The first criminal charges were filed in the Benghazi terror attack and a mysterious priest some are calling an angel assisted rescuers during a Missouri car crash.
On the international stage, the U.S. Embassy in Yemen was evacuated due to terror threats — although the State Department would only define the move as a ’reduction in staffing.’
Here’s a recap, or wrap, of the week that was from The Washington Times.
• Obama economy: Part-time jobs swamp full-time jobs
House Republicans have crunched the numbers and say that since President Obama took office, the economy has added seven times more part-time jobs than it has created full-time jobs.
Since January 2009 the country has added a net total of 270,000 full-time jobs, but it has added 1.9 million part-time jobs, according to the House Ways and Means Committee.
• CURL: Obama: Do as I say, not as I do
President Obama took to the road last week to lecture Americans, as he is wont to do.
“We’ve tolerated a little more inequality for the sake of a more dynamic, more adaptable economy,” he lectured in Galesburg, Ill. “That’s all for the good. But that idea has always been combined with a commitment to equality of opportunity to upward mobility — the idea that no matter how poor you started, if you’re willing to work hard and discipline yourself and defer gratification, you can make it, too. That’s the American idea.”
And that’s the problem. The president says the words, but he doesn’t believe the words.
• Tawana Brawley, who faked rape, begins defamation payments 25 years later
A defiantly unapologetic Tawana Brawley began paying off damages last week, 25 years after falsely accusing ex-prosecutor Steven Pagones of rape, The New York Post reported.
Ten checks totaling $3,764.61 were delivered to Mr. Pagones — the first payments Miss Brawley has made since she defamed him in 1988, The Post said. She still owes Mr. Pagones $431,000.
A Virginia court this year ordered the money garnisheed from six months of Miss Brawley’s wages as a licensed practical nurse at The Laurels of Bon Air in Richmond, The Post reported. She can appeal the wage garnishment every six months.
• First criminal charges filed in Benghazi attack
Prosecutors have filed the first charges in the Benghazi terror attack on the U.S. diplomatic post against militia leader Ahmed Khattalah.
Nearly a year after the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was killed, CNN is reporting that a indictment under seal has been filed against Khattalah.
• After widely mocked pitch by George W. Bush, steroids knocked out of the ballpark
Nine years later, analysts say Major League Baseball may never have reached the point this week where it issued the biggest suspensions in 90 years had official Washington not turned the spotlight on performance enhancing drugs (PEDs).
His aides wanted to delete it from his speech, and President George W. Bush was mocked by ESPN and Meryl Streep for it afterward. But when he used his 2004 State of the Union address to raise the issue of steroids in baseball, it boosted the issue to the top levels of politics.
• Jeb Bush blasts Matt Damon as hypocrite on public education
Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, on Tuesday sent a blistering critique of Hollywood actor Matt Damon’s decision to school his three children at a private facility, not public: You’re such a hypocrite.
Mr. Damon did, after all, campaign very publicly about the importance of public education, Mr. Bush pointed out, Newsmax reported.
• ‘Angel’ priest mysteriously appears at near-fatal accident site, helps victim
Photos of the nearly fatal wreck won’t show him, but rescuers and emergency workers swear: A man dressed in priest garb did show at the scene of a recent roadway accident and administer aid and prayer that seemed to save the 19-year-old victim’s life.
Katie Lentz, a Tulane University sophomore, was driving from Quincy, Ill., to Jefferson City. Mo., for Sunday church services when her Mercedes collided with another vehicle. The wreck flipped her car on its side and trapped Ms. Lentz in the crushed metal. Rescue workers spent 45 minutes trying to peel back the twisted metal from her body, USA Today reported.
Meanwhile, the woman’s vital signs continued to fall. Rescue workers determined that it would be better to flip the car back onto its tires — a risky procedure that could dramatically change the pressure on her body and leave her fighting for breath, USA Today said.
So she asked for someone to pray for her first. And out of nowhere, a priest appeared and said: “I will.”
• ‘Martyred’ American Muslim extremists still recruiting for al Qaeda in Somalia
Al Qaeda’s branch in Somlia has had the greatest success of any of the terror network’s franchises in recruiting Americans, and a video it released Wednesday shows why.
Though he was killed four years ago, Troy Kastigar of Minnesota remains an articulate recruiter for al-Shabab, al Qaeda’s franchise in Somalia that has been part of a long-running Islamic insurgency against the internationally backed but very weak central government in the capital, Mogadishu.
“This is the real Disneyland,” Kastigar says in a video.
Using his nom de guerre, Muhammad al-Amriki (“Mohammed the American”), Kastigar traveled to Somalia in November 2008 and was “martyred” in 2009, according to the video.
• Fox News shakeup: Megyn Kelly to take primetime slot
Fox News is set to make its first primetime schedule change in 10 years, the Drudge Report said Thursday.
News anchor Megyn Kelly has landed the 9 p.m. slot currently occupied by Sean Hannity.
The changes are set for later this month, Drudge said.
• State Dept. on Yemen evacuation: It’s not an ‘evacuation,’ it’s a ‘reduction in staffing’
Despite scores of media outlets that characterized this week’s order for staff at the U.S. Embassy in Yemen to evacuate — a so-called evacuation order — a spokeswoman for the State Department insisted on Tuesday that it’s not an “evacuation.” It’s a “reduction in staffing,” said Jennifer Psaki, during a press conference reported by Politico.
• Colorado apartment complex reverses ban on guns
An apartment community just south of Denver has thrown out a controversial gun policy after renters complained it violated their Second Amendment rights.
The manager at Oakwood Apartments in Castle Rock sent a notice to renters last week advising them of the new rule banning all “firearms and weapons” from the premises, an NBC affiliate reported.
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