The Benghazi Bullshit Knows No End...

 Yesterday we saw the House of Representatives vote 232 - 186 in support of a Select Committee into the Benghazi matter. This is hardly a surprise. Nor is the fact that the Committee will be weighted in favor of the Republicans. House Minority Leader Nancy Pulosi can complain all she wants about the unfairness of the unbalance but that's how these things usually are set up, and the Democrats have done the same thing in the past.

Just how valuable another investigation is really going to be is anyone's guess. I suspect we already know the gist of what happened. Security was not what it should have been. Communication was not what it should have been. Military assistance was simply too far away to render any significant hep. A brave and well-intentioned Ambassador may have been a little too brave to the point of recklessness. Chris Stevens didn't want big security teams surrounding him as he tried to make inroads with the people of Libya and gain trust. It may have cost him his life. Not to mention the other dead Americans that night, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. It is a true tragedy.

I'm not sure what the point of this House Select Committee really is. While I'm quite certain there will be passionate and theatrical speeches and admonishments and fists banging on tables for the cameras and microphones, I have little expectation we're going to learn very much new substantive information from these proceedings. More likely, it is an opportunity to keep the themes of Benghazi, 4 dead Americans, Hillary Clinton and President Obama all intertwined for a few more weeks. During which time Conservatives will hope for new campaign ad fodder and lots of fund-raising dollars. 

Its not entirely unlike the fifty-plus votes the House has taken on Obamacare. Every time they've voted, I've seen a fundraising email show up in my inbox. Only a madman would seriously think those votes were serious attempts at legislating. Likewise, I don't think the GOP really thinks they'll be the ones to uncover all the really good dirt and proof of who knows what? Think of the House as a Muscular Dystrophy Telethon of sorts. The appeals for money are never-ending. The difference is one is for a good cause and the other pretends its fighting for a good cause.

This isn't justice being pursued, its politics. As dirty and nasty as ever. Anything the House can do to continue to afflict pain upon this President they will. Anything they can do to put some dents into the Clinton for President car, they will. I'd love to think the House was really driven to find out what went wrong and how to prevent it. They're not. This is a device to be used to improve political positioning, power and control. If the tables were turned, perhaps the Democrats might do the same thing, but history tells us otherwise. After the bombing in Lebanon during the Reagan Presidency, there wasn't this non-stop, full court press of investigation after investigation after investigation. Four people didn't die in Lebanon, two-hundred and forty-one did. Go figure. 

There are two articles I've seen in the last few days that I think are worth your time on this subject. The first, by Salon's Simon Maloy, titled, "GOP's New Benghazi Lunatic: Meet Trey Gowdey, its substance free committee chair."

The second, by the Daily Beast's Micheal Tomasky, is called, "The B is Back: The Benghazi Hearings Are Bullshit."

Sources:

http://www.salon.com/2014/05/06/gop%E2%80%99s_new_benghazi_dreamboat_meet_trey_gowdy_its_substance_free_committee_chair/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/07/the-b-is-back-the-benghazi-hearings-are-bullsh-t.html

What should be the last words on the Benghazi "coverup"...

No, not really....

 Much has been written about Benghazi and most of its been wrong. While many on the right seem to have wanted it to be a scandal for obvious political purposes, it just isn't playing out that way regardless what your friends at The Western Center for Journalism, Fox News, etc. choose to say on the matter. 

Two articles for your consideration. 

The first, from our friends at Addicting Info, Egberto Willies has a nice piece featuring conservative columnist David Brooks of  the New York Times and his comments on last Sunday's "Meet The Press." In short, Mr. Brooks suggests the following to the notion that the White House and former Secretary of Hillary Clinton are co-conspirators in a massive cover-up. 

"There is an underlying narrative here which I actually think is wrong. The underlying narrative is it says this bunch of technically pure nonpolitical and then they produce a product which is then doctored by a bunch of political people either at State or at the Whitehouse; my reading of the evidence is that a very terrible event happened at a CIA, basically a CIA facility, they went into intense blame shifting mode, trying to shift responsibility onto the State Department, onto anywhere else, and the State Department pushed back. They said no, it is not our fault. It’s you facility. And so they push back and they say why we are suddenly releasing information that we haven’t been releasing so far. So the CIA was super aggressive, there was some pushback, out of that bureaucratic struggle all the talking points were reduced to mush and then politics was inserted into it. So I don’t think we should necessarily say this is politics intruding on a CIA pure operation."

Read the entire article here... 

The other article worth reading is from the Maddow Blog, by Steve Benen which addresses the alleged "cover-up angle". Once more, there appears to be no "there" there as the various claims wilt...

