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  1. #76
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    Yep. Sounds skeeered to me.
    As usual, CC is way off target.

  2. #77
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    Notice how the Feds did nothing to these peaceful protestors, while many police depts beat the out of and/or arrested, and tried some, 1000s of OWS protestors.

    yeah, redneck white boys, tell us yet again how you're persecuted.

  3. #78
    Veteran DarrinS's Avatar
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    Notice how the Feds did nothing to these peaceful protestors, while many police depts beat the out of and/or arrested, and tried some, 1000s of OWS protestors.

    yeah, redneck white boys, tell us yet again how you're persecuted.

    Were they committing crimes?

  4. #79
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    Were they committing crimes?
    peaceful assembly isn't a crime.

    cities now make almost every peaceful assembly subject to permits and severe policing, but I'm sure you right-wingers just hate the The Negro's police state, but would have love McLiar's/BishopGecko's police state.

    the rednecks were comitting a crime, trespassing gratuitously (they just had to ATV in that specific place) on posted govt property with forbidden vehicles

  5. #80
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    peaceful assembly isn't a crime.

    cities now make almost every peaceful assembly subject to permits and severe policing, but I'm sure you right-wingers just hate the The Negro's police state, but would have love McLiar's/BishopGecko's police state.

    the rednecks were comitting a crime, trespassing gratuitously (they just had to ATV in that specific place) on posted govt property with forbidden vehicles
    Boutons is OUTRAGED! Rednecks on ATV's!!!!

  6. #81
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    Trey Gowdy has questions ... that have already been answered





    On Sunday, GOP #Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy told Fox's Chris Wallace that he has some big questions for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton because he doesn't know "why we were still in Benghazi despite the fact that there was an escalation in violence." And why doesn't he know? Because:

    I have never an opportunity to ask the secretary of state questions about the lead-up to Benghazi and why we were still there.

    Therefore:

    WALLACE: So tell me the single biggest question you want to ask Secretary Clinton?
    GOWDY: Why were we still in Benghazi? The British ambassador was almost assassinated. Our facility was attacked twice. There were multiple episodes of violence. We were the last flag flying in Benghazi and I would like to know why.

    Okay, so let's not indict Gowdy for having a question and not knowing the answer. Instead, let's see if there is any possible way that Gowdy could discover the answer without spending millions of taxpayer dollars on a partisan congressional committee.
    And you know what? Good news! Because as Sam Stein writes, Gowdy's question has already been asked and answered.

    The last time that Clinton testified before Congress on #Benghazi, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce asked her why were in Benghazi despite the security threats. Her answer:

    We were in Benghazi as part of an effort to stabilize the Libyan government, and that while she was aware of the security issues and risks, the U.S. operates in many dangerous places around the world and security professionals did not recommend pulling out of Benghazi.

    Maybe Trey Gowdy has a problem with the fact that he wasn't the one who asked the question, but he can't say that the question hasn't been asked nor can he say that it hasn't been answered. Well, let me take that back. Obviously he can say it because he did say it. But the only reason he got away with it without any pushback is that Fox News is in the tank for the GOP on Benghazi and everything else.


    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/12/1298764/-Trey-Gowdy-has-questions-that-have-already-been-answered?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm _campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29 #


    Issa and Gowdy are Kenn Starrs, coming up empty handed after 1000s of hours of digging up non-existent dirt, but they are without a Linda Tripp to save their witch hunting, harassing asses.

    Repugs!

    SC racist Confederate Repugs!



    Last edited by boutons_deux; 05-13-2014 at 11:11 AM.

  7. #82
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    @ Boos OUTRAGE!!!!!

  8. #83
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    Trey Gowdy has questions ... that have already been answered





    On Sunday, GOP #Benghazi Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy told Fox's Chris Wallace that he has some big questions for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton because he doesn't know "why we were still in Benghazi despite the fact that there was an escalation in violence." And why doesn't he know? Because:

    I have never an opportunity to ask the secretary of state questions about the lead-up to Benghazi and why we were still there.

    Therefore:

    WALLACE: So tell me the single biggest question you want to ask Secretary Clinton?
    GOWDY: Why were we still in Benghazi? The British ambassador was almost assassinated. Our facility was attacked twice. There were multiple episodes of violence. We were the last flag flying in Benghazi and I would like to know why.

    Okay, so let's not indict Gowdy for having a question and not knowing the answer. Instead, let's see if there is any possible way that Gowdy could discover the answer without spending millions of taxpayer dollars on a partisan congressional committee.
    And you know what? Good news! Because as Sam Stein writes, Gowdy's question has already been asked and answered.

