Mr Paul Goes To Washington- Sen Rand Paul (R-KY) Launches 12 Hour Filibuster to Hold Up Nomination of Brennan to CIA

Aided by colleagues in the US Senate, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul ended a nearly 13 hour filibuster in an attempt to hold up the nomination of John Brennan to the CIA Director's post in the early morning hours of Thursday. At issue was limits to the President's authority to use drone strikes to kill Americans. Earlier in the day, Attorney General Eric Holder did not rule out using aerial drone strikes to kill American citizens on US soil during questioning before the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday.

After Holder's testimony, Sen Paul vowed that he would do what we could to hold up Brennan's nomination until the Committee recieved clarity from the White House on their policy on using drone strikes against American nationals.

Business in the Senate ground to a halt Wednesday as Paul -- aided by colleagues from both parties -- launched into the filibuster as he tried to hold up the nomination over concerns about the president’s authority to kill Americans with drones.

Paul's filibuster was at least two hours longer than most in U.S. history, as most flame out around 10 hours. Paul finished speaking around 12:40 a.m. local time, and his filibuster lasted 12 hours and 52 minutes.

"My legs hurt. My feet hurt. Everything hurts right now," Paul told Fox News shortly after stepping off the Senate floor, saying he believes "we did the best that we could."

"I would be surprised if we didn’t hear back from the White House," Paul said.

In a show of support, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell came to the Senate floor and congratulated Paul for his "tenacity and for his conviction." McConnell also called Obama's choice of Brennan a "controversial nominee."

Paul is one of several lawmakers -- on both sides of the aisle -- who has raised concerns about the legal justification for launching drone strikes against Americans overseas. But Paul took to the floor after receiving a statement from Attorney General Eric Holder that creaked open the door to the possibility of using a drone to kill an American inside the United States.

“To allow one man to accuse you in secret -- you never get notified you've been accused,” Paul said on the floor. “Your notification is the buzz of propellers on the drone as it flies overhead in the seconds before you're killed. Is that what we really want from our government?”

Paul said he’d be raising the same complaints under a Republican president.

“No one politician should be allowed to judge the guilt, to charge an individual, to judge the guilt of an individual and to execute an individual. It goes against everything that we fundamentally believe in our country,” he said.

Neither Holder or Brennan would explicitly rule out drone strikes against American nationals on US soil in earlier questioning on the matter. Paul was eventually aided by other Senate colleagues including Ted Cruz, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen Tim Scott (R-SC), Sen Ron Johnson (R-WI), Sen Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR). At one point, Cruz was reading aloud tweets in support of the Kentucky Senator. Paul offered to end the filibuster in exchange for a nonbinding resolution regarding drone strikes on US citizens on American soil, but Sen Dick Durbin (D-IL) objected to allowing a vote, so Paul continued. He eventually finished speaking at 12:40 ET on Thursday morning, with the filibuster lasting 12 hours and 52 minutes.

Rand Paul's filibuster was the first significant challenge to Obama by Senate Republicans since the president was being sworn in back in January 2009

The concerns over using drones against American civilians comes as the Department of Homeland Security announced the purchase of more than 21 million hollowpoint rounds on top of 2 billion rounds purchased in the last year. The government explained the purchase by saying that- like many other commodities- they got a better deal when they purchased ammunition in bulk [however, keep in mind that one doesn't merely target shoot with hollowpoints- NANESB!]. However, in addition to the bulk ammunition purchases the DHS also announced the acquisition of more than 2700 armored MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicles over the weekend.

Also on Wednesday, the Southern Poverty Law Center released a report cautioning that membership in 'extremist' anti-government groups is approaching an all time high. However, like the Department of Homeland Security, the SPLC has a fairly broad definition of 'extremists', lumping pro-life groups, veterans, Tea Party chapters or pro-gun organizations in the same category as neo-nazis and Ku Klux Klan while omitting militant organizations like the New Black Panther Party from their dire warnings about domestic terrorism.

Barack Obama Wins Second Term; Opportunities To Say "I Told You So" Immediately Present Themselves

County by county results of 2012 Presidential Election with red indicating counties that went with Romney and blue indicating counties that went for Obama.

Despite earlier indications to the contrary, the American electorate had apparently decided to double down on the previous four years of failure and re-elect Barack Hussein Obama to a second term. And I do have to use some sort of qualifier here not only because of widespread military disenfranchisement as well as election-day dirty tricks in some cities, but also some swing state counties having voter turnout as high as 111%.

It should probably go without saying that I was extremely shocked and disappointed in the outcome of the 2012 Presidential election. However, science fiction author and Mormon Democrat Orson Scott Card probably summed it up better than I ever could.