The White House yesterday afternoon released the inter-agency communications that went into crafting the "talking points" requested by Congress last September. Lawmakers already saw these materials months ago -- they found nothing controversial at the time -- but Republicans and the media decided it was time to see them again.

So, the administration, eager to put the matter to rest, released the documents. In turn, we learned what we already knew: there was no cover-up; State and the CIA engaged in a predictable bureaucratic "tug of war"; and this:

The internal debate did not include political interference from the White House, according to the e-mails, which were provided to congressional intelligence committees several months ago.

And with that, everything Republican conspiracy theorists desperately wanted Americans to believe -- there's a scandal; there's a cover-up; there's evidence the White House manipulated and lied about a crisis for political ends -- suddenly evaporated before our very eyes.

Read the full article here: 

***********************************

I don't think for a moment that Darrell Issa is going to go quietly into that good night. Why would he? He's getting a ton of facetime, is essentially in a "can't lose" position and apparently has no qualms whatsoever about politicizing the deaths of four Americans. Which is all he's doing. He's earning some chips for down the road in his career and who knows when and where he'll decide to cash those babies in? He's only 59, former Army guy, etc. so perhaps another attempt at the Senate might be on the horizon someday? Vice Presidential nominee someday for someone? Who's to say?  

It would be so much better if this time and energy were put into fortifying our Middle East operations for both the State Department and the CIA. Lessons should be learned from Benghazi and hopefully avoid another tragedy in the future. 

Sources: 

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/05/13/conservative-republican-david-brooks-gives-correct-perspective-to-benghazi-tragedy-video/

http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/05/16/18295499-watching-a-scandal-evaporate-before-our-very-eyes?lite

Hillary, Equal Rights, Constitutional Hypocrisy, Guns, Race, Obama paycheck stunt...

A mixed bag today:

1) Hillary Clinton is very likely to run for President in 2016. The Democratic field she'd have to conquer isn't a very impressive or deep one at this time and I suspect it would be a short primary season for her. Her biggest obstacle is Joe Biden, and unless some controversy arises with Mrs. Clinton, (Bhengazi?) that can't be managed, I don't see him getting in her way.

2) I get the problem for congressmen and women when it comes to equal rights. In many places, their constituents don't really want equal rights. Yes, often these are the same people yammering about the destruction of the Constitution under this President and his Administration, but too often when the rubber hits the road, people don't really want equal rights for everyone. Many strong religion voices in our country get upset at the (mostly imagined) idea of the war on Christians. Ask these folks how they feel about Islam being taught in our schools and you'll see what I mean.

3) Several politicians have stepped up and proudly announced, like President Obama did before the election, that after much personal reflection they now feel all Americans deserve a fully recognized and equal right to marry the person of their choice. I didn't get too misty-eyed when Obama finally got around to it and I'm not getting too excited now. The list of those whose "evolution" had come out in favor of same sex marriage grows by the day. Almost always its a matter of political expediency. The 14th Amendment doesn't leave out certain groups, it says no person shall be denied equal protection under the law. Period.

4) Who can miss the irony that so many pro-gun folks who can recite the 2nd Amendment by memory but poo-poo any attempt to "interpret" its meaning consider those who want to apply the same standard to the 14th as some clear cut sign of lunacy? Hypocrites.

5) I wish the pro gun-reform folks who like to post pictures referring to the Newtown, CT shooting would stop. While it does play on our emotions when you do that, its not going to help the reform effort at all. Realize this. Massacres like that are almost impossible to prevent. Crazy people do crazy things. Hopefully, we get better as a society at stopping them. Any serious gun policy won't aim (sorry) at the random, insane acts that happen infrequently. Rather, it would attempt to get a better grip on controlling the manufacturing (smaller clips/magazines), better regulating all sales and creating an improved background check system. We should control all the guns in the country at least as well as we control our cars and trucks.

6) We all should be asking ourselves why it took a string of senseless shootings of mostly white people to get (hopefully meaningful) gun reform on the table again. While the murder of 20 small kids turns anyone's stomach, the overall numbers are striking:

Recent gun related shootings and # of deaths: 

April 1999: Columbine shooting - 13 dead
April 2007: Virginia Tech shooting - 32 dead
April 2009: Binghamton, NY office shooting - 13 dead

November 2009: Ft. Hood shooting - 13 dead
January 2011: Tuscon shopping ctr. shooting - 6 dead
April 2012: Oikos University - 7 dead
July 2012: Aurora Theater - 12 dead
August 2012: Wisconsin Sikh shooting - 6 dead

December 2012: Newtown school shooting - 26 dead

...Nine gun related attacks resulting in 128 deaths and even more injuries. While there was some increase in the general discussion on the need to improve gun laws in this country, it wasn't until our President wept openly before cameras the afternoon of the Newtown shootings that we collectively sat up and took notice.

