Benghazi...

[spursncowboys]

WH has behind the scenes meeting with reporters
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/05/white-house-holds-offrecord-benghazi-briefing-163704.html?hp=l1

[spursncowboys]

5 Things We learned about Benghazi this week
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/benghazi-5-things-we-learned-this-week-91202.html?hp=f1

[ChumpDumper]

I learned that nothing is going to come of this no matter what.

[boutons_deux]

Benghazi and the Conservative Scandal-Creation Apparatus
GOP successfully scream “Benghazi” until people pay attention to them (http://www.salon.com/2013/05/09/gop_successfully_scream_benghazi_until_people_pay_ attention_to_them/)
Yesterday, Republicans finally got their #BENGHAZI hearing. After months of nonstop screaming, everyone finally paid attention to the conservative movement’s favorite scandal since Fast and Furious. Darrell Issa’s House Oversight Committee heard explosive testimony from three #BENGHAZI whistle-blowers, who blew the lid off the Obama administration’s conspiracy to win reelection by allowing Americans to die in a terrorist attack and then having an administration official most Americans had never heard of pointedly not blame al-Qaida on Sunday news shows that only people in Washington care about.


Those are the accusations the #BENGHAZI coalition has been making since shortly after the attack: that the Obama administration intentionally allowed the attack on the U.S. consulate to happen, or did not do as much as it could have to stop the attack once it started, because it did not want to admit that it did not successfully destroy terrorism itself in its first term; and that after the attack, the administration intentionally and repeatedly lied about the attackers and their motivation (the “they didn’t say ‘terrorism’” argument), and then engaged in a Watergate-style cover-up of the fact that the attack had been terrorism.

Marc Ambinder explains some problems with those accusations, as coherent stories: (http://theweek.com/article/index/243922/yes-there-is-a-benghazi-conspiracy)


One of the reasons why Americans aren’t outraged about Benghazi is that the event is a series of tragedies in search of a unifying explanation, and one that “Obama is evil” doesn’t cover. Because really, to suggest that the Pentagon or the White House would deliberately — and yes, this is EXACTLY what Republicans are suggesting — prevent special operations forces from rescuing American diplomats BECAUSE they worried about the potential political blowback because they KNEW exactly who was behind it (al Qaeda) is —well, it is to suggest that Barack Obama is simply and utterly evil.

This is the “STAND DOWN” thing, by the way. The notion that the military could’ve saved the day, but the administration ordered them not to because … politics?
Once the attack commenced, there was little, militarily, the United States could do that it did not do. This one paragraph from an L.A. Times story (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-benghazi-hearing-20130508,0,136759.story) is basically everything you need to know about #BENGHAZI. Not everything you need to know about the actual attack and our State Department’s preparedness and response — that is all covered in the State Department’s Accountability Review Board report, which came out in December (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/19/state-benghazi-report_n_2330034.html) — but this paragraph just about sums up the Republican Party’s attempted Whitewater-ification of the deadly attack:


“There were military assets, there was military personnel, they were told to stand down,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) said Monday on the Fox program “Fox and Friends.” Chaffetz acknowledged in an interview published Monday with the Washington Post that they would have arrived after the attack on the CIA annex was over. He said they could have provided first aid.

Why didn’t the president order the Special Forces to provide first aid to the victims hours after Stevens had disappeared, and been taken to a hospital?

If you start from the assumption, as Issa and Chaffetz do, that the Obama administration is evil and corrupt, then the only explanation for the actual real failures in preparedness leading up to the consulate attack is obviously evilness and corruption.

What’s interesting, though, is that Americans aren’t, so far, eating up the #BENGHAZI scandal. There is some proof that months of conspiratorial coverage have made people aware that #BENGHAZI is a thing. There was a Fox poll with some very leading questions (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2013/04/24/fox-news-poll-obama-should-have-been-more-involved-during-libya/) that found that 46 percent of registered voters think the Obama administration is “covering up” what happened in Benghazi. In December, a less leadingly worded CNN poll found that 56 percent of Americans think the administration didn’t deliberately mislead the public after the attacks. (http://www.politico.com/story/2012/12/poll-not-mislead-on-benghazi-85308.html) But on the whole, the majority of the public that doesn’t consume right-wing media hasn’t been hugely concerned. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are both still broadly popular. (http://www.gallup.com/poll/162020/hillary-clinton-popular-obama-biden.aspx) In the Clinton era, I can’t help but feel, this would’ve been much huger, with the help of the non-partisan press


http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/17366-benghazi-and-the-conservative-scandal-creation-apparatus


All the Benghazi fabricated SCANDAL! is doing is inflaming the Repugs' paranoid "maranic" base, Freedom! Liberty! Tyranny!, NOT inflaming anybody outside of that base.

