scandal

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Joseph Epstein on the scandal that ended the tennis great’s career—and the challenge it creates for biographers.

The judge ruled that the circuit attorney could end up being called as a witness by the defense.

Like most American cities, Washington has been grappling lately with the issue of historic monuments and statuary, public and private, and whether they ought to be displaced and discarded. The good news this past week is that, in a departure from recent custom, a new statue—eight feet high, encased…

For a few weeks now, Nashville mayor Megan Barry has been embroiled in quite the sex scandal. It seems Barry has been engaged in an affair with the police sergeant who was the head of her security detail. (Both are married.) For an added layer of unseemliness, Barry seems to have taken a lot of…

On January 12 the Wall Street Journal reported that Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s attorney, paid a pornographic actress with the nom de scène of Stormy Daniels the sum of $130,000 in exchange for her signature on a nondisclosure agreement. The thing she was not to disclose was an “alleged sexual…

Congressman John Conyers of Michigan announced Tuesday he would retire from Congress effective immediately, making him the first sitting congressman to resign amid the wave of sexual misconduct allegations that has swamped the nation in recent months.

The verdict in the corruption trial of Democratic senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey may come as early as this week. If Menendez is convicted of a felony, Democrats face big trouble.

My guess is that up until two weeks ago, the name of Harvey Weinstein meant little if anything to most people, including readers of this magazine.

My guess is that up until two weeks ago, the name of Harvey Weinstein meant little if anything to most people, including readers of this magazine.

Last week, President Donald Trump picked a fight with the NFL, arguing that players like Colin Kaepernick who take a knee during the national anthem should be fired. As he has done so many times before, the president kicked up a hornet’s nest of controversy. Maybe the commotion will work to his…

Last week, President Donald Trump picked a fight with the NFL, arguing that players like Colin Kaepernick who take a knee during the national anthem should be fired. As he has done so many times before, the president kicked up a hornet’s nest of controversy. Maybe the commotion will work to his…

Wallingford, Conn.

Wallingford, Conn.

Less than a fortnight after his successor was elected, Barack Obama got to work on shaping his legacy. "I'm extremely proud of the fact that over eight years we have not had the kinds of scandals that have plagued other administrations," he said. On January 1, White House consigliere Valerie…

Less than a fortnight after his successor was elected, Barack Obama got to work on shaping his legacy. “I'm extremely proud of the fact that over eight years we have not had the kinds of scandals that have plagued other administrations," he said. On January 1, White House consigliere Valerie…

The VA set out to send a stern disciplinary message to some scammers in the higher levels of its bureaucracy but, well you know, things happen. As Kellie Lunney of Government Executive reports:

At some point, the most obvious explanation is rope-a-dope. 

On October 27, the House of Representatives moved to impeach the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, John Koskinen. It may seem odd that Koskinen is being punished since he wasn’t commissioner when the IRS scandal broke two years ago. But make no mistake, Koskinen is a worthy candidate…

Hillary Clinton has repeatedly claimed that, “The State Department has confirmed that I did not send nor receive material marked classified."

Hillary Clinton was confronted by a voter who pressed her on the Whitewater, Benghazi, and deleted email scandals. 

In its handling of health care for veterans, the VA’s ineptitude and corruption have been widely exposed and condemned.  Though, of late, Hillary Clinton has been saying that it wasn’t as bad as all that. In her view, the real problem is not long wait times covered up by falsified records which, in…

One of the most memorable moments from the first Democratic presidential debate was an unexpected one. Bernie Sanders, the Democratic-socialist senator from Vermont who is leading the polls in New Hampshire, took a question about the email scandal that has badly complicated Hillary Clinton’s…

The problems just keep stacking up for Louisiana Republican David Vitter as he battles to stay alive in what's become a contentious race for governor. The two-term U.S. senator has been dogged by new allegations surrounding his use of prostitutes in New Orleans and Washington, D.C.

Two former high-ranking Obama administration officials say they did not know about the existence of Hillary Clinton’s private email server while she was serving as secretary of state. They also refused to say whether they approved her use of such a server.

