Prior to Benghazi, were there 13 attacks on embassies and 60 deaths under President George W. Bush?

As the U.S. House of Representatives was readying a new special committee to investigate the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, many Democrats were arguing that continuing to probe the Sept. 11, 2012, attack -- which killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens -- amounted to a political witch hunt.

On May 5, 2014, Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., told MSNBC host Ed Schultz that there has already been exhaustive testimony and investigation of the incident.

"This thing is just going on and on to boredom actually," Garamendi said. "The Armed Services Committee actually did a hearing and the result was there’s nothing here. That’s obviously a great tragedy, but Ed, during the George W. Bush period, there were 13 attacks on various embassies and consulates around the world. Sixty people died. In Karachi, there was a death of one of our diplomats, and those were not investigated during that period of time because it was a tragedy."

Readers asked us whether it’s true that under Bush, "there were 13 attacks on various embassies and consulates around the world, (and) 60 people died."

We turned to the Global Terrorism Database, a project headquartered at the University of Maryland. The database documents terrorist attacks around the world going back to the 1970s, and experts told us it is the best resource available for this fact-check.

READ MORE HERE

Marathon Benghazi hearing leaves Hillary Clinton largely unscathed

Washington (CNN) Hillary Clinton avoided major damage to her presidential campaign during a nearly 11-hour congressional hearing Thursday dominated by Republican criticism of her response to the Benghazi attacks.

Bitter political undercurrents festered all day during a contentious showdown that turned into a political endurance test. After a day-long grilling on the details of the attack and how Clinton handled it, the former secretary of state was forced to defend her use of a private email account while in office from a flurry of late evening attacks by GOP lawmakers.

She also came under testy cross-examination over the extent to which she has taken responsibility for the deaths of the Americans in the September 11, 2012, attacks and her contact with U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, one of the victims, after sending him to the North African country.

"I came here because I said I would. And I've done everything I know to do, as have the people with whom I worked, to try to answer your questions. I cannot do any more than that," Clinton said towards the end of the grueling day -- before later breaking into a coughing fit and taking a throat lozenge to ease her failing voice.

READ MORE HERE

Paul Ryan's winning pitch to House Republicans

Washington (CNN)Rep. Paul Ryan's winning pitch to House conservatives amounted to this: Let's start over.

For years, tensions had been boiling between the hard right of the Republican Party and the House leadership, a battle that effectively pushed Speaker John Boehner out of office and ended the bid of Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy to succeed him.

But Ryan, facing skepticism from hardliners in the House Freedom Caucus, spoke bluntly to the conservatives, telling them that he was more ideologically in line with them than with moderates in the so-called Tuesday Group. He said he was not the type of leader who is out to seek retribution, unlike past leaders.

The 45-year-old Wisconsin congressman said he would only push important bills such as immigration that have a majority of support from Republicans -- abiding by the "Hastert Rule." He promised bold policy ideas on the House floor like welfare reform, health care legislation and a tax overhaul -- and that the chamber would stand firm on those policy proposals with Senate Republicans and the White House. He softened his demand to roll back a procedure allowing lawmakers to overthrow a sitting speaker.

READ MORE HERE

Viewer’s guide for the 2015 Democratic presidential primary debate

Central Michigan University debate experts want to help viewers get the most out of Tuesday evening's showdown.

Edward Hinck, Shelly Hinck and William Dailey, co-authors of "Politeness in Political Debates," used their expertise to provide viewers with questions to ask themselves and key elements to take note of when watching the Oct. 13 Democratic debate.

"In this debate we should be looking to see how the candidates distinguish their positions from one another. A debate where candidates offer specific information and engage in rich policy discussions would be ideal," Shelly Hinck said.

READ MORE HERE

Republicans Were More United Than Ever Under John Boehner

John Boehner’s tenure as speaker of the House, which will end with his resignation next month, is striking because of a seeming contradiction. By statistical measures, it featured an extraordinary degree of party unity among Republicans in the House. At almost no point in history have such a large majority of Republicans voted together so often, especially when they stood in opposition to Democrats.

And yet, Boehner was brought down by division within the Republican ranks: His decision to resign was motivated by a group of dissident, highly conservative Republicans, the Freedom Caucus, who had threatened a no-confidence vote in his speakership. Meanwhile, Republicans have had trouble reaching consensus in many other respects during Boehner’s years as speaker: most notably, in choosing a candidate in the current presidential race.

READ MORE HERE

Having a conservative track record isn’t everything in the Republican Party. Just ask Donald Trump, who doesn’t have one. Or Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who does. McCarthy decided today not to run for speaker of the House after supposedly having the edge. He faced opposition from the Freedom Caucus, a group of House Republicans who have pushed for a more confrontational approach with Democrats.

McCarthy is in the middle of the House GOP ideologically. Of course, because the GOP as a whole has gotten much more conservative in recent years, that means McCarthy is quite conservative too. But the resistance to electing him speaker wasn’t just about ideology; McCarthy represents a Republican establishment less willing to threaten a government shutdown or refuse to raise the debt ceiling to achieve legislative goals. The split within the party is largely a disagreement over tactics.

The Freedom Caucus¹ isn’t composed exclusively of far-right Republicans; many members sit squarely in the GOP’s ideological mainstream. You can see this in the following chart, which shows Freedom Caucus members according to two metrics:

READ MORE HERE