President Obama's Latest Victory in the War on Coal: Virginia-Based Coal Miner Alpha Natural Resources Announces It's Laying Off Nearly 10% Of Its Workforce

Norfolk Southern train seen backing up the Gilbert branch in Wharncliffe, WV to serve the Alpha Natural Resources Premium highwall mine in July 2008. JB Lockard photo

Bristol, VA-based Alpha Natural Resources [NYSE- ANR] announced on Tuesday that they would be shuttering at least eight mines and laying off approximately 1200 employees- nearly 10% of the company's workforce.

Alpha CEO Kevin Critchfield cited a lack of coal-fired power plants being built in the country and increased regulatory burdens from the EPA on both mining companies and utilities that use coal as contributing to the announced layoffs.

During a 2008 video interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, then-candidate Barack Obama promised to bankrupt anybody who built a coal-fired power plant in the United States. He also promised that energy prices would 'neccesarily skyrocket' under a cap and trade system that he was in favor of.

In June 2009, the Waxman-Markey Cap And Trade act passed the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, but never made it to the Senate as both the House and Senate focused on getting 0bamacare passed. However, the White House was able to impose a number of restrictions on utilities and coal-fired power plants by way of regulatory fiat through using the Environmental Protection Agency as its enforcement arm.

The impending Alpha closures will affect at least eight mines in three different states- Virginia, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Work at those facilities will continue until current contracts are fulfilled.

Spokesman Ted Pile says the affected West Virginia operations are the Alloy deep mine near Powellton, the Alloy surface mine near Boomer, the Premium highwall mine near Gilbert and the White Flame Surface Mine near Wharncliffe.

The Virginia mines are Guest Mountain deep mines No. 8 and No. 9 near Norton, and Twin Star Surface Mine near Hurley.

In Pennsylvania, Alpha will close its Dora deep mine in Jefferson County.

With the EPA regulations in place and no new coal-fired power plants being built, many companies have shifted from mining thermal coal typically burned at power plants to produce electricity to metallurgic coal which is in demand for steelmaking overseas.

In June of 2011, Alpha had acquired competitor Massey Energy in a deal worth $7.1 billion. Some of the facilities being closed down include former Massey properties.

Alpha isn't the only coal mining company that has been struggling in the current economic and regulatory environment. In July of this year, Patriot Coal had filed for bankruptcy protection thanks in part to a weaker economy, cancelled contracts as well as the same hostile regulatory environment. Out west, environmentalists have rallied and attempted to obstruct coal trains and export terminals from even passing through their cities- even filing nuisance lawsuits against railroads over diesel exhaust and coal dust.

Massachusetts Democrat Calls Cops on GOP Rival With Bogus Drug Buy Story

Consider this reason #774 I don't trust the Democrats anywhere near the levers of power.

A Democratic state representative in Massachusetts who narrowly survived a 4-way primary earlier this month is now facing questions after sending police to her Republican opponent's home, reportedly relaying concerns from an anonymous constituent to the local police chief about a possible drug buy.

Massachusetts State Representative Denise Andrews [D- Orange] had contacted Athol, MA police chief Timothy C Andrews- purportedly to follow through on an unnamed constituent's bizarre story that her GOP rival and Athol Board of Selectmen chair, Susanna Whipps Lee, had purchased cocaine from them.

Ms. Andrews contacted police and said she was told by an informant in the Police Department, whom she called a constituent, that Susannah M. Whipps Lee, chairman of the Board of Selectmen, had allegedly purchased cocaine and a police officer went to her home on Aug. 10 and took the drugs from her after police received a call from a person who claimed to have sold the drugs to Ms. Lee.

After an investigation, the chief said the allegations were false.

Ms. Lee, a Republican challenging Ms. Andrews in the November election, denied the allegations and called them “disgraceful and dishonest.”

Representative Andrews is named as a confidential informant in an Athol police report that was leaked to the public.

Artists rendering of Massachusetts State Representative Denise Andrews' confidential source.

Citing confidentiality, Andrews declined to name the source of the allegations against her opponent. A number of inconsistencies became apparent in the story she told the Athol police chief. Lee was out of state on the day the alleged drug buy took place and Athol's only narcotics officer was off-duty the day of the alleged bust. The story crumbled altogether when Chief Anderson compared dates and times on the department's radio logs and sign in sheets with those provided by Andrews' alleged informant.

Chief Anderson said “the false report of a crime to police” matter is under investigation. He said it would be a grave situation “if it is a member of our department.”

Asked if anyone from the Athol Police Department is under scrutiny, the chief said, “I am not going to comment at this point.”

