Guns are a tricky topic. Very rarely do you find voters ambivalent about gun violence, gun safety, etc. Someone is either strongly pro-gun rights or pro-gun control, which makes a civil conversation difficult to start or maintain. But the solution isn’t to avoid the topic.

As I mentioned in my last column, you may be the only conservative who tries to challenge a liberal’s worldview. No pressure.

It may sound like a heavy weight to bear, but not if you’re prepared. So, let’s talk guns.

Here are a few strategies that work well:

1.) Common Ground

Even though the other side often demonizes those who support gun rights, it’s important that you not return the favor.

Instead, work hard to find common ground on such a hostile topic. You will develop instant goodwill and buy some credibility as you support a viewpoint the media often finds “crazy.”

So, what’s the common ground? Whether pro-gun rights or pro-gun control, both sides are motivated by one general desire: safety.

The goal is to keep people safe. One side aims to do so via tougher restrictions and therefore fewer guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens; the other side aims to do so via looser restrictions and therefore more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens. The goal is the same—prevent future gun violence. The means to that end is the sticking point.

Start by acknowledging your shared goal.

2.) Examples

Personal anecdotes and stories can go a long way to diffuse a hostile topic like gun ownership. Humanizing your position will only strengthen your argument and paint a clearer picture of what you believe.

For example, when I discuss the importance of gun rights, I like to highlight that I am a woman who values safety in an often unsafe city like the District of Columbia.  Since the police can’t be everywhere at all times, it’s important for someone like me to be able to protect myself.

Another way to lend credibility to your argument is to highlight real-life, recent, or current events where having a gun could’ve saved lives. The shootings at both the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and the Bataclan theater in Paris are examples of long-lasting hostage situations that could’ve ended much sooner if someone on the scene had a gun.

Don’t just tell your audience that more shootings happen in gun-free zones, cite examples to show when and how.

3.) Words

Sadly, in the age of the Kardashians, “Bachelor in Paradise,” and Snapchat, most Americans don’t know what the Second Amendment is, or even understand the phrase “right to bear arms.” Instead, use words that are easy to comprehend and evoke more emotion like “the right to protect yourself.”

Also, you can’t go wrong stealing the other side’s language like “fair” or “choice” (i.e.: “As a woman, it is important that I have the same rights to choose to defend myself…”).

In summary, find common ground by talking about this issue from a safety perspective, use real-life examples, and steal the left’s language to frame your narrative.

So, bite the bullet (pun intended) and speak up.

By Beverly Hallberg @bevhallberg

Shortly after Hillary Clinton left the Obama administration, the State Department quietly took steps to purchase real estate in Nigeria from a firm whose parent company is owned by a major donor to the Clinton Foundation, records obtained by Fox News show.

On March 20, 2013, William P. Franklin, an “international realty specialist” at the State Department, emailed Mary E. Davis, an American diplomat stationed in Africa, instructing her to “put on Post letterhead” an “expression of interest” by the department in purchasing property at Eko Atlantic, a massive real estate development off the coast of Lagos. Franklin further instructed that the signed letter was to be “delivered to Ronald Chagoury.”

The draft letter, also obtained by Fox News, was undated and addressed to Chagoury care of his firm South Energyx Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of the larger Chagoury Group that is spearheading the Eko Atlantic real estate venture. The State Department letter sought, among other things, to confirm that the department could proceed with “acquisition of the real property…[at] the asking price of $1,250 per square meter.”

Overtures to real estate developers from State Department officials scouting locations for embassies, consulates and other diplomatic facilities would ordinarily not arouse interest. But in this case, the budding transaction – never completed, the department now says – raised eyebrows because Ronald Chagoury is the brother and business partner, in the Chagoury Group, of Gilbert Chagoury, a Lebanese-born businessman whom federal records show has donated between $1 and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.

Indeed, Gilbert Chagoury’s friendship with the Clintons can be traced back to the Clinton presidency. In the mid-1990s, Chagoury donated nearly $500,000 to a voter-registration drive designed to help Democratic candidates, attended a White House dinner for premium donors, and met with high-ranking officials  in the Clinton White House – including Susan Rice, now President Obama’s national security adviser – who were shaping U.S. policy toward Nigeria.

More recently, the Chagourys’ close ties to the Clintons generated headlines when a separate series of emails from 2009 – between Doug Band, an aide to former President Clinton and Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary Clinton – revealed the eagerness of the State Department to oblige a request for Chagoury to be granted access to senior officials working on Lebanon.