Congressman Mike Pompeo, a Republican member of the Benghazi Select Committee, told NBC's Chuck Todd that Hillary Clinton's handling of the investigation into the September 11, 2012 terror attack in Benghazi "worse" than Watergate.

During Tuesday's Democratic presidential debate, Bernie Sanders resuced Hillary Clinton. "The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails," Sanders said, standing up for Clinton.

In Tuesday's Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton admitted that in fact the email issue is a "legitimate" one. Watch here:

President Obama did not provide cover for Hillary Clinton in an interview last night on 60 Minutes. Obama said that the email scandal is a legitimate issue:

The Washington Times reports:

A little over 30 years ago, three generations of the McMartin family, who had run a nursery school in Los Angeles for decades, were arrested, jailed, and put on trial, charged with hundreds of sensational counts of child sexual abuse. Six years later, when no convictions had been obtained, all…

Hillary Clinton is a scandalous candidate for president of the United States. Most people acknowledge this, at least judging by her plummeting poll numbers. A raft of stories gives the distinct impression that she and her husband have been running an elaborate pay-to-play operation. Donations to…

Bakari Sellers, a former member of the South Carolina House of Representatives and a key supporter in that early state, scolded Hillary Clinton for her comments about her email server. 

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer John McCormack on Hillary Clinton and the growing Planned Parenthood scandal.

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this morning, Representatives Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, call for the impeachment of IRS head Jim Koskinen. The congressmen accuse Koskinen of a host of serious transgressions including destruction of evidence, hiding the fact that evidence…

It may sound too ghoulish to be true, but it is. In a video released on July 14, a top official at Planned Parenthood was caught discussing how the billion-dollar nonprofit harvests and sells the organs of aborted babies to for-profit biotech companies.

NBC's Kristen Welker reported that Hillary Clinton's email issue has eroded the trust of voters. And that it's "becoming a big political problem for Secretary Clinton. Everytime she wants to be talking about one of her policies, it's overshadowed by more questions about her use of a private email…

 Carol D. Leonnig of the Washington Post reports:

Over the weekend, Vox published an article headlined "Hillary Clinton personally took money from companies that sought to influence her." Given Vox's overwhelmingly liberal audience and the astounding lengths the publication's top editors will go to defend liberal politicians, the fact they're…

A year after news broke of the waiting list scandal at the Veterans Affairs medical facility in Phoenix, Arizona, President Obama finally visited the facility in March. And while they didn't quite roll out the red carpet for the president, they did clean the floors -- and spent $5,000 to do it.

Kellie Lunney at Government Executive writes, in a report on yesterday’s hearings into mismanagement at the Veterans Affairs Department, that:

Nashua, N.H.

My colleague Jay Cost flags this Newsweek article, which is ostensibly about the scandalous revelation that one of the largest Clinton Foundation donor has trade ties to Iran. But here's the first paragraph:

The Republican National Committee is kicking off a paid online ad campaign just ahead of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign announcement. Clinton is expected to make the much anticipated move as early as this weekend.

James Carville, a longtime political aide to Bill Clinton, admitted this morning on MNSBC's Morning Joe that questions about Hillary Clinton's private email server are "fair."

Hillary Clinton is worse than Richard Nixon, says the Republican National Committee.

Mark Halperin shared a New Hampshire focus group, mostly made up of strong Hillary Clinton supporters, this morning on MSNBC:

James Carville, a former aide to Bill Clinton and a longtime defender of the Clintons, offered an explanation on ABC's This Week as to why Hillary Clinton might have used a private email account: to avoid congressional oversight.

Jonathan Karl of ABC News reported this morning that Speaker of the House John Boehner will announce an "investigation next week into Hillary Clinton's email practices as secretary of state."

Hillary Clinton was the butt of a joke from the commander in chief Saturday night in Washington. The line was delivered at the secretive Gridiron Club dinner, an annual event held by club made up of journalists.

As the White House claims that it was caught off-guard by the Clinton email scandal, or that President Obama didn't realize that his emails to hdr22@clintonemail.com weren't landing on State Department servers, it would be good to remind them: you told us so.

