I think everybody in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning.”

According to Hicks, “everybody in the mission” believed it was an act of terror “from the get-go.”

Reacting to Rice’s television interviews blaming the anti-Muhammad film, Hicks stated, “I’ve never been as embarrassed in my life, in my career, as on that day.”

In testimony yesterday, Hicks said he was “stunned,” his “jaw dropped” and he was “embarrassed” when Rice blamed the terror attack on an Internet video.

“The YouTube video was a non-event in Libya,” he stated.

With additional research by Joshua Klein.

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JERUSALEM – Did former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lie under oath when she testified in the January Benghazi hearings that no one within the government ever recommended the closure of the U.S. facilities in the Libyan city?

In her Jan. 23 testimony, Clinton stated: “Well, senator, I want to make clear that no one in the State Department, the intelligence community, any other agency, ever recommended that we close Benghazi. We were clear-eyed about the threats and the dangers as they were developing in eastern Libya and in Benghazi.”

Clinton was responding to a question from Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.

However, WND has found that Clinton’s testimony is contradicted by Lt. Col. Andrew Wood, who led the U.S. military’s efforts to supplement diplomatic security in Libya.

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Wood testified that he personally recommended that the Benghazi mission be closed, according to a recently released 46-page House Republican report probing the Benghazi attacks.

 

Page six of the report cites security concerns, including over 200 attacks in Libya, 50 of which took place in Benghazi, including against the U.S. mission there. One of those attacks even was carried out by disgruntled Libyan contract guards hired by the U.S. who allegedly threw a small improvised explosive device over the perimeter wall.

States the Republican report: “These developments caused Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Wood, who led the U.S. military’s efforts to supplement diplomatic security in Libya, to recommend that the State Department consider pulling out of Benghazi altogether.”

Continued the report: “Lieutenant Colonel Wood explained that after the withdrawal of these other organizations, ‘it was apparent to me that we were the last [Western] flag flying in Benghazi. We were the last thing on their target list to remove from Benghazi’.”

The report was quoting from Wood’s testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Oct. 10, 2012.

Clinton may be in further hot water due to her repeated insistence in her Benghazi testimony that the Obama administration did not conclude finally until days after the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks that there were no popular protests outside the U.S. mission.

Clinton’s claims may be called into question by a top State Department official scheduled to give congressional testimony this week who says he knew immediately the attacks were terror strikes, not a protest turned violent, according to interview transcripts released Sunday.

“I thought it was a terrorist attack from the get go,” said Greg Hicks, a 22-year foreign service diplomat who was the No. 2 U.S. official in Libya at the time of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks.

“I think everybody in the mission thought it was a terrorist attack from the beginning,” Hicks said.

Further, according to scores of news media reports, video and intelligence evidence that was immediately available to the government had demonstrated there were no popular protests outside the Benghazi facility and that the attacks were carried out by jihadists.

The Obama administration blamed a YouTube video for sparking what it claimed were popular protests that engulfed the Benghazi mission.

On Sunday, Sept. 16, 2012, United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five morning television programs to discuss the White House response to the Benghazi attacks. In nearly identical statements, she asserted that the attacks were a spontaneous protest in response to a “hateful video.”

Other Obama administration officials made similar claims.

Hillary snagged in Benghazi cover-up

As media reports present evidence the U.S. has played a central role in arming Syrian rebels, new questions have emerged about Clinton’s involvement in the controversial scheme.

The questions prompt a second look at the perplexing security decisions made by Clinton and other top Obama administration officials the night of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks.

One of the key decisions reportedly delayed an investigative FBI team from arriving at the Benghazi site for 24 days. The site was widely reported to have contained classified documents.

WND previously raised the question of whether Clinton was telling the truth when she told the Senate panel she had no information about whether the U.S. mission in Libya was procuring or transferring weapons to Turkey and other Arab countries.

Her claim appears to contradict a New York Times report that the CIA has been aiding Arab governments and Turkey in obtaining and shipping weapons to the Syrian rebels.

The goal of the alleged weapons shipments was to arm the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

Any training or arming of the Syrian rebels would be considered highly controversial. A major issue is the inclusion of jihadists, including al-Qaida members, among the ranks of the Free Syrian Army and other Syrian opposition groups

Now a closer reading of two separate reports from the New York Times paints a picture of Clinton as the leader of the plan to arm Syrian rebels.

Confirming WND’s exclusive reporting for over a year, the New York Times in March reported that since early 2012, the CIA has been aiding the Arab governments and Turkey in shopping for and transporting weapons to the Syrian rebels.

The reported plan to arm the rebels mirrors a plan that, according to the New York Times, was concocted by Clinton herself.

In February, the New York Times described Clinton as one of the driving forces advocating a plan to arm the Syrian rebels. At the time, the newspaper quoted White House officials stating they rejected the plan, which was also proposed by then-CIA Director David Petraeus.

A comparison of the Clinton plan to arms the rebels, as first reported by the Times, and the new Times report of American-aided shipments to the rebels since last year makes clear the Clinton plan was apparently put into action.

In February, the Times reported that the idea of the Clinton plan was to “vet the rebel groups and train fighters, who would be supplied with weapons.”

In March, the Times reported that since at least November 2012, the U.S. has been helping “the Arab governments shop for weapons, including a large procurement from Croatia, and have vetted rebel commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive.”

The earlier Times article described Clinton as having instincts that were “often more activist than those of a White House that has kept a tight grip on foreign policy.”

In an administration often faulted for its timidity abroad, “Clinton wanted to lead from the front, not from behind,” Vali R. Nasr, a former State Department adviser on Afghanistan and Pakistan, told the Times.

Benghazi cover up?

Middle Eastern security officials speaking to WND have said U.S.-aided weapons shipments go back more than a year, escalating before the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. facilities in Benghazi.

In fact, the Middle Eastern security officials speaking to WND since last year describe the U.S. mission in Benghazi and nearby CIA annex attacked last September as an intelligence and planning center for U.S. aid to the rebels in the Middle East, particularly those fighting Assad’s regime.

The aid, the sources stated, included weapons shipments and was being coordinated with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Last month, WND reported Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. stated in interview with Fox News that murdered U.S Ambassador Christopher Stevens was in Benghazi to keep weapons caches from falling into the hands of terrorists. Until that point, no official explanation for Stevens’ deployment to Libya has acknowledged any such activity.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reporting on how the plan for arming the rebels was put into action has prompted major questions about the role Clinton played in the U.S. response to the Benghazi attacks, assaults against the very facilities where the arms-to-rebels scheme was allegedly being coordinated.

