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Kerry Ladka stood before President Obama at last night’s town hall-style debate and asked the question that would touch off an onstage verbal brawl and, later, an intense national discussion. Here’s how it went: Q: It’s Kerry, Kerry Ladka. PRESIDENT OBAMA: Great to see you here. Q: This question actually comes from a brain trust of my friends at Global Telecom Supply in Mineola yesterday. We were sitting around talking about Libya, and we were reading and became aware of reports that the State Department refused extra security for our embassy in Benghazi, Libya, prior to the attacks that killed...

Kerry Ladka stood before President Obama at last night’s town hall-style debate and asked the question that would touch off an onstage verbal brawl and, later, an intense national discussion. Here’s how it went: Q: It’s Kerry, Kerry Ladka. PRESIDENT OBAMA: Great to see you here. Q: This question actually comes from a brain trust of my friends at Global Telecom Supply in Mineola yesterday. We were sitting around talking about Libya, and we were reading and became aware of reports that the State Department refused extra security for our embassy in Benghazi, Libya, prior to the attacks that killed...

Kerry Ladka stood before President Obama at last night’s town hall-style debate and asked the question that would touch off an onstage verbal brawl and, later, an intense national discussion. (snip) President Obama, though, wasn’t done with Kerry Ladka. “After the debate, the president came over to me and spent about two minutes with me privately,” says the 61-year-old Ladka, who works at Global Telecom Supply in Mineola, N.Y. According to Ladka, Obama gave him ”more information about why he delayed calling the attack a terorist attack.” For background, Obama did apparently lump Benghazi into a reference to “acts of...

Benghazi, Libya (CNN) -- Three days before the deadly assault on the United States consulate in Libya, a local security official says he met with American diplomats in the city and warned them about deteriorating security. Jamal Mabrouk, a member of the February 17th Brigade, told CNN that he and a battalion commander had a meeting about the economy and security. He said they told the diplomats that the security situation wasn't good for international business. "The situation is frightening, it scares us," Mabrouk said they told the U.S. officials. He did not say how they responded. Inside the U.S....

The US consulate in Benghazi, where the US ambassador to Libya died in an attack on Tuesday, was not given the standard security contract offered to many American diplomatic missions in the Middle East, private military contractors have told the BBC. The consulate's walls were breached in just 15 minutes, guards were outgunned and overwhelmed and four US personnel were killed, including the Ambassador, J Christopher Stevens. US embassies and consulates in areas of the world where they are deemed liable to attack are usually offered a formal security contract called a Worldwide Protective Services Agreement, known in the industry...

September 13, 2012 Stunner: ‘The Security People Just All Ran Away’ David Steinberg From The Independent’s breaking story, which focuses on the U.S. failure to heed a 48-hour warning of threats to the embassy: According to security sources the consulate had been given a “health check” in preparation for any violence connected to the 9/11 anniversary. In the event, the perimeter was breached within 15 minutes of an angry crowd starting to attack it at around 10pm on Tuesday night. There was, according to witnesses, little defence put up by the 30 or more local guards meant to protect the...