Hillary Clinton's internal review of her personal email account did not involve opening and reading each piece of mail, according to a report in Time magazine.

It’s worth keeping score on how progressives are reacting to the Clinton email problems. Some of them (like Eugene Robinson) are tentatively pushing the issue now, one assumes because they don’t especially like Clinton and think that this might be the moment to pull a more liberal challenger into…

Stephen F. Hayes reported on Fox News that Hillary Clinton's top two aides, Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, used personal emails while working for the secretary of state at the State Department:

During her press appearance today, Hillary Clinton acknowledged that about 60,000 emails, including sent and received, went through her home email server that she used during her tenure as secretary of state. About half of those, she said, were work related. UPI reports:

Just before Hillary Clinton's scheduled press conference at the United Nations in New York City, the former sercertary of state sent an email to supporters of her family's foundation.

Hillary Clinton will be holding a press availability today at the United Nations in New York City. But all members of the press won't be able to attend. Only those who requested credentials 24 hours before the event (or about 18 hours before news of the availability leaked out) will be credentialed.

The White House admitted in today's press conference that in fact President Obama did exchange emails with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state:

Possible Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley, the former governor of Maryland, passed up an opportunity to defend his rival, Hillary Clinton, from growing criticism about her exclusive use of a private email system while she served as secretary of state. The moment came for O'Malley…

In 2012, U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Scott Gration abruptly stepped down from his post. According to a Foreign Policy report by Josh Rogin (now a reporter for Bloomberg), Gration was the subject of a withering evaluation from the State Department:

A buried lede in the Associated Press story about Hillary Clinton's use of a private, home email server:

Monday night, it was revealed that Hillary Clinton used a personal email account the entire time she served as secretary of state. Not only does conducting official business with a private account violate federal law, it raises a host of concerns ranging from whether or not her communications were…

CNN host Chris Cuomo said this morning that reports Hillary Clinton used her private email address to conduct official State Department business "smells terrible."

In 1993, Terry McAuliffe authored a memo that would essentially turn the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House into a hotel for top campaign donors. It would "be an excellent opportunity to energize our key people for the upcoming year," McAuliffe wrote. Now McAuliffe, who is currently the governor of…

Confirming a new attorney general is near the top of the new Senate's to-do list. The power not to confirm the president's nominees is near the top of the Republicans' new consignment of political clout. Needless to say, without the White House, the GOP can't implement their preferred policies, but…

The Washington Post's Carol Leonnig has the details of yet another damaging Obama scandal:

A.J. Lagoe and Steve Eckert of Military Times report that:

The VA’s culture of malfeasance and corruption resulted in a new leader, new legislation, and new money.  Still, as Jordain Carney of National Journal reports:

The VA has created a small public relations problem for itself.  Which, to say the least, is something it did not need. 

Media coverage of yesterday's latest development in the Lois Lerner saga focused on her colorful description of conservatives as "crazies" and "a--holes" in emails released by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich).

The twilight of the scandal-plagued Obama administration is upon us, and voters are faced with a real conundrum. Which of the failures of progressive governance should be confronted first? The Mideast is an even more blood-drenched goat rodeo than pessimists predicted. There are 50,000 illegal…

Veterans Affairs, following the iron law of institutional self-interest, has been paying its people well – improperly and, possibly, illegally so – at the expense of it supposed “clients” and its mission.  As David Wood of the Huffington Post reports:

Reporting on the Veterans Affairs, its problems, and what Congress might do to solve them, Craig Harris and Michelle Ye Hee Lee of the Arizona Republic are not terribly encouraging.  They write that:

IRS lawyers ought to enjoy themselves this holiday weekend because, as the Washington Examiner's Mark Tapscott reports, "they'll be busier than normal next week." IRS counsel will make two separate appearances next week in court to explain and defend the agency's handling of Lois Lerner's…

David Jackson of USA Today reports that President Obama told an audience, yesterday, that Washington is out of touch and obsessed with politics. Or something like that. And that instead of focusing on things that are important to the average citizen, Washington is peddling:

Forty-four years after the legendary May 1970 Life magazine cover story first exposed the disgusting and shameful mistreatment of our nation’s Vietnam-era veterans in government medical facilities, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is once again in desperate need of reform. Courageous…

The IRS reportedly used a private company to back up emails, a new report claims. The company is called Sonasoft, which boasts, "Email Archiving Done Right."

