During the George W Bush administrations, many liberals found the expansion of the security state a grave threat to Americans’ civil liberties. No longer. Since the second world war, the US civil libertarian agenda gains traction only when the Democratic Party is in opposition, as in the early 1970s. As soon as the Democrats occupy the executive branch, such concerns evaporate. Today, many Democrat-oriented intellectuals assure the public that their objection is not to government intrusiveness itself but only to such techniques being in the hands of the wrong political party — “a common response by liberals who cannot bring themselves to denounce Obama as they did Bush,” wrote the jurist Jonathan Turley (5). Former officials of the Bush-Cheney administration have applauded Obama’s normalisation of the post 9/11 security state. (Dick Cheney has been particularly effusive.)
-- Chase Mader, "How Obama Expanded the National Security State" (CounterPunch).
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Truest statement of the week II
It
distresses this African author to slowly come to the realization that
African-American's honorable legacy of opposing Euro-America's
imperialist wars is quickly eroding. This is by no means a rush
observation on my part; my assessment dates back to 2008. It was in 2008
that a United States senator named Barack Obama was elected president. I
was definitely within the minority of Africans who made the strong
decision not to vote for either corporate candidate (Barack Obama &
John McCain). Senator Barack Obama made it clear that he intended to
expand the war in Afghanistan if he was elected – and he more than made
good on that promise. This is merely one of the reasons I had for not
supporting Barack Obama as president. And if there was no better option
for me, I would simply not have voted in that election. I don't buy in
to the lesser of two evils argument; if you do you are ultimately still voting for evil.
Several
politically limited acquaintances of mine assumed that I was voting for
the other warmonger, John McCain, when I informed them I that I would
not be supporting their brown pirate. Without realizing it, they were
showcasing the tiny boxes they resided within simply by way of their
assumption. Within their politically manufactured world there are no
other choices beyond that of Democrats and Republicans. They have been
cleverly trained to believe that there are marked differences between
the two corporate parties. Some of these individuals thought I was
"selling out" because I was not voting for the brown man – the brown man
who could not give a damn about championing any policies that might
tangibly improve African/black people's living conditions. I was a "sell
out" for not wanting to vote for a man who openly supported an
imperialist war – a brown man who voted for the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA). It mattered little that I was actually voting
for an African/black woman who had more political experience than Barack
Obama or that she was anti-war and supported polices geared towards
eradicating poverty and improving the living conditions of those who
have been historically marginalized (including black folks). Most
admitted that they never heard of the Green Party (www.gp.org).
These concrete reasons mattered little – they thought I was wasting my
vote on someone "who could not win this election." These folks wanted me
to sell out my morality by voting for the lesser of two evils simply
because that evil was brown. Sadly, some of these folks did not even
know who Cynthia McKinney was, however, upon learning about her policies
they verbally approved of them but could not vote for her since she was
unknown and therefore had "no chance of winning." "A vote for her was a
vote for McCain", they said. They were oblivious tools of the
Democratic Party, which now owned their political minds. For them,
rationale discussion and facts were like Kryptonite.
-- Solomon Comissiong, "Obama's Destructive Foreign Policy and Black Disillusionment" (Black Agenda Report).
A note to our readers
Hey --
Another Sunday.
First up, we thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:
The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava,
Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude,
Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man,
C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review,
Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills),
Mike of Mikey Likes It!,
Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz),
Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix,
Ruth of Ruth's Report,
Wally of The Daily Jot,
Trina of Trina's Kitchen,
Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ,
Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends,
Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts,
and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.
And what did we come up with?
A new one for a truest.
And another new one. Two first timers in the same week.
Why they try to make this complicated, we just don't know.
Ava and C.I. take on the distortions and silences regarding last week's House hearing.
Two Iraq pieces this week.
Ava and C.I. review Cyndi Lauper's autobiography. This is part of the continuing effort to review books by female musicians.
We roundtable on a number of topics.
This is really C.I. and Jess tossing around issues and the rest of us helping them write it.
Law and Disorder Radio updates on Lynne Stewart.
Dennis from last week's hearing.
Ava and C.I. on the 'fact checkers'.
Mike and the gang cover the week's best.
See you next week.
Peace.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
Editorial: You can't trust the untrustable
Supposedly Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is trying to fix the political crisis in Iraq. That he thinks he can do that by talking to people to figure out what they want indicates Jalal's not serious.
What do they want?
What do the political blocs in Iraq want?
If you've forgotten, that question was asked by the administration, by the White House, when Iraq was at a political standstill in 2010.
From the wants and desires, the Erbil Agreement was drawn up.
This contract gave Nouri a second term as prime minister (something the voters didn't give him) in exchange for various concessions on Nouri's part. Nouri signed off on the contract, grabbed a second term and then trashed the contract.
You can't be serious about ending the crisis if you're pretending to not grasp what the cause of it was.
And you're crazy if you think most people are going to trust someone who broke the last contract.
Since 2011, Iraqiya, Moqtada al-Sadr and the Kurds have been calling for a return to the Erbil Agreement.
Nouri has not 'birthed democracy in Iraq. He's only created more problems.
---------------
Illustration is Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Not Quite There Yet."
What do they want?
What do the political blocs in Iraq want?
If you've forgotten, that question was asked by the administration, by the White House, when Iraq was at a political standstill in 2010.
From the wants and desires, the Erbil Agreement was drawn up.
This contract gave Nouri a second term as prime minister (something the voters didn't give him) in exchange for various concessions on Nouri's part. Nouri signed off on the contract, grabbed a second term and then trashed the contract.
You can't be serious about ending the crisis if you're pretending to not grasp what the cause of it was.
And you're crazy if you think most people are going to trust someone who broke the last contract.
Since 2011, Iraqiya, Moqtada al-Sadr and the Kurds have been calling for a return to the Erbil Agreement.
Nouri has not 'birthed democracy in Iraq. He's only created more problems.
---------------
Illustration is Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Not Quite There Yet."
Media: Avoiding character and competence
Thank goodness for Robert Siegel. Not words people expect from us or that even we expect from ourselves. But Siegel moderated this week's gas baggery from faux experts E.J. Dionne (from the corporate centrist-left) and David Brooks (from the corporate centrist-right. The two gas bags probably thought they were going to josh and joke their way through another wasted NPR segment. And both did try to joke at the beginning -- while discussing a terrorist attack.
Bringing skepticism and perspective to the segment was Robert Siegel and we'll get to that but first let's crack some skulls.
We don't know what all the 'experts' were doing while we were attending Wednesday's House Oversight Committee hearing on Benghazi but we do know that most of the people weighing in weren't present at the Rayburn House Office. We reported on the hearing in "Iraq snapshot," "2 disgrace in the Committee hearing," "Iraq snapshot," "The Post Debate Debate (Ava and C.I.)" and "Iraq snapshot" and that post debate debate piece found us expressing our shock about the vast difference between what took place at the hearing and what these 'experts' were telling people happened.
As Ruth noted, the problems started immediately with The NewsHour (PBS) reducing the hearing to drama of Democrats and Republicans and avoiding reporting on the news supplied by the witnesses. They wasted over five minutes of airtime informing the viewers of nothing.
Let's remember that The NewsHour spent weeks 'forgetting' to call the attack a "terrorist attack" -- even after the White House did. In fact, The NewsHour has run from this topic repeatedly and badly covered it when forced to.
As the 'commerical free' evening news and the only national broadcast evening news that lasts a full hour, The NewsHour has more time -- to cover the news or to waste. More and more, it appears to be focused on wasting time.
Not everyone was intent on wasting time. The hearing was Wednesday. Thursday ABC News' Martha Raddatz moderated the debate between US House Rep. Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden. At the start of the debate, she declared, "I would like to begin with Libya. On a rather somber note, one month ago tonight, on the anniversary of 9-11, Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other brave Americans were killed in a terrorist attack in Benghazi. The State Department has now made clear there were no protesters there. It was a pre-planned assault by heavily armed men. Wasn't this a massive intelligence failure, Vice President Joe Biden?"
Joe blew off the question. He gave three generic, glancing sentences on Libya and then switched the topic to what the administration was going to do, to Iraq, then to Afghanistan. It was dismissive and it was rude on Joe's part -- not to Martha Raddatz but to a very serious issue. Those who would criticize his behavior as dismissive and rude throughout the debate may have formed that impression when he refused to honestly address that terrorist attack.
By Paul Ryan seriously addressed the issue.
US House Rep. Paul Ryan: We mourn the loss of these four Americans who were murdered. When you take a look at what has happened just in the last few weeks, they sent the UN Ambassador [Susan Rice] out to say that this was because of a protest and a YouTube video. It took the president two weeks to acknowledge that this was a terrorist attack. He went to the UN and, in his speech at the UN, he said six times -- He talked about the YouTube video. Look, if we are hit by terrorists, we're going to call it for what it is, a terrorist attack. Our Ambassador in Paris has a Marine detachment guarding him. Shouldn't we have a Marine detachment guarding our ambassador in Benghazi, a place where we knew that there was an al Qaeda cell with arms? This is becoming more troubling by the day. They first blamed the YouTube video. Now they're trying to blame the Romney-Ryan ticket for making this an issue.
Others were minature Joe Bidens, dismissing the topic, making stuff up. By Friday, we were in shock over how the Wednesday hearing was being described.
WUSA felt the need to include some of the above from Ryan before beginning their lying passed off as a 'fact check.'. In fairness, Anita Brikman and Paul Singer may be not lying, they just may be incredibly ignorant (which would make them ignorant and unattractive, so get 'em off TV already).
Anita Brickman: Did it take the president two weeks to acknowledge this was a terror attack on our consulate?
Paul Singer: No. Uh, immediately after the even in fact he did say this was an act of terror. However, the explanation of what's been happening there has been evolving. And in the initial descriptions from the White House it was that there had been a protest which had organically arisen which was then taken over by terror groups to do this attack. In fact, it now appears there was no such protest at all, this was entirely an orchestrated attack.
What morons. The attack was September 11th. The White House noted it was a terrorist attack for the first time on September 20th. That's why it was news on September 20th. Andrea Mitchell led the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams broadcast with her report, "Good evening, Brian. And tonight the White House confirmed that the attack was an act of terror -- officials say by al Qaeda sympathizers. But big questions remain about when it was planned and why initial reports were wrong?"
Grasp it. Andrea wouldn't have been reporting "tonight the White House confirmed that the attack was an act of terror" if it hadn't been news on the 20th. That was 9 days after the attack. A week is 7 days. If it's over seven days, you're talking two weeks.
It's not that complicated unless you're a whore, a liar or an idiot -- or possibly all three.
And 'fact checkers' need to know facts. Hey, remember September 24th when Barack and Michelle taped their appearance on ABC's The View? Barack was asked that question directly and didn't call it terrorism. As was pointed out to White House spokesperson Jay Carney in a September 26th press briefing.