    The last time that Clinton testified before Congress on #Benghazi, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce asked her why were in Benghazi despite the security threats. Her answer:

    We were in Benghazi as part of an effort to stabilize the Libyan government, and that while she was aware of the security issues and risks, the U.S. operates in many dangerous places around the world and security professionals did not recommend pulling out of Benghazi.

    Maybe Trey Gowdy has a problem with the fact that he wasn't the one who asked the question, but he can't say that the question hasn't been asked nor can he say that it hasn't been answered. Well, let me take that back. Obviously he can say it because he did say it. But the only reason he got away with it without any pushback is that Fox News is in the tank for the GOP on Benghazi and everything else.


    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/12/1298764/-Trey-Gowdy-has-questions-that-have-already-been-answered?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm _campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29 #


    Issa and Gowdy are Kenn Starrs, coming up empty handed after 1000s of hours of digging up non-existent dirt, but they are without a Linda Tripp to save their witch hunting, harassing asses.

    Repugs!

    SC racist Confederate Repugs!



    lmao! you're quicky beocming my SR favorite

  9. #84
    W4A1 143 43CK? Nbadan's Avatar
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    What is Boo so scared of? Why is he terrified of this special committee? Boo's outrage is hilarious.
    Ok..but this committee has nothing new that previous investigative committees on Bengazi haven't had...and 'the email' isn't enough to convince anyone of anything...that makes this committee a colossal waste of government and tax-payer resources...but if you want to rest your hat on the emails go ahead...

  10. #85
    W4A1 143 43CK? Nbadan's Avatar
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    gotta love Borowitz...


    MILLIONS OF AMERICANS WHO NEED JOBS WANT CONGRESS TO GET TO BOTTOM OF THIS BENGHAZI THING FIRST
    WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)


    Millions of unemployed Americans who have fruitlessly been looking for work for months are determined that Congress get to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi, a new poll indicates.

    According to the survey, job-seeking Americans hope that Congress will eventually do something about job creation, but they are adamant that it hold new hearings about Benghazi first.

    By a wide majority, respondents to the poll “strongly agreed” with the statement “I would really like to find a job, but not if it in any way distracts Congress from my No. 1 concern: finding out what really happened in Benghazi.”

    In related findings, a survey of Americans found that taxpayers overwhelmingly consider Benghazi hearings to be the best use of taxpayer money, well ahead of schools, roads, and infant nutrition.
    http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...ing-first.html

  11. #86
    W4A1 143 43CK? Nbadan's Avatar
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    ...the really sad part of this is that the victims which the wing-nuts are purported to be supporting here are the ones being used for this political hatched job on Hillary...

    Families Of Benghazi Victims Have Asked Us Not To Launch New Committee

    House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the families of victims of the 2012 Benghazi, Libya, attack have reached out to lawmakers to ask them not to launch another probe into the incident.

    "Two of their families have called us and said, 'Please don't take us down this path again,'" Pelosi said during her weekly press conference. "It's really hard for them. It's very sad."

    Rep. Louise Slaughter's (D-N.Y.) office confirmed that a family member from the maternal side of Tyrone Woods' family called on Thursday to express support for the congresswoman's position on the issue, which is that another probe is not necessary. Woods was one of the CIA contractors killed in the attack. A Democratic aide said another family also has reached out to Democrats.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5296172.html

  12. #87
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  13. #88
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    New Benghazi Investigation Spooks GOP Leaders
    Eli Lake

    It’s not just the Democrats who are opposed to a new select committee looking into the Benghazi attacks. Many top Republicans are uneasy, too.

    Last Wednesday, as the House was preparing for its new investigation into the Benghazi attacks, House intelligence committee chairman Mike Rogers gathered Republican members of his committee for a meeting. While the main purpose of the meeting was to discuss surveillance reforms the committee was about to pass, Rogers also warned his colleagues about the upcoming select committee to investigate Benghazi.

    “He was saying this could be a rabbit hole,” one House member told The Daily Beast. “He was warning us that we should not let this investigation get into conspiracy theories.”

    Contrary to the caricature of Republicans, as singularly obsessed for political reasons with Benghazi, the reality is quite different. There is deep unease within the Republican leadership that the select committee, which has yet to announce a schedule of hearings, could backfire, and badly. Investigate and find nothing new, and the committee looks like a bunch of tin-hatted obsessives. Investigate and uncover previously-hidden secrets, and it makes all of the other Republican led panels that dug into Benghazi seem like Keystone Kops.