The events of the last few weeks have been gut wrenching for many active duty members of the military and veterans. We have watched the Veterans Affairs (VA) health care scandal unfold, the absurdly lopsided trade of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for five top-level Taliban commanders, and now…

White House Secretary Jay Carney has said that the president only learned about the secret waiting lists at VA from the news. However, the Daily Caller has unearthed an Inspector General report proving that members of the administration were aware of the problems as far back as 2010:

Jake Tapper has a report of VA officials telling members of Congress to buzz off, more or less, when they came looking for information about the sort of thing that has been in the news lately – lost patients, long waits for this who are not lost, and a clever bookkeeping system for covering it up.…

Veterans Affairs has problems. This, we all know. Among the questions raised since those problems first began making headlines are: how widespread are they?  Are we talking outliers? A few rogue operators.  Or is the system, itself, dysfunctional.  Today’s partial answer to that question is … kind…

Two stories about the problems at the Veterans Affairs.  Both come with numbers, if not faces, attached.

A report released this week by the inspector general for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) found that "inappropriate scheduling practices are systemic throughout VHA." But as recently as September 2013, Stephen Warren, the executive in charge for information and technology for the VA, said…

One of the more intriguing aspects of the VA health care scandal is the way the paperwork was creatively done to make it appear that the system was operating as it was meant to.  This took serious, sustained effort, as the AP reports:

In October 2013, as the nation was focused on the deeply flawed rollout of the Healthcare.gov Obamacare marketplace, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) awarded $3 million in prizes to three participants in the agency's Medical Appointment Scheduling Contest. The contest was announced in 2012…

The Department of Veteran's Affairs (VA) posted three notices on fbo.gov in 2013 regarding the agency's intent to purchase appointment scheduling software to correct problems with preparation and delivery of appointment notices to veterans for the VA's compensation and pension clinics. The…

In his weekly address, President Obama referred to care for veterans as part of a "sacred trust to all who've served." He said our nation has to do "much more … to make sure all our veterans get the care they deserve."

In a Memorial Day piece for The Hill, Nancy Pelosi writes:

The VA story is still unfolding and the consensus seems to be that it will be with us for a while. Which makes the eagerness of some not-in-office political hacks to wade in all the more unseemly.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on the growing scandal at the Department of Veterans Affairs and how it will impact the remaining years of the Obama presidency.

As is well established, I have been less than impressed by the efforts of media "fact checking" organizations. Of these organizations, however, PolitiFact deserves special consideration. Most recently, they were forced to declare Obama's oft-repeated "If you like your health care plan, you can keep…

President Obama didn't ask his VA secretary to resign. Instead, after meeting with Secretary Eric Shinseki, Obama addressed the press and praised the embattled cabinet member:

The White House just announced that President Obama will deliver a statement directly after meeting with Veterans Affairs chief Eric Shinseki later this morning. Here's the president's schedule, from the White House:

Earlier this morning on national TV, Bill Kristol pointed out that President Obama is meeting with his VA secretary later this morning, as the White House just announced. The boss asked, will Secretary Shinseki use his morning meeting with his boss to resign?

CBS affiliate KMOX reports:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD Podcast with senior writer John McCormack on the growing scandal at the Department of Veterans Affairs and the White House's response.

I did not get to know Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki when we served together in the Obama administration, but in our limited interactions I liked him. He struck me as polite, smart, earnest and hard-working. Over time he resisted the ego-tripping that many agency heads find…

The Scrapbook continues to scratch its head over the barrels of ink spilled over the Chris Christie bridge scandal. It’s well worth reporting, but none of the Christie revelations to date justify the flood-the-zone coverage. So you’ll forgive us for suspecting that Christie’s political affiliation…

Darrell Issa asked Lois Lerner a serier of devastating questions about her involvment in the IRS's targeting of conservatives. 