The State Department’s outreach to the Chagoury family, looking to buy property from the brothers, came less than a month after former President Clinton himself toured the Eko Atlantic project – for the second time. The first occasion was the ground breaking, in 2009, in which the former president participated. By all accounts, Eko Atlantic represents a staggeringly ambitious undertaking: the dredging of millions of tons of sand from the sea floor off Victoria Island and the creation of an estimated 3.5 square miles of new land, on which the Chagourys aim to establish what they call a “21st century city … for residential, commercial, financial and tourist development.”

Mr. Clinton toured the Eko Atlantic site for the second time on February 21, 2013 – twenty days after his wife left the State Department – to celebrate the Chagourys’ reclamation of 5 million square meters of land, a critical juncture in the project.

Smiling and animated, Mr. Clinton was photographed conferring with Gilbert Chagoury and Jeffrey  J. Hawkins, the consul general for the State Department in Nigeria. Twenty-seven days later, when William P. Franklin would order aides to begin exploring the acquisition of land from South Energyx, the Chagoury-owned company, Hawkins would be one of four State Department officials copied on Franklin’s email.

“A month after Bill Clinton visits a Gilbert and Ronald Chagoury-run land project in Nigeria, the U.S. State Department wants to buy the same land,” said David N. Bossie, president of Citizens United, the conservative advocacy group whose litigation against the State Department pried loose the Franklin email and accompanying letter. “Who could be so lucky? A major donor to the Clinton Foundation, that’s who.”

Queried by Fox News about the matter, the State Department said its officials had “prioritized” the search for a new consulate location in Lagos back in 2011 – when Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state – and that an “independent international real estate firm” had identified Eko Atlantic as a potential site the following year.

“Our site search process … is managed by career real estate professionals in the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations, with input from independent real estate firms and other department stakeholders,” said Elizabeth Trudeau, a State Department spokeswoman, at a briefing for reporters on Monday. “The department has had conversations with multiple property owners and their representatives about the possibility of acquiring property for a new consulate in Lagos.”

Trudeau could not explain why a “prioritized” mission had dragged on for five years without success, noting only that “acquiring property that’s appropriate” for a diplomatic facility can be “a long process.” Asked if Secretary Clinton had been aware of her department’s identification of the Chagoury-owned land as a potential site for a consulate, Trudeau replied: “I’m not aware she was.”

The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Mark Corallo, a Washington-based spokesman for Gilbert Chagoury, said in a statement that given the project’s “state-of-the-art urban design,” including advanced telecommunications and security features, “it should come as no surprise that the United States government and other governments from around the world are considering Eko Atlantic as a new opportunity for locating their offices that operate in Lagos.”

John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and Fox News contributor, said the entire series of events involving the Clintons and the Chagourys appeared, at a minimum, poorly handled to insulate Secretary Clinton from conflict of interest charges.

“The impression left is that there’s favoritism involved,” Bolton said. “And it’s just very unusual in State Department real estate and housing transactions overseas to have this kind of focus on someone with such clear financial connections to even the departed secretary of state. Normally, there’s much more competitive activity involved, [of] which we haven’t seen any evidence from the State Department.”

Experts agreed the March 2013 email from William P. Franklin to Mary E. Davis, triggering the State Department’s letter to Ronald Chagoury for a possible real estate transaction, would likely have formed only one set of documents in a longer trail that would have dated back to 2012 – the year the State Department said Eko Atlantic had been identified as a potential site for a new consulate.

Such a trail would presumably include internal correspondence addressing the suitability of the Eko Atlantic site and, perhaps, flagging the potential conflict of interest that could be cited, given the longstanding ties between the Clintons and the Chagourys.

But Citizens United said no other documents on the consulate-scouting effort were turned over by the State Department. The group filed its initial Freedom of Information Act request with the State Department for records relating to Gilbert Chagoury back in 2014, and, receiving no reply, filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in April 2015.

_____

James Rosen joined Fox News Channel (FNC) in 1999. He currently serves as the chief Washington correspondent and hosts the online show “The Foxhole.” His latest book is “Cheney One on One: A Candid Conversation with America’s Most Controversial Statesman” (Regnery, November 2, 2015).

Two complaints of vote buying, four complaints of felons voting or registering to vote, and a voter registration under the name of a dead person are among the matters Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s office is reviewing.

Many of the 18 complaints filed in 2016 came through the office’s “Stop Voter Fraud” website and hotline in a year when the state of Georgia finds itself in a role it hasn’t been in for two decades—a presidential battleground.

On the flip side, this has prompted groups from the left such as Common Cause, Project Vote, and the NAACP to hit Georgia with litigation against the state and individual counties.

The stakes are higher now in the Peach State than in past election cycles. Last year, 15 Georgia counties reported suspected voter registration fraud.

