At the heart of what's left of the GOP "scandal" is a White House email which purports to show that the White House was concerned about getting dinged with a terrorist attack in the weeks before an election, so they wanted to change the message to make the American people think it wasn't that. And they had an email which … Read More
Benghazi Joke Continues
Yesterday's jokester was Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Cal), who is heading up the Committee To Get To The Bottom of Benghazi Dammit Because We Know Something Is Being Covered Up But We Don't Know What But It's Impeachable That's Fer Darn Sure Dammit. In fact, Issa gave us two yucks yesterday. First he said, on Fox News, this (starting at 0:59): … Read More
Biggest Scandal Ever!!
PPP poll: … there's no doubt about how mad Republicans are about Benghazi. 41% say they consider this to be the biggest political scandal in American history to only 43% who disagree with that sentiment. Only 10% of Democrats and 20% of independents share that feeling. Republicans think by a 74/19 margin than Benghazi is a worse political scandal than … Read More
Not Nixonian
James Warren offered up some good perspective on "Benghazi!" yesterday. He concluded with this: Though Stevens was an admired former Lugar staffer, Lugar has neither condoned nor condemned U.S. actions in response to the Benghazi attack. And a former Republican staffer on that committee underscored his own bottom line: "This is not Iran-Contra," he said, alluding to the bonafide Reagan era scandal … Read More
Yes, This Is An Actual Scandal
WaPo: At various points over the past two years, Internal Revenue Service officials singled out for scrutiny not only groups with “tea party” or “patriot” in their names but also nonprofit groups that criticized the government and sought to educate Americans about the U.S. Constitution, according to documents in an audit conducted by the agency’s inspector general. The documents, obtained by The Washington Post from … Read More
Benghazi Debunked
A nice summary from Think Progress of scandals-that-aren't: 1. F-16s could have been sent to Benghazi Part of the prevailing theory surrounding the events the night of the Benghazi attacks is that the Obama administration did not do enough militarily to respond to the crisis. Gregory Hicks — a Foreign Service Officer and the former Deputy Chief of Mission at … Read More
Strange GOP Ad
Obama has been in office 100 days of his second term, so the GOP came out with a negative ad that is, well, kinda weird. The ad basically attacks Obama for not getting anything done. Uh… what? It's very strange, for example, for Republicans to go against popular will and common sense by blocking gun control legislation…. and then complain … Read More
Obama’s Chained CPI Idea Is Bad
Obama, in attempting to show that he can "give" a little when it comes to cutting the deficits, is about to propose a thing called "chained CPI" when it comes to Social Security benefits. Basically, it sets Social Security benefits to the inflation rate. Bad. Bad. Bad. For one thing, Social Security isn't in trouble. It's well-funded for the next … Read More
Shalom
President Obama has been taking a lot of hits on the right for not having visited Israel (despite the fact that he did visit Israel during the 2008 campaign). "Anti-semite!" they cried. And so on. Even Romney raised it during the 2012 presidential campaign. I was never sure what the fuss was about. Reagan never visited Israel. Bush Sr. didn't either. … Read More
“ObamaQuester”?
There's the sequester coming up, and here's what should be of concern to everyone: the severe nature of the cuts, and what can be done to avoid it. But it looks like the Republicans have opted to play politics instead, and their concern is assigning blame. They've decided to call it the "Obamaquester". Finger-pointing is easier than governing, I guess, … Read More
So… This Happened
It's truly childish to focus on what has now been dubbed "Watergate", but to be completely honest, it was really awkward.
Optics
Many Democrats are bringing children and teachers from Newtown, as guests, to Obama's State of the Union speech tonight: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi announced on Friday that she will bring a fourth-grade child from Newtown who launched a petition to change gun laws after the shooting. Pelosi declined to name the child, but said she attends a school near … Read More
The Memo
NBC got a hold of a white paper which provides the legal justification for assassination of an American not on American soil, without the constitutional protections of due process. You can read the original here (as a PDF), or read the wiki transcription. The nub of the white paper is this: [t]he Department of Justice concludes only that where the following three conditions … Read More
The Infinitely Recursive Conspiracy Theory Conspiracy
So… I guess you know about the Sandy Hook school shooting conspiracy theories — the ones that opine that the government was behind the shootings and that the shoortings were staged by actors. Glenn Beck wants you to know that those conspiracy theories are bunk. AND he wants you to know who is BEHIND those conspiracy theories: the government. That's … Read More
The Viral Eyeroll
So here it is…. Michelle Obama responding with an eyeroll to something Boehner says to Obama: How RUDE, screams the always-victimized rightwing chattering class. However, according to the expert professional lip-reader team at Entertainment Tonite, chain-smoker John Boehner asks professed ex-smoker President Obama if he ‘had a chance to catch a smoke’… and then adds ‘hah, sooooomebody wouldn’t let you’. Under those circumstances, Anne Laurie … Read More