The Scrapbook’s attention was drawn last week to a front-page story in the New York Times about a small organization, based in Los Angeles, that is applying for tax-exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service. Called the Friends of Abe, it is a loose association of about 1,500 “players in the…

1.) So just how bad is this George Washington Bridge traffic incident?

Remember Black Jesus? The Lightworker? The One? The next Lincoln, the Democrats’ Reagan, the neo-FDR? He is now standing next to Tricky Dick and Slick Willie, caught in a quartet of burgeoning scandals, charged with rewriting the facts when they became inconvenient, harassing the press, and using…

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the president didn't have a comment on the ongoing Bob Filner sex scandal:

Last Friday, I critiqued a piece by Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan for inaccurately summarizing the media coverage of the IRS scandal. I encourage you to read both pieces, but in a nutshell Nyhan was arguing that the media had failed to report on new developments since the scandal…

Over at the Columbia Journalism Review, political scientist Brendan Nyhan has a piece dismissing the IRS scandal out-of-hand and gently scolding the media for for acting irresponsibly in their coverage. You get the thrust in the first two paragraphs:

John King reported this morning that a reporter from CNN was able to interview a lead suspect in the Benghazi terror attack for two hours:

David Axelrod, a former top political adviser to Barack Obama, says it's "time for" Anthony Weiner "to go away":

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew refused to say on national TV this morning whether the politically appointed counsel of the IRS, William Wilkins, has been asked about his participation in the federal agency's scandal:

The top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Rep. Elijah Cummings, sent a letter to the top Republican on that committee, Darrell Issa, targeting the man who uncovered the IRS scandal, Inspector General Russell George. Cummings wants to bring George back to testify in…

President Obama stopped by the press cabin on Air Force One, as the presidential plane made its way to South Africa. While there, the press had a chance to ask the president about major issues concerning Americans: the scandals, the controversial Supreme Court decisions, immigration, and many…

It’s going to be a long summer in Washington. With so many scandals, news organizations that have spent years sweeping startling allegations about the Obama administration under the rug now find themselves overwhelmed. Woe betide the average citizen who just wants to know what the heck his…

Democratic congressman Elijah Cummings says the case of the IRS scandal has been "solved."

Democratic congressman Jose Serrano made the case that the IRS needs more to prevent the federal agency from more scandals:

Talking about the IRS affair on television, former White House senior advisor, David Plouffe, passed it off as the work of a few employees who "did a dumb thing."

Harry Truman famously kept a sign on his desk in the Oval Office, “The Buck Stops Here.” Sixty years later, President Obama hangs a sign on the door to the Oval Office, “Do Not Disturb.” In 1978, about halfway between the two liberal presidents, Harvey Mansfield, as we’ve noted before, diagnosed…

The complexity of Washington scandals as they unfold usually involves many moments at which it is possible to lose sight of the forest for the trees. Two such instances have come into sharper relief in recent weeks. One is that we still have no good explanation for U.N. ambassador Susan Rice’s…

Some conservatives think that the elite media are finally turning on Barack Obama and his administration.

This morning on Face the Nation, Bob Woodward weighed in on the Obama scandals:

Valerie Jarrett, a top adviser to President Barack Obama, says she and the rest of the White House remain "very upbeat" despite the series of scandals that have engulfed the Obama administration in recent weeks.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with executive editor Fred Barnes on the growth of the recent scandals, the media's coverage, and the Republican response.

An important Washington Free Beacon report:

White House spokesman Jay Carney said today that the White House is satisfied with the responsiveness of the IRS in face of the growing scandal:

Everyone in Washington, except those in the crosshairs, likes a good scandal, and THE WEEKLY STANDARD is no exception. What’s more, in the case of the Obama administration, comeuppance is well deserved and overdue. So while it may be a dubious pleasure to enjoy watching the high brought low and the…

Senators Carl Levin and John McCain have written a letter calling for IRS employee Lois Lerner to be removed from office:

Congressional hearings over the last two weeks have been filled with stories of misconduct due to incompetence and inexperience among certain IRS employees. Both Republicans and Democrats have leveled the accusations, and Internal Revenue officials testifying before Congress have admitted as much.…

Democratic congressman Stephen Lynch says "there will be hell to pay" if IRS doesn't fully cooperate with Congress, and suggests he might support a "special prosecutor": 

The Democratic ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, Elijah Cummings, said that today's IRS hearing "is more important than one election":

IRS official Lois Lerner said at hearing today, "I have not done anything wrong."

