White House Rewrites Susan Rice's Latest Sunday Show Debacle

According to an email from Fox News White House correspondent Ed Henry on Greta Van Susteren's website, the White House is attempting to rewrite the falsehoods spewed by National Security Adviser Susan Rice on Sunday's This Week. During an interview on the ABC show, Rice told host George Stephanopolous and America that Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl had served in Afghanistan with "honor and distinction."

The truth is that numerous members of Bergdahl's platoon claim he deserted his post and a military investigation appears to back them up. Rice also claimed that Bergdahl had been "captured on the battlefield" and "taken in battle" when all the evidence points to Bergdahl being captured by the Taliban after he deserted.

This of course is the second time Rice has been caught using the platform of the Sunday shows to spread a false White House narrative. In 2012, she became infamous for hitting all 5 shows to lie about a YouTube being responsible for a terrorist attack that resulted in four dead Americans at our consulate in Benghazi.

Hoping to clean this latest mess up, the White House told Henry that Rice didn't mean what she said. What she meant wasn't the words that came out of her mouth, what she meant was…

“She was referring to the fact that he was over there as a U.S. soldier, volunteered for service, and remember has just endured five years of brutal captivity; she wasn’t necessarily trying to characterize the circumstances of his capture which she said we’d have to learn more about; and let’s not get ahead of the facts that we don’t know yet, we haven’t heard his side of the story yet.”

The White House position is that when Rice said Bergdahl had "served with honor and distinction … was taken on the battlefield [and] taken in battle, "she "wasn't necessarily trying to characterize the circumstances of his capture."

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Cantor Helped Cause Flood of Young Illegals, Says Primary Opponent

Rep. Eric Cantor helped cause the wave of illegal immigrant kids who are now sweeping over the border from Mexico, says his primary opponent, Dave Brat.

The GOP’s majority leader in the House has been pushing to pass an amnesty for millions of illegals who claim to be under 30, and that “sends a signal abroad that is ‘get the kids across the border because there’s an opening,’” Brat told The Daily Caller.

The influx has grown 10-fold since 2011, up to almost 60,000 this year, according to one estimate. Officials also predict that up to 130,000 youths will try to cross the border in 2015.

White House officials said June 2 that the wave of illegal immigrants is a humanitarian problem – not a border enforcement problem — and it needs to be ameliorated with free bed and board, plus education and health services, plus transport to parents or friends living in the United States.

Officials did not announce plans to step up border security, or to use a presidential speech or advertising spots to deter or persuade youths to avoid the dangerous trip.

They also denied that the influx is spurred by President Barack Obama’s support for amnesties for younger immigrants.

But the flood “is a direct result of the Obama-Cantor collusion on the so-called ‘Dream Act’ and the statements and signals sent around the world by both Obama and Cantor,” said Brat.

Ray Allen, Cantor’s campaign chief, declined to comment about Brat’s charge.

Brat is the underdog in the 7th district primary fight, partly because Cantor is the incumbent with name recognition, plenty of donations and support from many senior Republicans. It’s a high-stakes fight — if Cantor loses, or just squeezes through, the GOP caucus will likely reject the billion-dollar immigration bill push by business and progressive groups.

Brat is also behind in the polls, but is catching up a week before the June 10 vote, he told TheDC.

He’s drawing support from many conservatives and Tea Party supporters, including radio host Laura Ingraham, who is headlining an evening June 3 rally in the district alongside Richmond, Va.

One of his major campaign themes is steady criticism of Cantor’s decision to support legislation that would allow a form of multi-stage amnesty for up to 12 million illegals of all ages.

The influx of new migrants would drive down wages, and make it harder for Americans — especially the four million Americans who turn 18 each year — to find jobs, he told TheDC. “The more people coming in, then the labor supply curves up, [and] wages drop down,” said Brat, who has headed the economics and business department at Randolph-Macon College for the past six years.

In response, Cantor has touted his opposition to the current amnesty plan approved by the Senate in June 2013.

But Brat argues that Cantor has repeatedly announced his support for aspects of the Senate immigration rewrite.

For example, Brat is challenging Cantor’s decision to support a boost in the current guest-worker program that allows U.S. corporations and universities to hire more than 200,000 lower-wage foreign professionals each year. Cantor also endorsed a 2013 deal to allow roughly tens of thousands more blue-collar workers in each year.

“Creating a workable guest worker program [is] an immediate priority [and] is the right thing to do for our families, for our security, and for our economy,” Cantor said in a February 2013 speech.

That’s “crony capitalism” Brat said. “It only makes sense if you’re a crony capitalist who has turned your back on the people and are serving giant corporations,” he said.

Cantor also used the same speech to call for a youth amnesty that Brat says deserves some of the blame for the latest influx of younger border crossers. “A good place to start [an immigration rewrite] is with the kids,” Cantor said in the February 2013 speech to the D.C.-based American Enterprise Institute.

