It's Dishonest to Talk About Benghazi Without Talking About the Syrian War

From Washington's Blog:   
     Both parties are still trying to sweep the bigger story under the rug.  
     "The Wall Street Journal, Telegraph and other sources confirm that the US consulate in Benghazi was mainly being used for a secret CIA operation.  They say that the State Department presence in Benghazi “provided diplomatic cover” for the previously hidden CIA mission. WND alleges that it was not a real consulate. 
     "Former CIA officer Philip Giraldi confirms: Benghazi has been described as a U.S. consulate, but it was not. It was an information office that had no diplomatic status.  
     "Reuters notes that the CIA mission involved finding and repurchasing heavy weaponry looted from Libyan government arsenals and moving them to jihadist Syrian rebels."
Keep reading... 

Archbishop Cordileone States the Case for Preserving the Definition of Marriage

Brilliant, brilliant argument!!! 
Archbishop Cordileone states the case for preserving the definition of marriage

March Against Monsanto on May 25 Everywhere!

UPDATE: The march in Davis, CA, will be on Friday, May 24, beginning at 06:00 in an effort to shut down the office for a day.  See details at this Facebook page.   
 My wife and I will be at the Monsanto office on 5th St. in Davis, CA. on May 25.  You can find more information on marches near you using the link in the Natural News article  below.  You can probably expect a few motley hippie/occupier-types, but I bet you'll be surprised at how many 'mainstream' Americans also participate!
March Against Monsanto Taking Place Everywhere May 25

'Holy Fire' Ceremony in Jerusalem Ushers in Orthodox Easter

     "Thousands of Orthodox Christians braved hours of waiting to witness the Holy Fire ceremony in Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre – an important annual rite for the Church’s eastern denominations. In what believers regard as a miracle, every year the day before Orthodox Easter, an unlit blue fire from a stone in the Church descends from the dome and ignites a candle held by the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem.     
    "Around 10,000 people squeezed into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – regarded by many as the place where Jesus was laid to rest and resurrected – with about as many waiting outside.      
    "As the Patriarch received the fire, he passed it around, to other clergymen from other denominations (six of them share the church and consider it a holy site) and onto the gathered pilgrims."    
    More video and photos here.

No Longer a "Conspiracy Theory:" All Telephone Calls/Emails/Texts Recorded by NSA

   Some information is so overwhelming it just doesn't register at first with people--then, hopefully, come the classic stages of denial, anger, etc. leading to acceptance.  In short, the NSA records and stores every digital communication in America, to be used when needed.  While the recording itself can't be used in court (so far, anyway), the government uses the information to lead investigations and interrogations.
     From Glenn Greenwald's "On Security and Liberty" column:

     Let's repeat that last part: "no digital communication is secure", by which he means not that any communication is susceptible to government interception as it happens (although that is true), but far beyond that: all digital communications - meaning telephone calls, emails, online chats and the like - are automatically recorded and stored and accessible to the government after the fact. To describe that is to define what a ubiquitous, limitless Surveillance State is.
 
      That every single telephone call is recorded and stored would also explain this extraordinary revelation by the Washington Post in 2010:

Every day, collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications.

      It would also help explain the revelations of former NSA official William Binney, who resigned from the agency in protest over its systemic spying on the domestic communications of US citizens, that the US government has "assembled on the order of 20 trillion transactions about US citizens with other US citizens" (which counts only communications transactions and not financial and other transactions), and that "the data that's being assembled is about everybody. And from that data, then they can target anyone they want."

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput: The Boston Bombings and Their Aftermath

From CERC:
     "America's best ideals are well worth fighting for.  But we also need to remember that our way of life is as mortal as every other great power; and sooner or later, America will be a footnote in history.  Only God is forever.
     "God's son died on a cross and rose from the dead to deliver us from our sins.  He didn't take away our freedom to choose evil.  Until this world ends, some people will do vile and inhuman things to others. The irony of human dignity is that it requires our freedom.
     "We shouldn't waste time being shocked or baffled by the evil in the world.  It has familiar roots.  It begins in the little crevices of each human heart — especially our own."
The Boston bombings and their aftermath

Tsarnaev's Repeated Requests for an Attorney Ignored

     THEN: John Adams risks his personal safety and reputation to vigorously defend, on principle, the five British soldiers accused in the Boston Massacre.  Thomas Paine writes, "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
     NOW:  The interagency High Value Detainee Interrogation Group, created by President Obama in early 2009, continued to interrogate a wounded suspect alone in a hospital room for at least 16 hours despite the repeated requests by the suspect, who is a U.S. citizen, for help from an attorney.  The suspect finally received the help guaranteed to him under the United States Constitution only because a federal magistrate, on her own initiative, defied the FBI and visited the suspect in the hospital.
     Read the article from "Security and Liberty" here.