Seems 'fact checkers' at USA Today aren't even qualified to be coat checkers. NPR also tried to do a Libya fact check repeatedly on Friday. Their best attempt came during Morning Edition when they utilized Michele Kelemen:
Well, he's right that security officials who had served in Libya in the months leading up to this said they wanted beefed up security and were told by their superiors at the State Department that they wouldn't get it. And Biden was wrong when he said we didn't know they wanted more security. There were cables sent back to Washington. But, you know, these security officials weren't asking for a big Marine detachment. They wanted just to keep the extra guards that they had in place a little bit longer. And even one of the whistleblowers who testified at a House hearing this week said that the assault on September 11th was like nothing he had seen while he was in Libya and a few extra guards in that sort of situation may not have been enough.
Problems with the above? We've quoted Paul Ryan already. Where does he say that the late Ambassador Chris Stevens requested a Marine detail? He doesn't. He's pointing out that that's done in the much more tranquil city of Paris, so why wasn't something similar done for Benghazi? If there had been a Marine detail, this was in the hearing as well, members of it would have gone with Stevens to Benghazi. As for how much was being asked for, the whistle blower she mentions is the State Dept.'s Eric Nordstrom. He made clear that possible numbers were made at a level higher than him, back in the US at the State Department.
The Diane Rehm Show is a two-hour program which meant Diane had twice as many opportunities to screw up what took place in the hearing. In the first hour Friday, the domestic hour, NPR's Ron Elving was the big whore of the first hour declaring, "Well Darrell Issa, who is the Republican chairman of the committee, made sure that they had witnesses who were going to question the government's version of facts and who are going to suggest that the government was repeatedly warned, that Benghazi was vulnerable and so on."
Where to begin? How about Darrell Issa is a Republican and he is Chair of the House Oversight Committee? He is not the Republican chair. That wording implies that there is a Republican chair of the committee and a Democratic one.
Second "made sure that they had witnesses who were going to question the government's version of facts"? There were four witnesses. Three were State Dept. employees. (The fourth was a member of the military.)
Ron dismissed the whole thing and apparently doesn't know (or maybe just doesn't care) about the September 11, 2012 cable that Stevens wrote. Despite having nothing to offer on the issue, Diane wasn't done with the topic and returned in her second hour (international) to it. By sheer coincidence, she wanted Abderrahim Foukara to weigh in -- Abderrahim being most infamous on the program for the time he talked how wonderful Barack Obama was. Any chance he might be vested in the topic?
In fairness to Foukara, he's also infamous for lying about Al Jazeera's coverage of the assault on CBS News reporter Lara Logan in Egypt and for lying again about it and for calling her "Laura Logan." We're sure Foukara's has got to have had at least one good journalism moment in all the years somewhere, we've just never been able to find it.
And it wasn't to be found on Friday.
"Well, unfortunately, for me personally," insisted Foukara -- vain enough to turn the topic of a terrorist attack into his own personal drama, "what I've learned -- I'm strongly reminded that the United States is in the throes of an election. Because an investigation that was supposed to look into the conditions that led to the attack on the consult in Benghazi and to the killing of four Americans including Ambassador Stevens, has turned into an election issue."
What a load of crap. But more was to come because Foukara had more 'wisdom' to share including, "All the signs during that debate in Congress yesterday . . ." What? The hearing wasn't Thursday. The hearing was on Wednesday.
Diane soon went to The Wall Street Journal's Nathan Guttman who wanted to mention that the State Department was accused of not providing enough security and that "one of the replies is that they just didn't have enough and that they've been undergoing cuts, budget cuts, led by Republicans in Congress and for this diplomatic security mission."
First off, that spin is Democratic spin and it was established in the hearing that more Democrats voted for the House measure on funding the State Dept than Republicans. The Chair corrected the record and Ranking Member Elijah Cummings and others present didn't object to the interpretation. Consider that they objected to everything else, we'll assume that means Issa was correct and more Democrats in the House voted for it than Republicans.
Second, if the State Dept didn't get everything they wanted, maybe they shouldn't have been so damn greedy. Yeah, we're back to those (wasted) billions State 'needed' for Iraq for Fiscal Year 2012. If State hadn't spread themselves so thin, they wouldn't have been asking for so much money. Maybe before all the 'training' funds they request next fiscal year, they should nail down what they're going to need for security first?
NBC's Courtney Kube wanted to pipe up as well and she insisted that a military group being extended, well, "they may not have been in Benghazi during the attack to help anyway." Was she at the hearing? A portion, at the every least, a portion of such a team would have accompanied the ambassador to Benghazi. This was established in the hearing.
More annoying was realizing what they weren't talking about.
For example, the State Dept. knew it was a terrorist attack. When and how and when the 'protest' nonsense was dropped from the narrative Patrick Kennedy didn't want to speculate on, he said. He would need to review some documents -- it was pointed out to Kennedy that the topic of the hearing was known ahead of time so he should have already reviewed documents for this hearing.
What he did allow was that on September 12th, the day after the attack, he was telling Congressional aides that it was a terrorist attack.
This was known for a variety of reasons including that the attack was on camera.
Video exists of the attack. Kennedy kept trying to say a law enforcement agency had it. Issa told him to stop saying that, that they both knew the Justice Dept. didn't have it and a segment of government had the video and was refusing to allow Congress to see it.
The video makes clear it was a terrorist attack -- this from the statements of Kennedy and the State Dept.'s Charlene Lamb -- neither of whom was a 'whistle blower' at the hearing.
Here's what else you could learn from what the State Dept said and what a member objected to. There was a CIA operation in Beghazi. The 'safe house' was a CIA house. When the attack started, CIA agents were running for cover.
Wanting to try that lie about bad intel again? CIA agents were wounded in the attack.
Are we still going to play the bad intel nonsense?
Repeating, (A) video exists of the assault, (B) Patrick Kennedy was telling Congressional staffers September 12th that it was a terrorist attack and (C) CIA agents were wounded in the attack. How does the White House not immediately know it was a terrorist attack? CIA agents running to the safe house knew it was a terrorist attack when it was happening.
So the attack and the 9 day cover up of it by the White House is news and is an issue.
Unless you're paid gas bag David Brooks of The New York Times appearing on NPR's All Things Considered. E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post brought up Benghazi all by himself and insisted "it will not be a voting issue." Robert Siegel attempted to get an answer from Brooks who wanted to joke around. Siegel reset the discussion and both Brooks and Dionne became a lot less dismissive.
Again, good for Siegel. It's something Melissa Bloch failed to do with the two the week before. Siegel seemed to grasp that giggles over a terrorist act wasn't going to pass as professional and he pressed the topic to make the Brooks and Dionne actually explore it.
And maybe Seigel's journalistic approach left some sort of an impression because Brooks provided a much more coherent answer when he appeared later that same day on The NewsHour (this time book-ending with Mark Shields). He brought the topic up on his own.
David Brooks: The Benghazi thing, that hurt Biden a little.
Judy Woodruff: This is Libya.
David Brooks: The Libya thing. I think a lot of things actually in retrospect, as I think about the debate, were not explored as much as they should have been.
No kidding.
But in what world is the White House either not knowing or lying about what happened in Benghazi not an issue?
In what world does this not go to character and competence?
We seem to remember when the media would have you believe that a blow job went to character. Suddenly dishonesty or incompetence in your official duties and role isn't an issue?
Bringing skepticism and perspective to the segment was Robert Siegel and we'll get to that but first let's crack some skulls.
We don't know what all the 'experts' were doing while we were attending Wednesday's House Oversight Committee hearing on Benghazi but we do know that most of the people weighing in weren't present at the Rayburn House Office. We reported on the hearing in "Iraq snapshot," "2 disgrace in the Committee hearing," "Iraq snapshot," "The Post Debate Debate (Ava and C.I.)" and "Iraq snapshot" and that post debate debate piece found us expressing our shock about the vast difference between what took place at the hearing and what these 'experts' were telling people happened.
As Ruth noted, the problems started immediately with The NewsHour (PBS) reducing the hearing to drama of Democrats and Republicans and avoiding reporting on the news supplied by the witnesses. They wasted over five minutes of airtime informing the viewers of nothing.
Let's remember that The NewsHour spent weeks 'forgetting' to call the attack a "terrorist attack" -- even after the White House did. In fact, The NewsHour has run from this topic repeatedly and badly covered it when forced to.
As the 'commerical free' evening news and the only national broadcast evening news that lasts a full hour, The NewsHour has more time -- to cover the news or to waste. More and more, it appears to be focused on wasting time.
Not everyone was intent on wasting time. The hearing was Wednesday. Thursday ABC News' Martha Raddatz moderated the debate between US House Rep. Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden. At the start of the debate, she declared, "I would like to begin with Libya. On a rather somber note, one month ago tonight, on the anniversary of 9-11, Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other brave Americans were killed in a terrorist attack in Benghazi. The State Department has now made clear there were no protesters there. It was a pre-planned assault by heavily armed men. Wasn't this a massive intelligence failure, Vice President Joe Biden?"
Joe blew off the question. He gave three generic, glancing sentences on Libya and then switched the topic to what the administration was going to do, to Iraq, then to Afghanistan. It was dismissive and it was rude on Joe's part -- not to Martha Raddatz but to a very serious issue. Those who would criticize his behavior as dismissive and rude throughout the debate may have formed that impression when he refused to honestly address that terrorist attack.
By Paul Ryan seriously addressed the issue.
US House Rep. Paul Ryan: We mourn the loss of these four Americans who were murdered. When you take a look at what has happened just in the last few weeks, they sent the UN Ambassador [Susan Rice] out to say that this was because of a protest and a YouTube video. It took the president two weeks to acknowledge that this was a terrorist attack. He went to the UN and, in his speech at the UN, he said six times -- He talked about the YouTube video. Look, if we are hit by terrorists, we're going to call it for what it is, a terrorist attack. Our Ambassador in Paris has a Marine detachment guarding him. Shouldn't we have a Marine detachment guarding our ambassador in Benghazi, a place where we knew that there was an al Qaeda cell with arms? This is becoming more troubling by the day. They first blamed the YouTube video. Now they're trying to blame the Romney-Ryan ticket for making this an issue.
Others were minature Joe Bidens, dismissing the topic, making stuff up. By Friday, we were in shock over how the Wednesday hearing was being described.
WUSA felt the need to include some of the above from Ryan before beginning their lying passed off as a 'fact check.'. In fairness, Anita Brikman and Paul Singer may be not lying, they just may be incredibly ignorant (which would make them ignorant and unattractive, so get 'em off TV already).
Anita Brickman: Did it take the president two weeks to acknowledge this was a terror attack on our consulate?
Paul Singer: No. Uh, immediately after the even in fact he did say this was an act of terror. However, the explanation of what's been happening there has been evolving. And in the initial descriptions from the White House it was that there had been a protest which had organically arisen which was then taken over by terror groups to do this attack. In fact, it now appears there was no such protest at all, this was entirely an orchestrated attack.