National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor confirmed to Fox News in November that Clinton herself worked on the immediate U.S. response to Benghazi.

“The most senior people in government worked on this issue from the minute it happened,” he said.

“That includes the secretary of defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, secretary of state, national security adviser, et cetera. Additionally, the Deputies Committee – the second in command at the relevant national security agencies – met at least once and more often twice a day to manage the issue.”

One of the key decisions by Clinton’s State Department that has perplexed many security experts was the determination not to deploy an interagency rapid response unit designed to respond to terrorist attacks known as a Foreign Emergency Support Team, or FEST.

FEST teams previously deployed immediately after al-Qaida bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 and the USS Cole in 2000. But they were not used for Benghazi, confounding insiders speaking to news media

Counter-terrorism officials told Fox News in November that the FEST teams could have helped the FBI gain access to the site in Benghazi faster. It ultimately took the FBI 24 days.

The site reportedly contained a large volume of classified documents related to the activities of the Benghazi facilities.

Further, during the night of the attack, top counter terror officials felt out of the loop, according to emails shared with both Fox News and CBS News in November.

Counter-terrorism sources and internal emails reviewed by CBS News expressed frustration that key responders were ready to deploy but were not called upon to help in the attack.

Besides strangely not deploying FEST, the Counterterrorism Security Group, or CSG, was never asked to meet the night of the attack or in subsequent days, according to two separate counterterrorism officials, as first reported by CBS News.

The CSG is composed of experts on terrorism from across government agencies and makes recommendations to the deputies who assist the president’s Cabinet in formulating a response to crises involving terrorism.

It is likely that the CSG task force, if contacted, would have recommended FEST aid, according to CBS.

CBS reported the lack of coordination with the Counterterrorism Security Group made the response to the Benghazi crisis still more confused.

One official told CBS News the FBI received a call during the attack representing Clinton and requesting agents be deployed. But he and his colleagues explained the call was just a gesture and could not be implemented.

He said his colleagues at the FBI agreed the agents “would not make any difference without security and other enablers to get them in the country and synch their efforts with military and diplomatic efforts to maximize their success.”

Recruiting jihadists

Days after the Benghazi attack, WND broke the story that Ambassador Stevens himself played a central role in recruiting jihadists to fight Assad’s regime in Syria, according to Egyptian and other Middle Eastern security officials.

Stevens served as a key contact with the Saudis to coordinate the recruitment by Saudi Arabia of Islamic fighters from North Africa and Libya. The jihadists were sent to Syria via Turkey to attack Assad’s forces, said the security officials.

The officials said Stevens also worked with the Saudis to send names of potential jihadi recruits to U.S. security organizations for review. Names found to be directly involved in previous attacks against the U.S., including in Iraq and Afghanistan, were ultimately not recruited by the Saudis to fight in Syria, said the officials.

The latest New York Times report has bolstered WND’s reporting, citing air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders describing how the CIA has been working with Arab governments and Turkey to sharply increase arms shipments to Syrian rebels in recent months.

The Times reported that the weapons airlifts began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanding into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows.

The Times further revealed that from offices at “secret locations,” American intelligence officers have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons, including a large procurement from Croatia. They have vetted rebel commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive.

The CIA declined to comment to the Times on the shipments or its role in them.

The Times quoted a former American official as saying that David H. Petraeus, the CIA director until November, had been instrumental in helping set up an aviation network to fly in the weapons. The paper said Petraeus had prodded various countries to work together on the plan.

Petraeus did not return multiple emails from the Times asking for comment.

Both WND’s reporting, which first revealed the U.S.-coordinated arms shipments, and the Times reporting starkly contrast with statements from top U.S. officials who have denied aiding the supply of weapons to the rebels.

Additional research by Joshua Klein

A charity run by Penny Pritzker, President Obama’s nominee for commerce secretary, donated to an academic institution associated with Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

Pritzker’s family has further donated more than $1.5 million to the Chicago school, the Erikson Institute, which focuses on training people who work in early childhood development.

The institute was previously run by the mother of top Obama aide Valerie Jarrett. In 2009, it was awarded just shy of $5 million from Obama’s so-called stimulus legislation.

From 1993 to 2002, Pritzker served as director of the Pritzker Cousins Foundation, which split into various family charities in 2002. In 2000, the foundation awarded $50,000 to the Erickson Institute.

The institute has also received major financial support from the Pritzker Family Foundation, run by Penny Pritzker’s brother, J.B. Pritzker. Documentation obtained by WND shows more than $1.5 million awarded to Erickson since 2008.

One of the three faculty founders is Barbara Taylor Bowman, the institute’s Irving B. Harris professor of child development. Bowman, who was president of the institute from 1994 to 2001, is the mother of Valerie Jarrett.

One of the Erikson Institute’s former trustees and members of the executive committee is the late Thomas Ayers, father of Bill Ayers.

Dohrn, Bill Ayers’ wife, also served on the Erikson board.

In his 1998 book, “A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court,” Bill Ayers calls Bowman a “neighbor and a friend.”

Obama and Bill Ayers once funded Erikson. The Erikson Institute was among the first 35 school partnerships awarded funds in December 1995 by the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Ayers was a founder of the Annenberg Challenge; Obama was hired in 1995 as the group’s first chairman.

Obama and Ayers worked on education together beginning in 1988 or earlier. That year, in response to a Chicago summit that documented the poor quality of education in the city, Chicago United, a group founded by Ayers’ father, formed a community advocacy coalition called the Alliance for Better Chicago Schools, or ABCs. Thomas Ayers was the chairman and CEO of Commonwealth Edison.

When he created his ABCs Coalition in June 1988, Thomas Ayers included Obama in the coalition. Obama at the time was director and lead organizer of the Developing Communities Project, or DCP, an institutionally based community organization on Chicago’s Far South Side. Obama’s first job in Chicago was his DCP position.

The contact for the ABCs Coalition, for which Obama served, was Bill Ayers himself, who at the time was at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is a staunch defender of convicted cop killer and domestic terrorist Joanne Chesimard, who just became the first woman ever to be placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List.

Chesimard, living under asylum in Cuba, also goes by her Black Panther name of Assata Shakur. She was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted by a jury of the 1979 murder of a New Jersey state trooper. Less than two years later, Chesimard escaped from prison and lived underground before surfacing in Cuba in 1984.

On Sept. 14, 1998, the House of Representatives, of which Waters was a member, passed a unanimous resolution requesting Fidel Castro extradite Chesimard to the United States. The name on the resolution, affirmed by Waters, was Joanne Chesimard and not Assata Shakur.

