A damning report authored by the Republican-led House committee probing the Benghazi terror attacks faulted the Obama administration for a range of missteps before, during and after the fatal 2012 attacks – saying top administration officials huddled to craft their public response while military assets waited hours to deploy to Libya.

The report released Tuesday pointedly blamed a “rusty bureaucratic process” for the slow-moving response the night of the attack. The report said despite orders from President Obama and then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to deploy, the first military force did not do so until more than 13 hours after the attack started.

The report said one anti-terrorism security team known as the FAST unit sat waiting for three hours in Rota, Spain, as Marines changed “in and out of their uniforms four times,” and even debated whether they should carry personal weapons, according to one witness. All together, the report said, “it would take nearly 18 hours” for that team to move.

The report described a web of internal debates and hold-ups, including apparent State Department guidance that “Libya must agree to any deployment,” though Panetta would later say Libya approval was not necessary.

While various officials debated how to proceed, U.S. personnel were under attack at two sites in Benghazi.

In the end, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans — foreign service officer Sean Smith and former Navy Seals Ty Woods and Glen Doherty — were killed in the attacks.

CLICK TO READ THE REPORT.

In a stunning detail, the report said the security force that helped evacuate U.S. personnel from the so-called “annex” in the end – “likely saving over two dozen lives,” according to the report – was a unit known as Libyan Military Intelligence composed of former military officers under the Qaddafi regime, which the U.S. helped topple.

The CIA did not know that unit existed. “In other words, some of the very individuals the United States had helped remove from power during the Libyan revolution were the only Libyans that came to the assistance of the United States on the night of the Benghazi attacks,” the report said.

The committee’s work itself was fiercely contested, with Democrats accusing Republican members of trying to politically harm presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time of the attacks.

Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., asked Americans to “read this report for themselves … and reach their own conclusions.”

At a press conference, Gowdy and other GOP lawmakers lamented that no forces were ordered to Benghazi.

“Nothing was ever coming to Benghazi,” Gowdy said.

Lawmakers contrasted the “heroism” of those on the ground with the discussions in Washington. Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., described the D.C. attitude as “near fecklessness.” He said, “They were more concerned about how they’re going to offend the Libyan government than how this rescue is going to take place.”

The findings about the military asset response the night of the attacks contrasted with the relatively robust internal debate over the public narrative regarding the attack – namely, claims that the attacks were sparked by an anti-Islam YouTube video.

Watch Benghazi Select Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and committee member Rep. Susan Brooks, R-Ind., Tuesday at 6 p.m. ET on Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier.”  

The committee report identified for the first time a White House meeting that was convened roughly three hours into the attack and included deputies to senior Cabinet members and Clinton.

Stevens was missing at the time. But the report found “much of the conversation focused on the video (which) is surprising given no direct link or solid evidence existed connecting the attacks in Benghazi and the video at the time.”

The report found that “five of the 10 action items from the rough notes of the 7:30 pm meeting reference the video.”

The report also showed that there were top-level calls to have the video removed from the Internet, before any of the forces that were ordered deployed “had actually moved.”

The report, meanwhile, found the video narrative was crafted in Washington by Obama administration appointees and reflected neither eyewitness nor real-time reports from the Americans under attack.

One U.S. agent at the American outpost in Benghazi, whose name was withheld for security reasons, told the committee he first heard “some kind of chanting.”

Then that sound was immediately followed by “explosions” and “gunfire, then roughly 70 people rushing into the compound with an assortment of “AK-47s, grenades, RPG’s … a couple of different assault rifles,” the agent said.

In addition, a senior watch officer at the State Department’s diplomatic security command described the Sept. 11, 2012, strikes as “a full on attack against our compound.”

When asked whether he saw or heard a protest prior to the attacks, the officer replied, “zip, nothing, nada,” according to the Republican majority report.

“None of the information coming directly from the agents on the ground in Benghazi during the attacks mentioned anything about a video or a protest. The firsthand accounts made their way to the office of the Secretary through multiple channels quickly,” the report concluded.

Five days later, then-United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice went on every national Sunday talk show. She told Fox News Sunday, “What sparked the recent violence was the airing on the Internet of a very hateful, very offensive video that has offended many people around the world.”