What morons. The attack was September 11th. The White House noted it was a terrorist attack for the first time on September 20th. That's why it was news on September 20th. Andrea Mitchell led the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams broadcast with her report, "Good evening, Brian. And tonight the White House confirmed that the attack was an act of terror -- officials say by al Qaeda sympathizers. But big questions remain about when it was planned and why initial reports were wrong?"
Grasp it. Andrea wouldn't have been reporting "tonight the White House confirmed that the attack was an act of terror" if it hadn't been news on the 20th. That was 9 days after the attack. A week is 7 days. If it's over seven days, you're talking two weeks.
It's not that complicated unless you're a whore, a liar or an idiot -- or possibly all three.
And 'fact checkers' need to know facts. Hey, remember September 24th when Barack and Michelle taped their appearance on ABC's The View? Barack was asked that question directly and didn't call it terrorism. As was pointed out to White House spokesperson Jay Carney in a September 26th press briefing.
Seems 'fact checkers' at USA Today aren't even qualified to be coat checkers. NPR also tried to do a Libya fact check repeatedly on Friday. Their best attempt came during Morning Edition when they utilized Michele Kelemen:
Well, he's right that security officials who had served in Libya in the months leading up to this said they wanted beefed up security and were told by their superiors at the State Department that they wouldn't get it. And Biden was wrong when he said we didn't know they wanted more security. There were cables sent back to Washington. But, you know, these security officials weren't asking for a big Marine detachment. They wanted just to keep the extra guards that they had in place a little bit longer. And even one of the whistleblowers who testified at a House hearing this week said that the assault on September 11th was like nothing he had seen while he was in Libya and a few extra guards in that sort of situation may not have been enough.
Problems with the above? We've quoted Paul Ryan already. Where does he say that the late Ambassador Chris Stevens requested a Marine detail? He doesn't. He's pointing out that that's done in the much more tranquil city of Paris, so why wasn't something similar done for Benghazi? If there had been a Marine detail, this was in the hearing as well, members of it would have gone with Stevens to Benghazi. As for how much was being asked for, the whistle blower she mentions is the State Dept.'s Eric Nordstrom. He made clear that possible numbers were made at a level higher than him, back in the US at the State Department.
The Diane Rehm Show is a two-hour program which meant Diane had twice as many opportunities to screw up what took place in the hearing. In the first hour Friday, the domestic hour, NPR's Ron Elving was the big whore of the first hour declaring, "Well Darrell Issa, who is the Republican chairman of the committee, made sure that they had witnesses who were going to question the government's version of facts and who are going to suggest that the government was repeatedly warned, that Benghazi was vulnerable and so on."
Where to begin? How about Darrell Issa is a Republican and he is Chair of the House Oversight Committee? He is not the Republican chair. That wording implies that there is a Republican chair of the committee and a Democratic one.
Second "made sure that they had witnesses who were going to question the government's version of facts"? There were four witnesses. Three were State Dept. employees. (The fourth was a member of the military.)
Ron dismissed the whole thing and apparently doesn't know (or maybe just doesn't care) about the September 11, 2012 cable that Stevens wrote. Despite having nothing to offer on the issue, Diane wasn't done with the topic and returned in her second hour (international) to it. By sheer coincidence, she wanted Abderrahim Foukara to weigh in -- Abderrahim being most infamous on the program for the time he talked how wonderful Barack Obama was. Any chance he might be vested in the topic?
In fairness to Foukara, he's also infamous for lying about Al Jazeera's coverage of the assault on CBS News reporter Lara Logan in Egypt and for lying again about it and for calling her "Laura Logan." We're sure Foukara's has got to have had at least one good journalism moment in all the years somewhere, we've just never been able to find it.
And it wasn't to be found on Friday.
"Well, unfortunately, for me personally," insisted Foukara -- vain enough to turn the topic of a terrorist attack into his own personal drama, "what I've learned -- I'm strongly reminded that the United States is in the throes of an election. Because an investigation that was supposed to look into the conditions that led to the attack on the consult in Benghazi and to the killing of four Americans including Ambassador Stevens, has turned into an election issue."
What a load of crap. But more was to come because Foukara had more 'wisdom' to share including, "All the signs during that debate in Congress yesterday . . ." What? The hearing wasn't Thursday. The hearing was on Wednesday.
Diane soon went to The Wall Street Journal's Nathan Guttman who wanted to mention that the State Department was accused of not providing enough security and that "one of the replies is that they just didn't have enough and that they've been undergoing cuts, budget cuts, led by Republicans in Congress and for this diplomatic security mission."
First off, that spin is Democratic spin and it was established in the hearing that more Democrats voted for the House measure on funding the State Dept than Republicans. The Chair corrected the record and Ranking Member Elijah Cummings and others present didn't object to the interpretation. Consider that they objected to everything else, we'll assume that means Issa was correct and more Democrats in the House voted for it than Republicans.
Second, if the State Dept didn't get everything they wanted, maybe they shouldn't have been so damn greedy. Yeah, we're back to those (wasted) billions State 'needed' for Iraq for Fiscal Year 2012. If State hadn't spread themselves so thin, they wouldn't have been asking for so much money. Maybe before all the 'training' funds they request next fiscal year, they should nail down what they're going to need for security first?
NBC's Courtney Kube wanted to pipe up as well and she insisted that a military group being extended, well, "they may not have been in Benghazi during the attack to help anyway." Was she at the hearing? A portion, at the every least, a portion of such a team would have accompanied the ambassador to Benghazi. This was established in the hearing.
More annoying was realizing what they weren't talking about.
For example, the State Dept. knew it was a terrorist attack. When and how and when the 'protest' nonsense was dropped from the narrative Patrick Kennedy didn't want to speculate on, he said. He would need to review some documents -- it was pointed out to Kennedy that the topic of the hearing was known ahead of time so he should have already reviewed documents for this hearing.
What he did allow was that on September 12th, the day after the attack, he was telling Congressional aides that it was a terrorist attack.
This was known for a variety of reasons including that the attack was on camera.
Video exists of the attack. Kennedy kept trying to say a law enforcement agency had it. Issa told him to stop saying that, that they both knew the Justice Dept. didn't have it and a segment of government had the video and was refusing to allow Congress to see it.
The video makes clear it was a terrorist attack -- this from the statements of Kennedy and the State Dept.'s Charlene Lamb -- neither of whom was a 'whistle blower' at the hearing.
Here's what else you could learn from what the State Dept said and what a member objected to. There was a CIA operation in Beghazi. The 'safe house' was a CIA house. When the attack started, CIA agents were running for cover.
Wanting to try that lie about bad intel again? CIA agents were wounded in the attack.
Are we still going to play the bad intel nonsense?
Repeating, (A) video exists of the assault, (B) Patrick Kennedy was telling Congressional staffers September 12th that it was a terrorist attack and (C) CIA agents were wounded in the attack. How does the White House not immediately know it was a terrorist attack? CIA agents running to the safe house knew it was a terrorist attack when it was happening.
So the attack and the 9 day cover up of it by the White House is news and is an issue.
Unless you're paid gas bag David Brooks of The New York Times appearing on NPR's All Things Considered. E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post brought up Benghazi all by himself and insisted "it will not be a voting issue." Robert Siegel attempted to get an answer from Brooks who wanted to joke around. Siegel reset the discussion and both Brooks and Dionne became a lot less dismissive.
Again, good for Siegel. It's something Melissa Bloch failed to do with the two the week before. Siegel seemed to grasp that giggles over a terrorist act wasn't going to pass as professional and he pressed the topic to make the Brooks and Dionne actually explore it.
And maybe Seigel's journalistic approach left some sort of an impression because Brooks provided a much more coherent answer when he appeared later that same day on The NewsHour (this time book-ending with Mark Shields). He brought the topic up on his own.
David Brooks: The Benghazi thing, that hurt Biden a little.
Judy Woodruff: This is Libya.
David Brooks: The Libya thing. I think a lot of things actually in retrospect, as I think about the debate, were not explored as much as they should have been.
No kidding.
But in what world is the White House either not knowing or lying about what happened in Benghazi not an issue?
In what world does this not go to character and competence?
We seem to remember when the media would have you believe that a blow job went to character. Suddenly dishonesty or incompetence in your official duties and role isn't an issue?
White House loses $5.2 billion deal
If you missed it, Americans need jobs. If you weren't aware, the Great Recession's alleged recovery has not seen a boom in employment.
So surely the White House is busying knocking themselves out to find deals that can bring money onto US shores, right?
Last week, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki traveled to Moscow where he signed a contract with Russia for weapons. Iraq will fork over an estimated $4.2 billion to Russia for this deal alone. Nouri then flew to Prague to finalize a weapons deal with the Czech Republic. This deal's estimate value?
$1 billion.
So Iraq made weapons deals this week and took their monies to Russia and the Czech Republic.
That $5.2 billion won't be coming to the US. How many jobs would those deals have created?
Exactly how does that happen?
As the US continues to pour billions into Iraq via the State Dept., how does it happen that they can't even nail down these deals?
In fact, what was Barack doing last week?
Oh, that's right. He was doing stand up.
We didn't but maybe somebody found those bitchy one liners worth $5.2 billion.
-------------
Illustration is Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Smack Talking Wuss."
So surely the White House is busying knocking themselves out to find deals that can bring money onto US shores, right?
Last week, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki traveled to Moscow where he signed a contract with Russia for weapons. Iraq will fork over an estimated $4.2 billion to Russia for this deal alone. Nouri then flew to Prague to finalize a weapons deal with the Czech Republic. This deal's estimate value?
$1 billion.
So Iraq made weapons deals this week and took their monies to Russia and the Czech Republic.
That $5.2 billion won't be coming to the US. How many jobs would those deals have created?
Exactly how does that happen?
As the US continues to pour billions into Iraq via the State Dept., how does it happen that they can't even nail down these deals?
In fact, what was Barack doing last week?
Oh, that's right. He was doing stand up.
We didn't but maybe somebody found those bitchy one liners worth $5.2 billion.
-------------
Illustration is Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Smack Talking Wuss."
Cyndi Lauper: Author (Ava and C.I.)
She bop and now she write a book. We're talking about Cyndi Lauper who worked the East Coast music scene for years until she got a shot at a solo album and, in 1983, finally became one of the most famous singers in the world.
The album was She's So Unusual and the title was simply elegant in a way that her new volume is as well. Cyndi Lauper: A Memoir, written by Lauper and journalist Jancee Dunn, tells Cyndi's story in a straightforward voice that pulls you in from the first paragraph:
I left home at seventeen. I took a paper bag with a toothbrush, a change of underwear, an appl, and a copy of Yoko Ono's book Grapefruit. Grapefruit had become my window for viewing life through art. My plan was to take the train to the Long Island Rail Road and then a bus to Valley Stream. I had left dinner in the oven for my brother, Butch, who was five years younger than me. He was the reason I stayed so long. But things were just getting worse for me. This situation with my stepfather was impossible.
