Octopus Overlords

hepcat wrote:

Fitzy wrote:

hepcat wrote:Have republicans started blaming Hillary for World War II yet?

Nope, but after 2 years and $7 million investigating Benghazi! (again) they found...nothing.

Most impressive re-investigation ever. Also it's 800 pages long. That seems sort of short to say nothing at all.

Rip will be along shortly to tell you you're wrong and that they found a lot. He won't be able to prove it, but he just knows it.

hepcat wrote:

Fitzy wrote:

hepcat wrote:Have republicans started blaming Hillary for World War II yet?

Nope, but after 2 years and $7 million investigating Benghazi! (again) they found...nothing.

Most impressive re-investigation ever. Also it's 800 pages long. That seems sort of short to say nothing at all.

Rip will be along shortly to tell you you're wrong and that they found a lot. He won't be able to prove it, but he just knows it.

hepcat wrote:

Fitzy wrote:

hepcat wrote:Have republicans started blaming Hillary for World War II yet?

Nope, but after 2 years and $7 million investigating Benghazi! (again) they found...nothing.

Most impressive re-investigation ever. Also it's 800 pages long. That seems sort of short to say nothing at all.

Rip will be along shortly to tell you you're wrong and that they found a lot. He won't be able to prove it, but he just knows it.

Rip wrote:

hepcat wrote:

Fitzy wrote:

hepcat wrote:Have republicans started blaming Hillary for World War II yet?

Nope, but after 2 years and $7 million investigating Benghazi! (again) they found...nothing.

Most impressive re-investigation ever. Also it's 800 pages long. That seems sort of short to say nothing at all.

Rip will be along shortly to tell you you're wrong and that they found a lot. He won't be able to prove it, but he just knows it.

All depends on who is reading it.

hepcat wrote:Close. It's a screen capture from Fox News.

There is no smoking gun, but the report does conclude that Clinton and the Obama administration more broadly should have realized how in-danger our diplomatic posts in Libya were at the time of the 2012 attack and done more to protect them and the four Americans -- including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens -- who were killed.

Or, more accurately, the Republicans on the special Benghazi committee concluded that. Democrats on the committee called this whole thing a partisan witch hunt to bring down Clinton's presidential run and released their own, much softer report on Monday. But those two reports aren't even the sum total of the committee's work; two of the committee's most conservative lawmakers released a more critical report, which was not signed off on by the rest of the GOP members.

For our purposes, we're going to focus exclusively on Republicans' main report -- I know, it gets confusing -- since Republicans are the ones in control of the committee and Congress, and this is the report a majority of the committee members signed off on. It's also the one that will be at-issue in the 2016 presidential race.
...
1. The State Department failed to protect our diplomats in Libya

Spoiler:

This is the report's bottom line. It doesn't necessarily lay the blame at Clinton's feet -- Gowdy had said he wanted to keep the report focused on the facts, not personalities -- but the conclusion is clear: Clinton and the Obama administration should have realized the risks.

To back this conclusion up, CNN's Collinson reports that requests for more security in Benghazi leading up to the attack went unheard or were refused. (In a statement to reporters, State Department spokesperson Mark Toner indicated there was no new evidence in the report.)

But even House Democrats' version of their report acknowledge that "security measures in Benghazi were woefully inadequate," pointing the finger at the security and law enforcement arm of the State Department rather than Clinton. Ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed in the attack, was at the compound with only two official bodyguards even after other Western diplomats had left the country.

...
2. The CIA missed warning signs

Spoiler:

The report says the agency misread how dangerous Libya, in the midst of a revolution after overthrowing its longtime dictator a year earlier, was at the time. Recall the attack took place on Sept. 11, 2012.

"One section of the report seems to allege that U.S. officials fundamentally misunderstood who their allies were at the time," writes NBC's Mitchell.

To illustrate that point, the report details how there was confusion in U.S. intelligence circles about who ultimately came to Americans' rescue. Previous reports concluded it was a "quasi-government militia," this report says it was a military regime loyal to the country's former military dictator.