    Three Republican sources tell The Daily Beast that the chairmen of the House Intelligence, Armed Services, and Government Reform committees—Reps. Rogers, Buck McKeon, and Darrell Issa, respectively—all opposed the formation of a select committee on Benghazi. All three men have led their own investigations into the matter.
    more
    http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...p-leaders.html

  14. #89
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    Fox Manufactures Benghazi Outrage With Cropped Video Of Susan Rice

    Fox News' On the Record aired dramatically cropped video of Susan Rice to falsely claim she brushed off a question about Benghazi and did not take the deaths seriously.

    On May 15, host Greta Van Susteren aired only four words from Rice's response to a question about what new information the recently-formed GOP special committee for Benghazi may find. After airing Rice saying "Dang if I know," Van Susteren cut off the video and said it doesn't sound like the White House is taking the investigation seriously.

    Van Susteren repeatedly emphasized that four people died in the attack while calling Rice's response insensitive:

    But the full video of Rice's response shows that Van Susteren is manufacturing this latest Fox outrage. Rice's response was to the question of whether or not new information would be released. In the full version of the clip that Fox chose not to air, Rice goes on to point out that "I mean, honestly, the administration has produced, I think, 25,000 pages of do ents, or 25,000 individual do ents. They've supported, participated in, contributed to the investigations of, you know, seven, I think, different committees. We have had an accountability review board by a very distinguished group of outsiders."

    Later in the interview, Rice emphasized the need to prevent a similar attack from occurring in the future, saying we lost four brave Americans on that day, and their families and those of us who work with them continue to grieve. And the last thing we need to do is to lose any more":


    http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/05...cropped/199344

    But Fox's median viewership of 68 years old will remain convinced that their fantasy of a WH Benghazi conspiracy is hard, irrefutable reality.



  15. #90
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    Issa Pushes Forward With His Own Benghazi Investigation

    Just days after the House voted to impanel a select committee to investigate the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa signaled that he will continue his own separate investigation into the attacks.

    The California Republican on Thursday issued another subpoena to Secretary of State John Kerry, calling on the former senator—who was serving in the Senate at the time of the attack—to appear before the Oversight Committee on May 29. Earlier this month, the same day that House Speaker John Boehner announced his intention to form a select committee on the matter, Issa issued a subpoena requiring Kerry to appear before the committee on May 21, but changed the date due to a conflict with Kerry's scheduled trip to Mexico that week
    .

    "The State Department had discussed May 29 as a possible alternative date and that's when Secretary Kerry will be obligated to appear—further accommodation will not be possible," Issa said in a statement. "Absent an assertion of executive privilege, the State Department has a legal obligation to fully and completely comply."

    Boehner said at the time that he supports Issa's subpoena, and spokesman Michael Steel confirmed Thursday that that remains the case.
    http://www.nationaljournal.com/congr...ation-20140515

    Roads & freeway closed, children's hospitals and emergency rooms closed, all schools closed, houses burned, lives ruined, his droughted district was an inevitable tinderbox. ...yet from ALEC/KOCH disciple Issa only Benghazee,Bengahzee, Bengahzee.

  16. #91
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    Issa MUST feele insulted, pushed aside as the Repugs start up Gowdy SELECT! committee, etc so long after Issa has been chasing Benghazi windmills.

  17. #92
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    What you haven't read about Benghazi
    by tmaertens


    On April 18, 1983, a suicide truck bomber attacked the U.S. Embassy in Beirut killing sixty-three people including 17 Americans; on Oct. 23, 1983, a second suicide bomber struck in Beirut, killing 241 U.S. Marines. The congressional investigation ordered by Speaker “Tip” O’Neill recommended major security improvements.

    Eighteen months later, on Sept. 20, 1984, a third attack occurred in Beirut, killing 24 people at the U.S. Embassy.

    It turned out that the security measures Congress directed had not been completed. Ronald Reagan’s explanation was a version of, well, stuff happens: “Anyone who’s ever had their kitchen done over knows that it never gets done as soon as you wish it would.”

    In the interim, five more people were killed in the Dec. 12, 1983, attack on the American Embassy in Kuwait.

    Under George W. Bush, sixty people died at U.S. missions overseas, including 16 U.S. diplomats, from attacks at Kolkata (Calcutta), Islamabad, Istanbul, Tashkent, Damascus, Saudi Arabia, and two each in Sana’a and Karachi. There were no Congressional investigations.

