Blog Heap of Links for the day 10 June 2014

The world is less violent than it has ever been. It is healthier than it has ever been. It is more tolerant than it has ever been. It is better fed then it’s ever been. It is more educated than it’s ever been. Terrible things happen around the world every single day, but the trend lines of progress are unmistakable. -Obama

The terrorists who attacked the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 used cell phones, seized from State Department personnel during the attacks, and U.S. spy agencies overheard them contacting more senior terrorist leaders to report on the success of the operation… adds to the body of evidence establishing that senior U.S. officials in the Obama administration knew early on that Benghazi was a terrorist attack…

But the Bergdahl deal had the fierce moral urgency of now(!), as in now we have to get Obama’s VA scandal off the news. So as it turns out they really didn’t keep this a secret, except from the people they’re required to tell. And in an added wrinkle, they now claim it was Chuck Hagel, not the idiot Obama, who signed off on the deal. Right.