She's upfront like that on all topics, not just having a pedophile for a step-father. She's also happy to note her influences and they do include women including the Supremes, Barbra Streisand, Joni Mitchell and Janis Joplin. She's upfront about sexuality including her own early days when she decided she was a lesbian in high school. Experimentation proved her wrong but was part of the path to becoming one of the 21st centuries leading celebrity advocatea for LGBT issues. A real advocate, unlike a certain peer who, the press wanted you to know, was commenting on the AIDS crisis when she rose from a chair in the middle of a concert.
Cyndia's advocacy isn't hidden or in need of interpretation and the struggle for equality is very much a theme in the book -- for the LGBT community, for women, for herself.
So it's fitting that she'd be the one to take "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" onto the charts. The song, as written by Robert Hazard, was about Hazard's fantasy/belief that all these women wanted to go down on him orally. Cyndi did a massive re-working of the song, thinking of the generations of women in her family, and helped out by songwriter Ellie Greenwich (co-writer of hits such as "Leader of the Pack," "Be My Baby," "River Deep, Mountain High," "Da Doo Ron Ron," "Chapel of Love" and many more).
The song was a natural hit and still sounds fresh when radio plays it today. It was the perfect single to introduce this new solo artist to the country and to the world. It would be the first of four singles from She's So Unusual to make the top five of Billboard's Hot 100. One of the four, "Time After Time," which she co-wrote, would become her first number one hit. She'd notch up another number one with "True Colors."
Peaks and valleys are what a career's all about and Cyndi's had them, rebounding in 2003 with the hit album At Last and in 2010 with the Grammy winning Memphis Blues.
Another theme in the book is that life is tough so be prepared and chose your happiness where you can. By the time she's endured the sexism of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen on two separate occasions, she's learned to draw a line between the art and the artist.
She addresses touring as the hottest thing in the world and touring later on when you're no longer the new flavor of the month. She notes she toured with Tina Turner but never got to really know her and toured with Cher and had a blast.
She writes about writing songs for films and about acting in films, on the stage and on TV (she is an Emmy winning actress for her role as Ira's ex-wife on Mad About You). She writes about health problems and sexual assaults, love found and love missed and always in a unique and lively voice, sharing details that pull you into the memory and help you visualize what she was experiencing.
This is a great book, a brave one, a funny one. We recommend it highly. Our only regret is that she doesn't really explore what made the immediate follow up to She's So Unusual less than special. Cyndi was a unique voice and look. At the time, her peers were Billy Idol and Madonna. Cyndia was probably the strongest artist of the three then (certainly, she is now). They were MTV stars who had hit songs and visual images via heavy rotation videos.
Madonna was the first to 'grow up' with her third album True Blue. Critics saw it as a major breakthrough (we don't see it as such) and the pressure was on for Cyndi and Billy to do the same. Billy would release Whiplash Smile which featured a cartoon image of him on the cover and a flesh cartoon in the video as he humped the stage (in frustration?) during "To Be A Lover." While Madonna 'grew up' on her third solo album and Billy was trying to on his third one, this was only Cyndi's second one. And she had more on her shoulders than the other two. No one really cared if Madonna was authentic -- including Madonna. Billy Idol didn't have anyone accusing guitarist Steve Stevens of carrying him. But some did try to insist that the Hooters had carried Cyndi on her first album. (The group's Rob Hyman co-wrote "Time After Time" with Cyndi. Hyman and bandmate Eric Bazilian were among the musicians playing on the album.)
In that environment, few will pull off a great album. Cyndi did 'grow up' on True Colors according to critics (the album was widely praised upon release) but it didn't have staying power and it didn't work as an album. In the book, Cyndi notes how sparse the title track was. That was true of a number of tracks on the album. It also lacked a big theme and a big sound. The mix was off and the mixes sounded like sludge on audio cassette. That was a huge issue in 1986 because cassettes were the primary purchase then (and would remain so until 1991 when CD sales overtook cassettes).
That album is also home to "Boy Blue" which is when Cyndi really becomes part of the LGBT cause in a way that Madonna would repeatedly shy away from. We're not surprised that she doesn't ponder whether writing about a friend dying of AIDS while Ronald Reagan was in the White House and the media was in denial about the AIDS crisis and AID-phobia and homophobia were very much a part of the national culture hurt her career. That's the thing about pioneers, they never really spend a lot of time pondering, "What if I'd taken another road instead?" Cyndi's life has been a remarkable journey and its documented in an equally remarkable book.
Roundtable
Jim: The press, the race for the presidency, Iraq, Libya and more are the topics for this roundtable. Our
e-mail address is thirdestatesundayreview@yahoo.com. Participating our roundtable are The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava, and me, Jim; Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude; Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man; C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review; Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills); Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix; Mike of Mikey Likes It!; Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz); Ruth of Ruth's Report; Trina of Trina's Kitchen; Wally of The Daily Jot; Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ; Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends; Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub.
Betty's kids did the
illustration. You are reading a rush transcript.
Jim (Con't): Let's get started with a shift that took place last week. Tuesday, Stan wrote "She lost me" and he's not supporting Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate any more. Stan?
Stan: I'm tired of her. Betty's done a good job, since last year, of noting that the Green Party has a lot to prove after two embarrassing presidential runs in a row. Cynthia McKinney can call out Barack all she wants today -- and did during the assault on Libya -- but she's got blood on her hands. She and Rosa Clemente refused to call out Barack in 2008 when they supposedly ran against him. They called out John McCain that year. And 2004 was the 'safe state' strategy. Where the Greens wanted your vote -- if you lived in a safe state!
Jim: Betty, let me bring you in since Stan's mentioning you.
Betty: Sure.Stan's summary is correct. And I've stated I'd bail on Jill's campaign if it started feeling fishy. I'm not there yet but I'm close. She's about to lose me as well. I don't see any taking on of Barack Obama. If you're running for president and you're serious about it, you call out the sitting president. You use that person to contrast and compare your campaign with. But Jill's apparently just another faux Green. Like I said, I'm close to ditching the campaign.
Jim: And you're absentee voting.
Betty: Right because I'll be at my folks on election day. A family celebration is around that date. So Jill better get it together real quick or I'll be doing what Stan's doing.
Jim: Stan, that is?
Stan: I'm voting Romney-Ryan. That's my protest vote. I want Barack called out for what he's done. That should be coming from Jill Stein. It's not. With all he's done, she can't say a damn thing. So I'll grab Romney-Ryan.
Jim: There is Gary Johnson. And he is a strong critic.
Stan: He is. But I'm not even sure he's on the ballot in my state and I feel like I've wasted enough time on third parties with Jill Stein's crap.
Jim: Jess and Ann, you're Greens. What do you think of that?
Jess: I understand Stan's frustration. I'll be honest, I'm there too in terms of about to ditch Jill. For the same reasons. What I'll do, if I don't vote for Jill, is just not vote in the presidential race. But I understand Stan's protest vote and have no problem with it.
Ann: It comes down to whether or not Jill's going to do a damn thing. She most likely will not make it into the White House. So she needs to be fighting right now the way she would for four years if she was in the White House. Her blog or campaign site or whatever the f**k -- yeah, I'm not pleased either -- is run by morons who created this problem for her about three weeks ago. Jess and I were talking about it before.
Jess: Right. Before the campaign started posting those attacks on Romney and Ryan, Ann and I were already asking each other, "Where's the criticism of Barack?" It's become muted as the election loomed closer. And we know too well the fake out that the Green Party does. So we were talking about it and then the campaign's website began being used to attack Mitt Romney and promote Barack Obama. I'm still waiting for criticism of Barack.
Jim: Is anyone able to say firmly that they will vote for Jill Stein come election day?
Trina: I will. She's from my state. Her campaign's crap, the website and I'm really honestly appalled that they want to promote "Hey, we're women! Girl Power!" while they let a man run the website. There are no women who can do that job? And I blame that man for that crap going up at the website. I do that because I've seen her other campaigns. That's not me saying, "Stan, vote Jill!" I respect Stan's desire to lodge a protest vote, a serious one. And for him, that means voting for Mitt Romney. I respect that. I would respect him if he was voting for Romney because he believed in Romney's programs. Stan's not making a snap decision. He's carefully thought out how he wants to use his vote.
Ruth: And this is the kind of voting, please remember, that I.F. Stone recommended this sort of thing. I agree that it is Stan's vote and he should use it as he wants. My only regret is that this is another presidential election and it would have been nice if we had a Republican in the mix for these roundtables.
Jim: True. Libya. Senator Lindsay Graham and House Representative Darrell Issa made the morning talk shows. The comparison is being made of the lies from Barack to the ones from Bush. Sam Stein (Huffington Post) huffs, "There are problems with all of these points. The Obama administration has never said al Qaeda was defeated, the United States commitment to Libya is tiny compared to the amount of resources Bush devoted to Iraq and the pretenses for getting involved in each scenario were vastly different."
Elaine: Sam Stein is an idiot. Barack has given one speech after another in the last six weeks alone boasting that al Qaeda is on the run. It's exactly that sort of crap that ensures Huffington Post will never be taken seriously as a news outlet.
Wally: I really can't believe how the Libya issue has been so minimized by the press. 4 dead Americans doesn't appear to mean much. I guess we need to get Barack getting blown in Benghazi for the press to be outraged.
Marcia: Amen to that. It really is disturbing to watch this nonsense and grasp that the press either ignores the hearing last week or offers minor details from it.
Ty: I would argue that the video footage, fifty minutes of the attack, denying that video, keeping it from the American people, keeping it from Congress, goes to the lies the administration told and the cover up that continues.
Kat: Ava, C.I., Wally and I were at that hearing and to be at that hearing and then catch the press on it it was to be appalled. The video, the fact that the State Dept.'s Patrick Kennedy was telling Congressional staffers September 12th that it was a terrorist attack. Or the idiots who want to discredit the critiques by pointing to Eric Nordstrom's prepared remarks.
Wally: Right. That had to go through the State Dept. That is why it is so different from his remarks under oath. And no one wants to talk about how the State Dept. hit the roof when Nordstrom was talking to Congress and ordered him to stop talking to Congress, to stop answering their questions, to stop returning their calls.
Mike: Like Libya, Iraq's out of the media loop.
Jim: Thank you for the transition.
Mike: Your welcome. I searched in vain for the English language report on how Nouri's floating the idea of dissolving the Parliament. I found none. There's so much that's being ignored and it's why Joe Biden was able to lie in the debate last week about Iraq.
Rebecca: Right, claiming he was against the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War. That was ridiculous. But notice how there's no rush to ridicule him for lying. And he lied. In so many ways.
Mike: I just thought he was out of control. I thought he was rude and combative and I felt like he was on steroids and having some roid rage or something.
Jim: Anyone else bothered by Biden's debate performance?