The report also said, “Security deficiencies plagued the Benghazi Mission compound in the lead-up to September 2012.”

Panetta bluntly told the committee “an intelligence failure” occurred with respect to Benghazi. Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell also acknowledged multiple times an intelligence failure did in fact occur prior to the Benghazi attacks.

The committee proposed 25 recommendations for the Pentagon, State Department, intelligence community and Congress aimed at strengthening security for American personnel overseas. Among them were: Figuring out who is in charge in such situations, holding joint training exercises, and improving communication.

The GOP report came after a report by the Democrats on the panel saying that security at the Benghazi, Libya facility was “woefully inadequate” but Clinton never personally denied any requests from diplomats for additional protection.

Democrats have long slammed the committee’s work as partisan, and Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon repeated that charge Tuesday.

“Far from honoring the four brave Americans who died, the Benghazi Committee has been a partisan sham since its start,” he tweeted.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner defended the department in a written statement issued shortly before the report’s formal release, while saying the “essential facts” surrounding the attacks have been known “for some time.”

“We have made great progress towards making our posts safer since 2012,” Toner said. “… Our implementation efforts include work to expand the corps of Diplomatic Security personnel, enhance interagency coordination to address threat information, expand the Marine Security Guard program, and accelerate projects to build and upgrade secure facilities.”

He said the department “cooperated extensively with the Select Committee,” providing over 50 current and former employees for interviews and over 100,000 pages of documents.

The report, though, said the department “withheld a number of documents from the Committee based on ‘executive branch confidentiality interests,’ an administration-constructed privilege not recognized by the Constitution.”

Fox News’ Catherine Herridge and Bret Baier contributed to this report. 

WASHINGTON –  A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the government’s “net neutrality” rules that require internet providers to treat all web traffic equally.

The 2-1 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is a win for the Obama administration, consumer groups and content companies such as Netflix that want to prevent online content from being blocked or channeled into fast and slow lanes.

The rules treat broadband service like a public utility and prevent internet service providers from offering preferential treatment to sites that pay for faster service.

The Federal Communications Commission argued that the rules are crucial for allowing customers to go anywhere on the internet without a provider favoring its own service over that of other competitors. The FCC’s move to reclassify broadband came after President Barack Obama publicly urged the commission to protect consumers by regulating internet service as it does other public utilities.

A former model who was featured at the center of a lengthy New York Times report that assailed Donald Trump’s treatment of women said Monday that her account was taken out of context, misquoted and “spun” by the Times in order to portray the Republican presidential candidate in a negative light.

“They spun it to where it appeared negative. I did not have a negative experience with Donald Trump,” Rowanne Brewer Lane told “Fox & Friends.”

Lane briefly dated Trump after the 1990 encounter described in the Times article. But the way she described their relationship and that encounter on Monday was much different than the way it was portrayed in the front-page weekend article that ran under the explosive headline, “Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved with Women in Private.”

The article opens by describing how Lane, then 26 years old, met Trump at a pool party at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., estate. According to the piece, Trump had barely met her “when he asked her to change out of her clothes.” He gave her a bikini, which she changed into. Lane is quoted as saying, “He brought me out to the pool and said, ‘That is a stunning Trump girl, isn’t it?’”

The Times goes on to describe the incident as “a debasing face-to-face encounter between Mr. Trump and a young woman he hardly knew.”

But Lane told Fox News that was not the case.

“He never made me feel like I was being demeaned in any way,” she said, calling the article “very upsetting.”

“The New York Times told us several times that they would make sure that my story that I was telling came across … that it would not be a hit piece,” she said. “That my story would come across the way that I was telling it … and it absolutely was not.”

Lane said she did in fact meet Trump at that pool party, but said he had simply offered her a swimsuit – she said “okay,” since she hadn’t brought one.

As for Trump’s comment about her being “stunning,” she said, “I was actually flattered” by that, not demeaned. “That’s what I told the Times and they spun it completely differently.”

She described the now-presumptive GOP presidential nominee as a “gentleman” and said she planned to support him in the election.

The Times reporters, meanwhile, defended their story on Monday.

“I think readers of the story can digest what happened to her at Mar-a-Lago,” reporter Michael Barbaro said on CBS’ “This Morning.”

