Senior Muslim Brotherhood Official And Clinton Employee Arrested in Cairo

No it wasn’t Huma, silly.  Just one of her compatriots.

Via Walid Shoebat the  Washington Free Beacon reported:

A senior Muslim Brotherhood official who, until recently, had been employed by the William J. Clinton Foundation was arrested in Cairo on Tuesday and charged with inciting violence.

Gehad el-Haddad served as one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s top communications officials until Egyptian security forces seized him as part of a wider crackdown on officials loyal to ousted former President Mohamed Morsi.

Before emerging as a top Brotherhood official and adviser to Morsi, el-Haddad served for five years as a top official at the Clinton Foundation, a nonprofit group founded by former President Bill Clinton.

El-Haddad gained a reputation for pushing the Muslim Brotherhood’s Islamist agenda in the foreign press, where he was often quoted defending the Brotherhood’s crackdown on civil liberties in Egypt. {

Oh boy…..

Shoebat has also discovered that el-Haddad has strong ties to Khairat al- Al-Shater, the imprisoned Muslim Brotherhood leader, Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns visited in his cell in Egypt last month.

The meeting between the two men was quite secretive but lasted approximately 90 minutes, despite attempts by al-Shater’s people to say it only lasted 10 minutes.

…The Independent reported something else about el-Haddad:

He is one of five members of the project’s steering committee, which is chaired by Khairat al-Shater, a wealthy businessman and influential Brotherhood member. His offices are directly beneath Shater’s in Nasr City. {emphasis ours}

El-Haddad’s offices were “directly beneath al-Shater’s”? As to why that might be, the Middle East Monitor may answer that question:

El-Haddad, who has been the main contact between the international media and the Brotherhood, was the chief of staff to Khairat El-Shater; his father, Essam El-Haddad, was an aide to ousted President Mohamed Morsi. He has been charged with inciting the killing of protestors. {emphasis ours}

 

Shoebat reminds his readers in an update of Addendum G in his  “Ironclad” report. 

It involves the charges made by prominent Egyptian television host Ahmed Moussa, who claimed in July of this year that the passport of one of Christopher Stevens’ assassins was found in the home of Khairat al-Shater. If this is borne out, the Clintons’ relationship to al-Shater’s Chief of Staff (el-Haddad) would instantly become relevant.

Oh boy…

Issa: When Obama Attacked The Supreme Court During SOTU Speech, He Began The Process That Led To Tea Party Targeting (Video)

John Sexton at Breitbart’s Conversation reports that the Majority Staff for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has produced a memo which updates its investigation into the IRS treatment of Tea Party groups.

It concludes that media attention generated by President Obama and the Democratic Party led the IRS to treat Tea Party applications for 501(c)(4) status differently than other groups.

One of the key points of the 19-page memo is that a public campaign organized by the White House led the IRS to scrutinize Tea Party groups:

In 2010, the Obama administration and its allies orchestrated a sustained public relations campaign seeking to delegitimize the lawful political activity of conservative tax-exempt organizations and to suppress these group’s rights to assemble and speak. The impetus was a Supreme Court opinion, Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, handed down on January 21, 2010. In the wake of the Court’s decision, senior Administration officials criticized the influence of so-called “corporate” money in the political process.

As the memo points out “These calls to arms did not fall on deaf ears at the IRS.” The memo then highlights the video of Lois Lerner first published at Breitbart last month, transcribing the entire thing as evidence that the IRS was keenly aware of the political pressure around them (footnote 33 cites this story). As the memo puts it, Lerner was “echoing President Obama’s public statements.” Issa’s staff offers other examples of pressure placed on the IRS, including a memo from Dick Durbin which was distributed by IRS official Joseph Urban.

Issa appeared on Fox earlier today to talk about the report.

Martha MaCallum asked about the fact that so far a evidence  has not been found that shows a direct link between the White House and the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups.

Issa replied, “when the president shook his finger and chastised the Supreme Court in the well of the House during a state of the Union speech over Citizen’s United, he began a process of making it very clear that he had a problem with the court’s interpretation of free speech and as he and others began to show that they were offended by what the tea party was saying – in other words he respected free speech if progressives said it but not if conservatives said it because their speech was “hate speech” – I think he set up a situation that can show the IRS was sympathetic to. Their discovery, their targeting, their denying due process to tea party groups had to do with what they said – not their right to say it.”

Issa also reiterated his intention to have Lois Lerner back “to follow up on her assertions during earlier testimony” because she waived her 5th Amendment rights. But “she wasn’t alone”, Issa made sure to add. “One of the challenges we’re going to have is to get each of the individuals in – all of whom appear to be in Washington – and find out who they talked to outside of the IRS, and it’s more and more clear that they received information both publicly and privately into Washington IRS, and they acted on it.”

