Fox News has gone silent on Benghazi amid reports that the House Intelligence Committee concluded that there was no intentional wrongdoing in the Obama administration's response to the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported on August 1 that the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee voted to declassify findings from its investigation into the 2012 attacks on U.S diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, and "concluded that there was no deliberate wrongdoing by the Obama administration in the 2012 attack," according to committee member Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA).

The intelligence community "did not have specific tactical warning of an attack before it happened," the process used to create administration talking points was "flawed" but "reflected the conflicting intelligence assessments in the days immediately following the crisis, and "there was no 'stand-down order' given to American personnel," Ranking Member Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-CA) said in a statement laying out the committee's findings.

It's a clinical, point-by-point refutation of the Benghazi hoax Fox has pushed for nearly 2 years.

Yet Fox News made no mention of the report on Monday.* In sharp contrast to its current silence, when House Speaker John Boehner announced the formation of a select committee to investigate Benghazi in June, Fox devoted at least 225 segments to the topic over just two weeks, an estimated publicity value of more than $124 million.

Fox's sudden lack of interest in congressional investigations into Benghazi comes less then one week after Rep. Trey Gowdy, head of the select committee, announced - in what Fox News billed as an "exclusive" interview - that he would hold more public hearings on the attacks in September.

"The American people have not been given clear answers to things like Benghazi," Bill O'Reilly said Friday night on Fox. Monday night, O'Reilly's audience didn't learn the answers that the House Intelligence Committee declassified last week.

On July 31, the day the House Intelligence Committee adopted its report, Fox News signaled its intention to continue politicizing the Benghazi tragedy by immediately pivoting to Hillary Clinton.

"The Republican head of the powerful House Intelligence Committee told Fox News that there was no intelligence failure and that all roads lead to the State Department," Herridge said on America's Newsroom.

Hours later, the conclusion that there was no intelligence failure had evaporated from her reporting. "The chairman of the House Intelligence Committeee says, Hillary Clinton's State Department has more explaining to do," Herridge claimed on The Kelly Report that night.

That assessment was based on questions answered long ago about who signs diplomatic cables at the State Department.

* Media Matters searched transcripts provided by TVEyes.com for the terms "Benghazi" and "House Intelligence Committee." 

UPDATE: On Fox's evening news program Special Report, the network finally noted the findings of the House Intelligence Committee report and that they were in line with past congressional investigations. Host Bret Baier noted that House Republicans are still looking to the upcoming House select committee as "the definitive word on the terror attack."

Rush Limbaugh, October 6, 2009:

Look, we found another Obama oddball. Obama’s nominee to become commissioner for the equal opportunity employment commission is Chai Feldblum. She’s an outspoken gay rights activist, Georgetown University law professor, and she has praised polygamy and contended that traditional marriage should not have privileged status.

MSMDC News, yesterday:

Conservative radio man Rush Limbaugh is taking a fourth stab at marriage with a weekend wedding to Kathryn Rogers, an events coordinator 26 years his junior, according to various reports. Limbaugh, 59, will reportedly marry the 33-year-old Rogers at his Palm Beach compound. . . . The childless Limbaugh’s first two marriages were over by the time he rose to national prominence. His third wedding, to Marta Fitzgerald in 1994, was officiated by his friend, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. They divorced in 2004. Before beginning his courtship with Rogers in 2007, Limbaugh was romantically linked to then-CNN anchor Daryn Kagan.

So as Newt Gingrich does while standing next to his third wife (who, as was true for Gingrich’s second wife, was previously known as his “adulterous mistress”), Rush Limbaugh will now crusade for Traditional Marriage with his fourth wife (and counting) at his side.  As is so often the case, the Traditional Marriage movement is led by people who discard their wives and get new, younger replacements the way most people change underwear.  That’s how so many Americans sit on their sofas next to their second and third spouses, with their step-children and half-siblings surrounding them, and explain — without any recognition of the irony — that they’re against same-sex marriage because they believe the law should only recognize Traditional Marriages.  And it’s how Rush Limbaugh can hide from his followers that, by demanding state recognition for his fourth “marriage,” he himself  believes “that traditional marriage should not have privileged status.”  As usual, all of the actual rules of Traditional Marriage are casually discarded when it comes to the law (all that dreary, annoying stuff about “till death do us part” and “in sickness and in health” and “for as long as we both shall live”) and the only one that’s maintained is the one that is easy and cost-free for most Traditional Marriage proponents people to fulfill (the one about needing “a man and a woman”). 

A film and television producer preparing to attend an Emmy's pre-party on Friday says he was wrongly held for six hours by officers of the Beverly Hills police force who said he 'fit the description' of a black bank robber.

Harvard graduate Charles Belk, 51, posted a photograph to Facebook of himself handcuffed and sitting on a curb with two officers standing over him after he was pulled over as he left a restaurant to top up a parking meter.

The award-winning executive says he was swarmed on Wilshire Boulevard by officers and not told why he had been arrested and was denied a phone call before being released just before midnight when police admitted they had made a mistake.

A furious Belk was booked on $100,000 bail and says he was treated with contempt by the arresting officers who only let him go when they reviewed the video and realized that the bank robbery suspect bore no resemblance to him according to KTLA.
 

The photograph of Belk sitting indignantly on the curb, legs crossed while officers of the Beverly Hills Police Department stand guard over him has been shared almost 30,000 times on the social network.

Belk, who has worked with the NAACP to produce their Image Awards and on An Evening of Stars tributes to music legends Chaka Khan and Lionel Richie, took to Facebook to express his deep disappointment and concern over his arrest.