Isaiah: I would agree with Mike's comments and with the ones Tom Brokaw made about how Biden shouldn't be grinning and chuckling while talking about Iran and nukes. He just seemed really disconnected from what was being discussed.
Jim: Cedric?
Cedric: I wish he would have calmed down a bit. I know he had to be out there because Barack refused to be but I do think he over did it.
Jim: Okay and there are three takes on Biden's debate performance. We're closing on that. Dona, Ava and C.I. didn't speak and have indicated they're okay with that. This is a rush transcript.
Jim (Con't): Let's get started with a shift that took place last week. Tuesday, Stan wrote "She lost me" and he's not supporting Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate any more. Stan?
Stan: I'm tired of her. Betty's done a good job, since last year, of noting that the Green Party has a lot to prove after two embarrassing presidential runs in a row. Cynthia McKinney can call out Barack all she wants today -- and did during the assault on Libya -- but she's got blood on her hands. She and Rosa Clemente refused to call out Barack in 2008 when they supposedly ran against him. They called out John McCain that year. And 2004 was the 'safe state' strategy. Where the Greens wanted your vote -- if you lived in a safe state!
Jim: Betty, let me bring you in since Stan's mentioning you.
Betty: Sure.Stan's summary is correct. And I've stated I'd bail on Jill's campaign if it started feeling fishy. I'm not there yet but I'm close. She's about to lose me as well. I don't see any taking on of Barack Obama. If you're running for president and you're serious about it, you call out the sitting president. You use that person to contrast and compare your campaign with. But Jill's apparently just another faux Green. Like I said, I'm close to ditching the campaign.
Jim: And you're absentee voting.
Betty: Right because I'll be at my folks on election day. A family celebration is around that date. So Jill better get it together real quick or I'll be doing what Stan's doing.
Jim: Stan, that is?
Stan: I'm voting Romney-Ryan. That's my protest vote. I want Barack called out for what he's done. That should be coming from Jill Stein. It's not. With all he's done, she can't say a damn thing. So I'll grab Romney-Ryan.
Jim: There is Gary Johnson. And he is a strong critic.
Stan: He is. But I'm not even sure he's on the ballot in my state and I feel like I've wasted enough time on third parties with Jill Stein's crap.
Jim: Jess and Ann, you're Greens. What do you think of that?
Jess: I understand Stan's frustration. I'll be honest, I'm there too in terms of about to ditch Jill. For the same reasons. What I'll do, if I don't vote for Jill, is just not vote in the presidential race. But I understand Stan's protest vote and have no problem with it.
Ann: It comes down to whether or not Jill's going to do a damn thing. She most likely will not make it into the White House. So she needs to be fighting right now the way she would for four years if she was in the White House. Her blog or campaign site or whatever the f**k -- yeah, I'm not pleased either -- is run by morons who created this problem for her about three weeks ago. Jess and I were talking about it before.
Jess: Right. Before the campaign started posting those attacks on Romney and Ryan, Ann and I were already asking each other, "Where's the criticism of Barack?" It's become muted as the election loomed closer. And we know too well the fake out that the Green Party does. So we were talking about it and then the campaign's website began being used to attack Mitt Romney and promote Barack Obama. I'm still waiting for criticism of Barack.
Jim: Is anyone able to say firmly that they will vote for Jill Stein come election day?
Trina: I will. She's from my state. Her campaign's crap, the website and I'm really honestly appalled that they want to promote "Hey, we're women! Girl Power!" while they let a man run the website. There are no women who can do that job? And I blame that man for that crap going up at the website. I do that because I've seen her other campaigns. That's not me saying, "Stan, vote Jill!" I respect Stan's desire to lodge a protest vote, a serious one. And for him, that means voting for Mitt Romney. I respect that. I would respect him if he was voting for Romney because he believed in Romney's programs. Stan's not making a snap decision. He's carefully thought out how he wants to use his vote.
Ruth: And this is the kind of voting, please remember, that I.F. Stone recommended this sort of thing. I agree that it is Stan's vote and he should use it as he wants. My only regret is that this is another presidential election and it would have been nice if we had a Republican in the mix for these roundtables.
Jim: True. Libya. Senator Lindsay Graham and House Representative Darrell Issa made the morning talk shows. The comparison is being made of the lies from Barack to the ones from Bush. Sam Stein (Huffington Post) huffs, "There are problems with all of these points. The Obama administration has never said al Qaeda was defeated, the United States commitment to Libya is tiny compared to the amount of resources Bush devoted to Iraq and the pretenses for getting involved in each scenario were vastly different."
Elaine: Sam Stein is an idiot. Barack has given one speech after another in the last six weeks alone boasting that al Qaeda is on the run. It's exactly that sort of crap that ensures Huffington Post will never be taken seriously as a news outlet.
Wally: I really can't believe how the Libya issue has been so minimized by the press. 4 dead Americans doesn't appear to mean much. I guess we need to get Barack getting blown in Benghazi for the press to be outraged.
Marcia: Amen to that. It really is disturbing to watch this nonsense and grasp that the press either ignores the hearing last week or offers minor details from it.
Ty: I would argue that the video footage, fifty minutes of the attack, denying that video, keeping it from the American people, keeping it from Congress, goes to the lies the administration told and the cover up that continues.
Kat: Ava, C.I., Wally and I were at that hearing and to be at that hearing and then catch the press on it it was to be appalled. The video, the fact that the State Dept.'s Patrick Kennedy was telling Congressional staffers September 12th that it was a terrorist attack. Or the idiots who want to discredit the critiques by pointing to Eric Nordstrom's prepared remarks.
Wally: Right. That had to go through the State Dept. That is why it is so different from his remarks under oath. And no one wants to talk about how the State Dept. hit the roof when Nordstrom was talking to Congress and ordered him to stop talking to Congress, to stop answering their questions, to stop returning their calls.
Mike: Like Libya, Iraq's out of the media loop.
Jim: Thank you for the transition.
Mike: Your welcome. I searched in vain for the English language report on how Nouri's floating the idea of dissolving the Parliament. I found none. There's so much that's being ignored and it's why Joe Biden was able to lie in the debate last week about Iraq.
Rebecca: Right, claiming he was against the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War. That was ridiculous. But notice how there's no rush to ridicule him for lying. And he lied. In so many ways.
Mike: I just thought he was out of control. I thought he was rude and combative and I felt like he was on steroids and having some roid rage or something.
Jim: Anyone else bothered by Biden's debate performance?
Isaiah: I would agree with Mike's comments and with the ones Tom Brokaw made about how Biden shouldn't be grinning and chuckling while talking about Iran and nukes. He just seemed really disconnected from what was being discussed.
Jim: Cedric?
Cedric: I wish he would have calmed down a bit. I know he had to be out there because Barack refused to be but I do think he over did it.
Jim: Okay and there are three takes on Biden's debate performance. We're closing on that. Dona, Ava and C.I. didn't speak and have indicated they're okay with that. This is a rush transcript.
Rethinking the Lynne Stewart case
Lynne Stewart is a political prisoner. A 73-year-old breast cancer survivor who's been wrongly sentenced to 10 years in prison.
We're wondering why Lynne was tried for the 'offense' to begin with?
Now we've argued before that what took place, what Lynne did (issuing a press release to Reuters) wasn't a crime and we stand by that.
But we're wondering something else now.
Lynne broke no law. She broke a Special Administrative Measure.
She did that when Bill Clinton was president and Janet Reno was Attorney General.
Reno's Justice Department handled it. They didn't prosecute, Lynne had to sign a new agreement and get a talk.
Here's the point. If SAMS are going to be treated as if they were law, then they've got treated as if they were law.
By that we mean, a 'verdict' cannot be reached on a SAMS violation by one Justice Department and then a different verdict imposed by another for the same offense.
We don't support SAMS being treated as law but if a Justice Department is going to treat them like laws then you can't render two verdicts on the same offense.
You break the law and you're protected against being tried for the same offense twice by the principal of double jeopardy. If SAMS are now being treated like laws, then shouldn't the principal of double jeopardy apply there as well?
If so, then Lynne's violation of a Special Administrative Measure was 'ruled' on by the Reno Justice Department and she never should have been prosecuted by the Ashcroft Justice Department.
Radio Moment of the Week
Lynne Stewart is a political prisoner. She's a victim of two occupants of the White House. First, Bully Boy Bush who went after her. Second, Barack Obama who refused to let her original sentence stand and demanded the judge re-sentence her (to a longer sentence -- when you make the demand for re-sentencing, that is what you're ordering). She's a 73-year-old breast cancer survivor who broke no law but has been given a ten year sentence. Remember that the next time Barack trots out his sick mommy for sympathy. If he gave a damn about his mother or that cancer that claimed her, he damn well wouldn't be putting an elderly cancer survivor behind bars for 10 years when she never broke the damn law.
On last week's Law and Disorder Radio, an hour long program that airs Monday mornings at 9:00 a.m. EST on WBAI and around the country throughout the week, attorneys Heidi Boghosian, and Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights) discussed her case.
Michael Ratner: Heidi, we've covered the plight and the imprisonment of Lynne Stewart a number of times on this show. We've interviewed Lynne, we've had her in our studio. She's an incredibly remarkable lawyer. But unfortunately, she's in prison. And she's been trying to appeal a very long sentence -- ten years. Can you give us an update on where that is going right now?
Heidi Boghosian: Michael, we learned a week or so ago that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has turned down Lynne Stewart's request for a reconsideration on what listeners may recall was actually a second sentence, a much harsher sentence than Judge [John G.] Koeltl who heard her case initially imposed. He gave her what I think was a year-and-a-half.
Michael Ratner: 24 months --
Heidi Boghosian: 24 months that would include time served. The government came back to him and said that essentially this wasn't harsh enough, you have to reconsider. They criticized his decision -- a decision that was based in part on a volume, hundreds of letters that clients and friends and colleagues wrote on behalf of Lynne attesting to her many contributions really in the field of what we might call poverty law, defending those who traditionally don't get the kind of defense that they really need. And Judge Koeltl then sentenced her, in what many of us thought was really a travesty of justice, to ten years, given her health, her age, the body of her work. She's in a medical facility in Texas and on hearing the news that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected her request, she wrote of a favorite line of Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnet: "Pity me that the heart is slow to learn what the swift mind beholds at every turn" ("Pity Me Not"). And the next step in this case will be the Supreme Court of the United States. The defense has 90 days to petition the Supreme Court to take the case and obviously it has to be based on the issues raised on appeal which includes what she calls the sentencing fiasco. A sad turn of events for really a feisty spirit who has, we've heard, helped a lot of women in the facility she's in, as a jailhouse lawyer and I think she's actually been subjected to some retalitory action because of her assistance.