[boutons_deux]

suckered right-wing losers here have about 5 different threads on Benghazi! marans!

54 attacks on the US diplomats under dubya, 13 killed, and we had NO SCANDAL OUTRAGE from the Repugs.

Benghazi didn't work for 2012, and it won't work for 2016.

[Nbadan]

Administration officials say top Republicans saw the emails two months ago and didn't express any issues

BY ALEX SEITZ-WALD


Republican members of Congress raised no objections when they first saw internal emails detailing the evolution of the administration’s talking points on Benghazi almost two months ago, senior administration officials said in response to a question from Salon today, and House Speaker John Boehner declined to attend or send a representative to that briefing.

Lawyers with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence briefed House and Senate Intelligence Committee members in March about the emails, which ABC News released today to much hullabaloo, after officials said they would make them available to members of Congress in February.

Yesterday, Boehner called for the release of the emails, but the administration officials, who agreed to speak on a conference call with reporters only on the condition of anonymity, said today that Boehner would have seen them had he attended the briefing, to which he and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi were also invited.

On the Senate side, lawyers briefed Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Richard Burr, who said the briefing satisfied many of his concerns. “It answers a lot, if not all, of the questions that the committee from an oversight standpoint,” he told the Hill at the time. On the House side, those briefed included Intelligence Committee Chairman Michael McCaul. Republican members in neither chamber raised substantive concerns about the emails, the official said, and were free to discuss them publicly as they were not classified.

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2013/05/10/wh_republicans_had_no_concerns_about_benghazi_emai ls/

[Nbadan]

O Reilly?

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/3514/benghazi2.jpg

[Nbadan]

Your uncle has been posting on Facebook about "Benghazi" or whatever for months now, and you have no clue what the fuck he's talking about because, really, you don't have time for this shit. It's OK. We do. Here's your guide.

What the fuck is all this Benghazi shit?



On September 11 of last year (you might remember), an attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, ended in the death of four Americans: staffers Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods; and U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Initially, the deaths were blamed by the Obama administration on a "spontaneous protest" like the many taking place that day over the anti-Islam film (or film concept) Innocence of Muslims. But it was later determined that the strike was a premeditated terrorist attack.

Read more: http://gawker.com/what-the-fuck-is-all-this-benghazi-shit-an-explainer-499776059

[Nbadan]

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) goes full idiot...

Source: TPM


Calling last year's deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya the "most egregious cover-up in American history," Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) predicted Thursday that President Barack Obama will soon face calls of impeachment.

“Of all the great cover-ups in history — the Pentagon papers, the Iran-Contra, Watergate and all the rest of them — this … is going to go down as the most serious, the most egregious cover-up in American history,” Inhofe said during an appearance on The Rusty Humphries Show.

Inhofe then said he's pleased that Benghazi has returned to the public consciousness. “People may be starting to use the I-word before too long,” Inhofe later said. When the host asked if he was referring to "impeachment," the ranking member on the Senate Armed Services Committee confirmed that he was.

Listen to Inhofe's entire interview here.

###

Read more: http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/inhofe-suggests-obama-may-be-impeached-over-benghazi?ref=fpb

[Nbadan]

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said that Hillary Clinton showed a “forceful attitude” not usually heard from women when she blew up in January’s Senate hearings on Benghazi, in response to repeated questions about the State Department’s initial claims that the attacks were the result of protests.

“I think that she has gotten by with that type of a forceful attitude, something that’s not normally accustomed — that you don’t hear from women as much as you do men. And she came out so forcefully, and you could tell that it was orchestrated at the time that she said it,” Inhofe said in an interview Thursday on “The Rusty Humphries Show.”


“What difference, at this point, does it make” if the attacks were the result of a protest or not, Clinton said at the time. ”It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again.”


Read more: http://www.salon.com/2013/05/10/inhofe_clinton_showed_forceful_attitude_you_usuall y_dont_hear_from_women/

[HI-FI]

even if something really duplicitous is discovered, the usual partisan hacks on here won't give a shit. Power is an aphrodisiac after all.

