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Subscribe to RSSUpdated 10:42 a.m. - House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told fellow House Democrats today that she will run to keep her leadership position, likely extending her tenure as Democratic leader for another two years.
Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif. gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2102, with newly elected Democratic House members.
"I have made a decision to submit my name to my colleagues to once again serve as the House Democratic leader," Pelosi said Wednesday at a press conference following a meeting with fellow Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
On the 10th anniversary of her election as Democratic leader, Pelosi said her colleagues had made their desire for her to remain as leader "very clear." There had been mounting speculation that the 72-year-old California Democrat might step aside and yield to younger figures in the party.
Recommended - First Thoughts: Previewing the president's presser
Pelosi served two terms as speaker of the House, the first woman to ever hold that role, from 2007-2011, during which time she oversaw House passage of President Barack Obama's landmark health reform law. She has also taken a special interest in advancing legislation intended to address the effects of climate change, prompting a vote on a "cap-and-trade" bill in 2009 which eventually stalled in the Senate.
Republicans seemed almost giddy about the announcement.
"There is no better person to preside over the most liberal House Democratic Caucus in history than the woman who is solely responsible for relegating it to a prolonged minority status," said Paul Lindsay, the communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee.
As part of her decision to stay aboard, Pelosi said that New York Rep. Steve Israel had agreed to serve a second term as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Israel helped Democrats pick up seats in the most recent election.
Pelosi's decision also means the top leadership in the House would presumably remain the same for the next two years:
-- John Boehner as speaker
-- Eric Cantor as majority leader
-- Pelosi as minority leader
-- Steny Hoyer as minority whip.
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It only shows Libs are still libs and don't know their p's and q's from dotted i's and crossed t's. Still stupid is as stupid does. The elections don't mean a thing, country is still divided and splitting further and headed for a direct confrontation between conservative, patriotic principles versus the Marxist agenda of the traitorous left. Obummer will keep pissing off the people who built this nation with his progressiveness/communism agenda and just might succeed in bringing the nation to civil war. We'll see if he lasts another four years.
She has one good quality...She makes Michelle look good. But she's the only one that does...
Freebies and handouts and government subsidies and programs can be nice WHEN YOU CAN AFFORD IT.
However the country is on course for a another fiscal budget shortfall of another trillion dollars.
WE CAN"T CONTINUE DOING THAT!
Fine! Put the taxes back where they were before Bush bankrupted the country. I was doing just fine where they were and so was corporate America and the rich! I'll pay what I was back then to get this country back on track. And once it's back on track, you'll see the numbers on welfare decline. Just as they always have in the past!
I guess its business as usual if they elect her. New Blood is needed, not the same old infected blood.
Democrats you were the better choice, don't screw it up with her.
I love it.....this wonderful President know NOTHING about anything. Wow. How he can sleep at night with blood dripping off his hands is amazing to me. But, if you have no conscience, I suppose it's possible. Those of you that put this man back in office to take down America, deserve everything that will eventually befall America. The rest of us are collateral damage.
How much blood does George W, and his supporters have on their hands? Any blood Obama has on his hands id due to him trying to make a failed Bush program work.
OMG - prog.1 - move on from GW. Fact of the matter is, that was a war - sanctioned by Congress - whether or not you agree. Obama LEFT our men UNPROTECTED then ignored their cries for help! Period. Can your feeble mind compute the difference - or are you intellectually challenged? God, can this cry baby president ever be accountable for his own actions and his own administration? You are just like a follower of Hitler....mindless.
La La Pe-loser
And the traveling circus goes on.
while the Petraeus resignation has since dominated attention in Washington, an examination of the military’s version of events reveals a number of discrepancies and gaps worth closer scrutiny.
THE FIRST DISCREPANCY
The Defense Department timeline on the night of Sept. 11 begins at 9:42 p.m. local time and states, “The incident starts at the facility in Benghazi.”
Right from the start, the Pentagon and the CIA timelines do not match. (The CIA timeline, which was released on Nov. 1, states that at 9:40 p.m., “A senior State Department security officer at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi called the CIA annex and requested assistance.”)
A source at the CIA annex that night told Fox News that when they first asked to go and help, they were told to wait.
Within 17 minutes of the start of the attack, AFRICOM commander Gen. Carter Ham, who happens to be visiting Washington and was in the Pentagon that day, redirects an unarmed, unmanned drone to Benghazi.