3. The Defense Department failed to rescue Americans in time

Spoiler:

Or at least, they were late in deploying help, waiting until well after the attack had begun even though President Obama had approved the military to do whatever it needed to hours earlier. U.S. military forces didn't reach Benghazi until 2 p.m. the day after the attack. The report blames a breakdown in the chain of command for this, including a debate among U.S. Marines about whether they should wear their military uniforms or civilian attire.

"No U.S. military asset was every deployed to Benghazi despite the order of the Secretary of Defense at 7 o'clock that night," Gowdy told reporters in a press conference Tuesday. "So Washington had access to real-time access information yet somehow they thought he fighting had subsided."

(The Democrats' version of the report concludes that even if the military got to Benghazi earlier, it could not have saved the lives of the four Americans who were killed. Gowdy says that's beside the point.)

4. The Obama administration "stonewalled" the investigation

Spoiler:

The administration engaged in what Gowdy described as "intentional," "coordinated" and "shameful" stonewalling of his investigation. The report said the State Department, Pentagon and CIA refused to to turn over all of the agencies' records and delayed getting others to Congress, a process that Republicans said delayed their investigation by months.

At the heart of this accusation is Clinton's use of a private email server exclusively while she was secretary of state.

5. A Clinton aide influenced the State Department's review

Spoiler:

As noted above, Congress isn't the only branch of government that reviewed what happened in Benghazi. The State Department did its own, too, which was intended to be internal but independent (think the watchdog report on Clinton's emails).

But according to a section of the Benghazi investigation that Bade obtained, the report "was consistently influenced by" Cheryl Mills, Clinton's former chief of staff. Mills has said she offered suggestions on drafts, but they were merely that, suggestions.

hepcat wrote:Close. It's a screen capture from Fox News.

Fitzy wrote:

hepcat wrote:Close. It's a screen capture from Fox News.

In my defense I couldn't know that a major news organization would use retro 80s web design.

Fitzy wrote:

hepcat wrote:Close. It's a screen capture from Fox News.

In my defense I couldn't know that a major news organization would use retro 80s web design.

There is no sane planet in which the 2012 terrorist assault, tragic as it was, justifies more probing than 9/11, the Beirut bombings or Pearl Harbor.

hepcat wrote: Cross post: In other news, stocks are up thanks to this report clearing her name!

Isgrimnur wrote:Haaretz

The harsh Republican report provides new impetus, if any was needed, for right wing attackers to portray the killing of Ambassador Christ Stevens and three other U.S. diplomats at the American Consulate in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 as the very worst scandal in the history of the nation.

YellowKing wrote:The real scandal is that Republicans spent two years on this witch hunt over the administration failing to protect the lives of four people, but have refused to even entertain a discussion about preventing the 475 mass shooting deaths (1,870 wounded) that have occurred since 2015.

[Edit] - Sorry, those numbers were from 2015 only. Go ahead and add....a bunch more.

GreenGoo wrote:The GOP doesn't have to suck. They are just lost right now.

Rip wrote:

hepcat wrote:

Fitzy wrote:

hepcat wrote:Have republicans started blaming Hillary for World War II yet?

Nope, but after 2 years and $7 million investigating Benghazi! (again) they found...nothing.

Most impressive re-investigation ever. Also it's 800 pages long. That seems sort of short to say nothing at all.

Rip will be along shortly to tell you you're wrong and that they found a lot. He won't be able to prove it, but he just knows it.

All depends on who is reading it.

YellowKing wrote:I doubt I'll ever be attracted back to the party as long as they are under the sway of the religious right.

YellowKing wrote:I doubt I'll ever be attracted back to the party as long as they are under the sway of the religious right. Too many social viewpoints that are at complete odds with me.

hepcat wrote:To be fair, there's quite a few things the lock step democrats fervently support that I don't agree with. It's just that those things are erring on the side of justice and equality most of the time. So I view them as less dangerous...which is all one can do when it comes to government.

Dr. Anne Stevens, who serves as her family’s spokesperson, made it very clear that no matter what Republicans say, Hillary Clinton is not to blame for Benghazi. In fact, she says the blame lies with Republicans in Congress.