He said, “Recall in my interview with her … she basically expressed that ‘I was taken aback by this.’ And I think that’s how we depicted it.”

“We gathered a variety of voices. And our story is not just Rowanne’s account. It’s the experience of many women,” reporter Megan Twohey said on the same program. According to the article, the reporters interviewed dozens of women who had worked for, dated or interacted with Trump.

In a written statement, a New York Times spokesperson also said: “Ms. Brewer Lane was quoted fairly, accurately and at length. The story provides context for the reader including that the swimsuit scene was the ‘start of a whirlwind romance’ between Ms. Brewer Lane and Mr. Trump.”

Trump, though, took to Twitter to hammer the Times over the piece, following Lane’s comments on Fox News. Trump initially misspelled Lane’s first name as “Roseanne,” before correcting himself.

FoxNews.com

We have so many opportunities in the workforce, yet women are often still told that we’ve got to run ourselves ragged and forego balance in order to break through the glass ceiling. Why?

Part of the reason work-life balance is difficult to achieve is because our society places so much weight on the financial success of one’s career.

For women, this has been particularly difficult because of the claim that we are underpaid compared with men and the notion that we have to work twice as hard to get to a level playing field. The ubiquitous statistic that women earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn is a compelling story that points to systemic discrimination against women.

The problem is that it’s untrue. In reality, in our 20s women are paid better than men—by 8 cents on the dollar. And overall, 72 percent of women say they have about the same opportunities to advance to top executive and professional positions in their companies as men. We are now as likely as men to be company managers.

Now, it is true that on average men earn more than women, and they also hold a greater number of executive positions. Yet this wage gap is usually not the product of workplace discrimination but rather is the product of the choices and needs of both women and men. Here’s a radical thought: Women are different than men, and our priorities, demands, and career paths differ in most cases because of our own choosing.

Rather than pitting men and women against each other and using simplistic numbers to suggest that women are victims, we ought to acknowledge these differences and embrace the choices we make

When we take into account things like education, hours worked, industry, experience, and career choice, the wage gap disappears.

Rather than pitting men and women against each other and using simplistic numbers to suggest that women are victims, we ought to acknowledge these differences and embrace the choices we make, understanding the different salaries that may result.

For instance, most women today prefer not to work full time while their children are growing up. This decision naturally slows our workplace trajectory and can decrease our wages when we do return, particularly when you take into account that only 40 percent of women who take time off for children re-enter full-time work.

Women also work fewer hours than men on average—thirty-five minutes less per day than men among full-time workers—often due to the fact that mothers voluntarily provide more time at home caring for children. I understand this desire to be home with our children; the bond of motherhood is the strongest emotion I have ever experienced. Feminism refuses to acknowledge and validate this option.

Additionally, women are more likely to be teachers and men are more likely to work in finance. Women also tend to choose jobs that offer more regular hours and greater flexibility—jobs that can accommodate the demands of raising children and managing other familial demands, but which may pay less.

We don’t all have to be on a path to the Fortune 500. I am so encouraged by the fact that as women gain greater opportunities in the workplace, they are choosing to enter careers that interest them, even if many of these careers have lower earnings over the long run. We absolutely should encourage girls in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In the past there has not been enough emphasis on this opportunity, and we can do better. I also believe that it should still be their choice.

Perhaps more opportunities for girls and boys at the elementary school level will orient more women toward these fields, but for now we must acknowledge that women’s career choice is a factor that affects the wage gap—and that giving women choice without guilt isn’t a bad thing.

As long as women recognize the financial implications of their career choices, I say, “Good for them!” No one should choose a career based on money alone. There’s not enough money in the world to compensate for a job you hate. I encourage women to choose a career they love, as long as it’s honest work and pays the bills. They should also look at all their options. We often limit ourselves.

Now, all of this is not to say that some fields are still difficult for women to break into or that there aren’t bad bosses. Humans are still sinful, and therefore discrimination against women does still exist.

However, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act have given us recourse in the courts and act as a deterrent to unfair employers. Concerned Women for America recently filed an amicus brief in support of a woman who was discriminated against by UPS because of her pregnancy, and she won. We have legal recourse, and we should use it if we are wronged—including and perhaps especially when it comes to sexual harassment.