“It is time to provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children and who know no other home,” he declared.

“It’s irresponsible to announce this,” said Brat. Foreign youths “want another life [in the United States], but they have no idea of the intricacies of U.S. [immigration] policy. So if they get the wrong word — that the U.S. is preparing to let a lot of people in, that there’s a ‘Dream Act’ [amnesty for younger illegals]… parents are sending their kids across for a better life,” he said.

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Pentagon knew Bergdahl’s whereabouts but didn’t risk rescue for ‘deserter’

The Pentagon on several occasions had ground-level intelligence on where Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was being held captive at various times — down to how many gunmen were guarding him — but special operations commanders repeatedly shelved rescue missions because they didn’t want to risk casualties for a man they believed to be a “deserter,” sources familiar with the mission plans said.

Commanders on the ground debated whether to pull the trigger on a rescue several times in recent years, according to one of the sources, a former high-level intelligence official in Afghanistan, who said the conclusion each time was that the prospect of losing highly trained troops was too high a price to pay for rescuing a soldier who walked away from his unit before being captured by the enemy.

A second source told The Washington Times that the rescue operation plans were “high risk” and became even less attractive in recent months when officials in the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command grew convinced that the Taliban and the militant Haqqani network, whose operatives were holding Sgt. Bergdahl, were eager to cut a deal for his release.

“Joint Special Operations Command always had the rescue mission on the table and it was entirely under their ownership, but the big question centered on whether Bergdahl was somebody you risk lives for when you still have time and space to maneuver diplomatically,” said the source, a high-level congressional aide, who, like the former intelligence official, spoke only on the condition of anonymity.

The aide also said there was frustration among some on Capitol Hill that the Obama administration had botched an opportunity to exert leverage over the Taliban, particularly since the U.S. military could have used force to secure Sgt. Bergdahl’s release.

“The prisoner swap was being built up as the only option that was available. But there’s been knowledge of the general vicinity of where Bergdahl was, down to how many guys were guarding him,” said the aide.

The catch, the aide added, is that special operations commanders and others at the Pentagon never sought approval for the rescue mission from the White House because they believed in the pursuit of a diplomatic deal.

The aide said military officials in Afghanistan spent recent months pushing for a stronger deal than was ultimately struck, but were “superseded” by the White House and State Department. The aide would not comment on what the parameters of a “stronger” deal may have looked like, beyond saying they would have involved the Pakistani government.

The former intelligence official who spoke with The Times corroborated that assertion but declined to offer further details, saying only that the deal turned out the way it did because “the administration wanted to close the door on this no matter what the price was.”

Separately, the former official said, “Military commanders were loath to risk their people to save this guy. They were loath to pick him up and because of that hesitancy, we wind up trading five Taliban guys for him.

“The mentality was, ‘We’re not going to lose more of our own guys on this,” the former official said.

Both of the sources said military officials across the special operations community were appalled by the terms of the deal that ultimately got struck over the weekend between State Department-led negotiators and the Taliban, effectively securing Sgt. Bergdahl’s release from Haqqani network custody in exchange for the release of five former Taliban commanders from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

U.S. Special Operations Command declined to comment on the revelations provided to The Times.

But The Associated Press reported that after weeks of intensive searching for Sgt. Bergdahl in 2009 the military decided against making an extraordinary effort to rescue him, especially after it became clear that he initially was being held in Pakistan under the supervision of the Haqqani network, a Taliban ally with links to Pakistan’s intelligence service.

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Pentagon wrestles with false climate predictions as military funds shifted to green agenda

Ten years ago, the Pentagon paid for a climate study that put forth many scary scenarios.

Consultants told the military that, by now, California would be flooded by inland seas, The Hague would be unlivable, polar ice would be mostly gone in summer, and global temperatures would rise at an accelerated rate as high as 0.5 degrees a year.

None of that has happened.

Yet the 2003 report, “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security,” is credited with kick-starting the movement that, to this day and perhaps with more vigor than ever, links climate change to national security.

The report also became gospel to climate change doomsayers, who predicted pervasive and more intense hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts.

“The release of this report is what likely sparked the ‘modern era’ of security interest in climate affairs,” said Jeff Kueter, president of the George C. Marshall Institute, a nonprofit that examines scientific issues that affect public policy.

“It was widely publicized and very much a tool of the political battles over climate raging at the time,” said Mr. Kueter, who sees as “tenuous” a link between U.S. security and climate change.

Doug Randall, who co-authored the Pentagon report, said, “Even I’m surprised at how often it’s referred to.

“I think it did have an impact, for sure, in getting people talking and seeing the connection, which at that time was harder for some people than it is today,” said Mr. Randall, who heads the consulting firm Monitor 360.

Some critics say such alarmist reports are causing the Pentagon to shift money that could be used for weapons and readiness. It is making big investments in biofuels, for example, and is working climate change into high-level strategic planning.