[boutons_deux]

Bush’s Secretary of Defense Mocks GOP Attacks On Obama’s Handling Of Benghazi (http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/05/12/1998811/bushs-secretary-of-defense-mocks-gop-attacks-on-obamas-handling-of-benghazi/)


“Frankly, had I been in the job at the time, I think my decisions would have been just as theirs were,” said Gates, now the chancellor of the College of William and Mary.

“We don’t have a ready force standing by in the Middle East, and so getting somebody there in a timely way would have been very difficult, if not impossible.” he explained.

Suggestions that we could have flown a fighter jet over the attackers to “scare them with the noise or something,” Gates said, ignored the “number of surface to air missiles that have disappeared from [former Libyan leader] Qaddafi’s arsenals.”

[...]

Another suggestion posed by some critics of the administration, to, as Gates said, “send some small number of special forces or other troops in without knowing what the environment is, without knowing what the threat is, without having any intelligence in terms of what is actually going on on the ground, would have been very dangerous.”

“It’s sort of a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces,” he said. “The one thing that our forces are noted for is planning and preparation before we send people in harm’s way, and there just wasn’t time to do that.”

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/05/12/1998811/bushs-secretary-of-defense-mocks-gop-attacks-on-obamas-handling-of-benghazi/


cartoonish? that describes the Repug tea bagging asshole jokers and Fox Repug Propaganda network faking THEIR own scandal

[boutons_deux]

Fox: New Evidence Hillary Killed LincolnIn what may be the most serious allegation ever made against the former Secretary of State, Fox News Channel reported today that Hillary Clinton was involved in the conspiracy to murder President Abraham Lincoln.

The latest charge against Mrs. Clinton was reported by Fox host Sean Hannity, who said that the evidence of her role in the Lincoln assassination came mainly in the form of e-mails.

According to Mr. Hannity, “If it’s true that Hillary Clinton killed Lincoln, this could have a major impact on her chances in 2016.”

The accusation against Mrs. Clinton drew a strong response from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.—S. Carolina): “There’s been a concerted effort by Hillary Clinton to cover up her role in President Lincoln’s murder. She has said nothing about it. This is bigger than Watergate, the Cuban missile crisis, and the Second World War put together.”

Responding to the allegation, Mrs. Clinton issued a terse statement indicating that she could not have participated in Lincoln’s assassination because she was born in 1947.

“That’s what she wants us to believe,” Sen. Graham said.



http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/05/fox-new-evidence-hillary-killed-lincoln.html?mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%28120%29

[mouse]

I learned nothing


Sig worthy.

[boutons_deux]

The Coming Attempt to Impeach ObamaWhen the histories of this administration are written, I hope fervently that last Friday, May 10, does not figure prominently in them. But I fear that it might: the double-barrel revelations that the White House hasn’t quite been telling the whole story on Benghazi and that some mid-level IRS people targeted some Tea Party groups for scrutiny are guaranteed to ramp up the crazy. But to what extent? I fear it could be considerable, and the people in the White House damn well better fear the same, or we’re going to be contemplating an extremely ugly situation come 2015, especially if the Republicans have held the House and captured the Senate in the by-elections.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/12/the-coming-attempt-to-impeach-obama.html

[BobaFett1]

Barry will pardon Clinton.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Barry will pardon Clinton.

pardon her for what dumbass?

[RandomGuy]

O Reilly?

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/3514/benghazi2.jpg

Coming from a 9-11 twoofer, that may be one of the single most ironic things I have ever seen anywhere at anytime.

[RandomGuy]

WH has behind the scenes meeting with reporters
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/05/white-house-holds-offrecord-benghazi-briefing-163704.html?hp=l1

http://www.trephination.net/gallery/macros/who_cares-coleman.jpg

You guys keep it up. As a Democrat, I heartily endorse Republicans collectively looking like asses, and this manufactured crisis and conspiracy theory bullshit, is damaging your overall credibility with indepedents more than any of you realize.

The fact that y'all live in an information bubble of your own making should have been obvious to you collectively when Obama got re-elected.

A rational person might ask themselves if there was something wrong with the the way they are getting their information. It is obvious that didn't happen then, and isn't happening now.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-may-8-2013/the-big-benghazi-theory----if-

The more you collectively talk, the more you look like 9-11 twoofers. That you don't even realize this is happening is delicious to me.

I will help you bump your theads. I will also start treating you like twoofers to make it really, really, really obvious.

Let the debunking commence.