Michael Ratner: I mean, Lynne is someone who doesn't give up so I'm sure she has her fighting spirit intact in prison but it is an outrageously long sentence of ten years. The conviction was already outrageous as we reminded our people that the conduct she was alleged to have done was done under --
Heidi Bohosian: [Attorney General] Janet Reno, under the Clinton administration. And they just gave her a slap on the wrist, said don't do it again. It was essentially not a criminal act. It was a procedural administral adminstrative violation by -- She was forced to sign what are called Special Administrative Measures saying she would act in a certain way in her representation of the so-called blind sheik. And Reno didn't see fit to do anything other than to caution her to do it again. Yet [Attorney General John] Ashcroft comes in under Bush and they made --
Michael Ratner: After 9-11.
Heidi Boghosian: After 9-11. He appeared on the [David] Letterman show in a highly unusual move announcing the indictment of Lynne, really held her up as an example we think of warning to progressive lawyers who might want to represent individuals who speak out against government policies.
Dennis Kucinich talks some truths about Libya
Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee held a hearing into the assault on the US Consulate in Benghazi. The only Democrat on the Committee who used his time wisely and didn't self-disgrace was US House Representative Dennis Kucinich. From C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot."
US House Rep Dennis Kucinich: Mr. Kennedy has
testified today that US interests and values are at stake in Libya and
that the US is better off because we went to Benghazi. Really? You
think that after ten years in Iraq and eleven years in Afghanistan that
our country, the US would have learned the consequences and limits of
interventionism. You would think that after trillions have been wasted
on failed attempts at democracy building abroad while our infrastructure
crumbles at home, Congress and the administration would re-examine
priorities. Today we're engaging in a discussion about the security
failures of Benghazi. There was a security failure. Four Americans
including our ambassador, Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed.
Their deaths are a national tragedy. My sympathy is with the families
of those who were killed. There has to be accountability. I haven't
heard that yet. We have an obligation to protect those who protect
us. That's why this Congress needs to ask questions. The security
situation did not happen overnight because of a decision made by someone
at the State Dept. We could talk about hundreds of millions of dollars
in cuts for funding for embassy security over the last two years as a
result of a blind pursuit of fiscal austerity. We could talk about
whether it's prudent to rely so heavily on security contractors rather
than our own military or State Dept personnel. We could do a
he-said-she-said about whether the State Dept should have beefed up
security at the embassy in Benghazi. But we owe it to the diplomatic
corps who serves our nation to start at the beginning and that's what I
shall do. The security threats in Libya including the unchecked
extremist groups who are armed to the teeth exist because our nation
spurred on a civil war destroying the security and stability of Libya.
And, you know, no one defends Gaddafi. Libya was not in a meltdown
before the war. In 2003, Gaddafi reconciled with the community of
nations by giving up his pursuit of nuclear weapons. At the time,
President Bush said Gaddafi's actions made our country and our world
safer. Now during the Arab Spring, uprisings across the Middle East
occurred and Gaddafi made ludicrous threats against Benghazi. Based on
his verbal threats, we intervented. Absent constitutional authority, I
might add. We bombed Libya, we destroyed their army, we obliterated
their police stations. Lacking any civil authority, armed brigades
control security. al Qaeda expanded its presence. Weapons are
everywhere. Thousands of shoulder-to-air missiles are on the loose.
Our military intervention led to greater instability in Libya. Many of
us, Democrats and Republicans alike, made that argument to try to stop
the war. It's not surprising given the inflated threat and the
grandiose expectations inherent in our nation building in Libya that the
State Dept was not able to adequately protect our diplomats from this
predicatable threat. It's not surprising. And it's also not
acceptable. It's easy to blame someone else -- like a civil servant at
the State Dept. We all know the game. It's harder to acknowledge that
decades of American foreign policy have directly contributed to regional
instability and the rise of armed militias around the world. It's even
harder to acknowledge Congress' role in the failure to stop the war in
Libya, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Pakistan, the
war in Yemen, the war in Somolia and who knows where else? It's harder
to recognize Congress' role in the failure to stop the drone attacks
that are still killing innocent civilians and strengthening radical
elements abroad. We want to stop the attacks on our embassies? Let's
stop trying to overthrow governments. This should not be a partisan
issue. Let's avoid the hype. Let's look at the real situation here.
Interventions do not make us safer. They do not protect our nation.
They are themselves a threat to America. Now, Mr. Kennedy, I would like
to ask you, is al Qaeda more or less established in Libya since our
involvement?
Patrick Kennedy: Mr. Kucinich, I will have to take that question for the record. I am not an intelligence expert.
US
House Rep Dennis Kucinich: Oh. You don't have the intelligence, you're
saying? Well I'm going to go on to the next question --
Committee Chair Darrell Issa: Mr. Kucinich, I think the other two may have an opinion.
US
House Rep Dennis Kucinich: Well I wanted to ask Mr. Kennedy. Next
question, Ambassador Kennedy, how many shoulder-to-air missiles that are
capable of shooting down civilian passenger airlines are still missing
in Libya? And this happened since our intervention. Can you answer
that question?
Patrick Kennedy: No, sir. I'll be glad to provide it for the record.
US House Rep Dennis Kucinich: You're saying you do not know?
Patrick Kennedy: I do not know, sir. It's not within my normal purview of operations with the State Dept.
US
House Rep Dennis Kucinich: Does anyone else here know how many
shoulder-to-air missiles that can shoot down civilian airliners are
still loose in Libya? Anyone know?
Eric Nordstrom: The figures that we were provided are fluid but the rough approximation is between ten and twenty thousand.
Committee Chair Darrell Issa: The gentleman's time has expired. Did you want them to answer anything about al Qaeda growth?
US House Rep Dennis Kucinich: If anyone there knows.
Committee Chair Darrell Issa: If anyone has an answer on that one, they can answer and then we'll go on.
US House Rep Dennis Kucinich: Yeah, is al Qaeda more or less established in Libya since our involvement?
Lt Col Andrew Wood: Yes, sir. There presence grows everday. They are certainly more established than we are.
The Post Debate Debate (Ava and C.I.)
Ava and C.I. took to The Common Ills Friday for another critique of the so-called debates. We're reposting it.
Last night, valuable TV time was tossed aside so that the networks could present the pretense of a vice presidential debate. Moderator Martha Raddatz faced calls of bias because Barack Obama had attended her nineties wedding. Surprisingly, the calls of bias were coming from supporters of the Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan ticket. With the marriage ended in divorce -- and the ex-husband having attended Barack's wedding to Michelle solo, we would have assumed that those crying foul would have been supporters of the Barack Obama and Joe Biden ticket. Marriages end in acrimony, that is kind of a given.
Calls for ABC's defense correspondent to step down should have been louder and near universal because it's really past time for journalists -- and we do consider Raddatz a journalist and not a TV personality -- to stop whoring their names and their profession to promote the pretense of debate. The League of Women Voters ran the debates and did so in a non-partisan manner. In 1980, they agreed to allow a third party candidate on the stage and the response was massive whining and pouting from the Democratic and Republican Party leaders. So much whining and so much pouting that Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan would only have one debate.
The duopoly of the DNC and the RNC wasn't having that and today there is nothing non-partisan about the so-called debates. Contracts are drawn up by the two parties agreeing who will not be in and agreeing what type of format it will be, what the topics will be, what the candidates are allowed to say, how they are allowed to interact, etc.
Last week, we were at Harvard and caught an event as fake as the debates themselves but on the panel was Alan Simpson and he was happy to explain what Democratic Party candidate Barack and Republican candidate Mitt would be asked about. Would be. The debates hadn't taken place yet. They were hours away. But because he sits on the 'debate' commission, he knew the contract drawn up for this year's so-called debates and therefore knew what would be covered. (We addressed that panel and more in "TV: Jim Lehrer, notch below child molester." And we keep hearing that we were the only people to report on that panel so that may be the only place it's documented that Simpson was telling people what the candidates would be asked before the debate had even started.)
The whole thing's a sham. That's why Jim Gray (Gary Johnson's running mate on the Libertarian Party ticket), Cheri Honkala (Jill Stein's running mate on the Green Party ticket), Jim Clymer (Virgil Goode's running mate on the Constituion Party ticket), Luis J. Rodriguez (Rocky Anderson's running mate on the Justice Party ticket) and Phyllis Scherrer (Jerry White's running mate on the Socialist Equality Party ticket) were not present.
Imagine how different last night's debate could have been if those people had been on the stage. Not only would you have had diversity of race, ethnicity and gender -- which you did not have last night -- but you also would have had a huge diversity of opinion. Grasp that Dems and Republicans are not happy with their tickets and less so each election cycle. Why? Because the Dem tries to play more conservative (or may be more conservative) to pick up voters and the Republicans do the same (though some liars on the left continue to try to paint Mitt Romney as a conservative devil, he is seen by Republican grass roots as too moderate). Put more conservatives and more liberals on the stage and there's a chance that candidates would have to actually stand for party core values or risk losing their base.
Risk losing their base? Not as long as the duopoly controls the debates and pretends like they don't. Reality: If you can make a ticket in any state, you should be up on stage. If your name is printed on even one state's ballot as a presidential candidate, that should be the only requirement for being invited on stage. We elect presidents by state as a result of the electoral college. So if one state considers the candidate 'real' enough to be on the ballot, that's all that should matter. Once you make the ballot in one state, you should be allowed to stand on that stage and make your case.
If we lived in a real democracy, that might happen. But we live in a corporatocracy with light democratic plating -- it easily flakes off and more and more are starting to notice just how undemocratic it really is. We say scrape it all off, reveal the truth.
And that's why we call out Jim Lehrer and Martha Raddatz and every other TV personality or journalist who takes part in the phony theatrics that trick the American people into believing they are seeing an actual debate.
This morning, we listened with open mouthed astonishment to the radio as we heard a fact check or 'fact check' on the debate. We kept looking at one another and shaking our heads in disbelief. "Did she just say --?"
We then went online to see if this was the way the 'fact check' was going?
We'll address how facts were bent to the point of breaking when we weigh in at Third on Sunday.
However, right now we're going to make one big point: Stop speaking if you don't know what you're talking about.
We don't know if you're lying or you're just that damn stupid.
But stop it. Right now.
Click here for video of a USA Today 'fact check.'
Someone probably thinks that's a great fact check.
Those people -- hopefully a small number -- are grossly ignorant.
Thursday's "Iraq snapshot," Wednesday's "Iraq snapshot" and "2 disgrace in the Committee hearing" is our coverage thus far of Wednesday's House Oversight Committee hearing on what happened in Benghazi. We attended that hearing and we reported on it. (In this community, also attending were Kat -- see her "What we learned at today's hearing" and Wally -- see his "The White House's Jimmy Carter moment.")
We were at the hearing. Listening to the USA Today 'fact check' and others far worse (NPR, we'll take you on Sunday), we were stunned.
Do they just make stuff up?
The White House, fact checkers want you to know, had no way of knowing for days what happened in Benghazi. USA Today even wants you to believe there was a protest.
First, there was no protest.
All of this was covered at length by the State Dept witnesses appearing before the Committee Wednesday.
But wrap your mind around this one: Remember when the White House watched the attack on Osama bin Laden?