I experienced sexual harassment in one job as a twentysomething, and it was disgusting and humiliating. I was highly employable and therefore sought and got another job, but sexual harassment is intolerable. Our daughters should never have to put up with that nonsense—and thankfully they don’t have to. We are blessed in this country by equal protection under the law, something women in much of the world can still only dream about.

Overall, the insistence on a wage gap and on widespread discrimination against women is sometimes used by feminists to perpetuate the notion that patriarchy prevents us from attaining career success and equity with men. Victim bating is politically profitable for feminists, but it simply doesn’t hold up. While choices we make about motherhood, work hours, and industry sectors may hinder our corporate-track momentum or stall our wages for a period of time, they are also opening up avenues to a work-life balance that is manageable and allows us to flourish.

By Penny Young Nance @PYNance

Ted Cruz told reporters Wednesday that he’ll be making a “major announcement” during a 4 p.m. ET rally in Indianapolis, where he’s expected to announce that ex-presidential hopeful and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina will be his running mate should he win the GOP nomination.

The New Hampshire television station WMUR reported that Cruz intended to announce Fiorina as his running mate. Politico subsequently reported that Cruz would make the announcement in an attempt to add a new jolt to a staggering campaign.

Fiorina was spotted in Indianapolis ahead of the announcement.

Fiorina endorsed Cruz not long after dropping out of the GOP race, and she has frequently appeared as a surrogate for the senator since.

Cruz is fresh off of a massive defeat during Tuesday’s East-Coast primaries. He dropped all five contests by large margins to GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, who has now defeated Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich in six straight contests.

The Texas senator is mathematically eliminated from reaching the 1,237 delegates needed to secure the GOP nomination ahead of the July convention. But he is hoping to stop Trump from reaching that number so that the convention can be opened up to a second ballot of voting.

In hopes of doing so, Cruz recently struck an agreement with Kasich that called for the Ohio governor to pull resources out of Indiana, clearing the way for Cruz to have a more favorable matchup with Trump.

For his part, Trump addressed the Fiorina speculation during a round of television appearances Wednesday. He brushed it off during a “Good Morning America” interview, saying Fiorina “did not resonate” when she was a candidate.

By Allan Smith

Smashing Pumpkins founder Billy Corgan blasted social justice warriors and spoke up for the American dream in a wide-ranging interview on the Alex Jones Infowars radio show on Tuesday.

The outspoken rocker told Jones in the hopes of making a documentary-style show for TV about America, he traveled across the country in an RV with a veteran friend, writing songs and interviewing people about their views.

He’s trying to find a partner to make the series, looking to the model of the multi-part Netflix smash hit “Making of a Murderer.”

During the road trip, Corgan said he tried to transcend politics in “trying to get people to talk about America from a heartfelt point of view…whether the America they grew up believing in or not believing in is real or was it ever real?

“And what I found– it was really fascinating because I talked to people from every type of background– most Americans have a very shared conception of what America means. Two things that I heard over and over again were opportunity and hard work. That’s something they learned from their ancestors…that is in the American DNA.”

Visiting radio host Jones in his Austin, Texas studio while on a concert tour, Corgan added, “Now we’ve reached another critical mass point where where is the line of expansion? Is it immigration, in terms of tolerance…in terms of welfare sustainability. Where are the lines?”

In his travels, the rock star discovered, “When you talk about what America means, there’s a lot of love left in people’s hearts for this country.”

Later in the interview with Jones, however, Corgan sounded off against Left-wing social justice warriors, believing they treat every word as a landmine.

“Once we give up free speech in this country it is over,” the Smashing Pumpkins singer sighed.

He considers social justice warriors “weaponized anti-free speech,” and added, “Watch the Clintons.”

“I am horrified to see young people who are coming from a variety of backgrounds…who feel they have a right…to feel that they’re victims…..”

Corgan, 49, hopes this ends but doesn’t think it will in his lifetime.

Meanwhile, he praised how Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump has shaken up the system: “One of the most positive aspects of the Trump campaign is that he connected the dots and those people who feel disenfranchised by the system,” he told Jones.

Corgan said even some people in his own family fall into that group who feel, “I paid my taxes, I’ve raised my kids, I’ve worked hard but why am I being asked to carry some additional burden here?…Why am I being guilted?