Linked by Doug Ross, thanks!

Admiral James Lyons: Impeach Obama Over Benghazi

On Monday, Accuracy in Media (AIM) held a conference with the Citizens Commission on Benghazi (CCB), which is comprised of several retired, decorated military and intelligence officials including  four-star Admiral James “Ace” Lyons. Lyons repeated his assertion, first aired on the Lou Dobbs Show last November, that the 9/11/12 attack in Benghazi was possibly about a staged kidnapping operation “that went terribly wrong.”

Via Walid Showbat:

The video below, shot by AIM’s Cliff Kincaid, provides additional insight from Lyons that backs up our“Ironclad” report. When asked by Kincaid to clarify his comments, Lyons responded by asking (and then answering a question):

“What was Mursi’s number one priority?… Get the release of the Blind Sheikh.”

Gowdy: “I very much want to question Hillary Clinton under oath” (Video)

Representative Trey Gowdy (S-SC) appeared on Fox News this morning to discuss tomorrow’s Oversight and Government Reform hearing on the Benghazi investigation. Like the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing earlier today, it will focus on ARB report and lack of accountability at the State Dept. for the Benghazi debacle.

They are going to have the two co-chairman of the ARB at the hearing to testify and Gowdy said he will be asking them “which witnesses did you talk to and most importantly, which witnesses did you not talk to because I don’t think they interviewed Sec. Clinton and if you don’t interview her, then how in the world can you ask, “were you aware of the security breeches leading up to Benghazi, did you approve the facility staying open despite those terrorist attacks leading up to Benghazi, and we didn’t interview Susan Rice so how are going to know what the origin of those false talking points was, and they didn’t interview the Commander in Chief so how in the world are we going to know tomorrow whether or not he called any of our allies in the region while the siege was going on, and said, “can you help us?”

Asked about whether law makers will call Hillary Clinton back to Congress to testify about Congress, Gowdy answered, “I’ve subpoenaed people for sixteen years as a prosecutor, I would love to subpoena Sec. Clinton, Sec. Rice….”

Patty Ann Brown wanted to know what’s stopping him, and Gowdy punted the question  to the Committee Chairman or House leadership.

There is work being done aside from committee work, he admitted, adding “there is some merit to doing the preliminary investigations work before you call your three central witnesses. I’m not disputing that as a tactic. But it’s been a year. And just today Patrick Kennedy is telling us what we should have known a year ago that security was inadequate at Benghazi. We didn’t need an ARB to tell us that. I very much want to question Hillary Clinton under oath because I’ve never had the opportunity to do so. I’m happy to send my questions ahead of time. I’m not playing gotcha. But the reality is, she’s auditioning for the role of Commander in Chief, and she hasn’t answered all the questions about Benghazi from her last job.”

Pivoting at the end of the interview to ObamaCare, the reporter asked Gowdy if he was among the 40 conservatives Reps who revolted last night and forced Boehner’s hand,  as reported by the Washington Post. Gowdy expressed doubt that it happened “with all due respect to the Washington Post.”  He was at Tim Scott’s Birthday, last night, he said.

 

Watcher’s Council Nominations – Indian Summer Edition

Indian Summer, the dream time, neither totally here nor there…

Welcome to the Watcher’s Council, a blogging group consisting of some of the most incisive blogs in the ‘sphere, and the longest running group of its kind in existence. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.Then we vote on the best two posts, with the results appearing on Friday.

Council News:

This week, Ask Marion and Maggie’s Notebook took advantage of my generous offer of link whorage and earned honorable mention status with some great articles.

You can, too! Want to see your work appear on the Watcher’s Council homepage in our weekly contest listing? Didn’t get nominated by a Council member? No worries.

Simply head over to Joshuapundit and post the title a link to the piece you want considered along with an e-mail address ( which won’t be published) in the comments section no later than Monday 6PM PST in order to be considered for our honorable mention category. Then return the favor  by creating a post on your site linking to the Watcher’s Council contest for the week when it comes out Wednesday morning

Simple, no?

It’s a great way of exposing your best work to Watcher’s Council readers and Council members. while grabbing the increased traffic and notoriety. And how good is that, eh?

So, let’s see what we have this week….