J. Russell George, the inspector general who uncovered the IRS scandal, appears to have at one time dated Michelle Obama, well before she was married to Barack Obama.

After the IRS revealed it had wrongly targeted hundreds of conservative and Tea Party groups, the agency claimed that the misconduct was limited to "low-level employees" in its Cincinnati office. Yesterday, the attorney for Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS’s tax-exempt organizations division, told…

Testifying today on Capitol Hill, Douglas Shulman, the former IRS commissioner, says he "can't say" how the targeting of conservatives by the agency he once led happened: 

A reporter confirmed with Jay Carney, today at the press briefing, that President Obama met with his chief of staff and the treasury secretary many times over the last month and that neither official told the president of the IRS scandal:

CIA director David Petraeus was surprised when he read the freshly rewritten talking points an aide had emailed him in the early afternoon of Saturday, September 15. One day earlier, analysts with the CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis had drafted a set of unclassified talking points policymakers…

Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer was asked on TV this morning whether he thinks the IRS actions violated the law:

On TV this morning, Bob Woodward made the case for not dismissing Benghazi and compared the scandal to Watergate:

Since the IRS admitted it improperly targeted conservative and Tea Party groups last Friday, journalists have worked tirelessly to expose the full extent of the growing scandal.

It's a truism that no president makes it through a second term without some scandal. President Obama is no exception.

On Twitter this morning, David Axelrod, a former top political adviser to Barack Obama, tried to downplay the significance of the growing Benghazi scandal. "I think this story is BS," he said, arguing that those concerned about the Obama adminstration's handling of the terror attack are really only…

When the IRS went fishing for information from those Tea Party groups, it cast a very wide net.  

Spokesman Jay Carney said some at the White House "were aware" of reports that IRS was targeting conservatives, but that nobody bothered to do anything about it:

From today's press briefing:

Seems K Street and Max Baucus were looking forward to a fun year of fixing up the tax code and making it stand up and salute. But now the IRS has gone and muddied the waters.  As Erik Wasson and Peter Schroeder write at The Hill:

In a couple minutes, the top Republican in the Senate will say that "we’ve only started to scratch the surface of this scandal." Mitch McConnell will say those words in reference to the IRS-targeting-conservatives scandal, and will make those remarks on the Senate floor.

Today's Boston Herald wood:[img nocaption float="center" width="606" height="640" render="<%photoRenderType%>"]21063[/img]:

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Stephen F. Hayes on his recent piece, The Benghazi Talking Points. 

For your weekend reading, Politico has a long Maggie Haberman piece on political rehabilitation. Her subjects are Mark Sanford and Anthony Weiner about whom some cannot get enough. Others undoubtedly believe that we know far too much already about both of these characters.  Still, Haberman writes:

Two members of Congress sent a letter to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson over her use of the alias "Richard Windsor." The congressmen, Fred Upton and Cliff Stearns, want Jackson to explain her actions.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Bill Kristol, hosted by Michael Graham:

"The FBI probe into the sex scandal that prompted CIA Director David Petraeus to resign has expanded to ensnare Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, the Pentagon announced early Tuesday," the Washington Post reports.

Over the weekend, New Jersey senator Bob Menendez, a Democrat who was just reelected, sat for a Sunday interview with CNN's Candy Crowley. They discussed the Petraeus affair, the looming fiscal cliff, and the clean-up after Hurricane Sandy.

