Diplomat: U.S. Special Forces told “you can't go” to Benghazi during attacks  —  The deputy of slain U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens has told congressional investigators that a team of Special Forces prepared to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi during the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks was forbidden …

Reid calls Sen. Cruz a ‘schoolyard bully’  —  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called freshman GOP Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) a “schoolyard bully” during a contentious exchange Monday on the Senate floor.  —  The two senators bickered as Cruz rose to object to Reid's motion …

None Dare Call It Treason  —  As Brother Benen notes this morning, the National Rifle Association's new president, James Porter of Birmingham, Alabama, likes to talk about the importance of the Second Amendment as a way to ensure the American people will be able to “resist tyranny”—i.e. …

Huckabee: Benghazi will drive Obama from office  —  Mike Huckabee on Monday predicted that President Barack Obama won't finish out his second term in light of the “cover-up” of the deadly attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and the former Arkansas governor called the affair “more serious than Watergate.”

Air Force Officer Accused of Sexual Battery  —  The Chief of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response branch of the U.S. Air Force was arrested and charged with sexual battery in Arlington over the weekend.  —  Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski is accused of fondling a woman in a Crystal City parking lot early Sunday morning.

The Fiscal Cost of Unlawful Immigrants and Amnesty to the U.S. Taxpayer  —  By Robert Rector and Jason Richwine, Ph.D.  —  Executive Summary  —  Unlawful immigration and amnesty for current unlawful immigrants can pose large fiscal costs for U.S. taxpayers.

Syria Is Not Iraq  —  IN the search for an American response to the civil war in Syria, the favorite guidebook seems to be our ill-fated adventure in Iraq.  We have another brutal Middle East autocrat holding power on behalf of a sectarian minority.  We have another dubious cast of opposition factions competing for foreign patronage.

Mediaite Learns: 'Vast Majority Of National Advertisers Now Refuse To Air Ads During Limbaugh's Show'  —  As we reported earlier this morning, Rush Limbaugh is allegedly in the midst of a battle with Cumulus Media, the distributor of his radio show.  The company's CEO has blamed ad revenue losses …

Rick Perry compares rejecting LGBT people to fighting slavery  —  Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) said Sunday that he believes rejecting LGBT people is similar to fighting slavery during the pre-Civil War era.  —  Appearing on the Family Research Council's program “Stand With Scouts Sunday,” …

Gore Is Romney-Rich With $200 Million After Bush Defeat  —  In 1999, Al Gore, then U.S. vice president and a Democratic candidate for president, sold $6,000 worth of cows.  —  The former senator, who spent most of his working life in Congress, had a net worth of about $1.7 million and assets …

Meet The ‘Liberator’: Test-Firing The World's First Fully 3D-Printed Gun  —  “Alright.  One...two...”  —  Before “three” arrives, a shot reverberates across the overcast central Texas landscape.  A tall, sandy blond engineer named John has just pulled a twenty-foot length of yellow string tied …

Marching On DC With Loaded Rifles: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?  —  Adam Kokesh is a strange bird.  He's a veteran of the Iraq war and a hard-core libertarian who claims to support the tea party and Occupy Wall Street.  —  I'm going out on a limb here and saying he actually tends to lean more anarchist than anything else.

Abortion Rights Community Has Become the NRA of the Left  —  The abortion clinic of alleged killer Kermit Gosnell was not illegal.  But any talk of more government regulation unleashes an NRA-style assault from the abortion rights contingent, says Kirsten Powers.  —  What should we learn from the Kermit Gosnell trial?

Why did Komen for the Cure give Nancy Brinker a 64 percent raise?  —  Komen, already under fire for shrinking contributions for breast cancer research, paid its CEO $684,000 last year  —  Last year may have been a very bad year for the Susan G. Komen Foundation, but it still was a very good year for its CEO, Nancy Brinker.

Twitter is ready to be a true news operation  —  Twitter is hiring a ‘head of news’ in its bid to be even more indispensable to global media, but will it work?  —  There are fewer and fewer jobs in journalism, but last week an ultimate job was posted.  Twitter, fast becoming the basic source …

Rep. Mike Rogers pushed for FBI chief  —  The FBI's union is urging President Obama to nominate Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) to be the bureau's next director.  —  The FBI Agents Association said Rogers — a former FBI agent and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee …

German euro founder calls for ‘catastrophic’ currency to be broken up  —  Oskar Lafontaine, the German finance minister who launched the euro, has called for a break-up of the single currency to let southern Europe recover, warning that the current course is “leading to disaster”.

Solving Equation of a Hit Film Script, With Data  —  LOS ANGELES — Forget zombies.  The data crunchers are invading Hollywood.  —  The same kind of numbers analysis that has reshaped areas like politics and online marketing is increasingly being used by the entertainment industry.