[mouse]

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/p480x480/922976_10151564666758459_1754277701_n.jpg

[BobaFett1]

http://www.trephination.net/gallery/macros/who_cares-coleman.jpg

You guys keep it up. As a Democrat, I heartily endorse Republicans collectively looking like asses, and this manufactured crisis and conspiracy theory bullshit, is damaging your overall credibility with indepedents more than any of you realize.

The fact that y'all live in an information bubble of your own making should have been obvious to you collectively when Obama got re-elected.

A rational person might ask themselves if there was something wrong with the the way they are getting their information. It is obvious that didn't happen then, and isn't happening now.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-may-8-2013/the-big-benghazi-theory----if-

The more you collectively talk, the more you look like 9-11 twoofers. That you don't even realize this is happening is delicious to me.

I will help you bump your theads. I will also start treating you like twoofers to make it really, really, really obvious.

Let the debunking commence.

Wow just in denial.

[RandomGuy]

WH has behind the scenes meeting with reporters
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/05/white-house-holds-offrecord-benghazi-briefing-163704.html?hp=l1

In your own words, what does this mean? Analysis?

[RandomGuy]

Wow just in denial.

Denial about what? Maybe we could start if you tell me what exactly it is you are concerned about. Maybe then I could come around to your point of view. I just need the facts.

[spursncowboys]

In your own words, what does this mean? Analysis?
Obama's Press Sec took a select group of media personnel and spoke to them off the record, which all the members have kept up.
The media's purpose is to sell their brand of news. Normally certain stories sell better than others. Even if something is not a big story-making it one will sell more of your product. For some reason the selected group of reporters avoided that inherit interest. I have no idea why.

What is your analysis? What is your take?

[SA210]

Posted in other Benghazi threads, but prob good for this one too.

Benghazi whistle-blower a Democrat, voted for Hillary and Obama twice


A key Benghazi whistle-blower who has allegedly been punished for speaking out against the administration is a registered Democrat who voted for both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

The lawyer of Gregory Hicks, the former U.S. deputy chief of mission in Libya who testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Wednesday, confirmed the information to The Daily Caller on Saturday.

According to the lawyer, Victoria Toensing, Hicks voted for Clinton during the 2008 primary, and for then-Illinois Sen. Obama in the 2008 general election. He again voted for Obama in 2012.

“The fact is he is a registered Democrat in Virginia. The fact is he voted for Hilary in the primary and Obama and then again for Obama,” Toensing said.

Toensing added that she did not know he was a Democrat until the day before the hearing. “I’m not interested in that,” she said. “I’m interested in government not abusing its powers.”

Hicks testified before the House Oversight Committee this week regarding the events that took place on Sept. 11, 2012 in Benghazi and recalled how the State Department told him not to cooperate with the congressional investigation into the events, which led to the deaths of four Americans.

Hicks further testified that he has been demoted since Benghazi.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/11/benghazi-whistle-blower-a-democrat-voted-for-hillary-and-obama-twice/#ixzz2TCsnoX3Z

[tlongII]

Denial about what? Maybe we could start if you tell me what exactly it is you are concerned about. Maybe then I could come around to your point of view. I just need the facts.

The facts are simple. The administration knew a terrorist attack was occurring and they did nothing about it. Afterwards they lied about it. Is that clear enough for you?

[DMX7]

#MediaCoverUP

#ScandalCondom

[Th'Pusher]

Obama's Press Sec took a select group of media personnel and spoke to them off the record, which all the members have kept up.
The media's purpose is to sell their brand of news. Normally certain stories sell better than others. Even if something is not a big story-making it one will sell more of your product. For some reason the selected group of reporters avoided that inherit interest. I have no idea why.

What is your analysis? What is your take?
Incorrect and grade school analysis. Does not read his own link. The meetings were not off the record.

[spursncowboys]

Incorrect and grade school analysis. Does not read his own link. The meetings were not off the record.
So there was a video of what was said? Got it. Expand your grade school definition of what 'off the record' is. There must have been a reason why they were taking and spoken to off the record. My analysis was pretty basic. Not even staunch liberals have debated what I posted. Except of course the know all forum liberals. :toast

[RandomGuy]

Obama's Press Sec took a select group of media personnel and spoke to them off the record, which all the members have kept up.
The media's purpose is to sell their brand of news. Normally certain stories sell better than others. Even if something is not a big story-making it one will sell more of your product. For some reason the selected group of reporters avoided that inherit interest. I have no idea why.

What is your analysis? What is your take?