On whether there may be a coverup, Chief Anderson said: “We have policies about chain of command; that means a member of our Police Department has to follow our chain of command; when they come across information of this nature, they are required, if they have information there is a violation of department policy ... to notify their supervisor.”

The chief also said the rank and file “are not allowed to release records of a confidential or sensitive nature.”

The boundaries for Andrews' District- the 2nd Franklin District- was recently re-drawn and includes the towns of Athol, Orange, Royalston, Erving and Gill in Franklin County in the north-central part of the Bay State as well as parts of Belchertown in Hampshire.

Post Benghazi Update- State Department Insists Deadly Consulate Attack was 'Spontaneous' Demonstration; Filmmaker Identified, Questioned by Authorities

Violent protests and attacks on American embassies throughout the Middle East continued on Friday and over the weekend. Demonstrators in Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Sudan and Yemen had stormed the grounds of US diplomatic missions, set fires and tore down the stars and stripes while hoisting a black islamist flag with arabic script.

The continued unrest comes as the White House and State Department repeatedly denied that the deadly attack on the Benghazi consulate was premeditated in any way. The attacks that killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens, Diplomatic Security officers and former Navy SEALS Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty and information officer Sean Smith took place on the 11th anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.

While President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton maintain that the mob that had stormed the grounds of the US Consulate in Benghazi had formed 'spontaneously' in response to a short anti-Islam film that appeared on YouTube, Libyan officials have claimed otherwise. In an interview with NPR, Libyan president President Mohammed el-Megarif said the Benghazi assault was a military-style attack that used heavy weaponry such as RPGs and mortars to assault the consulate and safehouses as well as keep reinforcements at bay. Such an attack, el-Megarif points out, would require comprehensive advanced planning. Egyptian PM Hesham Kandil said that at least some of the rioters in Cairo who were arrested after clashes with police in front of the US Embassy there had confessed to being paid to show up. In the face of all that, White House Press spokesman Jay Carney claimed that the protests, arson, looting and murders directed at American diplomats throughout the Middle East and arab world somehow aren't directed at the USA, but rather a visceral reaction to the anti-Muslim video circulating online.

Curiously, a few days prior to the American consulate in Benghazi being overrun, Canada had announced they were closing down their embassy in Tehran and expelling all Iranian diplomatic personnel from Canada. The Canadian government cited their official designation of Iran as a terrorist-sponsoring state, their continued support of the Syrian regime's military crackdown on its citizens and an attack against the British Embassy in Tehran that the UK insists was orchestrated by Iran's ruling mullahs. I thought Canada's Foreign Affairs ministry was newsworthy in and of itself at the time, but it's taken on greater significance since the murder of American diplomats on September 11.

Meanwhile, the Obama Administration, State Department and US Media's response to the slaughter in Benghazi has been disheartening at best.

While insisting that an attack utilizing heavy weaponry such as RPGs and mortars WASN'T pre-planned, the Obama Administration and American media outlets quickly went on the counterattack- not against the people who murdered our ambassadors and torched our diplomatic posts, but rather Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and the purported filmmaker.

A number of press outlets immediately jumped on Romney shortly after he issued a statement criticizing a message from the State Department that the Administration themselves had backed away from. So as Obama flew out to a Las Vegas campaign fundraiser as American embassies throughout the middle East were burning, there was the matter of a compliant media coordinating questions shortly before a press conference former governor Romney's non-existent gaffe and 'jumping the gun' to the point while President Obama briefly issued a statement and took no questions before leaving to continue his re-election campaign in Nevada.

However, that paled in comparison to what took place in Southern California on Friday night when Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies showed up at the house of one Nakoula Basseley Nakoula to take him into custody. Nakoula, who made The Innocence of Muslims film under the pseudonym Sam Basile, was identified as a Coptic Christian who emigrated here from Egypt and was sentenced to 20 month in prison after being arrested in a 2009 check-kiting scam. Nakoula had also reportedly agreed to become a government informant after his 2009 arrest in exchange for a sentence reduction. Reportedly the deputies were there to escort him to an interview with federal probation officials. However, the late night visit by deputies only came after calls from Islamist groups like Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood to prosecute the filmmaker for insulting the prophet Muhammed.

Over the weekend, images of Nakoula with his face hidden and flanked by deputies had circulated throughout the web. Curiously, some of Obama's more prominent supporters [in the entertainment industry of all places- NANESB!] had come out in favor of prosecuting Nakoula on ambiguous 'hate crimes' charges.

Meanwhile, the press had thoughtfully taken it upon themselves to reveal Nakoula's face and home address to the world. Unsurprisingly, Nakoula and his family have fled their Cerritos, CA home to an undisclosed location. Google- which is the parent company of YouTube- has since rejected a White House request to take down the offending video.