    There have been 521 attacks on U.S. missions abroad since 1970 — roughly one per month — according to State Department figures. Of the 500 Americans who died in dangerous parts of the world in recent decades — plus 4,500 Americans who died in Bush’s Iraq fiasco — Republicans seem obsessed only about the four victims who died in Benghazi, Libya: eight congressional committees have already conducted thirteen hearings.

    House Speaker John Boehner has convened yet another investigation — a “trial” the chairman called it — to determine whether violent protests were “rooted in an Internet video, not a failure of policy,” as administration talking points declared. The video in question was “The Innocence of Muslims,” made by an Egyptian Christian extremist in California. One Republican after another has declared the explanation a lie.

    An Internet search shows photos of riots or demonstrations in Cairo, Gaza City, Kashmir, Kuwait, Istanbul, Mombasa, Jakarta, Doha, Khartoum, Dhaka, Yemen, Iraq, India, Tunisia, Teheran, Kabul, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Lebanon, Jordan, and many other cities around 9/11. Maps posted by the Atlantic and others show dozens of protests around the world that night.

    The New York Daily News said “The Muslim-mocking clip caused violent protests across the Arab world and may have been the impetus for the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi;” the International Business Times reported that “As many as 19 people have been killed in Pakistan amid violent protests over anti-Muslim film ‘Innocence of Muslims’”; Sky News reported that 60 were injured in Peshawar and over a hundred in Karachi; France shut down its embassies in 20 countries because of protests; over a dozen were injured in Bangladesh; the BBC reported over 100 people were injured in Cairo due to “protests against an anti-Islam film.”


    Reuters reported that seven Egyptian Christians were sentenced to death in absentia for their role in “The Innocence of Muslims;” and, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri urged Muslims to wage holy war against the U.S. and Israel over the “The Innocence of Muslims.”

    A January 2014 report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) also suggested that the attacks were influenced by violent protests against an inflammatory video, and cited demonstrations in Cairo and approximately 40 other cities that night. Besides Benghazi, there were attacks on U.S. missions in Yemen, Egypt and Tunisia.

    Adding to the frenzy about Benghazi was Fox News’ bogus claim that the military was told to “stand down” during the attack. That and other conspiracy theories were broadcast in more than 1,100 segments by Fox about Benghazi last year, according to Nexis.


    The Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Buck McKeon, concluded there is “no evidence that Department of State officials delayed the decision to deploy what few resources DoD had available to respond.” Separately, a Pentagon statement said that “U.S. military forces could not have arrived in time to mount a rescue of those Americans who were killed and injured.”

    The Benghazi hysteria is being stirred up by Republicans for political purposes. The National Republican Congressional Committee has boasted that its Clinton/Benghazi fundraising page was the most successful in its history.

    Several Republicans claim they have enough votes to impeach Obama, except they can’t find any evidence of “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” despite their scandal-mongering over “Fast and Furious” and the IRS. Now they are betting on Benghazi.

    But Benghazi was a tragedy perpetrated by jihadists in Libya, not by Obama, Clinton or diplomats in the State Department.
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/0...about-Benghazi

  18. #93
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    Dan, a serious question.

    Are you saying that not learning from past events is acceptable?

  19. #94
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    Dan, a serious question.

    Are you saying that not learning from past events is acceptable?
    Tee Vee watching Americans' memory recall is famously about 15 minutes. Add to that the incredible political disaffection, disengagement, magical "Christian" ideas, senility, and ignorance, historical and contemporary, of white Americans that the Repugs depend on in their base, and "learning" simply doesn't apply.

  20. #95
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    Ronald Reagan “Treason” Amnesia: GOP Hypocrites Forget Their Hero Negotiated with Terrorists

    It’s been said that if President Obama were to walk on water, the headline news would be “President Can’t Swim.” That can explain why what would normally be a cause for celebration — the return of America’s only prisoner of war in Iraq or Afghanistan — quickly became a controversy, with talk of it being a crime. Reactions to the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, in exchange for five Taliban members being held at Guantanamo, have been so severe that even the hometown joy at his release has been dampened.

    GOP criticism — picked up by the media — initially focused on two lines of attack on Obama, the first claiming that “negotiating with terrorists” sets a bad precedent, and the second claiming that Obama broke the law by failing to consult with Congress 30 days in advance of releasing the Taliban detainees. There were calls for “investigations,” the GOP’s favorite word in Obama’s second term. But the consultation requirement in a bill passed by Congress was countered by a presidential signing statement — and acting on such signing statements was never a problem for the GOP when Bush was president.