Of course, it didn't take long for harsh reality to rear its ugly head. On Wall Street in the days leading up to the election, there was talk of the markets rebounding regardless of who won because it removed 'uncertainty' from the longer-term picture, that turned out to be only partially true as the Dow-Jones plunged 369 points in a single day. Shares in finance and defense companies took a beating, but not nearly as bad as coal stocks. Since election day, shares of Arch Coal [NYSE: ACI] have dropped 14.78%, Oxford Natural Resources [NYSE: OXF] declined in value by more than 22% and shares of James River Coal [NASDAQ: JRCC] have lost 42.77% of their value.

Curously, the media decided to rediscover the 'fiscal cliff' and debt ceiling issues about one day after the election- issues the Romney/Ryan campaign had demonstrated they were at least capable of taking seriously while President Obama went on Letterman and denied there was even a debt problem. Some media types simply attributed the stock market freefall to uncertainty over the looming fiscal cliff.

Hardly 24 hours after Obama declared victory, a number of companies including Boeing, Energizer, Research in Motion, Lightyear Networks, Hawker Beechcraft, the Providence Journal, UtahAmerican Energy and Corning had announced a fresh round of layoffs while Olive Garden and Red Lobster parent company Darden and grocery chain Kroeger stated they were cutting workers' hours in anticipation of a number of 0bamacare provisions going into effect. A number of smaller businesses had reportedly trimmed their full time staff to under 50 employees so they could remain exempt from 0bamacare.

Financial consultants and industry observers also note that most of the smaller local and regional banks in the USA are set to disappear now that Dodd-Frank is here to stay for the forseeable future, leaving behind a number of the larger 'too big to fail' financial institutions that were bailed out with taxpayer money in 2008.

Of course, why should the bad news be limited to the economy and markets? On Friday afternoon, CIA Director David Petraeus announced his resignation, citing an ongoing extramarital affair. Interestingly, I heard this news being broken over CNBC, who claimed their parent network's Andrea Mitchell broke the story [given the close working relationship between the Obama campaign and NBC network's, I wouldn't doubt if she was handed the scoop in exchange for running interference on the Administration's behalf while on the campaign trail- NANESB!]. The affair reportedly came to light when Pretraeus' mistress sent threatening e-mails to another woman close to the CIA director who in turned reported the threatining messages to the FBI. Coincidentally, Petraeus was scheduled to testify before a Senate hearing on the September 11th terrorist attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi.

To hardly anybody's surprise, Petraeus' indiscrecions were made known to the White House by the FBI well before the election, but the White House reportedly held off on forcing him out until after November 6th- much to the chagrin of the FBI.

Keep in mind, all that wonderful news came within 48 hours of the election. If the Obama Administration can cram this much scandal and bad news into a timeframe of just under two days, imagine what could happen with four years.

Report: CIA Operatives Denied Help During Attack on US Consulate in Benghazi

In the latest development regarding the September 11, 2012 attacks on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, reports are circulating that multiple requests for military aid during the consulate attack were rejected by the chain of command.

Former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods was part of a small team who was at the CIA annex about a mile from the U.S. consulate where Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team came under attack. When he and others heard the shots fired, they informed their higher-ups at the annex to tell them what they were hearing and requested permission to go to the consulate and help out. They were told to "stand down," according to sources familiar with the exchange. Soon after, they were again told to "stand down."

Woods and at least two others ignored those orders and made their way to the consulate which at that point was on fire. Shots were exchanged. The rescue team from the CIA annex evacuated those who remained at the consulate and Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight.

At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters. In fact, at least one member of the team was on the roof of the annex manning a heavy machine gun when mortars were fired at the CIA compound. The security officer had a laser on the target that was firing and repeatedly requested back-up support from a Spectre gunship, which is commonly used by U.S. Special Operations forces to provide support to Special Operations teams on the ground involved in intense firefights.

Particularly damning is a report that appeared on milblogger Blackfive's page indicating that CIA and Special Operations forces had a GLD (Ground Laser Designator) on site in Benghazi during the attack, a device used to 'paint' targets on the ground for air support. Only during the Benghazi attack, both the CIA and Special Operations operatives were given orders to stand down.

An unarmed surveillance drone over Benghazi had reportedly relayed real-time footage of the attack to the chain of command. The attack went on for hours, meaning there was more than enough time for commanders to dispatch AC130U Spectre gunships from Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily- some 480 miles away from Benghazi. The AC130U was designed for ground support and is capable of saturating a fairly compact are with precision fire from a 25mm gatling gun as well as precision 40mm and 105mm cannons. Such weapons systems also can operate with even greater precision with a GLD like what was reportedly on site at the CIA annex in Benghazi.

If true, this basically means that the chain of command in the CIA, State Department and White House left Ambassador Stevens, Information Management Officer Sean Smith and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods to die while the US Consulate was under a well planned and coordinated attack with heavy weaponry from Islamist militants- reportedly including Ansar al Sharia.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has denied that any of the C-130s had even left Sigonella during the attack while a CIA spokeswoman denies that requests for military aid from Benghazi during the attack were turned down. However, since both the State Department and White House continued blaming a short anti-Islamic YouTube video for weeks after the September 11th attacks, the denials are significantly lacking in credibility.

