Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has drawn his own new “red-line” for U.S. intervention in Syria, one that sets the onus for attack far lower than the White House’s.

Rogers, speaking at a conference in Bahrain, said that “the most dangerous days of desperation are starting to take hold” inside Syria which may change the calculus of government. In light of this, Rogers has made clear that he believes the intelligence he’s receiving may call for more direct action by the United States:

“As a coalition, we will have the moral obligation (to intervene) if we can say with even a moderate degree of certainty that these weapons have been prepared and are put in an arsenal for use,” Rogers said. “There are things that we should do, that would meet the world’s moral obligation to prevent the use of chemical weapons that would take the lives of tens of thousands and injure millions of Syrians.”

Rogers comments come at a time when reports are coming out of Syria that chemical weapons are already being prepared for launch. According to sources in the Pentagon, the chemicals that create sarin gas have already begun to be mixed and missiles capable of carrying the concoctions are being readied. Members of the Obama administration, including Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in the last few days that the use of chemical weapons against his people would be the “red-line” to prompt U.S. intervention. Under Rogers’ standard, the United States should currently be in the process of launching military strikes against Syria.

According to reports, the United States and its allies have been planning for contingencies where seizing Assad’s chemical weapons would be necessary to keep them out of the hands of terrorist groups. While chemical weapons, as banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention, have a historically low rate of fatality when used in war, they prompt a worry among observers due to the painful after-effects they produce, their indiscriminate nature when used among civilians, and the ease of use of such weapons by non-state actors.

(HT: Foreign Policy)

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has been leading a smear campaign in an attempt to discredit U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice after reports emerged that President Obama is considering nominating her as the next Secretary of State. McCain and his allies, who include namely Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), have charged that Rice’s Sept. 16 presentation of what the Obama administration knew at the time about the terror attacks in Benghazi, Libya, which has since turned out to be inaccurate, disqualifies her to be the nation’s top diplomat.

But facts have emerged that show not only that Rice was simply relaying the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment and but also that, contrary to these Republicans’ claims, Rice’s presentation was in no way a political effort to downplay al-Qaeda’s involvement in the Benghazi attacks.

Now that their campaign has been fully discredited, McCain, Graham and Ayotte are notably silent about Susan Rice and Benghazi. Graham appeared on Fox News Dec. 3 and neither he, nor host Greta Van Susteren, mentioned Benghazi or Rice. And McCain was on the same program last night — Susan Rice never came up during the interview, and McCain only mentioned Benghazi or Libya in the context of whether the U.S. should intervene militarily in Syria.

With this lull in the anti-Susan Rice campaign, ThinkProgress has updated its timeline of the entire Benghazi affair, which documents the immediate aftermath and the Romney campaign’s politicization of the events all the way through to today. Read the updated timeline here.

On Thursday, CNN host Anderson Cooper shone the spotlight on Republicans who voted against a U.N. treaty protecting people with disabilities, highlighting lawmakers who backed away from supporting the measure in response to conservative misinformation and opposition.

Sens. Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) featured prominently in Cooper’s “Keeping Them Honest” segment. He reported that Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), formerly a co-sponsor of the motion to ratify the treaty, suddenly backed out even after meeting with former GOP Presidential candidate Bob Dole, a proponent of the measure.

The lawmakers declined an invitation to come onto the show to explain themselves, leaving Cooper to condemn their dishonesty:

COOPER: And keeping them honest, they used arguments that just frankly did not square with the facts. They weren’t true. [...] We can only guess their motivations, and frankly, some of this is just so baffling that we’d be taking wild guesses, and we just don’t want to do that.

Watch Cooper’s full segment here:

Prominent conservative groups, rallied by Rick Santorum, denounced the treaty on the false premise that the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) would strip parents with disabled children of their rights. As a result of their efforts, though, the treaty failed by a mere five votes.

The Republicans who changed their votes have drawn widespread criticism from disabilities rights groups and Majority Leader Harry Reid has promised to bring the treaty up for a vote in the next session of Congress.