    As for “setting a bad precedent” by “negotiating with terrorists,” the GOP’s very serious concern comes three decades too late: Their hallowed icon, Ronald Reagan, firmly established that precedent in a still-murky tangle of secret dealings with Iran, only some of which came to light in the Iran-contra scandal. While Obama was actually involved in prisoner-of-war negotiations — a quite different matter, as several commentators have tried to explain — Reagan clearly was not. Thus, if we really want to put the current faux controversy over Bergdahl’s release into context, a review of Reagan’s record should prove most illuminating. The particulars involved in that record were far more shocking than the ambiguities surrounding Bergdahl’s conduct, which have opened up a third line of attack on Obama’s success in bringing him home.


    Not only did Reagan deal with terrorists as president, as revealed in the Iran-Contra scandal, the preponderance of evidence now supports the charge that his campaign negotiated with Iranian hostage-takers while he was running for president in 1980, to delay the release of hostages before the election, which could have helped Carter win reelection — what was known as “The October Surprise.” Given that Reagan wasn’t president then, but was negotiating to thwart a president’s attempt to get hostages released, this is not simply questionable behavior, it is arguably an act of treason. Democrats’ reluctance to vigorously investigate Reagan’s misdeeds — the exact opposite of GOP at udes toward Clinton and Obama — has left much of the true story still shrouded in mystery, but what we do know is damning enough in itself, and still cries out for a truly thorough investigation.


    First of all, there’s no doubt that Reagan himself set the precedent of dealing with terrorists — and encouraging more hostage-taking. He and his administration convinced themselves they were dealing with “moderates” in Iran. But they also famously sent Donald Rumsfeld to Iraq to hang out with Saddam Hussein, and collaborated with Osama bin Laden in building up the most extreme mujahideen elements fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan — the very forces that eventually gave birth to the Taliban. When his own hand-picked “Tower Commission” confirmed the basic facts of the Iran-contra scandal, Reagan went on national TV and said, “A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.”


    In short, Reagan had utterly terrible judgment when it came to the politics of the region, and the fact that he deluded himself about what he was doing and who he was doing it with was part and parcel of his terrible judgment; it only makes matters worse — it does not excuse them.


    If we ignore the October Surprise for the moment, the Iran-Contra Affair began as a response to the Lebanon Hostage Crisis, which Wikipedia describes [2] as “the systematic kidnapping in Lebanon of 96 foreign hostages of 21 national origins — mostly American and western European — between 1982 and 1992.” The hostage crisis, in turn, was an outgrowth of the Lebanese Civil War [3] (1975-1990), and more specifically the role the U.S. and other Western nations played in trying to intervene in 1983. (Only one hostage was taken before then.) This, in turn, was met by two notorious bombing attacks — one on a U.S. Marine barracks, the other on the U.S. embassy. Both involved far more loss of life than Benghazi — but were considered tragedies, not scandals, and have been entirely forgotten by today’s GOP. As Wikipedia explains:

    The original reason for the hostage-taking seems to have been “as insurance against retaliation by the U.S., Syria, or any other force” against Hezbollah, which is thought responsible for the killing of 241 Americans and 58 Frenchmen in the Marine barracks [4]and embassy bombings [5] [in which another 17 Americans were killed] in Beirut. Other reasons for the kidnappings or the prolonged holding of hostages are thought to be “primarily based on Iranian foreign policy calculations and interests” particularly the extraction of “political, military and financial concessions from the Western world,” the hostage takers being strong allies of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

    This passage shows that the reasons for hostage-taking were such that no amount of deal-making would put an end to them. (Sgt. Bergdahl, in contrast, was not taken hostage for any such strategic purposes.) If some hostages were released, others would inevitably be captured to take their place, because the need for hostages remained unchanged. And this is exactly what happened.

    In all, there were eight arms shipments [6] to Iran from Aug. 12, 1985 through Oct. 28, 1986. The first two came from Israel, with the promise that the U.S. would replenish them, but thereafter the U.S. sent them directly — and began skimming the profits to send to the Nicaraguan contras, who were themselves something of a terrorist organization [7], responsible for a pattern “including rape, torture, kidnappings, mutilation and other abuses” against the civilian population. In all, 2,512 TOW anti-tank missiles were sent to Iran, along with 18 Hawk anti-aircraft missiles and more than 240 Hawk spare parts. These were all vital weapons in Iran’s ongoing war with Iraq.