UPDATED 9/17- Democrats Honor Veterans And Military at Charlotte Convention With Russian Warships, Turkish Air Force Jets in Backdrop

May or may not be the actual backdrop image used at the DNC 2012 convention in Charlotte

The Democrat Party's national convention in Charlotte, NC has been over for more than a week, but the gathering still made headlines when four massive warships used prominently as a background image as a retired US Navy Admiral addressed the delegates in a speech paying tribute to veterans were in fact Russian.

Having grown up in a dark blue state, I can clearly hear the inevitable scorn and incredulity in the voice of your garden-variety Democrat and Obama supporter- sneering 'Jeez Fenway- what batshit insane right-wing fringe blog did you hear that from?'

Try The Navy Times

On the last night of the Democratic National Convention, a retired Navy four-star took the stage to pay tribute to veterans. Behind him, on a giant screen, the image of four hulking warships reinforced his patriotic message.

But there was a big mistake in the stirring backdrop: those are Russian warships.

While retired Adm. John Nathman, a former commander of Fleet Forces Command, honored vets as America’s best, the ships from the Russian Federation Navy were arrayed like sentinels on the big screen above.

These were the very Soviet-era combatants that Nathman and Cold Warriors like him had once squared off against.

“The ships are definitely Russian,” said noted naval author Norman Polmar after reviewing hi-resolution photos from the event. “There’s no question of that in my mind.”

Naval experts concluded the background was a photo composite of Russian ships that were overflown by what appear to be U.S. trainer jets. It remains unclear how or why the Democratic Party used what’s believed to be images of the Russian Black Sea Fleet at their convention.

The veteran who spotted the error and notified Navy Times said he was immediately taken aback.

“I was kind of in shock,” said Rob Barker, 38, a former electronics warfare technician who left the Navy in 2006. Having learned to visually identify foreign ships by their radars, Barker recognized the closest ship as the Kara-class cruiser Kerch.

The background — featured in the carefully choreographed hour leading up to the president’s Sept. 6 speech accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination — showed four ships with radar designs not used in the U.S. fleet.

For example, the ship in the foreground, on the far right, has a square radar antenna at the top of its masthead. That is the MR-700 Podberezovik 3-D early warning radar, commonly identified as “Flat Screen” for its appearance, a three-dimensional early warning radar mounted on the Kerch, said Eric Wertheim, editor of “Combat Fleets of the World.”

Similarly, the third ship has a MR-310 “Head Net” air search radar, shaped like two off-set bananas, at its masthead and is mostly likely the guided missile destroyer Smetlivyy. The first two ships seem to be Krivak-class frigates, but it’s hard to discern from the silhouette, experts said.

But the fact they are Russian ships is not in doubt. In addition to the ship’s radar arrays and hulls, which are dissimilar from U.S. warships, the photo features one more give-away: a large white flag with a blue ‘X’ at the ships’ sterns.

The blue cross on white background has been part of the Russian Navy's insignia since czarist times. The vessels in the photos have been identified by experts as belonging to Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

DNC officials apologized for the error, blaming 'vendor error' in failing to catch the oversight [Democrats blaming others for their mistakes? I know- toally shocking, isn't it?- NANESB!]. The nationality of the ships also hearkened back to a March conversation between President Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev that was caught on an open microphone where Obama promised the Kremlin 'more flexibility' on a missile defense treaty after the 2012 Presidential election.

UPDATE- 9/17 - It gets even better, though. Apparently the Democrats thought that Turkey's military should be represented at the 2012 convention.

According to an Austrian editor of a military aircraft journal, the planes depicted flying in formation above the Russian Black Sea Fleet are F-5s from the Turkish Air Force.

Martin Rosenkranz, a military aircraft expert and editor-in-chief of a military aviation journal in Austria, revealed the fighter jets’ origin to The Daily Caller.

“The aircraft in this image displayed are not U.S. [operated] aircraft,” he told TheDC.

“The jets are most likely from the Turkish air force [because] the formation and the type (F-5) flown is very typical of the seven-ship formation flown by the Turkish Air Force Display Team known as the ‘Turkish Stars,’” said Rosenkranz.

“There is no other display team worldwide” that uses a similar seven-aircraft formation.

Rosenkranz’s argument is bolstered by two other factors.

The aircraft shown at the Democrats’ convention are old F-5 aircraft. They were were designed in the United States and sold to many countries, including Turkey — whose display team uses that same model.

Also, the planes depicted in the Democrats’ Sept. 6 photo montage display an unusual red and white striped pattern painted on the underside of their fuselages — most visible on the lowest and best-lit of the F-5s in the image.