Cleaning Up Voter Rolls

Last month, Project Vote, which has opposed voter ID laws in Georgia and other states, sued the state of Georgia to gain information on criteria for disqualifying registration. In February, Common Cause Georgia and the Georgia NAACP sued the state to prevent cleaning up the voter registration rolls.

It’s no coincidence that the litigation is hitting Georgia in what could be a decisive state, said Kim Hermann, senior counsel for Southeastern Legal Foundation, an Atlanta-based legal group that has filed briefs on behalf of the state of Georgia.

“Voter rolls should be cleaned up to make sure they are accurate.”– @HvonSpakovsky

“The claims are frivolous and without merit,” Hermann told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “What we are going to see is a repeat of the voter ID challenges we saw four years ago. Those lawsuits were thrown out because the challengers could not produce anyone who was actually denied access to the ballot, and these ones will be thrown out for similar reasons.”

Project Vote, a Washington-based group, is seeking the release of documents from the Georgia secretary of state’s office describing why some voter registration forms were rejected.

“Secretary Kemp is illegally preventing us from figuring out just what exactly Georgia has been doing with its voter rolls,” Michelle Kanter Cohen, election counsel for Project Vote, said in a statement. “With a presidential election just months away, we’re not willing to wait any longer, and the voters of Georgia can’t afford to wait.”

Kemp spokesman Candice Broce contends the office has been “cooperative and transparent” with Project Vote.

“We have dedicated a substantial amount of time and resources to gather information for this organization, and they have received the information free of charge,” Broce told The Daily Signal in an email. “It is disappointing that Project Vote has resorted to this unnecessary measure when our office has acted in good faith throughout the entire process. It is a shame that taxpayer resources will have to be used to defend this unnecessary lawsuit.”

For the first time in 20 years, Georgia’s 16 electoral votes are at play. The last Democratic presidential candidate to win the state of Georgia was Bill Clinton in 1992. He lost the state in 1996 to Republican Bob Dole. President George W. Bush twice won the state by double digits, while John McCain and Mitt Romney carried the state by a comfortable margin. This year, Democrat Hillary Clinton leads Republican Donald Trump in the most recent polling of the state, after trailing him for months.

In announcing the lawsuit in February, Georgia NAACP President Francys Johnson said removing voters is based on partisanship.

“This isn’t the first, second, third, or even the fourth time that Kemp has put partisan politics over Georgians’ right to vote,” Johnson said in a statement. “Now Kemp is illegally kicking certain citizens off of voter rolls.”

Kemp spokesman Broce was dismissive of the lawsuit by Common Cause and the NAACP.

“As we have stated all along, the lawsuit is completely without merit and frivolous,” she told The Daily Signal in an email. “The Georgia Department of Law has clearly explained to plaintiff’s counsel multiple times that Georgia law is consistent with the NVRA [National Voting Registration Act].”

Investigating Voter Fraud Complaints

The two state cases on the voter registration rolls come amid a lawsuit in Hancock County, Georgia, that has gained significant national attention relating to cleaning up the voter rolls locally.

This week, a coalition of legal groups also filed a lawsuit against Gwinnett County, Georgia, that charged racial bias in the makeup of districts for local elections.

The secretary of state’s office has a thorough process for investigating allegations of voter fraud, Broce said. The biggest category of fraud usually comes in the form of misuse of absentee ballots, she said.

Several complaints were either dismissed or are still pending. If a violation is found, depending on its seriousness, the secretary of state’s office will either send a letter of instruction to the voter or the local elections officials, or make a referral to the state attorney general’s office for investigation.

According to information provided by the secretary of state’s office, the most recent case to be referred to the attorney general was an unqualified voter allegedly attempting to register in 2014 and a convicted felon attempting to vote that same year. A probate judge in 2012 also found that a third party was bringing in numerous registration forms that included the names of residents outside the county as well as convicted felons.

Increasing Voter Participation

“There could be an indirect tie to the elections this year in filing lawsuits and mobilizing members of a minority community,” Charles Bullock, a University of Georgia political science professor, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “If there is a perception that someone is trying to keep you from voting, then it’s a human tendency to say ‘If someone tells me I can’t do it, then by God, I’m going to do it.’”

Georgia’s voter ID law has been in place since 2007. Voter participation among African-Americans actually increased in Georgia in presidential elections and in the midterm elections, Bullock said.

The African-American turnout for the 2008 and 2012 presidential races after the ID law was put into effect was higher than the African-American turnout for the 2004 presidential election, before the ID law was in effect, he said. That fact can’t be dismissed, Bullock added, because President Barack Obama was on the ballot since African-American turnout was higher in the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections than in the 2006 midterm elections.