...Looking at one city - Chicago, over a two year period, we see: 

2011 Chicago gun related deaths: 433
2012 Chicago gun related deaths: 535
TWO YEAR TOTAL: 968 deaths...

I'm not suggesting this is apples and apples, but my point stands. We mostly stand by quietly on the urban area shootings day after day while the body count increases well into the hundreds, but finally dub it a call to action when 20 children are wiped out in under ten minutes in the suburbs. Maybe its the sheer number we saw in Newtown or Tuscon, Ft. Hood, etc. but numbers equal to those or higher occur on average every week in Chicago.

We as a country don't seem to especially care if a group of us get gunned down from time to time. If its a group of small school children, then yes, we'll emote for a while and perhaps pass some mild changes into law. If its 6-10 blacks or latino folks losing their lives to a bullet every week in our cities, we really, as proved by our collective actions, don't give a shit...

7) President Obama continues to have a tin ear when it comes to avoiding unnecessary wrong notes. While the Country is coping with the effects of the sequestration, a by product of the inability of both Congress and the White House to avoid its across the board spending cuts, the first family is taking flak for its vacations. Never mind that Mr. Obama has taken less time off than his predecessor did, never mind that the Obama's pay for everything out of their own pocket except for security above and beyond the allocated $50,000 given to them for "expenses" and the $100,000 provided for travel. While we can dismiss the asshats like Sean Hannity for his role in this, I again wonder why this administration continues to throw these softballs right down the middle for his opponents to smack out of the park? This is not a first family that spends lavishly or excessively as some would suggest, but the appearance is damning just the same. The President's announcement this week that he will give back 5% of his salary to stand with those who have been hurt by the sequestration is a cheap stunt. Mr. Obama has a net worth of over 11 Million dollars and a fortune beyond anything I can imagine waiting for him once he steps away from public service. He's not going to miss  the 20K he'll give back. Its this sort of "out of touch-ness" that pisses people off.

I have supported this President and usually defend his actions. Perhaps he has decided he has no more elections to worry about, that no matter what he does or doesn't do he will be criticized by his detractors, etc. so damn the torpedoes, the Obama's will do what they want without regard to public perception. For all the offensive crap they've had to absorb as a family, perhaps he's entitled. But it comes at a cost.


Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/03/north-carolina-religion-bill_n_3003401.html

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/04/02/tennessee-gops-plan-to-shove-jesus-down-our-throat-goes-
hilariously-wrong/

http://www.barenakedislam.com/2012/02/05/have-your-schools-been-indoctrinated-with-whitewashed-islamic-propaganda-yet/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_supporters_of_same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States

http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/03/thousands_of_young_black_men_die_in_gun_crimes_every_year.html

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/15/health/trauma-centers-guns

http://raniakhalek.com/2012/12/17/do-white-children-have-to-die-for-lawmakers-to-give-a-shit/

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/us/politics/to-highlight-pain-of-budget-cuts-obama-to-return-of-part-of-pay.html?_r=0

http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-politicians/presidents/barack-obama-net-worth/

New Poll Shows Clinton/Christie at Front of 2016 Presidential Pack...

According to a new poll from Quinnipiac University, Democrat and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would defeat both Vice President Joe Biden or New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic Nomination if the election was held today. For Republicans, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie leads fellow Republicans Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Paul Ryan, Congressman from Wisconsin.


Remember, polls are a snapshot of current opinions. Keep in mind that Michelle Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll last election cycle and we know how that turned out, don't we?

The poll also found that Hispanic voters prefer Clinton to Marco Rubio by a significant margin, (60-24%). A stat that likely sends chills down the backs of GOP party leaders.

The poll also reveals that President Obama is trusted more than Congress is when it comes to the economy (44-40), health care(46-41) and immigration (45-40).

Also from the poll this info on gun reform:

By an 88 - 10 percent margin, including 85 - 13 percent among voters in households with guns, American voters support background checks for all gun buyers. Voters also support 54 - 41 percent a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons and back 54 - 42 percent a nationwide ban on the sale of ammunition magazines with more than 10 rounds. 

The poll was conducted between February 27th to March 4th, surveying over 1900 registered voters.

Sources:

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-centers/polling-institute/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=1861