Take the Polls on the Biggest Stories of the Day

In the past 24 hours, two news stories have shocked people and have the internet a buzz.

The first is that General Leon Panetta, with the backing of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are announcing the military will be opening every single position to women, including front line soldier. This landmark shift in policy will be implemented over the next three years, and it is the first time in U.S. history that women will be allowed combat roles and even eventually, Special Forces.

There are a lot of questions about what exactly this will mean. For example, will the PT, or physical training requirements be the same, regardless of gender or will it be adjusted as it is on many police and fire departments in recognition of women’s generally smaller bodies? If women are allowed to go into Infantry and become front line soldiers, will accommodations be made for separate privies and facilities in what are often already the most basic and crude conditions? Is this an idea whose time has come or the worst mistake in the history of the U.S Military?

Click the links to take the polls below:

• Should women be allowed on the front lines?
• Should women be allowed in Special Forces?
• Should adjustments or accommodations be made to physical training requirements for women going into combat infantry roles?

The second story that has people up in arms and has been the top story on media outlets across the nation is just as polarizing. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, after many delays, faced a Congressional hearing on the attack in Benghazi that left four Americans including our ambassador dead.

There were many questions focusing on whether she had seen the numerous requests for beefed up security from the ambassador, particularly after the English ambassador had been attacked just days before the U.S. compound was annihilated. When Secretary Clinton said she hadn’t read the cables, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky responded that if he had been president, she would have been removed from her post for dereliction of duty.

The most impassioned speech of the day, however, came from Clinton in response to continued questions about U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice’s statements that the attack in Benghazi was in response to an anti-Islamic video, something the State Department and White House knew at the time was not the case. The bigger questions about why this misinformation was allowed to go uncorrected by the president of the secretary of state seemed to push Mrs. Clinton to lose her temper, literally pounding the table as she said “What difference, at this point, does it make?”

The other single most surprising statement was the awareness that there were weapons at that compound, weapons that have now been confirmed to be in the hands of Muslim jihadists in Algeria and elsewhere. This piece of information was not a mere question posed, but an understanding of a reality recognized by all at the hearing.

So, you tell us –

• Should Secretary Clinton lose her job due to the charge of dereliction of duty?
• Does it make a difference that it was a coordinated terrorist attack targeting our Americans? 
• Does it matter what the White House knew and when?
• Would deployment of American military assets sitting off the coast of Libya at the time of the attack have kept the weapons that were stored at the compound out of the hands of the jihadists?

Follow the links to take the polls, or just sound off in the comments before the talking heads in the media tell us what we think.