On October 24, Egyptian officials raided an apartment in Nasr City, a neighborhood in Cairo, suspected of housing a terrorist cell with ties to the September 11 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. A firefight ensued and one of the suspected terrorists was killed. An Egyptian police official…

Last night, on Special Report, I urged Mitt Romney to step up and address President Obama's failure to explain what decisions he made and didn't make on the evening of September 11, as Americans fought terrorists in Benghazi. This afternoon it seems that Romney, not having mentioned Benghazi in his…

At about 3 p.m. on Thursday, October 18, Barack Obama strode into the Manhattan studios of Comedy Central for a taping of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The two men discussed several issues, including Libya. Stewart noted the exchange between Obama and Mitt Romney on that subject at the debate…

John Podhoretz, writing for the New York Post:

The Pioneer Press reports: 

Following last week's bipartisan vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for withholding details about the Fast and Furious scandal, more revelations keep coming, well, fast and furious. Senator Chuck Grassley recently released a memo that shows that details of the Fast and Furious…

Steve Hayes, with A.B. Stoddard and Charles Krauthammer, last night on Fox News:

David Axelrod, a top level campaign adviser to President Barack Obama, seemed to suggest on CNN this morning that so-called "scandals" under Obama aren't really scandals. (Particularly, the question was about the GSA and Secret Services issues.) Axelrod, a Democrat, did however suggest that if…

Oh boy. House Republicans should do their best to get Holder in front of a camera whenever they can. He's really his own worst enemy:

Eric Holder is currently getting grilled on Capitol Hill over the Fast and Furious gun running scandal. But the family of slain border patrol agent Brian Terry isn't waiting around for the Attorney General to come clean about the role the government played in Terry's death:

Solyndra, the bankrupt solar panel firm at the center of the Obama administration's green energy loan program scandal, still owes U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. So why is it destroying millions of dollars in saleable assets? CBS San Francisco reports:

A care package drive for deployed U.S. troops is receiving national notice after a professor at Suffolk University Law School criticized the operation. 

David Kahane: "The Cold Civil War"

New York Daily News: "At Occupy Wall Street central, a rift is growing between east and west sides of the plaza"

Well, now we know the reason for the Friday night news dump. When the Obama administration finally announced that they would be launching an independent review of Department of Energy loan guarantees, they were likely trying to get out ahead of this:

John Merline: "The Austerity Myth: Federal Spending Up 5% This Year"

Will it turn out worse than Solyndra?:

Yesterday, CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson told radio show host Laura Ingraham that the White House yelled and swore at her over her reporting on the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal tied to the deaths of two U.S. law enforcement agents. Attkisson also revealed that she'd also…

The Fast and Furious scandal, in which the Justice Department knowingly gave Mexican criminal gangs thousands of guns, just keeps escalating. The latest development centers around whether or not Attorney General Eric Holder lied to Congress about having knowledge of the controversial gun…

Over at Forbes, Frank Miniter argues that "'Fast And Furious' Just Might Be President Obama's Watergate":

Despite the repeated attempts to wish away the Solyndra scandal, it appears to be getting bigger. Today, the Los Angeles Times informs us key White House personnel raised concerns the Department of Energy loan program that gave Solyndra $535 million was poorly conceived and managed long before the…

Over at Reason, Tim Cavanaugh observes that the few defenses being mounted for loaning failed solar company Solyndra $535 million in stimulus funds are really, really wanting. "Democrats appear to be backing into a strategy of vilifying the company (previous efforts to blame perfidious China and…

The Obama administration is now pushing a rather dubious defense for handing out $535 million in stimulus funds to the now-bankrupt solar panel manufacturer Solyndra. They're blaming Bush:

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the ATF's "Fast and Furious" or "Gunwalker" scandal, which appears to reach the highest levels of the Justice Department. Read the whole magazine article here, but the short version is that the Justice Department knowingly allowed thousands of weapons to fall in the…

"A bill to require California public schools to teach the historical accomplishments of gay men and lesbians passed the state Legislature on Tuesday in what supporters call a first for the nation."

Today it was reported that a massive cheating scandal among Atlanta teachers was uncovered:

Democrats were no doubt looking for a bit of a breather now that the Anthony Weiner scandal is receding. But this news won't help with that one bit:

In a conference call with reporters, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill just disclosed that she failed to pay $287,000 in property taxes related to her co-ownership of a private aircraft. This scandal comes quickly on the heels of recent revelations that McCaskill improperly billed taxpayers for use…