There is no exact budget line for climate change. The Government Accountability Office in 2011 documented a big increase in federal spending, from $4.6 billion in 2003 to nearly $9 billion in 2010.

Sen. James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the Senate Committee on Armed Services, has been the chief congressional critic of the Pentagon’s financial commitment to climate change. He said biofuel projects should be left to the Energy Department.

“The president’s misguided priorities with our national security can be seen in the $1 trillion defense cuts he has put into motion since taking office and then using the limited defense budget to support his green agenda,” Mr. Inhofe said in a statement to The Washington Times. “His green spending in the defense budget is based on the belief that climate change is the ‘new weapon of mass destruction.’ In the meantime the president has loosened sanctions on Iran, [which] has maintained their resources to develop and launch a nuclear weapon — the real weapon of mass destruction.”

Predictions vs. reality

The 2003 report was produced by a consulting firm, then called the Global Business Network, for the Pentagon’s office of net assessment. It is a driving force to allocate money to counter global threats — in this case, climate change.

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Scientists say IPCC puts politics before science, needs reform

Scientists and academics who have taken part in major international and domestic climate assessments say that politics and alarmism need to be taken out of the study on global warming.

A panel of climate experts are telling the House Science Committee that politics often gets in the way of good science at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as in the U.S. government’s own climate research.

Climate scientists and researchers who dissent even slightly from the talking points of politicians and environmental groups are intimidated and ostracized, said one congressional witness. Politics, the witness said, takes a lead role over science in the study of global warming.

“Academics who research climate change out of curiosity but find less than alarming things are ignored, unless they rise to prominence in which case they are harassed and smeared,” said Richard Tol, an economics professor at the University of Sussex.

Tol gained notoriety when reports came out that he removed his name from the IPCC’s fifth climate assessment because it had become too “alarmist”. Since then Tol says he has been attacked by environmentalists and left-leaning media for not agreeing that global warming would bring catastrophe.

“Governments nominate academics to the IPCC – but we should be clear that it is often the environment agencies that do the nominating,” Tol said in his written testimony, adding that it’s “rare that a government agency with a purely scientific agenda takes the lead on IPCC matters.”

“As a result, certain researchers are promoted at the expense of more qualified colleagues,” Tol said. “Other competent people are excluded because their views do not match those of their government. Some authors do not have the right skills or expertise, and are nominated on the strength of their connections only.”

Tol’s concerns were echoed by fellow panelist Dr. Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University. Oppenheimer is far from a climate skeptic and has participated in IPCC assessments for decades.

While Oppenheimer says the IPCC has done many great things, he agrees that there needs to be reforms to increase transparency and openness of the organization’s process. Oppenheimer did, however, say that IPCC reports’ “Summary for Policymakers” (SPM) sections are effectively approved by governments that can distort the scientific findings.

“In the end, the SPM is approved by governments,” Oppenheimer said in his testimony before Congress. “Admittedly, the SPM approval process is imperfect.”

Oppenheimer added that “there have been occasions where government interventions, by causing omissions, have diluted IPCC findings.”

House Republicans have become increasingly interested in the scientific process at the IPCC and in the U.S. government after numerous reports have come out that governments have been lobbying the IPCC to omit some details or emphasize others in their climate reports.

“Not all IPCC authors are equal,” Tol told Congress. “Some hold positions of power in key chapters, others subordinate positions in irrelevant chapters. The IPCC leadership has in the past been very adept at putting troublesome authors in positions where they cannot harm the cause.”

Numerous reports have also come out about skeptical climate scientists being bullied or intimidated because of their affiliations and dissenting views.

Recently, Swedish meteorologist Lennart Bengtsson was forced to leave the U.K.’s Global Warming Policy Foundation, a science nonprofit that is skeptical of the notion that global warming will catastrophic.

“I received emails from colleagues all over the world telling me it was a ‘questionable’ group,” he told the U.K.’s Daily Mail. “But what made me the most upset was when a colleague from the U.S. resigned as co-author of a paper, simply because I was involved.”

Bengtsson claimed he also had an upcoming study rejected by a prominent scientific journal for political reasons.

“The problem we have now in the scientific community is that some scientists are mixing up their scientific role with that of climate activist,” Bengtsson told the U.K. Times.

According to Tol, this sort of treatment of dissenting scientists is not uncommon, as those who don’t toe the line on global warming are smeared by activist groups and the media.

“Other eminent meteorologists have been treated like Bengtsson was… merely for sticking to the academic literature, as reflected by the IPCC, that there is no statistical evidence that the impact of natural disaster has increased because of climate change,” Tol said.

“If similar-minded people come together, they often reinforce each others’ prejudices,” Tol said. “The IPCC should deploy the methods developed in business management and social psychology to guard against group think.”