Waters said she only realized Chesimard’s identity after the vote and wrote a letter to Fidel Castro explaining that she, as chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, and other CBC members had “mistakenly voted” in favor of the resolution.

Waters claimed the Republicans had “slipped” the bill into an accelerated calendar in order to look “tough on Cuba” for the November elections. Waters claimed the Republicans had deliberately used Chesimard’s given name to deceive. Had she known Chesimard’s identity, she wrote, she would have voted otherwise.

On May 2, 1973, Chesimard and a pair of accomplices were stopped by two troopers for a motor vehicle violation on the New Jersey Turnpike. At the time, Chesimard – a member of the violent revolutionary activist organization known as the Black Liberation Army – was wanted for her involvement in several felonies, including bank robbery.

According to the FBI, Chesimard and her accomplices opened fire on the troopers. One officer was wounded, and his partner – Trooper Werner Foerster – was shot and killed at point-blank range. One of Chesimard’s accomplices was killed in the shootout, and the other was arrested and remains in jail.

“Joanne Chesimard is a domestic terrorist who murdered a law enforcement officer execution-style,” said Aaron Ford, special agent in charge of the Newark Division. “Today, on the anniversary of Trooper Werner Foerster’s death, we want the public to know that we will not rest until this fugitive is brought to justice.”

Mike Rinaldi, a lieutenant in the New Jersey State Police and member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Newark, said the case “is just as important today as it was when it happened 40 years ago.”

“Bringing Joanne Chesimard back here to face justice is still a top priority,” he said.

Waters defends terrorist as victim

In 1998, Waters released a statement defending Castro’s right to grant asylum to Chesimard despite her conviction for murder in the U.S.

Stated Waters: “I support the right of all nations to grant political asylum to individuals fleeing political persecution. The United States grants political asylum to individuals from all over the world who successfully prove they are fleeing political persecution. Other sovereign nations have the same right, including the sovereign nation of Cuba.”

In her statement, Waters further defended Chesimard, claiming the convicted domestic terrorist was a victim of political persecution.

“The second reason I oppose this measure,” stated Waters, “is because I respect the right of Assata Shakur to seek political asylum. Assata Shakur has maintained that she was persecuted as a result of her political beliefs and political affiliations. As a result, she left the United States and sought political asylum in Cuba, where she still resides.

“In a sad and shameful chapter of our history, during the 1960s and 1970s, many civil rights, Black Power and other politically active groups were secretly targeted by the FBI for prosecution based on their political beliefs.”

Notably, domestic terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn named one of their children after Zayd Shakur, Chesimard’s associate who was killed in the gun battle with the police. Ayers’ and Dohrn’s son, a playwright, now goes by the name Zayd Dohrn.

With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott

President Obama has officially named Chicago businesswoman Penny Pritzker, the finance chairman of his 2008 presidential campaign, as his next commerce secretary.

The announcement of the choice Thursday ends months of speculation about Pritzker’s likely nomination.

WND was first to report that Pritzker is a primary funder of the radical Media Matters for America activist group.

Other questions may be raised about Pritzker’s financial history, primarily her family’s ownership of a bank that was seized and shut down by the federal government in 2001 after it was accused of unsound financial activities and predatory lending practices.

Pritzker herself served as chairman of the failed bank, Superior Bank, from 1991-1994.

Last year, Media Matters found itself in hot water after the Daily Caller exposed the group’s purported illicit tactics, including compiling a de facto enemies list; announcing an all-out campaign of “guerrilla warfare and sabotage” aimed at the Fox News Channel; and seeking to investigate the personal lives of reporters and news personalities.

The information came amid reports White House staffers held regular meetings and even a weekly conference call with Media Matters

At the time, WND reported the Media Matters donor list included the Pritzker Family Foundation, which donated a total of $400,000 to the progressive attack group in 2007, 2008 and 2009. The family foundation is directed by Penny Pritzker.

The Pritzker family is best known for owning the Hyatt hotel chain and is considered to be one of America’s wealthiest families.

Pritzker is currently a member of Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

She served on the Obama administration’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which formulates and evaluates economic policy for the Obama administration.

In 1989, Pritzker’s family purchased a 50-percent stake in Illinois-based Superior Bank from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which had taken over the bank when it failed.

In 1993, with Pritzker as the chairman, the bank became a top lender in the subprime home mortgage market. In 1994, Pitzker moved to the board of Superior’s holding company, stepping down as chairman.

In 2001, with her family still in charge, the FDIC seized the bank with the Pritzker family reaching an agreement with regulators to pay $460 million. In 1994, Pitzker moved to the board of Superior’s holding company

On Sept. 11, 2001, Ellen Seidman, director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, told the Senate Banking Committee that Superior became critically undercapitalized largely due to incorrect accounting treatment and aggressive assumptions for valuing complicated financial instruments known as residuals.

The Pritzkers were roundly criticized for their role in Superior’s collapse.

The Wall Street Journal reported government investigators and consumer advocates contended that Superior engaged in “unsound financial activities and predatory lending practices.”

Besides serving as finance chairman for Obama, Pritzker was also listed among Obama’s super bundlers, having raised more than $200,000 for his 2008 campaign.

With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott

TEL AVIV – The Syrian government will soon declare it is opening its borders with Israel for Palestinian and other jihad groups to carry out attacks against the Jewish state, a senior Syrian official told WND.

Separately, informed Middle Eastern security officials said the Syrian army held a meeting Sunday afternoon with the leaders of the military wing of the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad terrorist group to discuss retaliation against Israel for the recent air strikes near Damascus.

According to those officials, Islamic Jihad and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah are coordinating a possible reaction to Israel’s reported strikes.

Meanwhile, Iran has instructed the Al Quds unit of the Revolutionary Guard to prepare a response to Israel’s reported airstrikes Sunday and Friday against Syrian targets, according to informed Middle Eastern security officials.

The officials, speaking to WND, said Syria and Iran are determined to respond to the Israeli strikes. The officials said the retaliation may not be launched from Syrian territory but instead could come in the form of a terrorist attack against Israelis in Africa or South America.

Large explosions rocked Damascus early Sunday with Syria blaming Israel for the strikes, which reportedly targeted a military research center in Jamraya near Damascus.

Israel’s Sunday airstrike in Syria was coordinated with Turkey, which in turn coordinated rebel attacks throughout Syria timed to coincide with the Israeli strike, according to Egyptian and Jordanian intelligence sources speaking to WND.