A 2012 Heritage Foundation analysis had similar findings regarding Georgia’s voter ID law, showing from 2004 to 2008, the African-American turnout increased by 42 percent and the Hispanic turnout increased by 140 percent. In a comparison between the 2006 and 2010 midterms, African-American turnout jumped 44.2 percent and Hispanic turnout was up 66.5 percent. Further, fewer than 1 percent of the state’s population had to obtain an ID to vote, as most residents already had some form.

The report’s author, Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, said the allegations in the Georgia voting litigation are unproven.

“Fortunately, they have the ability to prove their claims in court—and if proven, then any attempted voting discrimination will be stopped,” he said in an email response. He added, “Voter rolls should be cleaned up to make sure they are accurate and not full of duplicate registrations or ineligible voters such as noncitizens.”

Von Spakovsky said that the 2013 Supreme Court ruling that determined states no longer had to gain federal approval before changing election laws did not affect the National Voter Registration Act that governs cleaning up voter rolls.

Federal law requires that states clean their voter rolls. Georgia has a process that removes people from the list if they had no contact with Georgia election officials for the past four election cycles, or seven years, and failed to return a prepaid, pre-addressed card confirming their address.

“Georgia does far more to find its registered voters than what is required by federal law,” Hermann, Southeastern Legal Foundation senior counsel, said of Georgia.

By Fred Lucas

Assange implies murdered DNC staffer was WikiLeaks’ source

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange implied in an interview that a murdered Democratic National Committee staffer was the source of a trove of damaging emails the rogue website posted just days before the party’s convention.

Speaking to Dutch television program Nieuswsuur Tuesday after earlier announcing a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Seth Rich’s killer, Assange said the July 10 murder of Rich in Northwest Washington was an example of the risk leakers undertake.

“Whistle-blowers go to significant efforts to get us material and often very significant risks,” Assange said. “As a 27-year-old, works for the DNC, was shot in the back, murdered just a few weeks ago for unknown reasons as he was walking down the street in Washington.”

When the interviewer interjected that the murder may have been a robbery, Assange pushed back.

“No,” he said. “There’s no finding. So… I’m suggesting that our sources take risks.”

When pressed as to whether Rich was, in fact, the leaker, Assange stated that the organization does not reveal its sources.

Speaking exclusively to Breitbart News, political polling pioneer Pat Caddell said the Reuters news service was guilty of an unprecedented act of professional malpractice after it announced Friday it has dropped the “Neither” option from their presidential campaign tracking polls and then went back and reconfigured previously released polls to present different results with a reinterpretation of the “Neither” responses in those polls.

“This comes as close as I have ever seen to cooking the results,” said the legendary pollster and political consultant. “I suppose you can get away with it in polling because there are no laws. But, if this was accounting, they would put them in jail.”

The decision comes on the heels of a Breitbart News report that shows a 17-point swing towards Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump and away from Democratic nominee Hillary R.Clinton.

“The looks to me, are far as I can indicate, they have merely decided to go back and revise their numbers in a formula that removes voters or allocates them–I am not sure how they are doing this–proportionately,” he said.

Reuters has rejiggered its methods in order to get the results they want, said the man, whose out-of-the-box interpretations of the American electorate were the brain-work behind the  insurgent presidential campaigns of Sen. George McGovern (D.-S.D.)  in 1972, Georgia Gov. James E. “Jimmy” Carter in 1976, President Carter 1980 and Sen. Gary Hart (D.-Colo.) in 1984. In 1992, Caddell worked for former California governor Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown, who challenged Arkansas Gov. William J. “Bill” Clinton. In the 1990s, Caddell became a popular cable news guest and consulted on various television and movie projects. The 1984 campaign was a reunion of sorts, because Hart was McGovern’s campaign manager.

“What they have done is unprecedented, he said. “They have now gone back and changed their results.”

There are methods for projecting and allocating undecided voters based on complex attitude structures, based on many questions that tell the pollster that this person is in movement to support someone, he said. “Sometimes, they are hiding. That happens. Particularly in the past, or in racially-sensitive cases.”

Caddell cited two examples to Breitbart News.

“On July 25, they originally reported: Trump 40.3 percent and Clinton 37.2 percent, which was a Trump margin of 2.8,” he said. “They have recalculated that now–which I have never heard of–they changed that data, to be: Clinton 40.9 and Trump 38.4, which is a 2.5 margin for Clinton.”

The July 25 Reuters poll now shows a result that reflects a 5.3 percentage point flip from the previously published results, he said.