PANETTA AND DEMPSEY ARE ALERTED 50 MINUTES AFTER ATTACK
At 10:32 p.m. (4:32 p.m. in Washington), 50 minutes after the incident began, the National Military Command Center, which is the operations center at the Pentagon where Ham is overseeing the operation, notifies Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey.
That means for nearly an hour, no one told the defense secretary and Joint Chiefs chairman that a U.S. ambassador is in peril and his personal security officer has pressed his “personal distress button” which sends an SMS signal back to the command authority in the U.S. and a U.S. embassy has been overrun by attackers.
A CIA team left for the consulate at 10:04 p.m. -- 28 minutes before the Pentagon says Panetta and Dempsey were told the attack had occurred.
Sources at the CIA annex in Benghazi told Fox News in an interview on Oct. 25 that they asked permission to leave for the consulate immediately and twice were told to wait. The CIA says the base chief was trying to arrange Libyan help.
PREVIOUSLY SCHEDULED MEETING WITH PRESIDENT: 78 MINUTES AFTER ATTACK
At 5 p.m. in Washington, D.C. (11 p.m. in Libya), nearly an hour and a half after the attack began, according to the Pentagon’s timeline, “Secretary Panetta and General Dempsey attend a previously scheduled meeting with the President at the White House.”
The attack has already been under way for 78 minutes, but no rescue forces from outside Libya have yet been mobilized.
By 5:30 p.m. (11:30 p.m. in Libya), all surviving American personnel are rescued by the CIA annex team and leave the consulate for the CIA annex. From 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the Pentagon, Panetta, Dempsey and Ham meet to discuss additional response options.
MORE CALLS FOR HELP
Upon returning to the annex, the CIA team and those that were rescued immediately begin taking fire and at midnight, according to sources on the ground that night, begin making radio calls for help and air support. Almost immediately, they begin taking fire from small arms and rocket-propelled grenades.
According to a senior U.S. defense official, “This was not one long continuous fight, but two separate incidents at two separate facilities with some separation of time.”
However, British sources who were near the consulate and annex that night tell a different story, saying there was almost continuous fire on the annex after the team fled from the consulate.
Sometime over the next two hours, according to the official Pentagon timeline, Panetta gives the “go code” for two Marine FAST (Fleet Anti-terrorism Security) teams to prepare to leave Rota, Spain. A Special Operations force which is training in Central Europe is told to “prepare to deploy to an intermediate staging base in southern Europe (Sigonella, Sicily), and a Special Operations team in the U.S. is told to prepare to deploy to Sigonella as well.
It isn’t until 2:53 a.m. (about five hours after the incident began) that those orders are formalized by Panetta and the teams are told they can leave.
TEAM LANDS AT SIGONELLA 20 HOURS LATER
The Pentagon says that the European-based team of rescuers landed at Sigonella air base at 7:57 p.m. on Sept. 12, more than 20 hours after the attack began and 40 minutes after the last survivor was flown out of Tripoli on a U.S. C-17 transport plane.
Fox News has learned more details about the European rescue team. More than 30 Special Operations Forces, part of a Commander’s In Extremis Force, or CIF, which is normally on a short tether, are deployed in the event of a terror attack. They are a counterterror SWAT team.
The group ordered toward Libya was from the Charlie 110 Company, based in Stuttgart, Germany, but had been training in Croatia on an exercise known as “Jackal Stone.” The training involved counterterrorism exercises.
NO PERMISSION TO LAND
Military sources familiar with the orders given to the CIF team tell Fox News the CIF plane headed to Libya -- not to first stage at Sigonella as the Pentagon timeline suggests. The Pentagon denies this, saying simply that they were ordered to an intermediate staging base.
What cannot be confirmed is what time that team could have been outside Libyan air space. The Pentagon won’t say when they took off from Croatia.
Multiple defense sources say that the plane did not have permission to enter Libya. That permission would have to be secured from the Libyans by the State Department.
“FEET DRY OVER LIBYA”
Survivors of the attack at the annex say that they heard over the radio net that night that U.S. military assets were, “feet dry over Libya," which would refer to assets crossing from sea to land and hovering. The Pentagon denies this.