The sources said the rebels did not know about the Israeli strike in advance, but instead were given specific instructions for when to begin today’s major assaults against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

“Almost the moment the Israel Air Force departed was the moment the rebel advance began,” added the Egyptian intelligence source.

Multiple reports have noted how the Syrian rebels consist in large part of al-Qaida-linked jihad groups.

The Egyptian and Jordanian sources described to WND how immediately after today’s Israeli air strike the jihadist rebels used access roads to advance toward Damascus and began heavy clashes with Syrian military forces throughout the country.

According to the sources, the rebels initiated clashes with Syrian forces in northeast Rankous in Damascus; Daraya city in the Damascus countryside; and also in the villages of Homms, al-Alqamieh, Tunaibeh and Menneg in the Aleppo countryside.

Syria claims it repelled most of Sunday’s rebel advances.

Large explosions rocked Damascus earlier today with Syria blaming Israel for the strikes, which reportedly targeted a military research center in Jamraya near Damascus.

The reports followed confirmations Saturday by anonymous Israeli officials that the Israel Air Force had carried out a strike against Syria on Friday targeting a shipment of advanced missiles bound for Hezbollah.

The New York Times quoted U.S. officials saying the strike targeted Iranian Fateh-110 missiles headed for Hezbollah.

Syrian Information Minister Omran Zoabi was quoted by state-run media saying the Israeli air strikes “opens the door to all possibilities.”

Lebanese media quoted Seyed Hassan Firouzabadi, the chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces, as saying: “Resistance forces will respond to the Israeli aggression.”

President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency went on a trip to Cuba in 2009 aimed at opening relations with the communist nation, WND has learned.

According to the Cuban media, Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C., along with his wife, was part of a delegation of five other lawmakers from the Congressional Black Caucus who held a four-and-a-half hour meeting in April 2009 with Cuban President Raul Castro, Fidel Castro’s brother.

Raul Castro previously led the Cuban army and was a rebel commander in the 1950s. The meeting served as Castro’s first face-to-face discussions with American elected officials since assuming office in 2008.

The delegation was headed by Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif. After the meeting, Lee told media, “All of us are convinced that President Castro would like normal relations and would see normalization, ending the embargo, as beneficial to both countries.”

Reuters reported that Lee’s delegation “avoided specifics” with Castro “but were struck by his humor, impressed by his involvement in Third World causes and firm in their belief that he wants to end U.S.-Cuba enmity.”

Politico reported Lee and others heaped praise on Castro, calling him warm and receptive during their discussion.

Politico also reported that the lawmakers disputed Castro’s later statement that members of the congressional delegation said American society is still racist.

The meeting reportedly took place in secret without the customary presence of a U.S. State Department official.

The New York Times reported that Cuban state television showed Castro, wearing a business suit instead of his trademark olive-green fatigues, sitting down with Lee and other members of the American delegation. The television report provided no details of what was discussed.

In an article now scrubbed from the Internet but previously captured by WND, the Cuban Communist Party daily Granma stated that the lawmakers attending with Lee and Watt were Reps. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., Marcia L. Fudge, D-Ohio, Laura Richardson, D-Calif., and Bobby Rush, D-Ill.

“Also participating were Patrice Willougby, executive assistant to the [Congressional] Black Caucus, and Eulada Watt, wife of Congressman Melvin Luther Watt,” according to Granma.

It’s not the only potential controversy related to Watt’s appointment to an agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as well as the country’s 12 Federal Home Loan Banks.

The Washington Free Beacon reported Tuesday Watt was investigated by of the Office of Congressional Ethics regarding a fundraising incident in 2009 involving major banks, although ultimately no charges were brought against him.

In the case, a fundraiser was held in Watt’s honor just days before the House voted to rewrite legislation regarding federal financial regulation. Financial institutions such as Bank of America, KPMG, Ameriprise Financial and Goldman Sachs were in attendance.

The Free Beacon notes Watt withdrew an amendment from the legislation that focused on whether auto loans ought to be included in the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency two days after the event. Without the amendment, franchised auto dealers would have fallen out of the regulatory agency’s reach.

With research by Brenda J. Elliott

The foreign-headquartered company that recently purchased the leading U.S. electronic voting firm has just announced the acquisition of the software division of a non-profit election organization tied to George Soros’ Open Society Institute.

SCYTL said it is purchasing the software division of Gov2U, described as a non-profit organization dedicated to developing and promoting the use of technology in the fields of governance and democracy.

A SCYTL press release says: “Gov2U created its software division in 2004 and, since then, it has developed a wide array of innovative award-winning eDemocracy solutions that have been implemented in multiple countries across Europe, Africa and America at the local, regional and federal government levels.”

The Spain-based company says the “main purpose of these tools is to engage citizens in participatory processes through the use of online and offline platforms, bringing more transparency and legitimacy to decision-making processes.”

Gov4U is currently partnered with Soros’ Open Society to support and develop a group called the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness.

The group runs a website, OpeningParliament.org, which says it is a forum “intended to help connect the world’s civic organizations engaged in monitoring, supporting and opening up their countries’ parliaments and legislative institutions.”

Gov4U, meanwhile, has eight partners of its own listed on its website, including the Soros-funded and partnered National Democratic Institute, or NDI.

Aside from receiving financial support for Soros, NDI has co-hosted scores of events along with Soros’ Open Society. The two groups work closely together.

NDI and the Open Society, for example, worked together to push for electoral and legislative reform in Romania.

NDI boasts that with Open Society Institute funds it conducted a political leadership training series for Romanian activists to “bring tangible improvements to their communities.”

NDI describes itself as a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nongovernmental organization working to establish and strengthen political and civic organizations, safeguard elections and promote citizen participation, openness and accountability in government.

NDI previously stated it was founded to draw on the traditions of the U.S. Democratic Party.

WND found that NDI is also listed as the only U.S.-associated organization of Socialists International, the world’s largest socialist umbrella group.

NDI was originally created by the federally funded National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, which itself founded joint NDI projects with the Open Society. Another NDI financial backer is the United States Agency for International Development, USAID.

U.S. elections, national security concerns

In January 2012, SCYTL, based in Barcelona, acquired 100 percent of SOE Software, the leading software provider of election management solutions in the United States. The sale garnered national attention after it was spotlighted by the popular Drudge Report.

The official press release announcing the acquisition noted that SCYTL is a portfolio company of leading international venture capital funds Nauta Capital, Balderton Capital and Spinnaker.