According to Corgan, the billionaire businessman has struck a chord: “Trump is known to most people because he was on a TV show….there’s not a smarter communicator on the business level that he is….When you watch his speeches, it’s like, it’s all sound bites so he’s understood.”

When Jones asked why the Republican establishment is so scared of Trump, Corgan commented, “He is a true outlier in the dangerous sense of, he won’t play by any particular rule.

“Let’s be real simple here…we all belong to a club, a clique of friends, a team, and here comes the newcomer and they say, we don’t if we want you on our team because you’re going to mess up our dynamic.

Corgan calls the Republican convention this July a “zeitgeist moment” and said he believes in peaceful political dissent there.

But he’s no fan of Twitter (which he quit recently) and other social media like Facebook which he feels is a form of mind control enslaving people.

“I don’t want to be anybody’s b–ch [or] pawn,” he said.

To Corgan, the press is part of the problem, “The media is presenting things, ‘oh, hey, your vote doesn’t count. Let’s move on.’ That is literally the next installment of the reality show….tune in next to find out whether or not your vote does matter.”

Though not singling anyone out in politics, Corgan decried the “brazen robbing of people’s ability to cast their votes.”

By Carole Glines

The three Democrats on the Federal Election Commission, in their latest and boldest move to regulate conservative media, voted in unison to punish a movie maker critical of President Obama after he distributed for free his latest work, Dreams of My Real Father: A Story of Reds and Deception.

Filmmaker Joel Gilbert, owner of Highway 61 films, has produced several independent politically-themed movies and sent Dreams out to millions of voters in key swing states prior to the 2012 election.

While he acted on his own, and with no ties to political groups or parties, an FEC complaint was filed claiming he violated reporting rules, prompting him to seek the standard media “exemption.”

But despite giving the same exemption to liberal movie makers like Michael Moore and Daily Kos, the Democrats recently voted against Gilbert in a February action, reviving their bid to punish conservative media, a campaign initially targeting online news outlets like the Drudge Report.

Lucky for Gilbert, the three Republicans on the FEC also united to vote to give him the exemption. The tie vote blocked any action, and was followed by a unanimous 6-0 vote to close the file. Had he lost, Gilbert would have been required to report who helped fund the anti-Obama movie.

The latest Democratic move on conservatives comes as some Democrats in Congress, and liberal publications, are pushing to end the even split between Democrats and Republicans on the FEC, a move conservatives have warned would lead to punishing new rules on right-leaning media and candidates.

By Paul Bedard

Chelsea Clinton, in an implicit swipe at the impact of President Obama’s health care law, recently told voters that many Americans still are facing “crushing costs” from health insurance even under the Affordable Care Act.

The comments were captured in a video posted this week. In her remarks, Clinton said her mother — presidential candidate Hillary Clinton — could use executive action to curb those costs.

“We can either do that directly or through tax credits. And, kind of figuring out whether she could do that through executive action, or she would need to do that through tax credits working with Congress. She thinks either of those will help solve the challenge of kind of the crushing costs that still exist for too many people who even are part of the Affordable Care Act,” she said in the video, initially flagged by The Weekly Standard.

The video appears to be from a Hillary Clinton town hall event this past Tuesday at the Advanced Technology Center at Bates Technical College in Tacoma, Wash.

It’s just the latest controversial comment from a member of the Clinton family; former President Bill Clinton lamented the “awful legacy of the last eight years” earlier this week while stumping for his wife, though a spokesman later said he was referring to Republicans during the Obama administration.

On health care, Hillary Clinton herself has staunchly defended the Affordable Care Act, while saying she would take any steps necessary to fix problems in the system.

In a January debate, she said, “As president, I’ll defend the Affordable Care Act, build on its successes, and go even further to reduce costs. My plan will crack down on drug companies charging excessive prices, slow the growth of out-of-pocket costs, and provide a new credit to those facing high health expenses.”

In December, Hillary Clinton was asked by a questioner at a town hall event why companies are favoring part-time employment over full-time employment. Clinton responded by saying, “the Affordable Care Act. You know, we got to change that because we have built in some unfortunate incentives that discourage full-time employment.”

A report from Freedom Partners released earlier this month states that the cost of health care premiums have outgrown both wages and normal inflation, resulting in an average rise of 28 percent from 2009 to 2014.