Update: Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith said the Obama administration “should stop trying to scare Americans and then impose costly, unnecessary regulations on them. The President says there is no debate. Actually the debate has only just begun. When assessing climate change, we need to make sure that findings are driven by science, not an alarmist, partisan agenda.”

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Directive outlines Obama’s policy to use the military against citizens

A 2010 Pentagon directive on military support to civilian authorities details what critics say is a troubling policy that envisions the Obama administration’s potential use of military force against Americans.

The directive contains noncontroversial provisions on support to civilian fire and emergency services, special events and the domestic use of the Army Corps of Engineers.

The troubling aspect of the directive outlines presidential authority for the use of military arms and forces, including unarmed drones, in operations against domestic unrest.

“This appears to be the latest step in the administration’s decision to use force within the United States against its citizens,” said a defense official opposed to the directive.

Directive No. 3025.18, “Defense Support of Civil Authorities,” was issued Dec. 29, 2010, and states that U.S. commanders “are provided emergency authority under this directive.”

“Federal military forces shall not be used to quell civil disturbances unless specifically authorized by the president in accordance with applicable law or permitted under emergency authority,” the directive states.

“In these circumstances, those federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the president is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances” under two conditions.

The conditions include military support needed “to prevent significant loss of life or wanton destruction of property and are necessary to restore governmental function and public order.” A second use is when federal, state and local authorities “are unable or decline to provide adequate protection for federal property or federal governmental functions.”

“Federal action, including the use of federal military forces, is authorized when necessary to protect the federal property or functions,” the directive states.

Military assistance can include loans of arms, ammunition, vessels and aircraft. The directive states clearly that it is for engaging civilians during times of unrest.

A U.S. official said the Obama administration considered but rejected deploying military force under the directive during the recent standoff with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his armed supporters.

Mr. Bundy is engaged in a legal battle with the federal Bureau of Land Management over unpaid grazing fees. Along with a group of protesters, Mr. Bundy in April confronted federal and local authorities in a standoff that ended when the authorities backed down.

The Pentagon directive authorizes the secretary of defense to approve the use of unarmed drones in domestic unrest. But it bans the use of missile-firing unmanned aircraft.

“Use of armed [unmanned aircraft systems] is not authorized,” the directive says.

The directive was signed by then-Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn. A copy can be found on the Pentagon website: http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/302518p.pdf.

Defense analysts say there has been a buildup of military units within non-security-related federal agencies, notably the creation of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams. The buildup has raised questions about whether the Obama administration is undermining civil liberties under the guise of counterterrorism and counternarcotics efforts.

Other agencies with SWAT teams reportedly include the Department of Agriculture, the Railroad Retirement Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Office of Personnel Management, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Education Department.

The militarization of federal agencies, under little-known statues that permit deputization of security officials, comes as the White House has launched verbal attacks on private citizens’ ownership of firearms despite the fact that most gun owners are law-abiding citizens.

A White House National Security Council spokeswoman declined to comment.

President Obama stated at the National Defense University a year ago: “I do not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen — with a drone or with a shotgun — without due process, nor should any president deploy armed drones over U.S. soil.”

HOUSE HITS ONA DOWNGRADE

The House defense authorization bill passed last week calls for adding $10 million to the Pentagon’s future warfare think tank and for codifying the Office of Net Assessment (ONA) as a semi-independent unit.

The provision is being called the Andrew Marshall amendment after the ONA’s longtime director and reflects congressional support for the 92-year-old manager and his staying power through numerous administrations, Republican and Democratic.

Mr. Marshall’s opponents within the Pentagon and the Obama administration persuaded Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel this year to downgrade the ONA by cutting its budget and placing it under the control of the undersecretary of defense for policy. The ONA currently is a separate entity within the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Members of the House Committee on Armed Services objected and added the $10 million to the administration’s $8.9 million request, along with a legal provision that would codify ONA’s current status as separate from the policy undersecretary shop.

The committee was concerned Mr. Hagel’s downgrade would “limit the ability and flexibility of ONA to conduct long-range comparative assessments,” the report on the authorization bill states.

“The office has a long history of providing alternative analyses and strategies that challenge the ‘group think’ that can often pervade the Department of Defense,” the report says, noting an increasing demand for unconventional thinking about space warfare capabilities by China and Russia.

In addition to adding funds, the bill language requires the ONA to study alternative U.S. defense and deterrence strategies related to the space warfare programs of both countries.

China is developing advanced missiles capable of shooting down satellites in low and high earth orbits. It also is building lasers and electronic jammers to disrupt satellites, a key U.S. strategic military advantage. Russia is said to be working on anti-satellite missiles and other space weapons.

“The committee believes the office must remain an independent organization within the department, reporting directly to the secretary,” the report said.

Mr. Marshall, sometimes referred to as the Pentagon’s “Yoda,” after the Star Wars character, has come under fire from opponents in the administration, who say he is too independent and not aligned with the administration’s soft-line defense policies.