They also had cameras monitoring the Benghazi Consulate. The attack was seen in real time. The video was distributed throughout the administration.
This is a basic chronology as presented in the hearing: Ambassador Chris Stevens had been visiting with a friend from Turkey. Ambassador Stevens walked him out. Ambassador Stevens was on the street. There were no protesters. There was no one visible. Within an hour, still no protesters, the Consulate comes under attack.
There was never a protest.
So-called 'fact checkers' better grasp that. They also better grasp that the excuses they're making up for the White House don't play.
Real-time video was monitored in real-time. In addition, the video was distributed throughout the administration.
We heard a liar -- who shouldn't have even been weighing in due to ethical conflicts -- cherry pick from the hearing.
The damn liar didn't know what the hell she was talking about and she also wasn't at the hearing. So maybe don't bring idiots on to do fact checks?
But the lying idiot wanted you to know that the security witness -- there were two actually -- insisted it wouldn't have made a difference if more had been present.
Really? Is that what was said?
Here's one exchange:
Lt Col Andrew Wood: Absolutely.
US House Rep Dennis Ross: And had they been there, they would have made a difference, would they not?
Lt Col Andrew Wood: They made a difference every day they were there, when I was there, sir. They were a deterrent effect.
The 'debates' are a joke. Even more of a joke is the 'fact checking' going on. (Including lies about Iraq that'll be addressed in the snapshot today.) Is the news media trying to convey that they are as phony as the 'debates'? If so, great going.
If not, they might want to try reporting accurately on Wednesday's hearing. One thing the networks fled from was US House Rep Dennis Kucinich establishing that after the war on Libya, al Qaeda is more established in Libya and that dangerous weapons are now unleashed on the black market after the Libyan War.
US House Rep Dennis Kucinich: Oh. You don't have the intelligence, you're saying? Well I'm going to go on to the next question --
Committee Chair Darrell Issa: Mr. Kucinich, I think the other two may have an opinion.
US House Rep Dennis Kucinich: Well I wanted to ask Mr. Kennedy. Next question, Ambassador Kennedy, how many shoulder-to-air missiles that are capable of shooting down civilian passenger airlines are still missing in Libya? And this happened since our intervention. Can you answer that question?
Patrick Kennedy: No, sir. I'll be glad to provide it for the record.
US House Rep Dennis Kucinich: You're saying you do not know?
Patrick Kennedy: I do not know, sir. It's not within my normal purview of operations with the State Dept.
US House Rep Dennis Kucinich: Does anyone else here know how many shoulder-to-air missiles that can shoot down civilian airliners are still loose in Libya? Anyone know?
Eric Nordstrom: The figures that we were provided are fluid but the rough approximation is between ten and twenty thousand.
Committee Chair Darrell Issa: The gentleman's time has expired. Did you want them to answer anything about al Qaeda growth?
US House Rep Dennis Kucinich: If anyone there knows.
US House Rep Dennis Kucinich: Yeah, is al Qaeda more or less established in Libya since our involvement?
Ourselves, we would -- like Dennis -- argue these things happened because of the war on Libya. But regardless, it was established by the witnesses that, after the war on Libya, these are realities on the ground.
That's pretty important news. And this being a presidential election cycle, you'd think the news industry would be especially interested in outcomes from Barack's war. But apparently, if it's not reported by them, it never happened.
----------------------
Notes:
1) We would love to see Cindy Sheehan on the stage at a v.p. debate and if it was a real debate she might have been there representing the Peace and Freedom Party despite the fact that she announced she wanted off the ticket. Because of that announcement we did not note her in the above. No insult or snub was intended to Cindy who was the only one actively working to promote the Peace and Freedom Party's presidential ticket. And Cindy on stage at last night's debate might have changed the outcome of the entire election. (You can be sure the duopoly feared just that.)
2) You'd be amused -- like Joe and Paul in the screen snap -- if you were in on the con.
3) For those needing a critique from us of the debate performance, we would have told Joe, "Take it into the chest voice."
The Post Debate Debate (Ava and C.I.)
Last night, valuable TV time was tossed aside so that the networks could present the pretense of a vice presidential debate. Moderator Martha Raddatz faced calls of bias because Barack Obama had attended her nineties wedding. Surprisingly, the calls of bias were coming from supporters of the Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan ticket. With the marriage ended in divorce -- and the ex-husband having attended Barack's wedding to Michelle solo, we would have assumed that those crying foul would have been supporters of the Barack Obama and Joe Biden ticket. Marriages end in acrimony, that is kind of a given.
Calls for ABC's defense correspondent to step down should have been louder and near universal because it's really past time for journalists -- and we do consider Raddatz a journalist and not a TV personality -- to stop whoring their names and their profession to promote the pretense of debate. The League of Women Voters ran the debates and did so in a non-partisan manner. In 1980, they agreed to allow a third party candidate on the stage and the response was massive whining and pouting from the Democratic and Republican Party leaders. So much whining and so much pouting that Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan would only have one debate.
The duopoly of the DNC and the RNC wasn't having that and today there is nothing non-partisan about the so-called debates. Contracts are drawn up by the two parties agreeing who will not be in and agreeing what type of format it will be, what the topics will be, what the candidates are allowed to say, how they are allowed to interact, etc.
Last week, we were at Harvard and caught an event as fake as the debates themselves but on the panel was Alan Simpson and he was happy to explain what Democratic Party candidate Barack and Republican candidate Mitt would be asked about. Would be. The debates hadn't taken place yet. They were hours away. But because he sits on the 'debate' commission, he knew the contract drawn up for this year's so-called debates and therefore knew what would be covered. (We addressed that panel and more in "TV: Jim Lehrer, notch below child molester." And we keep hearing that we were the only people to report on that panel so that may be the only place it's documented that Simpson was telling people what the candidates would be asked before the debate had even started.)
The whole thing's a sham. That's why Jim Gray (Gary Johnson's running mate on the Libertarian Party ticket), Cheri Honkala (Jill Stein's running mate on the Green Party ticket), Jim Clymer (Virgil Goode's running mate on the Constituion Party ticket), Luis J. Rodriguez (Rocky Anderson's running mate on the Justice Party ticket) and Phyllis Scherrer (Jerry White's running mate on the Socialist Equality Party ticket) were not present.
Imagine how different last night's debate could have been if those people had been on the stage. Not only would you have had diversity of race, ethnicity and gender -- which you did not have last night -- but you also would have had a huge diversity of opinion. Grasp that Dems and Republicans are not happy with their tickets and less so each election cycle. Why? Because the Dem tries to play more conservative (or may be more conservative) to pick up voters and the Republicans do the same (though some liars on the left continue to try to paint Mitt Romney as a conservative devil, he is seen by Republican grass roots as too moderate). Put more conservatives and more liberals on the stage and there's a chance that candidates would have to actually stand for party core values or risk losing their base.
Risk losing their base? Not as long as the duopoly controls the debates and pretends like they don't. Reality: If you can make a ticket in any state, you should be up on stage. If your name is printed on even one state's ballot as a presidential candidate, that should be the only requirement for being invited on stage. We elect presidents by state as a result of the electoral college. So if one state considers the candidate 'real' enough to be on the ballot, that's all that should matter. Once you make the ballot in one state, you should be allowed to stand on that stage and make your case.
If we lived in a real democracy, that might happen. But we live in a corporatocracy with light democratic plating -- it easily flakes off and more and more are starting to notice just how undemocratic it really is. We say scrape it all off, reveal the truth.
And that's why we call out Jim Lehrer and Martha Raddatz and every other TV personality or journalist who takes part in the phony theatrics that trick the American people into believing they are seeing an actual debate.
This morning, we listened with open mouthed astonishment to the radio as we heard a fact check or 'fact check' on the debate. We kept looking at one another and shaking our heads in disbelief. "Did she just say --?"
We then went online to see if this was the way the 'fact check' was going?
We'll address how facts were bent to the point of breaking when we weigh in at Third on Sunday.
However, right now we're going to make one big point: Stop speaking if you don't know what you're talking about.
We don't know if you're lying or you're just that damn stupid.
But stop it. Right now.
Click here for video of a USA Today 'fact check.'
Someone probably thinks that's a great fact check.
Those people -- hopefully a small number -- are grossly ignorant.
Thursday's "Iraq snapshot," Wednesday's "Iraq snapshot" and "2 disgrace in the Committee hearing" is our coverage thus far of Wednesday's House Oversight Committee hearing on what happened in Benghazi. We attended that hearing and we reported on it. (In this community, also attending were Kat -- see her "What we learned at today's hearing" and Wally -- see his "The White House's Jimmy Carter moment.")
We were at the hearing. Listening to the USA Today 'fact check' and others far worse (NPR, we'll take you on Sunday), we were stunned.
Do they just make stuff up?
The White House, fact checkers want you to know, had no way of knowing for days what happened in Benghazi. USA Today even wants you to believe there was a protest.
First, there was no protest.
All of this was covered at length by the State Dept witnesses appearing before the Committee Wednesday.
But wrap your mind around this one: Remember when the White House watched the attack on Osama bin Laden?
They also had cameras monitoring the Benghazi Consulate. The attack was seen in real time. The video was distributed throughout the administration.
This is a basic chronology as presented in the hearing: Ambassador Chris Stevens had been visiting with a friend from Turkey. Ambassador Stevens walked him out. Ambassador Stevens was on the street. There were no protesters. There was no one visible. Within an hour, still no protesters, the Consulate comes under attack.
There was never a protest.
So-called 'fact checkers' better grasp that. They also better grasp that the excuses they're making up for the White House don't play.
Real-time video was monitored in real-time. In addition, the video was distributed throughout the administration.
We heard a liar -- who shouldn't have even been weighing in due to ethical conflicts -- cherry pick from the hearing.
The damn liar didn't know what the hell she was talking about and she also wasn't at the hearing. So maybe don't bring idiots on to do fact checks?
But the lying idiot wanted you to know that the security witness -- there were two actually -- insisted it wouldn't have made a difference if more had been present.
Really? Is that what was said?
Here's one exchange:
US House Rep Dennis Ross: And do you have any reason to
believe that if you had to go up your chain of command at AFRICOM for a
request from the State Dept that they extend the tour of duty of an SST,
that your chain of command would not grant that?
Lt
Col Andrew Wood: Absolutely Gen [Carter F.] Ham was fully supportive of
extending the SST as long as they felt they needed them.
US House Rep Dennis Ross: So the resources were available for the SST?
Lt Col Andrew Wood: Absolutely.
US House Rep Dennis Ross: And had they been there, they would have made a difference, would they not?
Lt Col Andrew Wood: They made a difference every day they were there, when I was there, sir. They were a deterrent effect.
So stop cherry picking your statements. Stop pretending there was only
one witness. And if you dare -- as a lying hack did today -- insist
that a 'few' more wouldn't have made a difference you damn well better
know what was said in the hearing about the numbers and how those making
requests already knew that even five would be turned down.