With the purchase of SOE Software, SCYTL increased its involvement in the U.S. elections process. SOE Software boasts a strong U.S. presence, providing results in more than 900 jurisdictions.

In 2009, SCYTL formally registered with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission as the first Internet voting manufacturer in the U.S. under the EAC Voting System Testing and Certification Program.

Also that year, SCYTL entered into an agreement with another firm, Hart InterCivic, to jointly market a flexible and secure electronic pollbook purportedly to allow U.S. election officials and poll workers to manage the electoral roll on Election Day in an efficient and convenient manner.

SCYTL’s ePollBookTM already has replaced the paper precinct roster in Washington, D.C.

In the 2012 presidential election, SCYTL was contracted by the states of New York, Arkansas, Alabama, West Virginia, Alaska, Puerto Rico and Mississippi to provide the overseas ballots.

During the midterm elections in November 2010, SCYTL successfully carried out electoral modernization projects in 14 states. The company boasted that a “great variety” of SCYTL’s technologies were involved in the projects, including an online platform for the delivery of blank ballots to overseas voters, an Internet voting platform and e-pollbook software to manage the electoral roll at the polling stations.

The states that used SCYTL’s technologies during the midterms were New York, Texas, Washington, California, Florida, Alabama, Missouri, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Nebraska, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Just prior to the midterm’s however, the new electronic voting system in Washington, D.C., was hacked.

As a program security trial, the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics reportedly encouraged outside parties to find flaws in its new online balloting system. A group of University of Michigan students then hacked into the site and commanded it to play the school’s fight song upon casting a vote.

It’s not the first time SCYTL’S systems have been called into question.

Voter Action, an advocacy group that seeks elections integrity in the U.S., sent a lengthy complaint to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in April 2010 charging the integration of SCYTL systems “raises national security concerns.”

“Foreign governments may also seek to undermine the national security interests of the United States, either directly or through other organizations,” Voter Action charged.

The document notes that SCYTL was founded in 2001 as a spinoff from a research group at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, which was partially funded by the Spanish government’s Ministry of Science and Technology.

Along with Barcelona, SCYTL has offices in Washington, D.C., Singapore, Bratislava and Athens.

Project Vote noted that in 2008, the Florida Department of State commissioned a review of SCYTL’s remote voting software and concluded in part that:

• The system is vulnerable to attack from insiders.
• In a worst case scenario, the software could lead to 1) voters being unable to cast votes; 2) an election that does not accurately reflect the will of the voters; and 3) possible disclosure of confidential information, such as the votes cast by individual voters.
• The system may be subject to attacks that could compromise the integrity of the votes cast.

Voting through Google, Apple?

As WND reported, in May 2012, the company announced the successful implementation of technology that allows ballots to be cast using Google and Apple smart phones and tablet computers.

SCYTL unveiled a platform that it says encrypts each individual ballot on a voter’s Google or Apple mobile device before the ballot is then transmitted to an electronic voting system.

Using this technology, “Scytl is now able to guarantee end-to-end security – from the voter to the final tally – not only for computer-based online voting but also for mobile voting,” stated a press release by the company.

“By leveraging its pioneering security technology with Google and Apple’s mobile device platforms, Scytl has become the premier election technology provider to offer an online voting system that guarantees the highest standards in terms of both voter privacy and ballot integrity both on personal computers and mobile devices,” said Gabriel Dos Santos, Scytl’s vice president of software engineering.

The U.S. currently does not utilize voting platforms using mobile devices. SCYTL sees such methods as the future of electronic voting.

With additional research by Brenda J. Elliott

TEL AVIV – Russia delivered to the Obama administration a list of the names of al-Qaida members among the Syrian rebels, who are receiving arms shipments coordinated by the U.S., according to informed Middle Eastern security officials.

The list, the officials added, demonstrates the U.S. is failing to vet the rebels being supported by the West for ties to al-Qaida and other jihad groups.

The information comes amid scores of news media reports that the Obama administration is aiding the rebels, including by coordinating Arab arms shipments.

The arming of Syrian rebels is considered highly controversial. A major issue is the inclusion of jihadists, including al-Qaida, among the ranks of the Free Syrian Army and other Syrian opposition groups.

Just last week, WND broke the story that the U.S. in recent weeks aided in the transfer of shoulder-launched, anti-aircraft missiles, or man-portable air-defense systems, to the Syrian rebels, according to informed Middle Eastern security officials.

The Middle Eastern security officials speaking to WND said the latest U.S.-facilitated weapons transfers signify the most advanced deliveries yet to the Syrian rebels.

Confirming WND’s exclusive reporting for over a year, the New York Times reported in March that since early 2012, the CIA has been helping Arab governments and Turkey obtain and ship weapons to the Syrian rebels.

While the Times report claims most of the weapons shipments facilitated by the CIA began after the latest presidential election, Middle Eastern security officials speaking to WND have said U.S.-aided weapons shipments go back more than a year, escalating before the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. facilities in Benghazi.

In fact, the Middle Eastern security officials speaking to WND since last year describe the U.S. mission in Benghazi and nearby CIA annex attacked last September as an intelligence and planning center for U.S. aid to the rebels in the Middle East, particularly those fighting the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.

The aid, the sources stated, included weapons shipments and was being coordinated with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Earlier this month, Reuters further reported Obama allegedly signed a secret order in 2012 authorizing U.S. agencies such as the CIA to provide support to rebel forces in Syria.

The support includes helping to run a secret military communications command center in Turkey to aid rebel groups. The Reuters article also said U.S. citizens are training rebels and possibly giving them equipment, at least since the summer.

The New York Times and Reuters both report the U.S. is working to vet the rebels for inclusion of al-Qaida, but it is not immediately known how successful the vetting has been and whether the rebels directly armed by the U.S. will share their weapons with jihadists within their ranks.

With the help of President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, a high-ranking Chechen separatist leader accused of terrorism by Russia was granted political asylum in the U.S. and lived for a period of time in Boston.

Ilyas Akhmadov, who also served as Chechnya’s foreign minister, insists he was falsely accused by the Kremlin.

He has been on Russia’s most-wanted list, charged with organizing terrorist training camps and armed insurgent actions. Despite Russian objections, Akhmadov now lives in Washington, D.C., after the U.S. said it could find no links to terror.

Akhmadov was once the deputy to the radical Chechen Islamist leader Shamil Basayev, who was killed in 2006 before being described by ABC News as “one of the most-wanted terrorists in the world.”