“Now look at July 26,” he said. “On July 26 they had Trump at 41.5 percent and Hillary at 36.3. That was a 5.2 Trump margin. Then, in the new calculation, they claim that Clinton was 41.1 percent, Trump was 37.5, and the margin was 3.6 for Clinton. Same poll. Two different results. Recalculated, after you’ve announced the other results.”

“What you get is an 8.8 percentage point margin change, almost nine points swinging from one candidate, based on some phony, some bizarre allocation theory that you claim you know where these people are or you are just leaving them out,” he said. “I actually believe they are allocating them because they are claiming they are really Clinton voters and they are using something to move them to Clinton.”

Caddell said he is confused by Reuters’ motivation.

Writing to explain the change in Reuters poll calculations, Maurice Tamman, the leader of the news service’s New York City-based data mining and investigatory reporting team said respondents in the “Year of Neither” were using the Neither option to avoid revealing a decision they had actually made. When events, such as a party’s national convention, compel the Neither respondents to step forward with their actual choice it creates swings in the poll results that Tamman said suggest shifts in opinion that were actually a result of respondents hiding in Neither.

Caddell said at this stage of the presidential campaign, in an election that is so volatile, the undecided are the most fascinating demographic.

“I want to measure the volatility. I can usually tell–I don’t use the forced leans as much, I mean the really forced leans in calculating results, like in 2014–what I am interested in is how those people, who are now undecided get their attitudes and where their attitudes come from,” he said. 

The pollster said when you force someone to make a decision they do not want to make or are not ready to make you are contaminating the data.

“What you are doing is altering their opinion,” he said. “This notion that they are supposed to predict the election today in these polls now is ridiculous.”

Experienced pollsters ask attitude questions to flesh out the undecided voters, to see where they may end up when they do make a decision, but also to understand how they are processing information and what factors led them to a place where they cannot make a decision, he said.

Reuters themselves admit that there are social pressures working against voters confessing their preference for Trump, so they had to be aware that when they force someone to make a gun-to-the-head decision that decision more often than not will default to the socially acceptable decision of Clinton, he said. “Reuters says sometimes they default to Clinton–I just don’t know what they are talking about.”

Caddell said he has always treating polling as the equivalent of military intelligence. When he does a poll for a candidate, he needs to tell the candidate his strengths, weaknesses, and the same for his opponents. There is no incentive for rigging a poll’s sample weights, questions, or forcing decisions to produce the result the candidate wants to see.

As polls in the public space move from news to entertainment, it is more common for polls to be set up to produce high-impact news or entertainment value, which is different from gathering actionable intelligence about the electorate, he said. Even further away from the true purpose of political polling is the poll that manufactures with propaganda impact.

The propaganda polls are actually the opposite of poll-polls, he said. Instead of figuring out what public opinion reality is, the propaganda polls are created to change existing public opinion reality.

“This idea of ‘We need a poll to give the result we want’ to fit either our ideological or political needs is beyond dangerous,” he said.

“It is dangerous because it drives the news coverage and it is all by design now, which is why everyone is in such shock at what Reuters did.”

By Neil W. McCabe

Hillary Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday was “good if you didn’t live in the real world” — and after analyzing it, “all that’s left is she’s a woman and not Donald Trump,” political strategist Dick Morris said Friday.

“When you compare with what she said with reality, you see first of all how flawed it is and secondly what a poor basis it offers for a victorious campaign,” Morris said on Facebook Live. “Not a basis for winning a campaign.”

Clinton’s speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination capped the four-day event at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. Trump accepted the Republican nomination the previous week in Cleveland.

Morris slammed Clinton’s remarks on numerous points:

•  “She began by urging compromise and working together,” he said. “Is there anybody in the world less likely to compromise than Hillary? Like in the email scandal? Like in Benghazi? Her reputation is standing firm and aggressive and telling everybody to go to hell.”
• “She said that we’re not afraid. The hell we’re not afraid. We’re scared to death. When you look at what’s going on in Nice, Paris, San Bernardino, Boston, and Brussels and all over the world — of course we’re scared. Of course we’re frightened of a terrorist attack. … We’re probably more afraid now than we’ve ever been at any point in our recent history except for right after 9/11.”
• “She criticized Trump saying ‘I alone am going to do this.’ … Everybody knows it’s a rhetorical device … — but the idea of a person standing up there and taking responsibility and taking charge is a very good idea and taps into America’s feeling that gridlock and everybody blaming everybody else is really not working in America.”
• “She said she will fight the influence of money in politics: ‘I will follow the money.’ Hillary follows the money, breathlessly trying to grab off some of it. … Hillary is the epicenter of wealth and privilege in American politics.”
• “She said she was going to stand up to China. … You met with China maybe a dozen times and you’ve never stood up to them. You’ve never raised the human-rights issues. You’ve never named them currency manipulators and backed them away from their unfair trade practices. It’s totally disingenuous for us to believe that Hillary will now stand up to China.”
• “She asked, ‘Does Donald Trump have the temperament to be president?’ … Does anybody believe Trump is going to launch a nuclear war? Who’s the one who gets us into wars? Hillary.”