“With health care costs still rising faster than inflation six years after passage of the Affordable Care Act, it is clear that the law is not helping lower the burden of health care expenses for American families,” the report states.

FoxNews.com’s Danny Jativa contributed to this report.

Mitt Romney Goes Harry Reid On Donald Trump

Back during the 2012 election the Nation’s Backup Rain Man (Joe Biden, of course, is the primary Rain Man), One-Eyed Harry Reid claimed that Mitt Romney was a tax cheat.

“His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son,” Reid said, in reference to George Romney’s standard-setting decision to turn over 12 years of tax returns when he ran for president in the late 1960s.

Saying he had “no problem with somebody being really, really wealthy,” Reid sat up in his chair a bit before stirring the pot further. A month or so ago, he said, a person who had invested with Bain Capital called his office.

“Harry, he didn’t pay any taxes for 10 years,” Reid recounted the person as saying.

“He didn’t pay taxes for 10 years! Now, do I know that that’s true? Well, I’m not certain,” said Reid. “But obviously he can’t release those tax returns. How would it look?

“You guys have said his wealth is $250 million,” Reid went on. “Not a chance in the world. It’s a lot more than that. I mean, you do pretty well if you don’t pay taxes for 10 years when you’re making millions and millions of dollars.”

Now Mitt Romney is doing basically the same thing to Donald Trump.Donald Trump’s tax returns may contain a “bombshell,” according to 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.Phoning into Fox News on Wednesday, Romney called for the top three Republican presidential candidates to release their tax documents — especially Trump.Romney accused Trump of “dodging and weaving” on the issue, noting that he had been vague about when he would make the records public.“We’re gonna select our nominee. We really ought to see from all three of these fellas what their taxes look like to see if there’s an issue there,” Romney said. “I think in Donald Trump’s case, it’s likely to be a bombshell.”

I have no doubt there will be revelations in Trump’s tax returns, there always are:In previous returns, when Mr. Clinton was the Governor of Arkansas and his wife was a partner in a Little Rock law firm, the Clintons had gone so far as to deduct $2 for underwear donated to charities. The deduction was ridiculed by comedians and pundits, and the White House did not itemize the Clintons’ $17,000 in charitable contributions on the 1993 return.

A $66 deduction for the personal property tax paid on the Clintons’ 1986 Oldsmobile prompted penetrating questions, like where was the car kept (somewhere in Arkansas) and who was driving it (the senior aides said they did not know).

Let’s clear away the underbrush. Donald Trump is a high income person who lives in New York State and New York City. His taxes are under a microscope. Whatever “bombshell” lurks in Trump’s tax returns it is not tax fraud. He is just too big of a target. Is he under a tax lien or similar instrument? Possible, but it is unlikely this would have escaped the notice of the NYC business press.

What might be in the returns that would approach “bombshell”? Trump is probably a lot less wealthy than he brags. Not to say that he isn’t extremely wealthy but there is no doubt he is lying about his net worth. Who cares? I don’t. Trump may even be underwater in his leveraging. Again, a lot of rich guys end up in that position and it really isn’t a problem until banks start to call the loans. You’re probably going to see that Trump’s charitable contributions make Clinton’s $2 underwear deduction look profligate. Surprised? Not me. Rich guys get and stay rich by spending other people’s money, not by spending their own. Does he have investments in unsavory places and with unsavory people? Probably, but I don’t see how this goes into “bombshell” country, especially given who his likely opponent will be if he wins the nomination. Moreover, I can’t see Romney having any specific knowledge that would have escaped the notice of the business or celebrity gossip press.

Rush claims that Romney may be trying to stop several major GOP figures from endorsing Trump by tossing this stink bomb. Plausible? Sure, if you believe anyone actually listens to Mitt Romney.

Quite honestly, Romney’s move is the worse sort of douchebaggery. It diminishes Romney by launching a bullsh** attack. It doesn’t hurt Trump. It makes Trump look picked on by the establishment encouraging them to go deeper into the bunker. It disguises the fact that the emerging establishment consensus candidate is Donald Trump.

By: streiff (Diary)  |

Months before the 1992 presidential election, Joe Biden urged fellow U.S. senators to shut down the nomination process and block President George H.W. Bush’s judicial picks from a confirmation vote.