Also living in Boston is Chechen surgeon Khassan Baiev, a physician who was granted asylum after treating the wounded on both sides of the Chechnya conflict, including Basayev.

Baiev’s political asylum was sponsored by the George Soros-funded Physicians for Human Rights after both Chechnya and Russia viewed his actions as treasonous and multiple death threats were made against him.

The cases of the high-profile Chechens may warrant further scrutiny after it came to light the family of the Russian-born brothers accused in the Boston bombing received asylum in the U.S.

One of the brothers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, traveled to Russia in January 2012 and visited the North Caucasus, including Chechnya, where Basayev’s predecessors continue to operate. Shamil Basayev’s picture was reportedly found in the deleted Instagram account of the second brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The story surrounding Akhmadov is complicated by accusations and counter-accusations, as well as by the support his asylum application received from prominent political figures, including Brzezinski, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., former secretaries of state Madeleine Albright and Alexander Haig, and former defense secretary Frank Carlucci.

Akhmadov received asylum from an immigration judge in Boston. The ruling became effective in August 2004 after the Department of Homeland Security’s abrupt withdrawal of its notice of appeal to the judge’s decision.

He also received a grant from the National Endowment for Democracy.

“I’m not exaggerating when I say that one of the happiest days of my life was when I called Ilyas to tell him that he would be able to stay in America,” said Brzezinski in an interview with his nephew, Matthew Brzezinski, who wrote an extensive August 2004 profile of Akhmadov for the Washington Post.

Zbigniew Brzezinski also wrote the forward for Akhmadov’s 2010 book, “The Chechen Struggle: Independence Won and Lost.”

Russia: ‘He’s a terrorist’

Russia strongly oppposed the asylum.

“He’s a terrorist, there is no doubt about it,” Aleksander Lukashevich, a senior political counselor at the Russian Embassy in Washington, told the Washington Post in 2005. “We have proof. … Our foreign minister has made Russia’s position on extradition quite clear.”

“How would Americans feel if Russia offered sanctuary to Osama bin Laden?” asked the Russian online newspaper Pravda.

Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the U.S. of hypocrisy for granting Akhmadov asylum.

“We cannot have double standards while fighting terrorism, and it cannot be used as a geopolitical game,” Putin said.

Akhmadov was charged with organizing terrorist training camps and leading 2,000 armed insurgents in a deadly 1999 Dagestani incursion.

Akhmadov was also once an aide to Shamil Basayev, leader of Chechnya’s deadly jihadist movement.

Basayev led the most famous Chechnya rebel attack, dubbed the Budyonnovsk hospital hostage in 1995.

In the attack, more than 1,000 hostages were held for a week, and 100 of them were killed when Russian forces stormed the hospital. Russia says the hostages were mainly executed by Basayev’s men, while the rebels claimed Russian forces killed the hostages in the firefight.

Akhmadov told Matthew Brzezinski in 2004 that he distanced himself from Basayev after the war leader became an Islamic fundamentalist. Akhmadov went to work at the Chechen foreign ministry.

“I found him someone whose life was dedicated to peace, not terrorism,” Albright assured then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in a 2003 letter endorsing Akhmadov’s request for political asylum.

“I have met with Mr. Akhmadov on three occasions,” McCain wrote to DHS. “I have found him to be a proponent of peace and human rights in Chechnya.”

A Washington Post editorial supporting Akhmadov’s asylum described him as opposing the use of suicide bombings and for working for a “negotiated peace” in his country.

With additional research by Joshua Klein

TEL AVIV – According to informed Middle Eastern security officials, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel delivered a strongly worded message to Israel – do not attack Iran.

The officials told WND that Hagel informed the Israeli government the Obama administration will not accept any unilateral Israeli attack against Iran and that Israel must not strike Tehran without coordination with the U.S.

Hagel further told Israel that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot decide alone whether Iran has crossed the nuclear threshold, or the so-called Red Line previously outlined by the Israeli leader.

In a speech at the United Nations in September, Netanyahu drew a red line on a drawing of a bomb, depicting the point where he said Iran will have enough medium-enriched uranium to move rapidly toward building a nuclear bomb.

 

Netanyahu said at the U.N. that Iran could reach that point this spring or summer. By contrast, Obama has resisted setting any such deadlines.

Last week, Israel’s former military intelligence chief, Amos Yadlin, said, “If Iran continues to enrich uranium at its current rate, toward the end of the year it will cross the red line in a clear manner.”

The information comes after a former International Atomic Energy Agency senior nuclear inspector warned that Iran has discovered a way to circumvent Israel’s red line and that the red line may have already been passed.

Last fall, an IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program showed a dip in the amount of 20 percent enriched uranium. Commenting on the report, the former deputy director-general for safeguards at the IAEA and senior nuclear inspector Olli Heinonen explained in a recent opinion article how this decrease is likely a gimmick.

He wrote that Iran has the capability to reconvert the uranium material back to the gas needed for its nuclear program. The converted 20 percent enriched uranium, now in a less worrisome oxide form, can “be converted back into centrifuge feedstock within a week.”

Heinonen warned that Iran may be able to convert the uranium without risk of detection.

If, through this process, Iran can disguise the quantity of enriched uranium it actually possesses, then Israel’s so-called red line may be artificial.

Heinonen further argued Iran has already passed Netanyahu’s red line of 250 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium, estimating Tehran possess as much as 280 kilograms, excluding any material that has already gone through the conversion process.

JERUSALEM – Did CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell mislead lawmakers when he told senators in a briefing that references to terrorism and al-Qaida were removed from the White House’s Benghazi talking points in order to “prevent compromising an ongoing criminal investigation?”

The claim of scrubbing terrorism from White House talking points for security reasons was also made to the news media by other officials within the CIA and by the office of the Director for National Intelligence.

But those claims are now contradicted by a 46-page House Republican report probing the Benghazi attacks.

In perhaps one of the most damning but until now unreported sections of the report, lawmakers who penned the investigation wrote they were given access to classified emails and other communications that prove the talking points were not edited to protect classified information but instead to protect the State Department’s reputation.

“Contrary to administration rhetoric, the talking points were not edited to protect classified information,” states the Interim Progress Report for the Members of the House Republican Conference on the Events Surrounding the Sept. 11, 2012 Terrorist Attacks in Benghazi.

“Evidence rebuts administration claims that the talking points were modified to protect classified information or to protect an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),” the report continues.

The report charges that the talking points were “deliberately” edited to “protect the State Department.”