    The results on the hostage-freeing side were a good deal more uneven, to say the least. On Sept. 15, 1985, after the second delivery, the Rev. Benjamin Weir was released by the Islamic Jihad Organization. But then four more shipments took place before another hostage was released. What’s more, on April 17, 1986, the body of one American hostage was discovered near Beirut, along with two other employees of the American University of Beirut, who were British. Then, in late July 1986, Hezbollah released another hostage, Father Lawrence Martin Jenco, former head of Catholic Relief Services in Lebanon. After that, however, in September and October 1986, three more Americans — Frank Reed, Joseph Cicippio, and Edward Tracy — were abducted in Lebanon. One final hostage, David Jacobsen, was released on Nov. 2, 1986, the day before the Lebanese magazine Ash-Shiraa exposed the ongoing arms-for-hostages deal.


    So, the U.S. got zero net hostages released, and one dead hostage’s body dumped in return for 2,512 TOW anti-tank missiles, 18 Hawk anti-aircraft missiles and more than 240 Hawk spare parts.

    On the deal itself, Reagan got snookered. But he also clearly established the precedent that we would negotiate with terrorists — in fact, we would negotiate for them. Not only did the contras terrorize the Nicaraguan people, they were also partially funded through drug-dealing, as numerous investigations [8] in the 1980s and ’90s revealed. As we watch the current manufacture of “scandal” surrounding the release of Sgt. Bergdahl, it’s illuminating to contrast this with the way in which multiple very real interconnected scandals under Ronald Reagan were both isolated from one another and then minimized, never receiving the sort of thorough investigation that Republicans are now demanding every time that President Obama so much as coughs.

    The greatest act of isolation and minimization involves the October Surprise — the 1980 Reagan/Bush campaign’s alleged negotiations with Iran to prevent the release of hostages prior to the 1980 election. Although long dismissed by most as a mere “conspiracy theory,” evidence in support of it has only grown significantly stronger over time, in large part because of the work of investigative journalist Robert Parry, who broke several of the most important stories about the Iran-Contra scandal while working for the Associated Press in the 1980s, and has long run the independent news site Consortiumnews.com [9].


    Parry worked on a do entary about the October Surprise for PBS’s “Frontline” in 1991, and wrote a book based on his research, ”Trick or Treason [10],” published in 1993. But much more was yet to come. In late 1995, he began publishing an eight-part series, the “October Surprise X-Files [11],” based on his investigation of the neglected work product of a House task force (chaired by Indiana Democrat Lee Hamilton) that ostensibly cleared the Reagan/Bush campaign of any wrongdoing in a January 1993 report. “[T]he House task force debunked the charges by adopting an elaborate set of alibis for the key players, Parry explained in his first story in that series, “Russia’s Report [12].” Here is a further excerpt from that story:

    [W]ith a host of such dubious alibis, the 968-page report was shipped off to the printers, with a public release set for Jan. 13, 1993. Washington journalists, already briefed on the task force findings, were preparing to praise the report as “exhaustive” and “bipartisan.”


    But two days before the news conference, a cable arrived from Moscow…..


    To the shock of the task force, the six-page Russian report stated, as fact, that Casey, George Bush and other Republicans had met secretly with Iranian officials in Europe during the 1980 presidential campaign. The Russians depicted the hostage negotiations that year as a two-way compe ion between the Carter White House and the Reagan campaign to outbid one another for Iran’s cooperation on the hostages. The Russians asserted that the Reagan team had disrupted Carter’s hostage negotiations after all, the exact opposite of the task force conclusion….

    But apparently, there was no serious follow-up….

    Parry’s story went into considerable detail about what the Russians alleged, why they were dismissed, and why they shouldn’t have been ignored. He wrote seven more stories in his initial series debunking the conventional wisdom at the time, and has continued to investigate the October Surprise ever since. In June of last year, he published a story [13]reporting that Lee Hamilton’s confidence in his task force’s conclusion had been shaken by a new piece of evidence Parry had found — evidence that Reagan’s campaign director William Casey had taken a trip to Madrid, where one of the key alleged negotiations had taken place. Casey’s alibi story had always insisted that he had never been to Madrid in that time frame. Elsewhere in that story, Parry explains how that piece of evidence was part of a larger set of revealing do ents about a GOP counterattack intended to prevent the discovery of any connection between the October Surprise and the Iran-Contra Scandal. According to Parry, this counterattack included:

    –Delaying the production of do ents;

    –Having a key witness dodge a congressional subpoena;
    –Neutralizing an aggressive Democratic investigator;
    –Pressuring a Republican senator to become more obstructive;
    –Tightly restricting access to classified information;
    –Narrowing the inquiry as it applied to alleged Reagan-Bush wrongdoing while simultaneously widening the probe to include Carter’s efforts to free the hostages;
    –Mounting a public relations campaign attacking the investigation’s costs; and
    –Encouraging friendly journalists to denounce the story.