In other words, there's a hell of a lot of whoring going on.
We're not getting paid for this. But news outlets do. So why can't
they do the damn job they're paid to? Why the hell weren't they at the
Wednesday hearing? Why the hell couldn't they cover what took place
accurately?
Those are questions the news media should be answering today before they try to 'fact check' a damn thing.
The 'debates' are a joke. Even more of a joke is the 'fact checking' going on. (Including lies about Iraq that'll be addressed in the snapshot today.) Is the news media trying to convey that they are as phony as the 'debates'? If so, great going.
If not, they might want to try reporting accurately on Wednesday's hearing. One thing the networks fled from was US House Rep Dennis Kucinich establishing that after the war on Libya, al Qaeda is more established in Libya and that dangerous weapons are now unleashed on the black market after the Libyan War.
US House Rep Dennis Kucinich:
Mr. Kennedy has testified today that US interests and values are at
stake in Libya and that the US is better off because we went to
Benghazi. Really? You think that after ten years in Iraq and eleven
years in Afghanistan that our country, the US would have learned the
consequences and limits of interventionism. You would think that after
trillions have been wasted on failed attempts at democracy building
abroad while our infrastructure crumbles at home, Congress and the
administration would re-examine priorities. Today we're engaging in a
discussion about the security failures of Benghazi. There was a
security failure. Four Americans including our ambassador, Ambassador
Christopher Stevens, were killed. Their deaths are a national tragedy.
My sympathy is with the families of those who were killed. There has
to be accountability. I haven't heard that yet. We have an
obligation to protect those who protect us. That's why this Congress
needs to ask questions. The security situation did not happen overnight
because of a decision made by someone at the State Dept. We could talk
about hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts for funding for embassy
security over the last two years as a result of a blind pursuit of
fiscal austerity. We could talk about whether it's prudent to rely so
heavily on security contractors rather than our own military or State
Dept personnel. We could do a he-said-she-said about whether the State
Dept should have beefed up security at the embassy in Benghazi. But we
owe it to the diplomatic corps who serves our nation to start at the
beginning and that's what I shall do. The security threats in Libya
including the unchecked extremist groups who are armed to the teeth
exist because our nation spurred on a civil war destroying the
security and stability of Libya. And, you know, no one defends Gaddafi.
Libya was not in a meltdown before the war. In 2003, Gaddafi
reconciled with the community of nations by giving up his pursuit of
nuclear weapons. At the time, President Bush said Gaddafi's actions made
our country and our world safer. Now during the Arab Spring, uprisings
across the Middle East occurred and Gaddafi made ludicrous threats
against Benghazi. Based on his verbal threats, we intervented. Absent
constitutional authority, I might add. We bombed Libya, we destroyed
their army, we obliterated their police stations. Lacking any civil
authority, armed brigades control security. al Qaeda expanded its
presence. Weapons are everywhere. Thousands of shoulder-to-air
missiles are on the loose. Our military intervention led to greater
instability in Libya. Many of us, Democrats and Republicans alike, made
that argument to try to stop the war. It's not surprising given the
inflated threat and the grandiose expectations inherent in our nation
building in Libya that the State Dept was not able to adequately protect
our diplomats from this predicatable threat. It's not surprising. And
it's also not acceptable. It's easy to blame someone else -- like a
civil servant at the State Dept. We all know the game. It's harder to
acknowledge that decades of American foreign policy have directly
contributed to regional instability and the rise of armed militias
around the world. It's even harder to acknowledge Congress' role in the
failure to stop the war in Libya, the war in Iraq, the war in
Afghanistan, the war in Pakistan, the war in Yemen, the war in Somolia
and who knows where else? It's harder to recognize Congress' role in
the failure to stop the drone attacks that are still killing innocent
civilians and strengthening radical elements abroad. We want to stop
the attacks on our embassies? Let's stop trying to overthrow
governments. This should not be a partisan issue. Let's avoid the
hype. Let's look at the real situation here. Interventions do not make
us safer. They do not protect our nation. They are themselves a threat
to America. Now, Mr. Kennedy, I would like to ask you, is al Qaeda more
or less established in Libya since our involvement?
Patrick Kennedy: Mr. Kucinich, I will have to take that question for the record. I am not an intelligence expert.
US House Rep Dennis Kucinich: Oh. You don't have the intelligence, you're saying? Well I'm going to go on to the next question --
Committee Chair Darrell Issa: Mr. Kucinich, I think the other two may have an opinion.
US House Rep Dennis Kucinich: Well I wanted to ask Mr. Kennedy. Next question, Ambassador Kennedy, how many shoulder-to-air missiles that are capable of shooting down civilian passenger airlines are still missing in Libya? And this happened since our intervention. Can you answer that question?
Patrick Kennedy: No, sir. I'll be glad to provide it for the record.
US House Rep Dennis Kucinich: You're saying you do not know?
Patrick Kennedy: I do not know, sir. It's not within my normal purview of operations with the State Dept.
US House Rep Dennis Kucinich: Does anyone else here know how many shoulder-to-air missiles that can shoot down civilian airliners are still loose in Libya? Anyone know?
Eric Nordstrom: The figures that we were provided are fluid but the rough approximation is between ten and twenty thousand.
Committee Chair Darrell Issa: The gentleman's time has expired. Did you want them to answer anything about al Qaeda growth?
US House Rep Dennis Kucinich: If anyone there knows.
Committee Chair Darrell Issa: If anyone has an answer on that one, they can answer and then we'll go on.
US House Rep Dennis Kucinich: Yeah, is al Qaeda more or less established in Libya since our involvement?
Lt Col Andrew Wood: Yes, sir. There presence grows everday. They are certainly more established than we are.
Ourselves, we would -- like Dennis -- argue these things happened because of the war on Libya. But regardless, it was established by the witnesses that, after the war on Libya, these are realities on the ground.
That's pretty important news. And this being a presidential election cycle, you'd think the news industry would be especially interested in outcomes from Barack's war. But apparently, if it's not reported by them, it never happened.
----------------------
Notes:
1) We would love to see Cindy Sheehan on the stage at a v.p. debate and if it was a real debate she might have been there representing the Peace and Freedom Party despite the fact that she announced she wanted off the ticket. Because of that announcement we did not note her in the above. No insult or snub was intended to Cindy who was the only one actively working to promote the Peace and Freedom Party's presidential ticket. And Cindy on stage at last night's debate might have changed the outcome of the entire election. (You can be sure the duopoly feared just that.)
2) You'd be amused -- like Joe and Paul in the screen snap -- if you were in on the con.
3) For those needing a critique from us of the debate performance, we would have told Joe, "Take it into the chest voice."
Highlights
This piece is written by Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Kat of Kat's Korner, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Ruth of Ruth's Report, Marcia of SICKOFITRADLZ, Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends, Ann of Ann's Mega Dub, Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts and Wally of The Daily Jot. Unless otherwise noted, we picked all highlights.
"The Post Debate Debate (Ava and C.I.)" -- the most requested highlight of the week by readers of this site.
"Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "2 disgrace in the Committee hearing," "The White House's Jimmy Carter moment" and "What we learned at today's hearing" -- C.I., Ava, Wally and Kat report on the House Oversight Committee hearing into the attack on the US Consulate in Libya.
Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Smack Talking Wuss" -- Isaiah weighs in on the 'emergent' Barack after the dismal debate performance.
"Easy Black Bean Tacos" -- Ava fills in for Trina and offers a recipe while talking Latino issues.
"Before the White House blames Nina Blackwood" and "THIS JUST IN! NOT BECAUSE OF A VIDEO!"-- Cedric and Wally explain it to the administration.
"Mommy, he's my boyfriend!," "revenge: end of the white haired man," "Revolution," "The Good Wife," "Fringe," "PBS," "revenge and spoilers," "Shameful PBS," "The albino named Mika," "revenge and divorce," "Revolution" and "Fringe, the polls, Libya" -- Betty, Rebecca, Marcia, Stan, Mike, Trina and Ruth cover TV.
"The jobs, the numbers, the facts," "Scott Horsley campaigns for Barack," "Stupid Diane Rehm and her stupid guests," "Diane Rehm is f**king nuts" -- Trina, Betty, Wally and Kat cover public radio.
"I thought I did (but I didn't)" -- Ann offers a talking post on a number of issues including blogging, forgetting, the election, being married to someone from a different political party and more.
"Leave Stacey Dash alone" -- and Ann takes up for Stacey Dash's right to endorse whomever she wants.
"The debates" and "The debate" -- Ruth and Marcia explore the debates.
"Dead Ringer" -- Stan goes to the movies.
"Enough" and "The sham" -- Elaine on the nonsense.
"Idiot of the week" -- Mike picks the idiot of the week.
"THIS JUST IN! STAND UP FAIL!" and "Maybe save it for the post-White House career" -- Wally and Cedric on Barack's attempts to cover for his failure at the debate.
"The Post Debate Debate (Ava and C.I.)" -- the most requested highlight of the week by readers of this site.
"Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "Iraq snapshot," "2 disgrace in the Committee hearing," "The White House's Jimmy Carter moment" and "What we learned at today's hearing" -- C.I., Ava, Wally and Kat report on the House Oversight Committee hearing into the attack on the US Consulate in Libya.
Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Smack Talking Wuss" -- Isaiah weighs in on the 'emergent' Barack after the dismal debate performance.
"Easy Black Bean Tacos" -- Ava fills in for Trina and offers a recipe while talking Latino issues.
"Before the White House blames Nina Blackwood" and "THIS JUST IN! NOT BECAUSE OF A VIDEO!"-- Cedric and Wally explain it to the administration.
"Mommy, he's my boyfriend!," "revenge: end of the white haired man," "Revolution," "The Good Wife," "Fringe," "PBS," "revenge and spoilers," "Shameful PBS," "The albino named Mika," "revenge and divorce," "Revolution" and "Fringe, the polls, Libya" -- Betty, Rebecca, Marcia, Stan, Mike, Trina and Ruth cover TV.
"The jobs, the numbers, the facts," "Scott Horsley campaigns for Barack," "Stupid Diane Rehm and her stupid guests," "Diane Rehm is f**king nuts" -- Trina, Betty, Wally and Kat cover public radio.
"I thought I did (but I didn't)" -- Ann offers a talking post on a number of issues including blogging, forgetting, the election, being married to someone from a different political party and more.
"Leave Stacey Dash alone" -- and Ann takes up for Stacey Dash's right to endorse whomever she wants.
"The debates" and "The debate" -- Ruth and Marcia explore the debates.
"Dead Ringer" -- Stan goes to the movies.
"Enough" and "The sham" -- Elaine on the nonsense.
"Idiot of the week" -- Mike picks the idiot of the week.
"THIS JUST IN! STAND UP FAIL!" and "Maybe save it for the post-White House career" -- Wally and Cedric on Barack's attempts to cover for his failure at the debate.