Council Submissions

• Liberty’s Spirit – Foreign Policy Clowns: Allowing Tyrants to Dictate Exceptionalism
• The Noisy Room – Obama’s Middle Eastern Sleight of Hand
• Joshuapundit–Whoopsie…Gay Icon Matthew Shepard Was Actually Killed By Lover Over Meth
• The Political Commentator – Sports analogies for Obama Strategies!
• Simply Jews – Amnon Lord: Obama as a grand failure – or missing the great red herring.
• The Mellow Jihadi – Speaking in Japan to. . .
• GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Sinai Insurgency?
• The Razor – Memento Mori – The Art of Abandonment
• VA Right! – Putin is Right! America IS NOT Exceptional
• The Right Planet – Sun Tzu on Syria
• The Colossus of Rhodey – Moonbat gun control round-up
• Nice Deb – Grief Stricken Christian Woman in Syria Lashes Out: ‘We Blame Obama!…He Is Helping The Rebels’…
• The Glittering Eye –The Lack Of Moral Outrage
• Rhymes With Right – Black Actors Step, Fetch, For Racist Liberal Sarah Silverman
• Bookworm Room – Andrew Sullivan’s marvelously misguided theory about how Obama played Putin when it came to Syria

Honorable Mentions

• Ask Marion – After a Year, Congressional Benghazi Report Finally Points Negatively To Senior State Department Officials
• Maggie’s Notebook – Palestinian Nidal Hasan’s Military Pay Went to Charity: Won’t Disclose What Charity or In What Countries

Non-Council Submissions

• Lee Smith/Weekly Standard – The Damage Done submitted by Liberty’s Spirit
• Mark Steyn –American Ineffectualism submitted by The Noisy Room
• Roger L.Simon/PJ Media – Going to War with the Blind General of Benghazi (An Apology)submitted by Joshuapundit
• Middle East Forum –Beware Syrians bearing gifts submitted by The Political Commentator
• Richard Fernandez/PJ Media – A Gift Horse In The Mouth submitted by Simply Jews
• Castor Praetoria – Things Your SgtMaj Hates…”That’s not my job!” submitted by The Mellow Jihadi
• AEI Ideas – Saving al-Assad submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
• Habitable Worlds –Emotive but Meaningless submitted by The Razor
• Heritage/The Foundry – Morning Bell: 5 Ways Obama Has Trampled the Constitution submitted by VA Right!
• Walid Shoebat – John Brennan has a New Benghazi Problem submitted by The Right Planet
• Douglas Ernst – Dianne Feinstein, NSA apologist, is more dangerous to America than men with rifles will ever be submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
• Roger Kimball/PJ Media –Fundamentally Transforming the United States of America submitted by Nice Deb
• James Joyner/Outside the Beltway – Obama Syria Speech Instant Reaction submitted by The Glittering Eye
• Allergic To Bull – “I Know They Went to Heaven” submitted by Rhymes with Right
• New Scientist–Why A Cyberwar won’t happen submitted by Bookworm Room
• Seraphic Secret – 12 Years After 9-11 submitted by The Watcher
• Barry Rubin – The Solution: How to Deal with Obama Middle East Policy submitted by The Watcher

Video: House Foreign Affairs Cmte. Hearing: Benghazi Accountability at the State Department

Today, the House Foreign Affairs Committee called State Department Under Secretary Patrick Kennedy to testify about his agency’s handling of last September’s terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Below is Chairman Royce’s opening statement as prepared for delivery at the hearing:

“Since September 11, 2012, the Committee has been focused on the tragedy in Benghazi, Libya, where terrorists killed four Americans that day, including our Ambassador, the first killed in the line of duty since 1979.  The focus of today’s hearing, our fourth, is the troubling lack of accountability we have seen within the State Department since.  The bottom line is that over one year later, no State Department personnel have been held accountable for the Department’s failure to protect the Benghazi consulate, and U.S. personnel.  None.

As we know, there were so many things wrong with the State Department’s decision-making before this fatal attack.  In the face of a glaring need, with violence in Benghazi mounting, critical security requests from the field were denied.  The Department was asleep on 9/11.  This led the Accountability Review Board to find “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two [State Department] bureaus.”  But no State Department personnel have been fired, or even disciplined.  No one has missed a paycheck.  

Accountability can be painful.  Those making bad decisions may have long and otherwise good records.  But the Department can’t have a culture of accountability, which is what any well-functioning organization needs, and which is essential to protecting its personnel, if no one is held accountable for the mismanagement and poor leadership the ARB identified. 

Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA) called for changes in the ARB that would make it a truly independent board.

But Kennedy disputed Royce’s contention that the board was biased in favor of the State Department, arguing that they were as professional a group as could be found.

Royce found that hard to believe since no one had been held accountable.

Kennedy lamely argued that four employees had been relieved of senior positions and reassigned to different positions, to which Royce countered – “no one has missed a paycheck…”

“Reassignments just don’t cut it”, he said.