“The entire basis of her anti-Trump campaign was not based on disagreements with his plans,” Morris concluded. “It was based on style — on fluff, on simply saying, ‘Oh God we can’t put up with that man.’

PHILADELPHIA—Young Democrats appear to be part of the coalition championing that dictum from William Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

I expected the youth caucus meeting at the Democratic National Convention, which I attended Wednesday, to focus almost entirely on current liberal concerns such as student loans, jobs, LGBT issues, and climate change. (Given the near absolute lack of mentions of terrorism on the convention’s main stage, I wasn’t so naïve that I expected any talk about the Islamic State terrorists or national security.)

But this was no MSNBC event, and far from leaning forward, two of the three participants on a panel went on extended diatribes about the United States’ history to a room with enough empty chairs to satisfy an army of Clint Eastwoods.

Sitting about half a mile from Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were signed, I got a whirlwind course in Liberal History 101.

“We understand that we have never had a fully participatory democracy,” said Catalina Velasquez. “We understand that democracy, the way it’s defined in the United States, has been about contracting, disenfranchising. The more we disenfranchise, the better. And we are tired of it.”

Velasquez is the director of Young People For, a group that declares on its website that it is “taking a stand for progressive values.” Earlier in the event, Velasquez got enthusiastic applause after boasts of being “undocumented and unafraid” and “transgender and unashamed.”

Nor was the earlier statement the sum of Velasquez’s criticisms about the United States.

“We are really looking introspectively about how this country came about,” Velasquez said. “This country’s built off the backs of native, indigenous people, the genocide of such. This country’s built off the backs of black people … this country is built on the backs of immigrant labor.”

Velasquez added:

And we are tired, and we are tired because history continues to repeat itself over and over again. We are not seeing the change and we are being told to wait. And we don’t want to wait. We’re ready and we’re coming.

Velasquez then proceeded to tick off how long it had taken different groups to be able to vote in the United States.

“And some of us who are undocumented, let’s not forget, are still fighting for suffrage rights.”

Curiously—or perhaps not curiously, given that Eleanor Roosevelt is still enough in the good graces of the left to be given an enthusiastic shoutout by Meryl Streep on the convention’s main stage—there was no mention of the Japanese being thrown into internment camps by Franklin Roosevelt.

At any rate, I’m under no illusion that the history of the United States is free from injustice, immorality, and bad decisions.

But what was striking about the account Velasquez gave was, by my memory, the complete absence of any mention of the strikingly great parts of our country’s history. (And of course, the view that somebody who came to the United States illegally should not only be entitled to live here, but also to vote.)

It was unmentioned how the U.S. championed freedom, how our Founding Fathers created a government system that sought both to avoid mob rule and to push citizens to truly govern themselves, to have a government of, by, and for the people, and to have a founding document that recognized the equality of men.

There was no discussion of how the United States had promoted freedom abroad, and had helped other nations with both financial resources and our soldiers’ lives.  There was no consideration of how many immigrants had fled lands where opportunity was limited and found the United States to be a place where they and their children and their children’s children could truly live the American dream.

While Velasquez focused on the more distant past, another panelist offered a narrative (equally depressing) about the past few decades.

Nelini Stamp, who describes herself as an “organizer,” “agitator,” and “believer in community centered liberation” in her Twitter bio, detailed her views on past presidents:

Our parents saw [Ronald] Reagan, saw what happened, and then when … [Bill] Clinton gets elected, and everybody’s like ‘Oh, we’re here, this is amazing.’ And then we had  [George W.] Bush. Eight years of Bush. And we went to war. We started to prioritize Washington [over] … Main Street. In 2008, we bailed out the banks instead of breaking them apart and they stole 60 percent of the wealth of African-American communities.

But don’t think Stamp’s dislike of the banks bailout means she has any empathy for or interest in exploring the views of the tea party:

A lot of folks thought … Obama gets elected, we kind of packed up. We were like ‘Oh, black president, yes, like I’m so happy.’ And then the tea party came along. And a lot of people thought we were this post-racial society and the tea party came along, and … white supremacy starts to become on the rise.

“If we don’t have a black liberation, black movement in this country … we won’t get anything accomplished,” Stamp added.