The Russian Ships and Turkish jets as backdrop fiasco was reminiscent of another election year debacle where the Democrat party accompanied an article about US combat veterans on their website with an image of a Canadian soldier in 2006.

Today's Train of Thought- Pour Some Sugar on Me, September 16 2012

Today's Train of Thought takes us to south-central Florida and provides us a glimpse at America's only sugarcane hauling railroad- the South Central Florida Express.

While sugar can be extracted from beets growing in more moderate climates in the Northern Plains, Midwest and Rocky Mountain regions, cane sugar is grown in relatively few places throughout the United States- Texas, Puerto Rico, Louisiana, Hawaii and Florida. A 2008 University of Minnesota study determined that the state of Florida led the United States in total sugarcane production and refining with 433,000 acres harvested and 7 mills.

This includes the mill in Clewiston, FL- reportedly the largest in the nation. Both the cane fields and refining facilities, operated by US Sugar corporation, are large enough to require two seperate railroads to bring in the cane and haul the finished product out to interchange with the CSX to the east and Florida East Coast to the east.

Besides US Sugar's 'in-house' 119-mile sugarcane hauling line- which is treated as a seperate entity by US Sugar- there's the South Central Florida Express which started up in 1990 with the purchase of nearly 90 miles of former CSX [nee Atlantic Coast Line] track west of Lake Okeechobee. The initial purchase was actually made by Lukens Steel [now ArcelorMittal] subsidiary Brandywine Valley, but was sold to US Sugar corporation in 1994. In 1998, South Central Florida Express and the Florida East Coast entered into a haulage agreement that would let the SCXF use the FEC's Lake Harbor-Ft Pierce 'K Branch'. In 1999, the line was awarded honors from Railway Age magazine as Shortline/Regional of the Year.

Besides sugar and sugar byproducts, the South Central Florida express also hauls fertilzer, farm equipment, lumber and machinery to various other customers along the line.

Here, railpictures.net contributor Christopher Blaszczyk caught South Central Florida Express' Ft. Pierce Turn trundling past the cane fields as well as a discarded pile of tied and across the State Route 835 crossing outside of Clewiston, FL. SCXF GP11 #9030 is in charge of the short 5-car train in February 2010.

The future of US Sugar in south central Florida has been up in the air in 2008 after then governor Charlie Crist announced to great fanfare a land-purchase deal from the Clewiston-based company. An estimated 180,000 acres of land used for growing sugar would be transferred to the state as part of an ongoing Everglades wetland restoration project. However, by 2010 that estimate had been sharply revised downward to less than 75,000 acres amid funding shortfalls and a worsening economy.

Blue Red State Graft Watch- Democrat Officials in Arkansas, Mississippi in Trouble Over Ballot Fraud

An Arkansas state representative along with three others have pleaded guilty to federal charges of Consipracy to commit voter fraud last week.

Democrat State Representative Hudson Hollum, his father Kent Hollum, W. Memphis city councilman Phillip Wayne Carter and W. Memphis police officer Sam Malone admitted to securing absentee ballots from voters in exchange for food, liquor, cigarettes or cash as well as destroying absentee ballots in unsealed envelopes where Hollum's opponent was chosen

West Memphis City Councilman Phillip Carter, West Memphis Police Officer Sam Malone, Hudson Hallum, and his father Kent Hallum all pleaded guilty in a conspiracy to bribe voters to influence absentee votes in the District 54 primary election runoff in 2011. Hudson Hallum beat his opponent by just 8 votes. Many came from absentee ballots, reviewed by Hallum before they were mailed to election headquarters.

“The runners of this organization, the Malones and the Carters if you will, would accumulate the absentee ballots and give them to Kent or Hudson Hallum for basically their review," said the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, Jane Duke. “They wanted to make sure if the absentee ballots had been in fact cast for Hudson Hallum. If it had not been, in most circumstances if not all, the ballots were destroyed and were not mailed on to the clerk's office for count."

"I warned him,” said the police officer’s former friend and an attorney in Crittenden County, Hubert Bass. “He (Malone) would brag to me about how he was handling the absentee ballots, that he would go to people's mailboxes and get them out and I told him, Malone you can't do that, you're going to get in trouble.”

Hallum resigned as state representative for the 54th district on September 5th as the indictments were handed down. Arkansas's 54th district covers West Memphis as well as the towns of Marion, Earle, Turrell and other rural areas of Crittenden county.

Across the river and to the south, an NAACP official in Tunica county, Mississippi was sentenced in July on 10 counts of fradulently casting ballots in the 2008 Presidential campaign.

[...] a Tunica County, Miss., jury convicted NAACP official Lessadolla Sowers on 10 counts of fraudulently casting absentee ballots. Sowers is identified on an NAACP website as a member of the Tunica County NAACP Executive Committee.