The ONA is known for its extensive use of contractors and lack of producing specific overall net assessments of future warfare challenges, as required by the office’s charter.

One example of the ONA’s unconventional thinking was the recent contractor report “China: The Three Warfares,” which revealed Beijing’s extensive use of political warfare against the United States, including psychological warfare, media warfare and legal warfare.

“‘The Three Warfares’ is a dynamic, three-dimensional, war-fighting process that constitutes war by other means,” the report says.

A Pentagon spokesman had no immediate comment.

NO DENNIS RODMAN DEFENSE

Navy Adm. James A. “Sandy” Winnefeld, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that the Pentagon is deploying more and higher-quality missile defenses to counter potential nuclear attacks from North Korea and Iran.

“This is about ensuring we can deny the objectives of any insecure authoritarian state that believes acquisition of deliverable weapons of mass destruction is key to the preservation of its regime,” Adm. Winnefeld said in a speech to the Atlantic Council. “The number of states trying to achieve that capability is growing, not shrinking, with our principal current concern being North Korea, because they are closest in terms of capability, followed by Iran.”

He added that missile defenses are needed “because we’re not betting on Dennis Rodman as our deterrent against a future North Korean ICBM threat.”

He was referring to the heavily tattooed and pierced former NBA star, who has traveled to North Korea as a guest of leader Kim Jong-un. Mr. Rodman calls the dictator his “friend.”

“A robust and capable missile defense is our best bet to defend the United States from such an attack and is, in my view, our No. 1 missile defense priority,” Adm. Winnefeld said.

North Korea is continuing to develop long-range missiles and nuclear weapons. It recently threatened to conduct a fourth nuclear test, and analysts say signs from the closed communist state suggest the North Koreans may test a missile warhead.

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Supreme Court gives Secret Service qualified immunity from lawsuits when protecting president

The Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion Tuesday, ruled that Secret Service agents are entitled to qualified immunity when protecting the president.

A group of protesters had sued over an Oct. 14, 2004, incident where Secret Service agents had ordered police to move them two blocks away when then-President George W. Bush made an impromptu stop at a restaurant while campaigning for reelection in Jacksonville, Ore. A pro-Bush group of a similar size was allowed to remain within sight and hearing of the president's motorcade.

Discriminating on the basis of viewpoint is a violation of the First Amendment.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals previously found for the protestors in the case of Wood v. Moss, agreeing that the Secret Service acted "with the sole intent to discriminate against [the protestors] because of their viewpoint."

But the high court's opinion by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ruled the Secret Service has a legitimate interest in keeping hostile parties out of handgun or explosives range of the president. She also pointed out that, while the pro-Bush group was geographically closer to the president, their view of the open-air dining area was obscured by a two-story building.

Quoting an earlier case, Watts v. U.S., Ginsburg concluded that the government has a "valid, even ... overwhelming interest in protecting the safety of its Chief Executive."

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IRS: Employers Face $36,500 Per Worker Tax for 'Obamacare Dumping'

The Internal Revenue Service ruled it will impose a tax penalty on employers of up to $36,500 per worker for dumping employees into the Obamacare exchanges.

The New York Times, which broke the story, reports:

When employers provide coverage, their contributions, averaging more than $5,000 a year per employee, are not counted as taxable income to workers. But the Internal Revenue Service said employers could not meet their obligations under the health care law by simply reimbursing employees for some or all of their premium costs.

The IRS ruling is an effort by the Obama administration to stop employers with 50 or more workers from doing what critics of the health law said they would do: pay a penalty for not providing insurance and dump workers into the unpopular Obamacare program.

With the Nov. 4 midterm elections looming, the Obama administration could not allow massive waves of employer cancellations before Democrats face an already angry electorate. So the IRS ruled it would slap any employer with a $100 tax penalty per day per worker that used tax-exempt health insurance monies to cut workers a lump check and dump them on the Obamacare exchanges.

The new IRS rule comes on the heels of the Obama administration's announcement that it will bail out insurers which participate in the Obamacare program which lose cash. As the Times notes, "Administration officials hope the payments will stabilize premiums and prevent rate increases that could embarrass Democrats in this year’s midterm elections." 

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White House mistakenly identifies CIA chief in Afghanistan

The CIA’s top officer in Kabul was exposed Saturday by the White House when his name was inadvertently included on a list provided to news organizations of senior U.S. officials participating in President Obama’s surprise visit with U.S. troops.

The White House recognized the mistake and quickly issued a revised list that did not include the individual, who had been identified on the initial release as the “Chief of Station” in Kabul, a designation used by the CIA for its highest-ranking spy in a country.

The disclosure marked a rare instance in which a CIA officer working overseas had his cover — the secrecy meant to protect his actual identity — pierced by his own government. The only other recent case came under significantly different circumstances, when former CIA operative Valerie Plame was exposed as officials of the George W. Bush administration sought to discredit her husband, a former ambassador and fierce critic of the decision to invade Iraq.