“It is clear, in hindsight, that the facility was not sufficiently protected by the State Department and the Defense Department. But what was the underlying cause?” she said. “Perhaps if Congress had provided a budget to increase security for all missions around the world, then some of the requests for more security in Libya would have been granted. Certainly the State Department is underbudgeted.”

Unagi wrote:Al Franken, possible VP pick... ? - I like it.

YellowKing wrote:Ugh, I can't stand Al Franken. That would definitely lessen my already dismal inclination to vote for Hillary.

YellowKing wrote:It's a deep rooted dislike from back in my ultra-conservative days. But even though my political alignment has shifted considerably, the old feelings are still there. Similar to my disdain for Hillary. Falling out of love with the Republican party doesn't mean falling in love with the Democratic party. I still loathe a ton of left-wing pundits and politicians.

El Guapo wrote:

YellowKing wrote:It's a deep rooted dislike from back in my ultra-conservative days. But even though my political alignment has shifted considerably, the old feelings are still there. Similar to my disdain for Hillary. Falling out of love with the Republican party doesn't mean falling in love with the Democratic party. I still loathe a ton of left-wing pundits and politicians.

That's fair enough. But my surprise was just because Franken's politics as a whole aren't all that different from Hillary's. He's probably a little more to the left of her all told, but I still regard him as a center-left figure similar in political profile to Hillary.

Basically you don't have to like Hillary or anything, but adding Franken to the ticket shouldn't sway you much.

YellowKing wrote:Ugh, I can't stand Al Franken. That would definitely lessen my already dismal inclination to vote for Hillary.

LordMortis wrote:

El Guapo wrote:

YellowKing wrote:It's a deep rooted dislike from back in my ultra-conservative days. But even though my political alignment has shifted considerably, the old feelings are still there. Similar to my disdain for Hillary. Falling out of love with the Republican party doesn't mean falling in love with the Democratic party. I still loathe a ton of left-wing pundits and politicians.

That's fair enough. But my surprise was just because Franken's politics as a whole aren't all that different from Hillary's. He's probably a little more to the left of her all told, but I still regard him as a center-left figure similar in political profile to Hillary.

Basically you don't have to like Hillary or anything, but adding Franken to the ticket shouldn't sway you much.

Franken is behaves like the stereotypical Plato's Gold Blooded Philosopher King. He seems to hate that people have a say in their own governing and wants them to know that only he knows what is good for them.

I honestly don't know his track record but he's a self promoter and a dick who talks but doesn't listen.

I think his "problem" is mainly that he is both a professional political satirist and professional power broker. It's not a good combination.

Source of speculation: A report last week in Politico. The story itself was mostly about how Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, long considered Clinton’s safest VP pick, had officially ascended to the top of her shortlist — intel, we can assume, that “Democratic allies and operatives close to the campaign” leaked to Politico as a way of gauging reaction among progressives and preparing them for the letdown of an all-centrist ticket.

But deep in the Politico dispatch — 17 paragraphs down, to be exact — there was a single non sequitur of a sentence that again gave liberals reason to hope, however faintly, that one of their own might someday join the ticket:

One dark horse that Clinton allies said is also on the list is Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, a close ally who is also popular with the progressive wing of the party and enjoys a closer bond with Clinton.

Backstory: Before we assess the odds here, it’s worth looking back at Clinton and Franken’s long history together — and explaining why Beltway types who might have once dismissed the idea of Vice President Franken are beginning to mention him in the same breath as Kaine and Julian Castro.

Clinton and Franken have been friends for years. They met in 1994 when, for that year’s Gridiron Dinner, Franken wrote a parody of the famous anti-Hillarycare “Harry and Louise” ads for the first couple to star in. He spoke at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner a month later, then reprised his role in 1996.

LordMortis wrote:
I honestly don't know his track record but he's a self promoter and a dick who talks but doesn't listen.

I think his "problem" is mainly that he is both a professional political satirist and professional power broker. It's not a good combination.