Why have liberals become so intolerant? They think nothing of denying someone as prominent as former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from speaking on a college campus. They embrace activists who shut down speakers. They publicly shame people for the slightest deviation from liberal orthodoxy.

For them everything from science to the law is “settled” once they get into power. Progress is a one-way street. Their mindset is the very definition of closed-mindedness.

The easy answer would be “they are all bad people.” But frankly that’s a cop-out. Not all liberals are bad people, any more than all conservatives are angels. No doubt among the fevered minions of liberal activists there are people with, shall we say, psychological issues, but that doesn’t explain why so many otherwise reasonable people are so beholden to liberalism as an ideology.

The short answer is that it pays. A lot of people in and out of government benefit. Liberalism also makes people feel good. Whether you are politician dispensing government benefits or the citizen receiving them, liberalism hides the self-interest and sometimes even greed that motivate people.

But the devolution of liberalism into something now openly illiberal has causes far more complex than these familiar explanations provide.

For one thing, liberalism is no longer mainly about ideas. It is about power—as in who has it and who doesn’t. Believing they already know the answers to all questions, liberals view politics and governing as mopping up operations.

Academic research is about proving a point rather than discovering the truth. Science is treated as the private preserve of a certain ideology, not to mention a political weapon to justify preferred policy outcomes. Mistaking as they do their ideology for morality, they see no reason to shun the most cynical of political tactics to get their way. For them, the end justifies the means.

Second, liberalism today is not the liberalism of yesteryear. It’s not Franklin Roosevelt’s or John Kennedy’s liberalism. It’s not even the liberalism of Bill Clinton. It has become something much more radical. Bill Clinton talked about the “era of big government” being over.

Today, there is virtually no government program that liberals won’t embrace. Clinton had his Sister Souljah moment when he repudiated extremism in his party. Today liberals can’t get close enough to the “black lives matter” movement.

Third, liberals have surrendered to (some would say created) the nasty culture of intolerance that infuses our popular culture. To this extent, they are not at all different from some self-proclaimed right-wing people who do the same. But the difference is—or at least is supposed to be—that liberals profess to be the party of the open mind. They have become anything but.

Now that they control so many of our institutions—our universities, high-tech corporate board rooms, the entertainment industry, and increasingly even mainstream churches—they are closing the door behind them, making sure that no one, especially conservatives, will sneak in the back door.

Finally, liberalism has become hostile to open inquiry. Liberal intellectuals used to love open-ended debates because they thought they could win people over with their intelligence and wit. No more. Today’s liberal intellectuals are much more interested in stifling debates than having them. After all, who needs debates when all the big questions have been answered by their ideology? Liberals are no longer the scruffy radicals of Washington Square, but a tenured Mandarin class hotly competing for government research grants.

As I argue in my forthcoming book, “The Closing of the Liberal Mind,” to this Mandarin class:

Knowledge, like human progress, must be created and managed by state policy, bureaucratized and forced on all people equally despite the infinite differences that exist between individual human beings. It is a sad state of affairs, especially for intellectuals who are expected to know better.

There’s an old saying, he who controls knowledge controls power. Liberals get this adage instinctively. They treat truth not as wisdom—as something to be discovered—but as a will to power to be imposed by law and governmental fiat.

In this quest for power, they have become masters at controlling not only knowledge, but popular culture. For example, when Americans watch entertainers like Jon Stewart, they don’t see an ideologue channeling liberal clichés. They see just a really funny guy. The ideology is completely buried. Young people respond in lockstep not because they were indoctrinated by some boring Maoist, but because they think the whole thing is great fun.

What we have here is nothing less than a new and highly attractive form of illiberalism—an illiberal liberalism, if you will. Intolerance is championed in the name of tolerance, closed-mindedness in the name of open-mindedness, and hatred in the name of compassion. It’s classic double-think, and the deception is precisely the danger. Americans don’t expect liberals to be authoritarian wolves in sheep’s clothing. They are not prepared to be on guard all the time because liberals are supposed to be the good guys—the guardians of freedom of speech and the like.

Alas, they are not. Just ask Condi Rice or anyone else who has been denied the opportunity to speak on an American campus.

By Kim Holmes