States the report: “To protect the State Department, the administration deliberately removed references to al-Qaida-linked groups and previous attacks in Benghazi in the talking points used by [United Nations] Ambassador [Susan] Rice, thereby perpetuating the deliberately misleading and incomplete narrative that the attacks evolved from a demonstration caused by a YouTube video.”

Intelligence officials’ claims

The tale of the talking points began when U.S. intelligence officials testified behind closed doors in early November 2012 and were reportedly asked point blank whether they had altered the talking points on which Rice based her comments about the Benghazi attacks.

On Sunday, Sept. 16, 2012, Rice had appeared on five morning television programs to discuss the White House response to the Benghazi attacks. In nearly identical statements, she asserted that the attacks were a spontaneous protest in response to a “hateful video.”

Other Obama administration officials made similar claims.

Two congressional sources who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said Morell, then acting CIA director, along with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen each testified behind closed doors that they did not alter the talking points.

On Nov. 16, 2012, former CIA director David Petraeus testified before the same congressional intelligence committees and also replied no to the question of whether he had changed the talking points, three congressional sources told Reuters.

Then on Nov. 27 the CIA reportedly told lawmakers that it had in fact changed the wording of the unclassified talking points to delete a reference to al-Qaida, according to senators who met with Morell that day.

That Nov. 27 meeting was between Morell, Rice and Republican Sens John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte.

A statement by McCain, Graham and Ayotte specifically stated that Morell told the senators during the meeting that the FBI had removed references to al-Qaida from the talking points “and did so to prevent compromising an ongoing criminal investigation” of the attack on the U.S. mission.

The senators’ joint statement specifically reads: “Around 10:00 this morning in a meeting requested by Ambassador Rice, accompanied by acting CIA Director Mike Morell, we asked Mr. Morell who changed the unclassified talking points to remove references to al-Qaida.

“In response, Mr. Morell said the FBI removed the references and did so to prevent compromising an ongoing criminal investigation. We were surprised by this revelation and the reasoning behind it.”

Morell’s claim of changing the talking points for security reasons is now contradicted by the new Republican probe.

Further, on Nov. 28, 2012, CBS News reported the CIA then told the news agency that the edits to the talking points were made “so as not to tip off al-Qaida as to what the U.S. knew, and to protect sources and methods.”

That same report quoted a source from the Office of the Director for National Intelligence who told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan that the source’s office made the edits as part of the interagency process because the links to al-Qaida were deemed too “tenuous” to make public.

Meanwhile, a few hours after his meeting with the senators, Morell’s office reportedly contacted Graham and stated that Morell “misspoke” in the earlier meeting and that it was, in fact, the CIA, not the FBI, that deleted the al-Qaida references.

“They were unable to give a reason as to why,” stated Graham.

“CIA officials contacted us and indicated that Acting Director Morell misspoke in our earlier meeting. The CIA now says that it deleted the al-Qaida references, not the FBI. They were unable to give a reason as to why,” said in a statement.

“This was an honest mistake and it was corrected as soon as it was realized. There is nothing more to this,” an intelligence official said about Morell’s briefing to the senators.

Graham at the time went so far as to suggest he would hold up the nomination of Morell if Obama had nominated him to be the CIA director, a position ultimately filled by John Brennon.

Georgia Sen. Clarence Saxby Chambliss defended Morell’s statements.

“Mike was actually not the director when this (the attack on Benghazi) took place. And he’s kind of putting Humpty Dumpty back together again,” Chambliss told the media, calling Morell a “smart, straightforward guy.”

A U.S. intelligence official further told CBS News there was “absolutely no intent to misinform.”

The official says the talking points “were never meant to be definitive and, in fact, noted that the assessment may change. The points clearly reflect the early indications of extremist involvement in a direct result. It wasn’t until after they were used in public that analysts reconciled contradictory information about how the assault began.”

However, the intelligence community clearly at first portrayed the edited White House talking points as a bid to protect classified information.

Timeline of altered talking points

According to the interim House report on Benghazi, after a White House deputies meeting on Saturday, Sept. 15, 2012, the administration altered the talking points to remove references to the likely participation of Islamic extremists in the attacks.

The administration also removed references to the threat of extremists linked to al-Qaida in Benghazi and eastern Libya, including information about at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi.

Charged the report: “Senior State Department officials requested – and the White House approved – that the details of the threats, specifics of the previous attacks, and previous warnings be removed to insulate the department from criticism that it ignored the threat environment in Benghazi.”

The report authors said that they went through email exchanges of the interagency process to scrub the talking points. They wrote the emails do not reveal any concern with protecting classified information.

“Additionally, the bureau itself approved a version of the talking points with significantly more information about the attacks and previous threats than the version that the State Department requested. Thus, the claim that the State Department’s edits were made solely to protect that investigation is not credible.”

In a particularly stinging accusation, the report states that when draft talking points were sent to officials throughout the executive branch, senior State Department officials requested the talking points be changed “to avoid criticism for ignoring the threat environment in Benghazi.”

“Specifically, State Department emails reveal senior officials had ‘serious concerns’ about the talking points, because members of Congress might attack the State Department for ‘not paying attention to agency warnings’ about the growing threat in Benghazi.

With additional research by Joshua Klein.

Did the 20-year-old Saudi national questioned in the Boston Marathon bombing probe visit the White House?

As reported by The Right Scoop blog, the White House visitor log available online shows that an Abdulrahman A. Alharbi visited Dec. 8, 2009.

The visit was listed as a group tour, however, and at that time, the Abdul Rahman Ali Issa Al-Salimi Al-Harbi who was questioned by authorities for two hours after the April 15 bombings was 16 years old.

There are two entries on Oct. 14, 2011, for an Abdulrahman Alharbi with a different middle initial, S. The entries are also associated with a group tour.

According to The Blaze, which has reported Alharbi was on a federal watch list, the Saudi national entered the U.S. last August on a student visa.

Last week, WND was first to report Alharbi shares the same last name as a major Saudi clan that includes scores of al-Qaida operatives. Some in the clan are senior al-Qaida members while others are reportedly being held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.

DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has insisted that authorities absolved Alharbi of anything to do with the Boston bombings. But The Blaze has reported the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center issued an event file for the Saudi calling for his deportation under Section 212 (a)(3)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which makes a foreigner inadmissible to the U.S. because of terrorism or related activity.

Wednesday, The Blaze further reported the event file created for Alharbi indicated he was “armed and dangerous.”

In addition, The Blaze said, emails that are automatically triggered when anyone alters an event file of that kind indicated someone removed the deportation reference.

Later, someone tried to destroy both the original event file and an amended version, The Blaze said.