    The beauty of this full-spectrum counterattack lies in its ulative effectiveness. Any one of these strategies by itself could be argued one way or another, and “fair-minded” journalists could thus become unwitting stooges in the coverup strategy. But it’s deeply deceptive to consider the pros or cons of any one strategy in isolation. The whole point was to use all of them in concert, so that individual strategies that might be defensible add up to a larger whole that no one could subscribe to in good faith if they truly grasped the nature of the whole enterprise. This strategy proved spectacularly successful, Parry notes:

    Ultimately, the GOP cover-up strategy proved highly effective, as Democrats grew timid and neoconservative journalists – then emerging as a powerful force in the Washington media – took the lead in decrying the October Surprise allegations as a “myth.” The Republicans benefited, too, from a Washington press corps, which had grown weary of the complex Iran-Contra scandal.

    It would take nearly two decades for the October Surprise cover-up to crumble [14] with admissions by officials involved in the investigation that its exculpatory conclusions were rushed [15], that crucial evidence had been hidden or ignored [16], and that some alibis for key Republicans didn’t make any sense [17].

    There is more about this in Parry’s 1992 book, “America’s Stolen Narrative [18].” If the left and the right really were mirror images of one another, then the facts Parry has uncovered would be as well-known as the fantasies of the Birthers and Benghazi truthers are. Sadly, however, even most of Obama’s most passionate would-be defenders have no idea just how dark Ronald Reagan’s history is when it comes to the sorts of things that Obama is now being accused of.


    After all, the October Surprise negotiations were allegedly undertaken (a) by private citizens (b) to delay the release of American hostages, and the preponderance of evidence now strongly suggests that this is exactly what happened. At the very least, Reagan/Bush officials colluded to block investigations into the October Surprise, when they should have welcomed it if they had nothing to hide. At most, they were guilty of treason. Any way you slice it, there was an extremely wide-ranging scandal — or set of scandals — involved in Reagan’s negotiations with terrorists, which has been virtually erased from public memory. What Obama is accused of now is utterly trivial in comparison.


    http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-an...ero-negotiated

    Let's see:

    Nixon and his Dirty Tricksters scuppered the 1968 Paris peace talks, prolonging the VN war 7 years and 10Ks of American deaths.

    Reagan and
    his Dirty Tricksters scuppered the Carter attempts to release the Iranian embassy hostages.

    dubya, head lied the USA into two botched, mismanaged, and LOST wars.

    All y'all rednecks and Repugs tell me again all the WONDERFUL stuff Repugs have done FOR America


    ( and Lincoln DON'T COUNT. Today's Repugs, whose base is Confederate/red state racists, would have NEVER done a Emancipation Proclamation. Slavey is "free market" entrepreneurship! Whiteys lifting themselves up by The Negro's bootstraps )


  21. #96
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    House Benghazi Committee Wants $3.3 Million For Latest Investigation



    House Republicans still consumed by uncovering a Benghazi scandal now plan to spend up to $3.3 million to investigate the 2012 attack, according to a do ent obtained by USA Today from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

    According to the do ent, $2.2 million will go to the seven Republicans serving on the select committee, and just over $1 million will go to the five Democrats.

    House Republicans are now planning to spend more for their next investigation than many other key House committees receive in a year. The House Veterans Affairs Committee, which comprises 25 lawmakers and is investigating the widespread problems related to the Department of Veterans Affairs, was granted a budget of only $3 million. The House Ethics Committee, too, has a budget of only $3 million.


    Also, as USA Today points out, because the Benghazi select committee was actually formed in May, its full-year budget would exceed $5 million, which is greater than the $4.4 million budget granted to the House Intelligence Committee.


    Representative Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who heads the select committee, argues that the budget is necessary because the Benghazi panel will require more resources — like greater staffing andtravel means — than other committees. Those resources will, however, be used by Gowdy and Republicans to re-ask all the same questions that have already been answered in previous Benghazi probes.

    As the Huffington Post notes, the three questions essential to Gowdy’s investigation have already come up in previous Benghazi inquiries:


    1. “Why was security lacking during the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S.?”
    2. “Why weren’t military units moving to support consulate personnel?”
    3. “Why were references to ‘terrorist’ and ‘attacks’ edited out of the Obama administration’s talking points?”