My analysis is that some reporters were given some information. My take is that happens quite a lot in Washington, and that you didn't really read the linked article, or if you had, you didn't really do any critical thinking on what you read, and simply tuned out some rather important bits through what is called "confirmation bias". Conspiracy theorists do this all the time. It is the only way to keep up belief in irrational conspiracies.

Were the reporters told not to relay information? Could they quote the briefer?

[mouse]

Denial about what? I just need the facts.

trust me you need more than just facts, your missing the brain matter to try and understand them.

[ChumpDumper]

OK, mouse -- state all the facts as you understand them in your own words.

[spursncowboys]

My analysis is that some reporters were given some information. My take is that happens quite a lot in Washington, and that you didn't really read the linked article, or if you had, you didn't really do any critical thinking on what you read, and simply tuned out some rather important bits through what is called "confirmation bias". Conspiracy theorists do this all the time. It is the only way to keep up belief in irrational conspiracies.

Were the reporters told not to relay information? Could they quote the briefer?What tidbit of information did I overlook? With your view that it happens quite alot in DC, is that just your view? All I stated were facts. Yours is nothing but koolaid sipping justifications and explanations.

[ChumpDumper]

Still trying to get what SnC is outraged about.

[RandomGuy]

Were the reporters told not to relay information? Could they quote the briefer?


What tidbit of information did I overlook? With your view that it happens quite alot in DC, is that just your view? All I stated were facts. Yours is nothing but koolaid sipping justifications and explanations.

You didn't really answer my questions. They are kind of important to understanding the linked story.

1. Were the reporters told not to relay information?
2. Could they quote the briefer?

[TeyshaBlue]

OK, mouse -- state all the facts as you understand them in your own words.

Good luck with that.

[boutons_deux]

Benghazi Isn’t Watergate. It's Whitewater

http://readersupportednews.org/images/stories/alphabet/rsn-T.jpghe House's Inspector Javert, Congressman Darrell Issa, held a hearing on the Benghazi attack yesterday at which a State Department official, Gregory Hicks, charged the administration with incompetence (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/us/politics/official-offers-account-from-libya-of-benghazi-attack.html) and worse. Mike Huckabee said (http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/05/huckabee-predicts-obama-benghazi-impeachment.html) that Obama will be impeached for Benghazi. Others suggest it'll badly damage Hillary Clinton's presidential prospects. Is anybody, Fox News included, going to be talking about this story six months from now?


It's not entirely clear that anyone is talking about it even now once you get beyond the Beltway and the GOP's Fox News base.

After all, they have been pounding it for eight months.

They believed that Benghazi was figuratively as well as literally the 9/11 of 2012, and that its fallout would usher Romney into the presidency.

In fact, it barely registered as a concern in any polls. Now they believe (in Lindsey Graham's characteristically understated judgment) that Benghazi is "every bit as damaging as Watergate," a gateway both to the president's impeachment and to a GOP victory over Hillary in 2016. Yet no one else does.

There are several reasons:

Clinton has taken responsibility (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57532916/secretary-of-state-hillary-clinton-takes-responsibility-for-benghazi-attack/) for the systemic failures that occurred on her watch;

Republicans in Congress have not been able to deflect their own share of the blame (http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/10/10/14342096-the-gops-embassy-security-problem?lite), the budget cutbacks that shortchanged embassy and consulate security;

Susan Rice's endlessly parsed talking points notwithstanding, no one to the left of Sean Hannity seriously believes that the Obama White House was trying to cover up a terrorist attack.

But the main explanation for Benghazi's inability to catch fire with the public has to do with the American intelligence failure that led to the original 9/11 in which 3,000, not four, Americans were killed: Bush and Cheney's inability to heed such warning signs as the President's Daily Brief of August 6, 2001 (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/25834.html), "Bin Laden determined to strike in US."

Many of the same voices who are pounding Obama and Clinton on Benghazi - Graham, for instance - are the same ones who defended that lapse and then cheered on an Iraq War that drained resources from the battle against Al Qaeda and the search for Bin Laden.

They have no credibility.

And they are overselling the failures of Benghazi much as they oversold Saddam Hussein's nonexistent WMD. If you read the intricate conservative briefs vilifying Hillary in the aftermath of yesterday's testimony - check out this one (http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/05/08/seven-things-we-learned-from-the-benghazi-whistleblower-hearing/?singlepage=true) - you can see that the Hillary-haters have not found another Watergate but another Whitewater. It should keep them very busy through 2016 even if the public continues to turn a deaf ear.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/05/frank-rich-benghazi-isnt-watergate.html