The original story board that shows the CIF movement that night is difficult to find, according to those who saw the original timeline. The official brief, according to those familiar with it, simply says that the plane landed at Sigonella at 7:57 p.m. on Sept. 12 -- 20 hours after the start of the attack, even though they were just a few hours away in Croatia.
This raises the question: what time did they get their orders and how long did it take the CIF to scramble?
The team was most likely flying on a modified MC-130 P Talon 2. A modified C-130 flying from Croatia about 900 miles from the Libyan coast could have been there under three hours from take-off. Croatia to Libya is the same distance approximately as Washington, D.C., to Miami.
Furthermore, the modified C-130 plane used by Special Operations teams can be refueled in flight, allowing them to extend their range and hover time, if an air refueling plane is available. It can fly for nine hours without being refueled.
“It’s not like you dial up the U.S. military and service members go down a fire pole, hop on a fire engine and go. That’s not how our forces work, especially from a cold start,” according to the senior U.S. defense official who briefed the Pentagon timeline. “We are an excellent military, finest in the world, always prepared, but we are neither omniscient nor omnipresent.”
The CIF, which included dozens of Special Operators, was never utilized to help rescue 30 Americans who had fought off attackers on the ground in Benghazi until 5:26 a.m. on Sept. 12. Pentagon officials say it did not arrive in time to help.
In the days following the attack in Benghazi, the CIF team was sent by Ham to Tunisia to remain on standby in case they were needed for other contingencies, such as a retaliatory strike, according to senior U.S. military commanders with knowledge of the operation.
“We were posturing forces to be ready for possible responses,” according to a senior U.S. defense official. “We were looking at the possibility of a potential hostage rescue.”
To date no retaliatory strikes have taken place, and questions remain about what could have been done to help those who were in peril on the ground.
According to the Pentagon timeline, the first conference call to AFRICOM, EUCOM, CENTCOM, TRANSCOM, SOCOM and the four military branches occurred nearly five hours after the attack began.
THE CIA RESCUE TEAM FROM TRIPOLI
Meanwhile in Libya, two hours and 48 minutes after the attack on the consulate began, a six-man rescue team organized by the CIA in Tripoli that included two Tier One Army Special Operators already in Tripoli on another assignment leave the capital to help.
However, they do not have a plane and end up chartering one too small to rescue the entire group in Benghazi and are required to make a round trip. They do not depart Benghazi with the last survivors and Ambassador Chris Stevens’ body until 10 a.m. the next day.
The CIA says that the Tripoli rescue team landed in Benghazi at 1:15 a.m. on Sept 12. The Pentagon says it landed at 1:30 a.m. Another official discrepancy.
More than four hours later, just before 5:26 a.m., former SEAL Glen Doherty, who arrived from Tripoli with the rescue team, and former SEAL Tyrone Woods are killed on the CIA annex roof by a mortar.
THE AMBASSADOR IS STILL MISSING
Security personnel at Blue Mountain Group receive a photograph of the ambassador’s body in a morgue at 7:15 a.m. At that point, Stevens’ body had still not been recovered from the hospital where Ansar Al Sharia, the presumed attackers, had surrounded it.
By 8:30 a.m., all KIA are accounted for, including the ambassador. The Pentagon’s critics say the president and defense secretary could have ordered more assets into Libya to help sooner.
Even by Wednesday morning, several challenges remained. Thirty Americans did not have a plane big enough to get them out of Benghazi; the U.S. consulate and CIA annex needed to be secured because sensitive documents remained at the consulate and annex; and an FBI team would eventually be held up in Tripoli and not be given access to the Benghazi sites for 24 days.
The two Marine FAST teams were not ordered to Libya until five hours after the attack was underway. The first FAST team didn’t arrive in Tripoli to secure the embassy until 8:56 p.m. on Sept. 12, nearly two hours after the rescued Americans had left Libya on a C-17 sent from Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The second FAST team of Marines slated to go to Benghazi was never sent to Libya. Libyan looters and journalists spent the next 24 days rifling through papers and potential evidence at the compounds.
According to the senior U.S. defense official who briefed reporters on the timeline, “There has been a great deal of speculation about the use of or desirability of military responses. Some have indicated manned and unmanned aircraft options would have changed the course of events. Unfortunately, no aircraft options were available to be used or effective.”