Nor was it just young Democrats who championed a narrative obsessed with America’s imperfections.

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who is 47, appeared at the event. Booker quoted “the late, great Langston Hughes,” a poet who flirted with communism at one point, to discuss America. Booker focused on these lines from Hughes’ 1935 poem “Let America Be America Again”:

O, let America be America again—

The land that never has been yet—

And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our might dream again. …

 

O, yes,

I say it plain

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath—

America will be!

“Let us swear that oath,” Booker concluded. “Let us stay strong in faith.”

Stamp also grounded her call to young adults in her historical perspective.

“We are the warriors and … the visionaries of the Great Society that people talked about in the past, of that New Deal that went unpromised for communities of color,” she said.

“So I think that the reason we’re going through this is because it’s just history leading up to this moment where we need to take it.”

By Katrina Trinko @KatrinaTrinko

Democrats have changed America in a truly dramatic way. They failed to maintain the evil practice of slavery, losing the Civil War to the Republicans, then instituted Jim Crow laws to keep American blacks as an underclass, and fighting civil rights and voting rights laws, right up until they could no longer resist Republican pressures in the 1960s.

With the aid of Margaret Sanger they introduced Eugenics to America, resulting in the current 1,800 daily abortions of black Americans–whom they term “human weeds.”

Democrats have pursued several ploys to break down the American way of life, diluting the personal protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution by championing the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments, and constantly attacking the First and Second Amendments.

The advent of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Amendments allowed the government to take the wealth of individual Americans through the taxation of their income–something specifically disallowed by the founders in the Constitution. Why were the founders against this? Because it takes the power of the purse away and individual decisions from families and citizens, and puts it in the hands of the government. We can see how annual trillion dollar spending to enforce government authority has greatly changed the nature, size and scope of the federal government.

Once the jewel of American cities, Detroit was taken over by Democrats and imploded on its own boat and corruption.

With the limitations on the federal government thus lifted, it has increased its power and scope continually, flooding the countryside, businesses and families with federal intrusions.

Democrats have also infiltrated teachers unions and universities, along with media and the press, all constantly bombarding our American youth with messages that the federal government is the answer to every question and every problem, and that it continually needs more power and money to perform its needed tasks. These institutions simultaneously broadcast that America is evil, and that personal liberty and free enterprise are destructive and unfair to minority groups.

How to De-fund and De-fang Democrat Institutions

Because the power of the Democrats is institutionalized, lurking in government bureaucracies, federal agencies, school administrations and university faculty, and news producers, record companies and motion picture studios, at this point we must utilize the opportunities afforded us by the current anti-establishment wave, and do everything in our power to de-fund and de-fang these entrenched institutions.

We must:

1. Eliminate the student loan program and replace it with a federally backed online university system–which halts the leftist indoctrination of our college-age youth and de-funds leftist propaganda universities (see our article “It’s Time to Overhaul Higher Education,” Oct. 25, 2015;
2. Eliminate teachers’ unions, and support school choice and charter schools for all children;
3. Eliminate 80% of all federal agencies, and lay off 80% of federal employees, returning them to the workforce to find productive work in the private economy;
4. Return the federally withheld lands in Western states to those states;
5. Pass a balanced-budget Amendment, and cut the federal budget by a significant amount;
6. Make American History courses mandatory in our educational institutions (ensuring that real history is taught).

By eliminating these institutional strongholds of Democrats and other leftists, we can begin to rid ourselves of the permanent stranglehold they have on our nation, and move the population back toward an informed, invested citizenry. As people become less dependent on government handouts and institutions, and are better informed, they will naturally abandon propaganda-based political philosophies.

PUBLIUS

Donald Trump has opened up a 7-point lead over Hillary Clinton nationally, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll released Thursday.

Trump has 44 percent support to Clinton’s 37 percent among likely voters polled by the conservative-leaning Rasmussen. Another 13 percent favor another candidate, and 6 percent are undecided.

Thursday’s survey marks the third week in a row that the presumptive Republican nominee has led Rasmussen’s poll. It shows Trump at his highest level of support in a Rasmussen poll since October.

According to a RealClearPolitics average of polls, Clinton holds a 3.1-point lead over Trump, 44 percent to 40.9 percent. Most recent polls show Clinton ahead by a small margin, but a CBS News/New York Times poll also released Thursday showed Clinton and Trump tied.

The poll found that voters view Trump and Clinton equally regarding their preparedness for the White House.

Trump has the support of 80 percent of Republicans and 13 percent of Democrats. Clinton has the support of 72 percent of Democrats and just 5 percent of Republicans.

