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2pm (ET) LIVE: Investigation of Benghazi Attack

In his 1980 graduate thesis at the University of Texas at Austin, John Brennan denied the existence of “absolute human rights” and argued in favor of censorship on the part of the Egyptian dictatorship. “Since the press can play such an influential role in determining the perceptions of the masses, I am in favor of some degree of government censorship,” Brennan wrote. “Inflamatory [sic] articles can provoke mass opposition and possible violence, especially in developing political systems.” Brennan serves as President Barack Obama’s national security advisor. Obama has nominated him to lead the Central Intelligence Agency.

Senate hearing: 9:00a.m. EST. House hearing: 2:00 p.m. ESTWatch live here. Also on C-SPAN 3. In her first testimony since the Benghazi attack, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will participate in a full day of hearings Wednesday about U.S. diplomatic security and the American mission in Libya. Sec. Clinton will appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the morning followed by an afternoon testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In December, the State Department's highest ranking foreign service officers, William Burns and Thomas Nides, testified before Congressional lawmakers in the Secretary's place. They discussed a new report by...

JERUSALEM – In a stunning setback, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hard-line bloc fared worse than expected in a parliamentary election Tuesday, exit polls showed, possibly forcing the incumbent Israeli leader to invite surprisingly strong moderate rivals into his government and soften his line toward the Palestinians. TV exit polls showed the hard-liners with about 61 seats in the 120-seat parliament, a bare majority, and the counts could change as actual votes are tallied. The unofficial TV results had Netanyahu winning only 31 seats, though he combined his Likud Party with the far-right Yisrael Beitenu for the voting. Running separately four...

Reid to Senate Republicans: Filibuster deal in 36 hours or face nuclear option By Alexander Bolton - 01/22/13 03:29 PM ET Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is giving Republican colleagues 36 hours to agree to a deal on filibuster reform or he will move forward with the nuclear option. “I hope in the next 24, 36 hours we can get something we agree on. If not, we’re going to move forward on what I think needs to be done,” Reid told reporters. Reid’s trump card in negotiations with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) is the threat he will...

It's being reported on KXAN.com noon news that multiple people shot at on Lone Star College in Houston, TX. It's a tech school.

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Algerian bomb squads scouring a gas plant where Islamist militants took dozens of foreign workers hostage found "numerous" new bodies on Sunday as they searched for explosive traps left behind by the attackers, a security official said, a day after a bloody raid ended the four-day siege of the remote desert refinery. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said the bodies were badly disfigured and difficult to identify.

The Talk Shows January 20th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): David Plouffe, adviser to President Barack Obama; Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Ted Cruz, R-Texas; David Axelrod, adviser to President Barack Obama. FACE THE NATION (CBS): Plouffe; Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state under President George W. Bush; Dee Dee Myers, former press secretary for President Bill Clinton; Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas; Mayor Julian Castro of San Antonio..THIS WEEK (ABC): Plouffe; actress Eva Longoria, co-chairman of the Presidential Inaugural Committee. STATE OF...

President Barack Obama offered on Saturday to provide any assistance the Algerian government needs after a deadly hostage siege at a desert gas plant and said the United States was seeking a "fuller understanding" from Algerian authorities of what took place there. "The thoughts and prayers of the American people are with the families of all those who were killed and injured in the terrorist attack in Algeria," Obama said in his first comments on the hostage crisis. Obama's written statement was issued by the White House after the Algerian army carried out a dramatic final assault to end a...

A New York suburban newspaper that came under criticism for publishing the names and addresses of pistol-permit holders has decided to remove the map from its web site, according to a spokesman for the publication. Just before Christmas, in the wake of the Newtown school massacre, the Journal News published a map of the names and addresses of tens of thousands of pistol-permit holders in Rockland and Westchester counties outside of New York City. The newspaper immediately faced a barrage of criticism from gun-owner advocates and some local public-safety officials. Conservative bloggers retaliated against the paper, posting the names and...

In an effort to conclude the hostage crisis at the Tigantourine gas facility near In Amenas, Algeria, special forces from the Algerian government have begun a second offensive against the Masked Brigade, the terrorists led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar. Al-Jazeera reported that the renewed rescue effort was launched as the Algerian state media reported that more than 650 hostages were free, but 30 foreigners were still unaccounted for. The Algerian Press Service (APS) reported that the count of foreign hostages prior to the first raid was 132, which conflicted greatly with initial reports of 41. The terrorists threatened to kill the...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal appeals court has upheld Gov. Scott Walker's contentious law stripping most public workers of nearly all of their collective bargaining rights.

NEW ORLEANS — Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has been indicted on 21 corruption charges including wire fraud, bribery and money laundering. The charges announced Friday come from a City Hall corruption investigation that already has resulted in guilty pleas by two former city officials and two businessmen.

President Barack Obama’s remaining campaign apparatus will relaunch Sunday as a tax-exempt group to support his second term agenda, a senior Democrat familiar with the plans confirms to POLITICO. The new organization will be separate from the Democratic National Committee, with Obama’s 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina serving as the national chair of the group. The effort will begin on Sunday, the day the president is formally sworn in to his second term, as Obama campaign staff and volunteers gather at the Washington Hilton for an event dubbed the Obama Legacy Conference. The formation of the group will make Messina...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who oversaw a moratorium on offshore drilling after the BP oil spill and promoted alternative energy sources, announced he will step down in March — and on the short list as a possible replacement is outgoing Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire.

(Reuters) - Thirty hostages and at least 11 Islamist militants were killed on Thursday when Algerian forces stormed a desert gas plant in a bid to free many dozens of Western and local captives, an Algerian security source said. Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among at least seven foreigners killed, the source told Reuters. Eight of the dead hostages were Algerian. The nationalities of the rest, as well as of perhaps dozens more who escaped, were unclear. Americans, Norwegians, Romanians and an Austrian have also been mentioned by their governments as having been captured. Underlining the...

BREAKING: 34 HOSTAGES AND 15 KIDNAPPERS KILLED BY AIR STRIKES BY ALGERIAN ARMY - ANI NEWS AGENCY SNIP (Previous) UPDATE - Twenty-five hostages escape Algeria siege - source ALGIERS - Twenty-five foreign hostages, including two Japanese, escaped from the siege of a gas plant deep in the Algerian desert on Thursday, an Algerian security source said.

The Obama administration is condemning an Islamist attack on a natural gas field in southern Algeria and confirming that Americans are among those being held hostage. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters in Italy that Americans were among the hostages and called the incident a "terrorist attack."

For those of us following The Won's address to his subjects.