The Post is withholding the name of the CIA officer at the request of Obama administration officials who warned that the officer and his family could be at risk if the name were published. The CIA and the White House declined to comment.

The CIA officer was one of 15 senior U.S. officials identified as taking part in a military briefing for Obama at Bagram air base, a sprawling military compound north of Kabul. Others included U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan James B. Cunningham and Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, Jr., the commander of U.S. and coalition forces in the country.

Their names were included on a list of participants in the briefing provided by U.S. military officials to the White House press office.

The list was circulated by e-mail to reporters who traveled to Afghanistan with Obama, and disseminated further when it was included in a “pool report,” or summary of the event meant to be shared with other news organizations, including foreign media, not taking part in the trip.

In this case, the pool report was filed by Washington Post White House bureau chief Scott Wilson. Wilson said he had copied the list from the e-mail provided by White House press officials. He sent his pool report to the press officials, who then distributed it to a list of more than 6,000 recipients.

Wilson said that after the report was distributed, he noticed the unusual reference to the station chief and asked White House press officials in Afghanistan whether they had intended to include that name.

Initially, the press office raised no objection, apparently because military officials had provided the list to distribute to news organizations. But senior White House officials realized the mistake and scrambled to issue an updated list without the CIA officer’s name. The mistake, however, already was being noted on Twitter, although without the station chief’s name.

It is unclear whether the disclosure will force the CIA to pull the officer out of Afghanistan. As the top officer in one of the agency’s largest overseas posts, with hundreds of officers, analysts and other subordinates, the station chief in Kabul probably has been identified to senior Afghan government officials and would not ordinarily take part in clandestine missions beyond the U.S. Embassy compound.

The identities of at least three CIA station chiefs in Pakistan have been exposed in recent years. In one case, a CIA officer became a target of death threats after his cover was blown, forcing the agency to rush him out of the country.

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IRS to start over on rules governing tea party groups, other nonprofits

The IRS said Thursday it will go back and rewrite the proposed rules governing nonprofit groups and political activity, bowing to overwhelming opposition from tea party groups and free speech advocates on both ends of the ideological spectrum who feared the tax agency would hurt political debate.

In a statement, the IRS said it still intends to update its rules but will put off a hearing until after it issues a new version — and gave no timetable for moving ahead.

Conservatives hailed the move as a victory, saying that issuing a new version of the rule before the hearing is tantamount to starting over. Meanwhile, Democrats on Capitol Hill said the move was a setback for their efforts to try to push wealthy donors to the periphery of political debate.

“This delay is deeply disappointing and a real setback for democracy and faith in government,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat. “The only hope we have is when the IRS goes back, they don’t succumb to any form of political pressure and enact a very tough rule that will equally curtail liberal and conservative groups.”

It’s the latest chapter in the IRS tea party-targeting scandal that erupted a year ago, when the IRS’s internal auditor found the agency improperly targeted tea party and conservative groups who applied for status as nonprofit “social welfare” organizations. According to the audit, the agency asked inappropriate questions of conservative groups and blocked some applications for years.

As of earlier this month, some applications were still being held up — including one that has been waiting for five years.

The agency says the current rules — and a crush of new applications — created confusion, which they said led to the tea party-targeting scandal.

Under the current rules, social welfare groups, also known as 501(c)(4) organizations, are allowed to conduct political activities as long as such activities aren’t the applicant’s “primary” purpose. Many of the groups have interpreted that to mean 49 percent of their activities can be political. Organizing as a social welfare group also allows them to shield their donors from public disclosure.

The rewrite that the IRS proposed late last year would have banned a wider array of political activity, including even publishing voter guides or inviting candidates, such as sitting members of Congress, to talk to groups in the months ahead of an election.

The revision drew scathing criticism, with more than 150,000 comments — most of them negative — officially filed with the agency and with the Treasury Department, which cowrote the new rules.

Groups ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union and the League of Women Voters to the American Conservative Union said they feared the rules would stifle democratic debate.

Faced with that opposition, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen had hinted the agency would make substantial changes. And on Thursday the agency made that official.

“Consistent with what Commissioner Koskinen has previously stated, it is likely that we will make some changes to the proposed regulation in light of the comments we have received,” the IRS said in a statement. “Given the diversity of views expressed and the volume of substantive input, we have concluded that it would be more efficient and useful to hold a public hearing after we publish the revised proposed regulation.”

Republicans said putting off a hearing until after a rewrite amounts to scrapping the original rules.

“This proposed rule was wrong from the start,” said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, the Michigan Republican who is Congress’s chief tax writer. “The American people spoke out loud and clear against it, and hopefully the IRS and the Obama administration will think twice before ever trying to go down this path again.”