According to a source who debriefed those who were at the CIA annex that night, “When they asked for air support, they were told they could have an unarmed drone.”
or 1 trillion last year just in welfare and that doesnt even count foodstamps
Out of control spending is what caused the fiscal budget deficit.
Congress under Nancy Pelosi spent more money than they had all during Nancy's time as Speaker.
That trend has continued.
We have to raise taxes now, but Congress must CUT SPENDING TOO!!!!
If the Government does not radically cut spending we'll back talking about tax hikes next year and the year after that.
The private sector is only half the country now.
Government makes up the other half.
Do we really need bigger government?
No!
Too bad...what else will they have to pass before they find out what's in it?
Thats great four more years of obama & four more years of stretch face. What a pair. Should be laughing, but this is getting serious.
Democrats must be honest and downsize big government that can no longer be sustained.
We have no choice but to enter a period of austerity to balance the books again.
So if Obama is Santa Claus, does this mean Pelosi is Mrs Claus. And Harry is one of the elf's and of course any liberal would say that Boehner is the Grinch???
Power hungry biotch
Nancy Pelosi is an old lady that needs to get out of Washington. In fact, all life time politicians need to serve a term; get out and go back and be productive in society; and live by the very SAME laws and regulations that they passed for the masses to live under! Period. No more lifetime politicians sucking up our tax dollars and ramming laws down our throats that they do not have to live by......step down, Nancy.
If Democrats refuse to cut spending then raising taxes will fail.
And the Democrats will be back next year for another tax hike and another and another.
They'll tax carbon emissions and drive the price of electricity up and gasoline and anything else that depends on carbon emissions to be manufactured.
You'll be squeezed from all directions financially until you have nothing left.
The government would be irresponsible to do that, but it doesn't mean they won't unless you stop them.
The witch needs to stay around so when the obamacare disaster starts killing this country more then we can put her to the firing squad.I guess since the post office is doing so well that we may as well let the government run health care too.Hey mr oblahblah,I guess business owners are calling your bluff and laying off workers so they don't have to pay for your stupidity.
there is a petition here is this link..... the petition is to limit the terms a senate member can run.
if you want to end pelosi's senate run and others like her, then go and sign the petition.
you must retype the link as msn doesnt allow links to be published here..... ....http ://wh.gov/XxUC
YUCK!! Another lifer in office!!
This is Forward? Choosing a stupid whore who has no track record of compromise? This is a guaranteed 2 more years of gridlock. Given the new districts, it'll likely be 4 years of gridlock. Grats on 4 more years of nothing.
Obama Hussein was asked by a reporter if he ordered any protection or help for the four murdered men on Sept. 11. Simple question for this ivy league god. Yes or no. He wouldn't answer. Smoozed all around it. You could hear the blood dripping from his hands..........Unlike Pilate, he didn't have a bowl of water in front of him to wash his hands to try to clean his soul.
thats right, the bum failed as commander in chief as four americans were attacked and killed on 9/11, the same date as the twin towers attack.
The Democratic Party is NOT the one of the 1960's. This new Democratic Party are DEMONS and the people that support them are void of MORALS; that's a PROVEN FACT! People have sold their SOULS to this party to get what they want or DESIRE or LUST for--gay/lesbian marriages; abortions as a form a birth control--EVERYTHING THAT GOES AGAINST WHAT THIS NATION WAS FOUNDED ON---GOD and OUR FOUNDING FATHERS!!! This country has a covenant with GOD, and it's being broken--and if you think that God is not going to take his hand off of us---you're incredibly ignorant--or just don't care as long as you get what you want. The ONLY thing I can say is: I pray that GOD will take me and mine out of here before he unleashes his WRATH on the whole wide world!!!
Try and find the word God in the Constitution or Declaration of Independence. Any covenant is only in your mind.
woodbutcher.....God is in our declaration you hack. Love the people on here that make stuff up. Like i said your a hack pos.
Jules,what did you expect,that he would tell the truth?Four years of BS and four more coming.
Four more years.....yeah, ain't it great?????
I know, Pattern Man. I'm just venting. I realize that there is a certain amount of frudging at times in the political arena. However, these are Americans that were savagely murdered and this President wanted to protect his campaign rather than save these men. I can't believe that anyone, even dems, would think this is okay and let him get away with not being accountable.....
If she ever loses her job.......She is a Prime Candidate to be "Managing Director" of "Madam Toussant's Wax Museum"