    Additionally, Gowdy has said he would like to know why the U.S. was still in Benghazi at the time of the attack, and exactly where the president was on the night of the attack; these, too, have already been asked and answered.

    they ignore that just a year before the Benghazi attack, Secretary Clinton warned that GOP-backed cuts to the U.S. State Department would be “detrimental to America’s national security.” Still, in June 2011, Republicans — two of whom, Reps. Jim Jordan (OH) and Martha Roby (AL), now serve on Gowdy’s panel – voted in favor of a bill that would have limited the use of funds to support NATO operations in Libya. That same month, House Republicans — including Gowdy and the five other GOP lawmakers on the committee — also blocked a bill that would have authorized the limited use of U.S. Armed Forces in Libya.

    In 2012, Republicans proposed cuts to the Obama administration’s requested embassy security budget, and in 2013 — even in the midst of their Benghazi outcry — House Republicans again backed decreased funding for the State Department’s Worldwide Security Program.


    http://www.nationalmemo.com/house-be..._content=Final

  22. #97
    W4A1 143 43CK? Nbadan's Avatar
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    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5565430.html

    snip:

    House Republicans have requested nearly $3.3 million to operate the select committee investigating Benghazi, which gives the GOP-launched committee a bigger budget than that granted to the committee overseeing the troubled Department of Veterans Affairs.
    Politics before Veterans. Not surprising.

  23. #98
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    Trey Gowdy’s Benghazi setback: New humiliation for GOP’s scandal hunter


    It’s still not clear, though, what exactly anyone hopes to learn from Gowdy’s investigation, given that Benghazi has already been scrutinized several times over by several different congressional committees, all of which concluded that Benghazi was a tragedy, but there was no administration conspiracy, and no cover-up. And the day after Gowdy announced when his first hearings would be held, yet another committee reached the same conclusion.

    On July 31, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence voted in favor of releasing a declassified version of its findings from its investigation into Benghazi. Almost immediately, the top-ranking Democrats on the committee started broadcasting the report’s conclusions. Ranking member Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger released a statement saying:

    The report also shows that the process used to develop the talking points was flawed, but that the talking points reflected the conflicting intelligence assessments in the days immediately following the crisis. Finally, the report demonstrates that there was no illegal activity or illegal arms sales occurring at U.S. facilities in Benghazi. And there was absolutely no evidence, in do ents or testimony, that the Intelligence Community’s assessments were politically motivated in any way.

    Adam Schiff, another top Democrat on the committee, issued a statement saying “the initial talking points provided by the intelligence community were flawed because of conflicting assessments not an intention to deceive, that there was no stand down order, that the diplomatic facilities lacked adequate security, and that our personnel at the scene acted bravely and appropriately.”

    It’s entirely possible that the Democrats on the committee are putting the best spin that they can on the report and maybe they’re leaving something out, but the findings they’ve highlighted are consistent with what basically every other investigation has concluded. The House Armed Services Committee’s report also found that there was no intelligence pointing to an imminent threat in Benghazi, and there was no “stand down” order. The report was harsh on the White House’s and the State Department’s conduct in the lead-up to the attack, but stopped well short of anything conspiratorial.

    All this leads one to ask, again, what exactly does Gowdy’s committee hope achieve? He’s already had his legs kicked out from underneath him multiple times as the “unanswered questions” he insists remain about Benghazi keep getting answered (often for the third or fourth time).

    Reports indicate that his September hearing will focus on the State Department’s Accountability Review Board report on the attacks, which was already investigated by the House Oversight Committee.

    Gowdy, a member of that committee, made a spectacle of himself for the cameras during the hearing and earned a lot of laudatory press from conservatives. That should give you a clue as to what these continued Benghazi investigations are really about.



    http://www.salon.com/2014/08/04/trey...candal_hunter/

    BEN GAG ZEE!

    More pure from INANE CLOWN POSSE

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu-7DXBiVsA#t=18



    Last edited by boutons_deux; 08-04-2014 at 07:21 PM.

  24. #99
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  25. #100
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    Fox News Deceptively Clips Obama To Claim Panetta Interview Revealed Benghazi Deception

    Fox News used doctored video of an interview with President Obama to claim his description of briefings he received on the night of the Benghazi attack contrasts with former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's. In reality, their accounts are consistent.

    Fox has spent more than two years and 244 segments propping up baseless allegations that the White House engaged in a Benghazi "cover-up" with accusations that the administration waited weeks to admit to the attacks were "terror" or a "terrorist act," though in reality, Obama called the Benghazi attack an "act of terror" during his Rose Garden speech on September 12, the morning after the attacks and repeated the reference twice the next day, during speeches in Colorado and Nevada.

    http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/10/08/fox-news-deceptively-clips-obama-to-claim-panet/201067

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