'I get that the Beverly Hills Police Department didn’t know that I was a well educated American citizen that had received a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California, an MBA from Indiana University … and an executive leadership certificate from Harvard Business School,' wrote Belk on Facebook.

'Hey, I was ‘tall,’ ‘bald,’ a ‘male’ and ‘black,’ so I fit the description.'

Describing the distressing moment he was pulled over, Belk said 'It's one of those things that you heard about, but never think it would happen to you.'

Belk, who was the Deputy Director of Olympic Village Operations for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games was pulled over at around 5.20pm.

'Within minutes, I was surrounded by 6 police cars, handcuffed very tightly, fully searched for weapons, and placed back on the curb,' wrote the angry television producer.

'Within an hour, I was transported to the Beverly Hills Police Headquarters, photographed, finger printed and put under a $100,000 bail and accused of armed bank robbery and accessory to robbery of a Citibank.'

The arrest of Belk is just the latest controversial and unfortunate incident in recent weeks that has occurred between police and African American men, including the choke-hold death of Eric Garner in New York City and the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missour

Worryingly, Belk said that his arrest could have turned out drastically different and alluded to the current climate of tension that exists between law enforcement and African Americans.

'The sad thing is, prior to my freedom being taken from me for an easily proven crime I did not commit, I was walking back to my car, by myself, because I needed to check my parking meter, so that I wouldn’t get a ticket and break the law,' wrote Belk.

'In fact, if it wasn’t for a text message that I was responding to, I would have actually been running up LaCienega Blvd when the first Beverly Hills Police Officer approached me. Running!'

 

After Belk's release, the Beverly Hills Police Department attempted to clarify their treatment of Belk, who should have attended a pre-Emmy's party instead of a freezing cold jail cell on Friday evening.

A statement issued on Monday claimed that officers were investigating an armed robbery at a nearby Citibank and arrested Belk beause 'he matched the physical characteristics of the second suspect and was in the area of the bank shortly after the robbery.'

A witness to the robbery allegedly identified Belk as the thieves accomplice, leading to his detention.

'Based on comments made by a Beverly Hills Police Officer during my booking, and an FBI Special Agent, it appeared that they had tried and convicted me.'

Belk said he understood officers doing their job. However, what galled him was the fact that no one had checked the video.

'Why, at 11:59pm (approximately 6 hours later), was the video footage reviewed only after my request to the Lead Detective for the Beverly Hills Police Department and an FBI Agent to do so, and, after being directly accused by another FBI Special Agent of '…going in and out of the bank several times complaining about the ATM Machine to cause a distraction…' thereby aiding in the armed robbery attempt of a bank that I never heard of, or ever been to; and within 10 minutes……10 MINUTES (sic), my lawyer was told that I was being release because it was clear that it was not me,' wrote Belk.

The Beverly Hills Police Department said that they have apologized to Belk.

'The Beverly Hills Police Department regrets the inconvenience to Mr. Belk, but was under obligation to thoroughly verify that he was not the suspect before releasing him,' the statement from the police read.

However, referring to the continuing troubles nationwide, Belk said that the 'time has come for a change in the way OUR (sic) law enforcement officers 'serve and protect' us.

'We all do not, FIT THE DESCRIPTION.'

That's pretty far for you.

Jewell

nits make lice

If I had been on the site in 96 I might have. Can't a guy just moke Doug in peace? Sheesh. I believe I posted an article in the Ferguson thread about a white kid that was killed by the cops. My problem isn't in the color of skin, it's in the fact that cops are using guns instead of tasers or batons against unarmed citizens.

(CNN) -- Gay and lesbian rights advocates continued their undefeated run Thursday when a federal judge ruled Florida's same-sex marriage ban to be unconstitutional -- though he didn't go so far to allow such marriages as to take place right away.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle noted in his ruling that his is now one of 19 federal courts that have struck down state laws that bar gay and lesbian couples from marrying. While most of the time those decisions were put on hold as appeals work their way through the system, they have all reached the conclusion.

Like those other judges, Hinkle said the Florida ban -- first put into law in 1977 and written into the state's constitution after a 2008 referendum -- violates the "due process" and "equal protection" provisions in the U.S. Constitution.

His ruling applies both to whether same-sex couples can marry in Florida as well as to whether such marriages elsewhere should be recognized in the Sunshine State.

"The Florida provisions that prohibit the recognition of same-sex marriages lawfully entered elsewhere, like the federal provision, are unconstitutional," Hinkle writes. "So is the Florida ban on entering same-sex marriages."

Yet his decision, while firmly in support of allowing same-sex marriage, won't take effect immediately.

Hinkle's reasoning: It doesn't make sense to open up and allow such unions, only to have higher courts later reverse his decision and leaving some couples potentially in legal limbo.

Judges hear four states defend same-sex marriage bans

Earlier this summer, state Circuit Court Judge Sarah Zabel wrote a similar ruling, based on a similar rationale. She, too, immediately stayed her own order "pending the outcome of the expected appeal."

For all their celebrations Thursday, the fact that none of these rulings have taken effect, in full, is high on the minds of LGBT rights activists and groups.

One of them, Equality Florida, called on state leaders to stand with them as the issue continues to move through the courts.

"Florida put this discriminatory ban in place, and Florida should end it," the group said on its website. "Our families have waited too long already."

The state's top elected official, Gov. Rick Scott, has a different opinion.

His re-election campaign spokesman Greg Blair said Thursday that while Scott "respects the many views Floridians have on this issue, he believes in traditional marriage consistent with the constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2008."

"There are several cases going through the court system," Blair added, "and the governor respects that process."