Sowers received a five-year prison term for each of the 10 counts, but Circuit Court Judge Charles Webster permitted Sowers to serve those terms concurrently, according to the Tunica Times

Sowers was found guilty of voting in the names of Carrie Collins, Walter Howard, Sheena Shelton, Alberta Pickett, Draper Cotton and Eddie Davis. She was also convicted of voting in the names of four dead persons: James L. Young, Dora Price, Dorothy Harris, and David Ross.

In the trial, forensic scientist Bo Scales testified that Sowers’s DNA was found on the inner seals of five envelopes containing absentee ballots.

The Democrat Party has sought to minimize and ridicule allegations of ballot fraud- or even deny that it exists- in the face of voter ID laws being passed in a number of states.

Are You Ready For Some Sports Chowdah Football?

The Patriots' Stevan Ridley rushed for 125 yards and 1 TD in the Patriot's regular-season opener against the Tenessee Titans at Nashville, TN on Sunday. ESPN Boston photo

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS- After a 1-3 preaseason, the 2012 regular season started up for the New England Patriots in Nashville in fine form on Sunday. The Titans led early in this one, getting out to an 3-0 lead before the Patriots came storming back to take a 21-3 halftime lead, capping off their first half with a Brady to Gronkowski TD pass right at the 2 minute warning.

Showing hardly any signs of slowing down, Tom Brady passed for more than 200 yards although he was sacked in the 2nd quarter by Titans DE Kamerion Wimbley, who may or may not have broken Brady's nose [the quarterback was seen with a bandage on his nose in the 2nd half and postgame but it was reportedly gone by Monday afternoon- NANESB!]. Brady completed TD passes to Rob Gronkowsi and Aaron Hernandez in the first half while LB Dont'a Hightower managed to recover a fumble after DE Chandler Jones sacked Titans QB Jake Locker deep in Tennesse's own end and run it back for paydirt.

While the Titans would score thanks to a 29 yard TD pass from Locker to Washington on their first possession of the second half to make it 21-10, that would be as close as they would get as the Patriots began to pull away in the second half after starting on the Titans side of the field and capping off the drive with a Ridley TD to make it 28-10. The Titans and Pats would trade field goals in the 4th and New England goes on to win their season opener by a 34-13 final.

Tom Brady went 23-31 with 236 yards and two TD passes while Ridley rushed for 125 yards and a touchdown on Sunday. This weekend, the Patriots will kick off the 2012 season at Gillette stadium against the Arizona Cardinals. Kickoff is scheduled for 1:00 PM ET.

ELSEWHERE IN THE NFL- The season is a little over a week old, with kickoff taking place on September 5th with the New York Giants losing to the Dallas Cowboys by a 24-17 final at E. Rutherford, NJ on September 5th.

Perhaps the most noteworthy was Robert Griffin III's regular-season NFL debut on Sunday against the New Orleans Saints. Griffin went 19-26 and more than 320 yards at the Superdome in the Big Easy, holding off the Saints by a 40-32 final.

Sunday night also marked Peyton Manning's debut as a Denver Bronco. The high mountain air in Denver apparently did little to slow down the elder Manning brother as he pretty much dismantled the Steelers D going 19-26 with 253 yards as the Broncos cruised to a 31-19 win over Pittsburgh.

Former Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell passed away on September 6th at the age of 87. Modell had gained infamy in the late 1990s for moving the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore after a protracted battle with the city of Cleveland over the stadium. The Browns returned to Cleveland in 1999 as an expansion team and ended up in the same division as the Ravens. In 2004, Modell sold most of his share in the Ravens to Maryland businessman Steve Biscotti.

NCAA FOOTBALL- After losing in a 41-32 track meet to the University of Miami Hurricanes at Chestnut Hill over Labor Day weekend, the Eagles played host to the Maine Black Bears.

Despite looking not particularly sharp with some fumbles in the early going and the Black Bears getting out to an early lead, the Eagles cruised to a 34-3 rout of Maine on Saturday. Eagles QB Chase Rettig went 16-32 with 219 yards, 3 TDs and no interceptions. The win beings BC's record to 1-1.

On Saturday, Boston College will travel to Chicago to take on the Northwest Wildcats who are currently undefeated. Kickoff is set for 3:30 ET.

ELSEWHERE IN NCAA FOOTBALL- The UMASS Minutemen made their 'home' debut at Gilette stadium in Foxbourough, MA [on the opposite end of the state from their main Ahmerst, MA campus- NANESB!] against the Indiana Hoosiers on Saturday.