Trump also leads among voters not affiliated with either major party. Among those voters, though, 27 percent prefer another candidate or are undecided.

Trump also leads Clinton by 17 points among white voters and 21 points among men. He also has an advantage over Clinton among voters age 40 and over. Clinton leads by 8 points among women.

The candidates are tied among younger voters.

The survey was conducted among 1,000 likely voters July 12–13. The margin of error is 3 points.

By Rebecca Savransky

The sniper who killed five Dallas police officers Thursday night as they guarded protesters at an anti-police brutality march was angry about recent shootings by police and “wanted to kill white people,” according to authorities.

The Associated Press identified the gunman as Micah Xavier Johnson, 25, who was blown up by a police robot while holed up in a parking garage early Friday morning after negotiations with police broke down.

The murderous rampage was the deadliest day in American law enforcement since 9/11 and prompted President Obama to declare it a “vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement.”

“We’re hurting,” said Dallas Police Chief David Brown in a Friday morning news conference. “Our profession is hurting. Dallas officers are hurting. We are heartbroken. There are no words to describe the atrocity that occurred to our city. All I know is this must stop, this divisiveness betweeen our police and our citizens.”

The protest was one of several around the country, prompted by police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota.

Brown said the dead suspect told authorities he was angry about police shootings.

“He said he was upset at white people,” Brown said. “He said he wanted to kill white people, especially white police officers.”

Initial reports said there was more than one sniper, but at the news conference, Brown indicated the dead suspect may have been the sole gunman. Although he told police he was “not affiliated” with anyone else, three others were being held.

A woman was taken into custody near the garage and two men reportedly seen packing a camouflage bag into a Mercedes before speeding from the scene were apprehended and detained, the mayor said.

A Dallas police source estimated to Fox News that at least 60 rounds were fired over a “large kill zone.” The source added that the shooting would have required considerable planning.

The suspect was killed when police sent an explosives-equipped robot into the El Centro Community College parking garage to detonate the bomb after negotiations went nowhere, Brown said, refuting earlier reports that the man killed himself. Before he died, he had claimed that explosives had been set around the city, and much of downtown Dallas was locked down while police searched before determining there were no bombs.

“It’s a heartbreaking moment for the city of Dallas,” Mayor Mike Rawlings said. “I ask that everybody focus on one thing right now, and that is Dallas police officers, their families, those that are deceased [and] those that are in the hospital fighting for their lives.”

Obama, speaking from a NATO summit in Poland, said America is “horrified” over the shootings and asked all Americans to pray for the fallen officers and their families. He renewed his calls for more gun control.

“There’s no possible justification for these kinds of attacks or any violence against law enforcement,” Obama said, hours after a pre-attack speech in which he cited two racially charged police shootings earlier in the week and called for an end to bias in law enforcement.

One of the cops killed was identified as Dallas Area Rapid Transit Police Officer Brent Thompson, 43. The others were picked off as they stood guard during the protest.

Three other DART officers were wounded, but they are expected to recover, Lyons said. As many as three city police officers reportedly were in critical condition.

Witness Carlos Harris told the Dallas Morning News the gunfire was “strategic. It was tap-tap-pause. Tap-tap-pause.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott released a statement saying he has directed the Texas Department of Public Safety director to offer “whatever assistance the City of Dallas needs at this time.”

“In times like this we must remember — and emphasize — the importance of uniting as Americans,” Abbott said.

The protesters had gathered after a Minnesota officer on Wednesday fatally shot Philando Castile while he was in a car with a woman and a child in a St. Paul suburb. The aftermath of the shooting was purportedly livestreamed in a widely shared Facebook video.

A day earlier, Alton Sterling was shot in Louisiana after being pinned to the pavement by two white officers. That, too, was captured on a cellphone video.

Other protests across the U.S. on Thursday were peaceful. In midtown Manhattan, protesters first gathered in Union Square Park. In Minnesota, where Castile was shot, hundreds of protesters marched in the rain from a vigil to the governor’s official residence. Protesters also marched in Atlanta, Chicago and Philadelphia.

Anti-police protests have roiled the nation in each of the last two summers following controversial police shootings, including the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and last April’s death of Freddie Gray while in custody of Baltimore police.

A Department of Justice investigation cleared the police officer who shot Brown, and, of the six Baltimore police officers charged in Gray’s death, two have been acquitted, one’s case was declared a mistrial and three more face trial.

The attack made Thursday the deadliest day for law officers since Sept. 11, 2001, when 72 officers died, according to the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

Fox News’ Bret Baier, Casey Stegall, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

Despite clear guilt, there is absolutely no chance that the Obama Justice Department will indict Hillary Clinton.

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.