The IRS said it is committed to still going ahead with a rewrite, but Mr. Koskinen had previously said it wouldn’t be in place for this November’s congressional elections.

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The Nuclear Option: Why Harry Reid Can Smear the Koch Brothers with Impunity

When the founders included the “Speech or Debate” clause in the U.S. Constitution, they wanted to protect members of Congress from the whims of any outside tyrant who might abuse the power of his office to harass, control or destroy his political enemies.

Today, in this putrid era of Senate history, we realize it was a gross oversight that the founders did not extend such protections to ordinary private citizens from members of Congress. Even in their deep cynicism about the human nature of politicians, the founders apparently never dreamed that a man like Majority Leader Harry Reid would one day control the U.S. Senate.

The specific purpose of Article 1, Section 6, of the Constitution was to ensure that lawmakers could carry out their duties in Congress without being delayed, arrested or jailed on trumped-up charges by political enemies.

Further, “for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.”

This gave members of Congress the freedom to speak as faithfully and truthfully as they could without concern that their political enemies might later levy retribution against them. Members of Congress, in other words, were protected before, during and after any official business from the unbridled bullying of tyrants outside of Congress.

So what protections are there for the tax-paying American citizen from a tyrannical bully if that bully happens to be a member of Congress using his powerful position to slander, smear and slime that citizen’s character and motives? Nothing, apparently.

Take Charles and David Koch. They employ some 50,000 Americans and have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on charitable causes, education and political advocacy. Yet at the end of the day, the wealthy and successful brothers amount to nothing more nor nothing less than the most treasured American assets: private, taxpaying citizens.

What respect does this earn from Harry Reid, the man who once publicly expressed relief at the completion of the $621 million Capitol Visitor Center (that you paid for) because he would no longer have to “literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol?”

It has earned the Kochs more than 100 mentions on the floor of the U.S. Senate in disjointed, confusing tirades by Mr. Reid.

He has called them “power-drunk billionaires,” accused them of lying and questioned their motives. There was a time in this country when Harry Reid would have been shot dead in a duel over less.

“It is too bad that they’re trying to buy America,” Mr. Reid said in one particularly incoherent diatribe.

“It’s time that the American people spoke out against the terrible dishonesty of these two brothers who are about as un-American as anyone I can imagine.”

Mr. Reid has smeared the Kochs with such calumny, it is a wonder the Kochs have not sued him for slander.

Oh yeah. They can’t. Because Harry Reid’s slanderous speech is protected in the well of the Senate.

Not only is Harry Reid protected by the Constitution for slandering private American citizens, he is also protected from the wrath of any other member of Congress who might want to rebuke him for such weaselly behavior. (Forgive me. I don’t mean to insult weasels.)

That is because Senate debate rules specifically prohibit any member from “directly or indirectly” suggesting another senator’s “conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.”

So Harry Reid is above the law when he slimes the Kochs from the belly of Congress and he is cocooned in protection from being justifiably slimed by others.

Is there any description for this truly dishonest, un-American, treasonous conduct other than “cowardly bully?”

For some time now, people in the corridors of Congress and outside observers have increasingly wondered whether Harry Reid is going insane. Is he losing his mind? Is he in the grips of dementia?

If so, I hope to be forgiven for my harsh assessments of a sick man.

But you know what is even scarier than a crazed, power-drunk lunatic abusing his high office to torment private American citizens? That there are 54 other duly elected senators who again and again vote to make Harry Reid one of the most powerful men in the world.

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CNN President Jeff Zucker: ‘We’re Not Going To Be Shamed’ Into Covering Benghazi

CNN President Jeff Zucker declared his network would “not going to be shamed” into covering Benghazi and other stories without “real news value” at an awards dinner Monday.

Capital New York reports that Zucker explained CNN’s post-plane plans during an interview at the Deadline Club’s annual dinner on Monday night.

“I don’t think there’s any question about our commitment to breaking news, as evidenced by all the questions about the plane,” Zucker told The New York Times’ Bill Carter 

(RELATED: The five most ridiculous aspects of CNN’s missing Malaysian flight coverage).

“So we’re still there whenever that happens,” he continued, “but we’re going to supplement that with some different kind of storytelling.”

What kind of stories? “Climate change is one of those stories that deserves more attention, that we all talk about,” he explained — though he lamented the fact that “when we do do those stories, there does tend to be a tremendous amount of lack of interest on the audience’s part.”

But there are some stories Zucker is loathe to touch, like the House select committee on Benghazi scandal.

“We’re not going to be shamed into it by others who have political beliefs that want to try to have temper tantrums to shame other news organizations into covering something,” he explained, taking a not-so-subtle shot at the Republican Party. “If it’s of real news value, we’ll cover it.”

For all his talk of “real news,” Zucker felt compelled to explain why his network obsessively covered the missing airliner for two months despite possessing almost no new information.