Indiana quickly jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the 1st with a rushing TD from QB Tre Robertson. Although UMass responded with a sustained drive and rushing TD from quarterback Mike Wegzyn, the point after attempt was no good making it a 7-6 game. That would be as close as the Minutemen got as the Hoosiers rolled to an easy 45-6 over the MAC's newest team- this comes despite Tre Robinson having to be carted off the field early in the second quarter with a broken leg.

The Minutemen have an even steeper challenge before them this Saturday as they travel to the Big House in Ann Arbor to take on Michicgan [If this were a hockey game, I'd give Massachusetts even odds against Michigan- NANESB]- this is the second straight week UMass will face a Big Ten opponent

UCONN HUSKIES- The Huskies now sport a 1-1 record after coming up short in a low-scoring game at East Hartford against the North Carolina State Wolfpack. RB Lyle McCombs scored the Huskies lone touchdown fairly late in the game in the Wolfpack's 10-7 road win. On Saturday the Huskies will head to College Park, MD for their first road game of the season- taking on the Maryland Terrapins at 12:30 PM ET.

US Ambassador to Libya, 3 Other Americans Murdered in Attack on Consulate in Benghazi

Charred vehicle on the grounds of the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The diplomatic compound was overrun by a mob of roughly 1,000 people before gunmen in the crowd opened fire on the consulate and vehicles with on Tuesday, September 11th

US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was among four Americans murdered on Tuesday night after a rampaging crowd managed to break in to the grounds of the US Consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi. Heavily armed terrorists moving within the crowd then opened fire on the consulate and diplomatic staff with AK47s and rocket-propelled grenades.

The crowd had reportedly paraded around Ambassador Stevens' corpse while taking photos. A local media report quoted a Libyan official in Benghazi said that the ambassador had died of suffocation. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, an avid online gamer, had reportedly left a message a few hours prior to the attack on the Benghazi facility that read ”Assuming we don’t die tonight. We saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures.”. Smith was also fatally injured in the attack.

A report from CBS earlier on Wednesday quoted an official from Libya's Interior Ministry who claimed that after the consulate's Libyan security detail evacuated the Ambassador and diplomatic staff, some of the security staff had reportedly tipped the crowd off to the Ambassador's new and supposedly secure location.

Wanis al-Sharef, a Libyan Interior Ministry official in Benghazi, said the four Americans were killed when the angry mob, which gathered to protest a U.S.-made film that ridicules Islam's Prophet Muhammad, fired guns and burned down the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

He said Stevens, 52, and other officials were moved to a second building - deemed safer - after the initial wave of protests at the consulate compound. According to al-Sharef, members of the Libyan security team seem to have indicated to the protesters the building to which the American officials had been relocated, and that building then came under attack.

Although the short film had been blamed for inciting angry mobs in both who breached US Diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt on Tuesday, intelligence agencies say the fact that the murders took place on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks it's increasingly likely that the attack was planned well in advance by an Al Qaeda offshoot. Intelligence and media reports indicate that a Libyan jihadist group operating under the name of Ansar Al Sharia is behind the attacks. Stevens was the first US Ambassador to be killed while on assignment since Adolph Dubs- the US Ambassador to Afghanistan- was killed in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in 1979.

Benghazi is the eastern city that's considered the cradle of the uprising that ultimately toppled Mummar Ghdaffi's 42-year reign in Libya. Ghdaffi's Army was on the cusp of crushing the uprising and seizing Benghazi before the international community intervened in the form of NATO air strikes in February 2011. After months of fighting, Ghdaffi was captured and killed in a pitched battle near his hometown of Sitre. Ambassador Steven's had reportedly worked closely with Libya's transitional council after the Ghdaffi regime fled the capitol at Tripoli. The property was reportedly a temporary location that wasn't as secure as a number of permanent facilities.

The Benghazi assault came just hours after protestors in Egypt breached the walls of the American embassy there and tore down the American flag, replacing it with a black flag with white arabic script used by Al Qaeda.

However, instead of immediately condemning the provocation from the Egyptian crowd, the US Embassy released multiple statements criticising the producers of the movie the protestors were supposedly upset with and a series of tweets that bordered on apologetic. The official US Embassy in Cairo statement reads as follows [empasis mine].

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims - as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

The White House distanced themselves from the Cairo Embassy's statements while Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney criticized the statements coming from the Cairo Embassy as 'an apology for American values' and the Obama Administration's repudiation of the statements as an example of mixed signals the President has been sending to the international community. In Cairo, police and protestors clashed for a second straight night.

A team of about 50 Marines has been dispatched to Tripoli to secure the US Embassy in the Libyan capital while two guided missile destroyers have been deployed off of the coast of Libya.