Meanwhile, Turkish authorities detained a Tunisian man identified on surveillance video of the attack but so far, US interrogators have been denied the opportunity to interview him.

UPDATE 11/1- Foreign Policy magazine and Dubai's Al Aan television reported the discovery of more sensetive documents in the wreckage of the Benghazi consulate after the September 11th attacks, including a travel itinterary for Information Officer Sean Smith and e-mails from Ambassador Stevens to Libya's foreign minstry requesting additional security and reporting 'troubling surveillance' from a local police officer who was reportedly taking pictures inside the compound. Stevens even identified the car number the Libyan policeman arrived and departed in.

The Ambassador's report of the policeman taking pictures is consistent with Information Officer Smith's online message just hours before the attack that read "Assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures".

US Born Al Qaeda Cleric Killed in Arabian Peninsula Drone Airstrike

The good news is that you still get your virgins, Anwar. The bad news is that all 72 of them look like Michael Moore.

Anwar al-Awlaki, Al Qaeda's internet savvy, New Mexico-born propagaindist was killed in Yemen on Friday when what's believed to be a CIA drone fired a missile on a convoy.

Fluent in English, al-Awlaki is said to have inspired numerous attacks against American and Western targets, including the failed Christmas 2009 underwear bomber over Detroit, an October 2010 plot to bring down aircraft using explosive parcels. The Islamic cleric is said to have corresponded via e-mail with Nidal Hasan prior to his November 2009 Fort Hood murder spree and Faisal Shahzad's botched May 2010 attempt to set off a car bomb in New York City's Times Square.

Also in may 2010, a 21 year old unemployed woman named Roshonara Choudharay who said she was inspired by al-Awlaki's online sermons and articles stabbed Labour MP Stephen Timms at the Beckton Globe library.

Beginning in 2000, al-Awlaki preached in a San Diego area mosque where he met two parishoners who were later identified as Khalid al-Midar and Nawaf al-Hamzi- two of the 9/11 hijackers. The following year, al-Awlaki moved to northern Virginia before heading back to Yemen by way of London in 2002. From Yemen's tribal controlled hinterlands, al-Awlaki delivered sermons and oversaw recruitment for Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninusla, escaping a similar attempt on his life in May of this year.

U.S., European Intelligence Uncover Mumbai-Style European Terror Plot

A plot reminiscent of the 2008 Mumbai Terrorist attacks where armed terrorists would simultaneously storm multiple landmarks across Europe and the UK was disrupted late Tuesday according to US Intelligence officials.

The plot included attacks on hotels frequented by Western tourists in London and hotels and landmarks in France and Germany that was described as 'advanced but not imminent'.

On Tuesday night, French police sealed off the area surrounding the Eiffel Tower after an anonymous bomb threat was called in to firefighters. French police and counterterrorism officials are already on heightened alert after lawmakers passed a ban on wearing burqas in public places earlier this month. The French National Police Chief said that Al Qaeda's North African branch is suspected of plotting to detonate bombs in crowded locations throughout France.

The Mumbai-style plot was believed to have been disrupted by repeated airstrikes from drones in Pakistan's nortwestern tribal areas and information provided by a suspect detained and Germany a few weeks ago. Some of the suspects are believed to be still at large in the UK.

Keith Olbermann- CIA Witheld Information On Nigerian Panty-Bomber to Embarass Obama

The most useless host on the most useless of networks puts forward the theory that president Obama isn't the least bit inept or unqualified on national security, the CIA is just setting it up so that he appears that way. Seriously.

Maybe he's onto something- I mean this could be the tip of the iceberg. Not only were so many red flags missed prior to Major Hasan's shooting spree at Fort Hood, but Obama botched the White House reaction with two minutes worth of informal 'shout outs' before going on a teleprompter-guided platitude laden speech about how it was too early to jump to any conclusions. I'll just bet the CIA withheld information that at least a dozen unarmed American soldiers getting ready to deploy were murdered by a muslim US Army officer that day. What other explanation could there be?

And speaking of Obama and jumping to conclusions, I bet the CIA withheld information about the circumstances of Harvard Professor Henry Gates detention by the Cambridge PD last summer. I mean, how else could you explain such an eloquent and articulate public speaker stepping in such a steaming cowpie when he admitted he didn't have all the facts (you know....because the CIA withheld them, apparently).

I think there is ample proof that this nefarious CIA tactic has seeped into the media as well. I have evidence that Keith Olbermann is a worthless tool, and if any old run-of-the-mill blogger can come up with that kind of information, then I imagine the CIA already is aware of this. Yet the agency repeatedly lets this Olbermann shill go out on live TV and embarrass himself in front of his dozen or so viewers each night. This is the most insidious plot of them all- they know that Olbermann is a worthless bloviating tool, yet allow him to go out there each night and make an ass of himself. Why is the Central Intelligence Agency withholding this information from Mr (I'm guessing) Olbermann?