“I’m incredibly comfortable with it,” he declared. “It was an enormously important story: an American-made Boeing jet liner, with Rolls Royce engines with 239 people, disappears into thin air . . . That’s why we devoted the resources that we did to it.”

But Zucker did admit that CNN anchor Don Lemon’s theory that the plane could have been swallowed by a black hole was over the top.

“He was being facetious, but it did not come off that way,” he said. “And he knows that if he could do it over again, he wouldn’t quite present it that way.”

Zucker, who is famous for his inept tenure as president of NBC, moved to CNN in January 2013 and almost immediately drove its U.S. operation into the ground, with the original cable news network suffering its worst prim time ratings in twenty years.

On Tuesday it was revealed that NBC beat out all competitors in the 2013-14 September to May prime time season, increasing its audience by 13 percent while CNN continued to hemorrhage viewers.

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Georgia, Kentucky primaries to sow seeds for Republican control of Senate

Republicans on Tuesday will cast votes in the two states where they are most vulnerable heading into November’s elections — Georgia and Kentucky — where primaries could leave the GOP champions bruised as they prepare to face strong female Democrats.

“If the Democrats win in either Kentucky or Georgia, it will be next to impossible for Republicans to take the Senate in 2014,” said Ford O'Connell, a Republican Party strategist. “That is the bottom line.”

Arkansas, Idaho, Oregon and Pennsylvania also have primaries Tuesday that will set the lineups for a series of general election showdowns.

But it’s the two Republican-held Senate seats that are getting the most attention because of the stakes involved and the bitter turn the primaries have taken in the five-way Georgia contest, and the Kentucky battle, which pits top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell against tea party-backed Matt Bevin.

The latest Real Clear Politics average of polls shows Mr. McConnell has survived divisive attacks and holds a 20-plus point lead over Mr. Bevin. The attacks have hurt, though, and he runs neck and neck in polls with likely Democratic opponent Alison Lundergan Grimes.

But analysts said Mr. McConnell should emerge from the race stronger, and Ms. Grimes will have to figure out how to respond.

“She will be tested like she has never been tested. She will have to show she is ready for the big time. That part of the equation she has control over and should be able to meet the challenge,” said Scott Lasley, political science professor at Western Kentucky University.

“The other question is one that she doesn’t have as much control over and that is how to run for a federal office in Kentucky without getting pulled down by national Democrats like President Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi,” Mr. Lasley said. “That is a tougher challenge and one that she will not have full control over.”

Ted Jackson, a veteran Republican Party strategist in Kentucky, said he thinks Ms. Grimes is at “her high mark today” and that she has a tough task of convincing voters that they should replace the most powerful Senate Republican with a freshman lawmaker.

“She is a blank slate today, and nobody knows anything about her,” Mr. Jackson said. “I think Grimes ultimately is not going to wear well with the voters. She is a 35-year-old young person with no experience. Secretary of state is not a job. I mean, anybody can be secretary of state.”

Democrats, though, said Mrs. Grimes has overcome a lackluster campaign rollout and that she has done what she has needed to do at this point in the campaign: kept her head down and raised money.

Ms. Grimes has raised nearly $8.1 million and has close to $4.9 million cash on hand, according to the Center for Responsive Politics breakdown of the latest campaign finance reports.

Mr. McConnell has raised more than $21 million and has more than $10.1 million in the bank.

While the Kentucky primary is shaping up as formality, the Republican contest in Georgia is far less certain.

If no one wins 50 percent of the vote Tuesday, it will go to a two-candidate runoff in July.

As it stands, the battle for a spot in a runoff race has boiled down to a three-person contest of Rep. Jack Kingston, deep-pocketed businessman David Perdue and former Secretary of State Karen Handel.

That could be a bad omen for Democrats, as polls show likely Democratic opponent Michelle Nunn was performing better against Reps. Phil Gingrey or Paul C. Broun, who were seen as the most conservative candidates in the race.

But Mrs. Kingston, Mr. Perdue and Mrs. Handel have engaged in an increasingly vicious campaign, which is likely to continue for another 90 days until the July 22 runoff.

“The question will be: Will the next nine weeks be a civil period or one of scorched earth?” Mr. O'Connell said. “If it is scorched earth, then too many open wounds on the eventually GOP victory could give Nunn an opening.”

In other key races across the country Tuesday, freshman Rep. Tom Cotton, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is expected to win the Republican Senate nomination in Arkansas, putting him on a collision course with two-term Sen. Mark L. Pryor — one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the midterm elections.

In Idaho’s 2nd Congressional District, Rep. Michael K. Simpson is positioned to defeat Bryan Smith, a political novice aligned with the tea party.

In Pennsylvania, Rep. Allyson Y. Schwartz, state Treasurer Rob McCord and free-spending businessman Tom Wolf are running to face off against Gov. Tom Corbett, one of Democrats’ top gubernatorial targets.

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