Thunder on the Mountain- A Look At the Pennsylvania Town Thrust onto World Stage on September 11, 2001

Plume of smoke from Flight 93 crash in rural Somerset County, PA on September 11, 2001. Housewife Val McClatchey caught the image with a new digital camera just moments after impact.

Even before the September 11th terrorist attacks, cities like Washington DC and New York were in the crosshairs of terrorist and dangerous extremists. However, on America's darkest day an unassuming town of just over 200 people became etched in history as the final resting place for the first Americans to fight back against Al Qaeda.

For those of you unfamiliar with United Flight 93, the Newark to San Francisco flight took off on time that morning with four hijackers on board. At 9:28 AM- nearly 45 minutes after the first hijacked airliner slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center- Air Traffic Control in Cleveland, OH received a Mayday call from Flight 93 amidst what sounded like a struggle in the background. When Cleveland attempted to reach the flight crew by radio, they received no reply. The widow of Captain Jason Dahl believes that her husband took measures to interfere with the hijackers such as redirecting the planes radio frequency so that the hijacker's orders to the crew and passengers were instead transmitted to Air Traffic Controllers before he was stabbed.

Within five minutes of the hijacking, passengers were using in-flight phones or their own cellphones to contact family members or the authorities. By that point, the wife of passenger Tom Burnett had told him about watching the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon from their California home. Burnett- a medical device company executive from San Ramon, CA told his wife Deena "Don't worry, we're going to do something". Marketing executive Jeremy Glick told his wife in West Milford, NJ that the passengers had voted to try and storm the cockpit and re-take the plane.

Todd Beamer, an executive with Oracle Inc from Highstown, NJ attempted to call his wife from one of the in-flight GTE phones. However, his call was instead rerouted to a GTE supervisor named Lisa Jefferson. Beamer became apprehensive at one point as the plane changed direction, but he and his fellow passengers had decided they were going to overpower their hijackers and try to take back the plane. Beamer told Jefferson that one of the hijackers claimed to have a bomb, but at this juncture the passengers figured it was a ruse to get them to comply with their orders before they realized they were going to be killed anyway. Jefferson and Beamer also recited the 23rd Psalm before the passengers and crew reportedly counterattacked with scalding water, a drink cart and their bare hands. The line was left open after Beamer was done talking to Jefferson and he was heard in the background urging on fellow passengers with "Let's roll!".

Audio from the black box recorded the sounds of a struggle between the hijackers and passengers in the cockpit before the plane crashed into a field outside of Shanksville, PA at 10:03 AM. Flight 93 was no more than 20 minutes away from Washington DC at the time of the crash. Subsequent Al Qaeda documents seized in Afghanistan and Pakistan seem to indicate that the US Capitol Building was the most likely target, although the White House was seriously considered as well.

Within minutes, firefighters and Pennsylvania State Troopers arrived at the Flight 93 crash site. Unlike the attacks on the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan and the Pentagon in northern Virginia, there was considerably less debris to sift through in the Shanksville meadow and a number of documents and evidence could be recovered by investigators- including remnants of the hijackers' passports.

A monument to Flight 93 passengers and crew erected by Newark-based flight attendants adjacent to a chapel south of Shanksville, PA.

In the ensuing weeks, investigators and media descended on the rural community. Flight 93 was carrying an estimated 5000 lbs of mail, and NTSB officials had recovered undamaged pieces of mail, in-flight magazines, a bible and even a business card from one of the hijackers identifying other accomplices in the attacks. The planes black boxes were reportedly recovered from a 15-25 foot deep crater in the ground.

Close-up of the monument

The immediate aftermath of the crash was caught by a Shanksville housewife named Val McClatchey who was watching the horror unfold in lower Manhattan and northern Virginia on TV when she heard a loud roaring overhead followed by what she described as a ground shaking boom. The image shows an ominous plume of smoke rising over a hill with a bucolic farmhouse and red barn in the foreground.

Thunder on the Mountain- the Flight 93 Memorial Chapel south of Shanksville, PA.

However, McClatchey's photo was also viewed by 9/11 'Truthers' [basically, unhinged conspiracy theorists who insist that the 9/11 attacks were singlehandedly orchestrated by the US government, Jews or the illuminati NANESB!] as an open invitation to harass and stalk the Pennsylvania housewife and real-estate agent.

The real estate agent has recently become a target of bloggers calling themselves "9-11 researchers," who are seeking to prove that the U.S. government was complicit in the attacks that brought down the Twin Towers, pierced the Pentagon and crashed United Airlines Flight 93. "The End of Serenity" has turned out to be their smoking gun.

They have visited Mrs. McClatchey's office and called her at home, posting satellite maps of her property and accusing her of digitally altering her photo to insert a fake smoke plume. The bloggers have picked apart her story, highlighting inconsistencies in different news accounts and questioning her motives. Others have described her as "surly," "hostile," "irate" and "defensive." People have called her at home, accusing her of being anti-American and of "holding the photo hostage."