In a hearing last week, Napolitano angrily dismissed an inquiry by a congressman about Alharbi as “not worthy of an answer,” but she admitted in a Senate hearing this week the Saudi was on a terror watch list.

However, as WND reported, Napolitano still has not responded to a request by the lawmaker she indignantly brushed off last week, Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., for a classified briefing on Alharbi.

While it is not clear whether the Alharbi questioned as part of the marathon probe is a member of the well-known Saudi clan, his Facebook page lists him as Facebook friends with at least seven other Alharbis, located in both Boston and in Saudi Arabia.

One of the Alharbis on his Facebook friends list, Ahmed Alharbi, is listed as a pharmacy technician at the Saudi Ministry of Health. Most others live in Riyadh.

The Alharbi clan has long been active in al-Qaida. Khaled bin Ouda bin Mohammed al-Harbi, for example, is a Saudi national who joined Osama bin Laden’s mujahadeen group in the 1980s. He reportedly became an al-Qaida member in the mid-1990s. He turned himself in to Saudi authorities in 2004 as part of an amnesty deal.

The BBC reported Khaled Alharbi was married to the daughter of al-Qaida’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahri. He reportedly appeared with bin Laden in a video praising the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Another top al-Qaida operative is Adel Radi Saqr al-Wahabi al-Harbi, a Saudi national identified by the State Department as “a key member of an al-Qaida network operating in Iran.”

The State Department has offered a multimillion-dollar reward for the capture of Abdel Alharbi, saying he is an Iran-based al-Qaida facilitator who serves as the deputy to Muhsin al-Fadhl, who runs al-Qaida’s Iran network.

On his website, former Palestinian Liberation Organization operative Walid Shoebat translated a list of the Saudi government’s 85 wanted al-Qaida members.

The list includes several members of the Alharbi clan:

• Badr Saud Uwaid Al-Awufi Al-Harbi
• Muhammad Atiq Uwaid Al-Awufi Al-Harbi
• Khalid Salim Uwaid Al-Lahibi Al-Harbi
• Raed Abdullah Salem Al-Thahiri Al-Harbi
• Abdullah Abdul Rahman Muhammad Al-Harbi (leader)
• Fayez Ghuneim Humeid Al-Hijri Al-Harbi

Shoebat also points out that several Alharbi clan members are being held by the U.S. government at Guantanamo Bay, including Salim Salman Awadallah Al-Saidi Al-Harbi, Majid Abdullah Hussein Al-Harbi, Muhammad Abdullah Saqr Al-Alawi Al-Harbi, Ghanem Abdul Rahman Ghanem Al-Harbi and Muhammad Atiq Uwaid Al-Awfi Al-Harbi.

JERUSALEM – A House Republican report released this week on the Obama administration’s response to the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi terror attack is missing one essential piece that could help to answer many of the questions raised in the report.

That piece is the alleged illicit activities transpiring inside the U.S. facilities that were attacked.

The 46-page report by five committees of the Republican-led House says the White House scrubbed terrorism and al-Qaida from talking points and misled the American public by blaming the attack on an obscure YouTube film.

The report further questions why the White House falsely claimed the U.S. facilities were targeted in unplanned, popular street protests while it was known to the government almost immediately that the Benghazi mission and nearby CIA annex were attacked by militants in a premeditated fashion.

One key question of the congressional probe centers on why the State Department chose to reduce security at the U.S. Benghazi mission and to deny multiple requests for more security assistance.

The report rejects State Department claims that funding was the reason for the security reductions.

Purchase a copy of “Fool Me Twice” by Aaron Klein and Brenda Elliott and receive a FREE copy of their New York Times bestseller “The Manchurian President.”

States the report: “It is clear that funding – or a lack thereof – is not the reason for the reductions in security, as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Lamb testified and as emails reviewed by the Committees attest.

“Moreover, a lack of funding would not have been at issue with respect to the rejection of the request to extend the deployment of the [U.S. Military Security Support Team], as that team was provided via the Defense Department at no expense to the State Department.”

A key accusation in the report alleges the White House generated talking points for the public that “excluded details about the wide availability of weapons and experienced fighters in Libya, an exacerbating factor that contributed to the lethality of the attacks.”

The report does not mention that the weapons and fighters may actually be the reason for the coordinated assaults on the U.S. facilities. According to Middle Eastern security officials, the U.S. mission was allegedly used to help coordinate arms and other aid to the jihadist-led rebel; insurgencies in Libya and in Syria.

The U.S. mission’s alleged role in arming the rebels, as first exposed by WND, may help to answer many of the questions in the probe, including why the White House did not want to draw attention to al-Qaida’s role in the attacks.

It also could explain why security was reduced as the compound. An increased security presence at the U.S. mission would have drawn attention to the shabby, nondescript building that was allegedly being used for such sensitive purposes.

WND has filed numerous reports quoting Middle East security officials who described the mission in Benghazi as a meeting place to coordinate aid for the rebel-led insurgencies in the Middle East, including the transfer of weapons to rebels.

Two weeks after the Benghazi attack, WND also broke the story that murdered U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens himself played a central role in recruiting jihadists to fight Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, according to Egyptian security officials.

In November 2012, Middle Eastern security sources further described both the U.S. mission and nearby CIA annex in Benghazi as the main intelligence and planning center for U.S. aid to the rebels that was being coordinated with Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Many rebel fighters are openly members of terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida.

Among the tasks performed inside the Benghazi facility was collaborating with countries, most notably Turkey, on the recruitment of fighters – including jihadists – to target Assad’s regime, the security officials said.

Stevens served as a key contact with the Saudis to coordinate the recruitment by Saudi Arabia of Islamic fighters from North Africa and Libya, Egyptian security officials told WND. The jihadists were sent to Syria via Turkey to attack Assad’s forces, said the security officials.

The officials said Stevens also worked with the Saudis to send names of potential jihadi recruits to U.S. security organizations for review. Names found to be directly involved in previous attacks against the U.S., including in Iraq and Afghanistan, were ultimately not recruited by the Saudis to fight in Syria, said the officials.

White House officials previously denied aiding arms shipments to the rebels.

However, confirming WND’s exclusive reporting for over a year, the New York Times last month reported that since early 2012, the CIA has been aiding the Arab governments and Turkey in shopping for and transporting weapons to the Syrian rebels.

Previously, multiple establishment news media reports described the U.S. role in helping to arm the Libyan rebels attacking the regime of Moammar Ghadaffi. At the same time it was widely reported that al-Qaida groups were among the Libyan rebels.