[Gosh- only somebody with something to hide would be upset at random unhinged loons showing up on their doorstep out of the blue and accusing them of treason and complicity in a shadowy plot to murder thousands Americans- NANESB!]

A look at the recently-opened Flight 93 Memorial at the crash site north of Shanksville, run by the National Parks Service.

The field that Flight 93 crashed into had actually been reclaimed from a strip coal mining operation. Almost immediately after 9/11, people began leaving flowers and mementos at a chain link fence at a temporary memorial near the crash site.

Within a year, Congress had approved funding for a permanent memorial at the Shanksville crash site. The early design of the memorial was fraught with controversy when one of the finalists- Crescent of Embrace- was revealed and critics and relatives of those killed on Flight 93 thought it too closely resembled the crescent moon symbol popular with numerous Islamic groups. The Crescent was later modified into a semicircle bisected by the flight's path.

Marble panels engraved with the name of the 40 passengers and crew members of Flight 93 at the permanent memorial in Somerset County, PA

Stage one of the permanent memorial opened to the public on September 10th, 2011 and is operated under the National Parks Service. Currently, a gently sloping black wall accompanies a walkway and benches that stretch out to a memorial plaza where the names of the passengers and crew are inscribed on a marble wall. There are no plans for a memorial garden of any kind- National Park officials said that the Memorial would be better served by allowing the native wildflower species to bloom in the areas surrounding the plaza. Earlier this year, crews were planting trees along the road leading into the Flight 93 Memorial from US Highway 30 to the north

Even before the National Flight 93 Memoral opened up, the field had seen as many as 150,000 visitors per year. USA Today's Travel Section has even gone so far to reccommend including the recently opened memorial as part of an itinerary for visiting Southwestern Pennsylvania along with Pittsburgh (about 80 miles away), Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water (about 50 miles away) as well as the Rolling Rock Brewery in Latrobe and Horsehoe Curve in Altoona [OK- I just threw the last two in there- NANESB!]. Signs were recently posted on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and US Route 219 to direct people to the memorial.

Future plans for the Memorial call for additional structures to house permanent exhibits and artifacts from passengers and their families to be completed sometime in 2013- currently there is just the one structure before the Memorial plaza where visitors can sign in. Plans also call for a tower with 40 seperate wind chimes to be built near the Memorial entrance- one for each passenger and crew member. Since the meadow is near high mountain peaks, there's a near constant wind or breeze blowing through the site.

Through a series of odd coincidences, a wind turbine farm overlooking the entrance to the Flight 93 Memorial opened up a little over a month after the 9/11 attacks. The executive who made the Somerset County wind turbines possible- Nicholas Humber- was killed in the 9/11 attacks. Humber was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 11 when it slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

The US Navy has also christened the USS Somerset- a San Antonio class amphibious transport dock named after Somerset County where Flight 93 went down. A bucket from a nearby power shovel that had been used in coal mining was melted down in 2008 to form the bow stem for the Somerset and she was christened in July of this year in Avondale, LA. Sister ships USS New York and USS Arlington had incorporated steel from the World Trade Center site and Pentagon respectively.

Pentagon's Inspector General: Nearly Half of Overseas US Military Bases Lack Voting Facilities

An audit by the Pentagon's Inspector General office has discovered that fewer than half of overseas US Military facilities aren't in compliance with the Military & Overseas Voter Empowerment Act- or MOVE Act.

The 2009 Act is supposed to guarantee facilities for members of the Armed Forces and US civilians living overseas which would allow them to register to vote in their home state or vote by absentee ballot. It also requires individual states to send off absentee ballots to servicemen and women stationed overseas in a timely manner.

Officials at the Pentagon had blamed a lack of resources and outdated contractor information for the reported lack of voter facilities.

“We concluded the services had not established all the [voting-assistance offices] as intended by the [MOVE Act] because, among other issues, the funding was not available,” reads the report, published last week but first reported Wednesday.

The report said Congress failed to authorize additional funding to implement the MOVE Act and added that Pentagon officials estimate the costs of establishing the offices could exceed $20 million per year.

But Mr. Eversole said Congress had appropriated $75 million over the past three years for military voter assistance efforts.

“The notion that they didn’t have the money to do this, that’s laughable,” he said.

Barely a year after it was signed into law, a number of states had requested waivers from the Justice Department. The Justice Department ended up filing suit against Illinois and New York state ahead of the 2010 mid-term elections after a number of counties in those states failed to send off absentee ballots to members of the military stationed overseas in a timely manner as required by the MOVE act.