Tag: 2016 Elections

Like many of the past GOP gaffs, the truth about the real purpose of the House’s latest House Benghazi investigation as exposed when prospective Speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told that the Fox News’ Sean Hannity Benghazi investigation was intended to damage the presidential campaign of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

McCarthy said Tuesday that Clinton would have remained “unbeatable,” had it not been for the committee.

“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee, what are her numbers today?” McCarthy told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. “Her numbers are dropping, why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened.”

He then reiterated that to CNN’s Jake Tapper that the committee was part of a “strategy to fight and win”.  

“I’m willing to fight but I want to fight to win,” McCarthy said when asked about the call by some Republicans to force a government shutdown fight in an effort to defund Planned Parenthood.

McCarthy said he supports a “bottom-up” approach to leading, where Republicans first put forward their policies and plans, use committees to do the groundwork, and then let that effort result in winning a vote on a policy.

He pointed to the controversy over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while in office — which has at times overshadowed her presidential campaign — as an example of how the process can work.

“When you look at the poll numbers of Hilary Clinton — they’ve dropped. Unfavorable is pretty high because people say they don’t trust her,” McCarthy said. “They don’t trust her because what they found out about the server and everything else. Would you ever have found that out had you not gathered the information from Benghazi Select Committee? So if we really want to be able to show what this Planned Parenthood has done … have the select committee get all the information, all the hearings. Win the argument to win the vote.”

The fall out from the Democratic side was immediate with demands that present Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) disband the committee:

In the letter, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and other Democrats said that McCarthy, who is in line to replace Boehner after the speaker retires, had revealed that the panel’s true purpose was political.

“We are writing to ask you to disband the House Select Committee on Benghazi after House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s recent comments admitting that the Select Committee was put together to serve the political purpose of defeating Secretary Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential elections by hurting her in the polls, rather than conducting a serious investigation into a terrorist attack that killed four Americans,” wrote Reid, who was joined by Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.), Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Patty Murray (Wash.) and Barbara Boxer (Calif.).

“We should not disrespect their sacrifice by further politicizing this tragedy,” they continued.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow spoke with Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) about why the committee should be disbanded and a possible boycott by the Democrats on the committee.

Following Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s spilling truth , the Republicans are scrambling to deny it

Speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said McCarthy should apologize, saying the California Republican made an “absolutely inappropriate statement.”

Speaker John Boehner, who is set to retire at the end of the month, sought to provide cover for McCarthy on Thursday. In a statement, he denied that the committee has anything to do with politics.

“This investigation has never been about former Secretary of State Clinton and never will be,” Boehner said. [..]

“I might have said it differently,” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-California, told CNN. “Any ancillary political activity that comes out of it is, in fact, not the goal of the committee and is not what the committee is seeking to do.”

Added Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, “I totally disagree with those comments.” Asked if they could jeopardize his bid for speaker, the conservative Amash said: “I think it should be a concern.”

This is an elephant they aren’t going to get back in the bottle.  Everyone knows this charade has always been political. Republicans using the deaths of four Americans for political gain is bereft of any human decency.

In an extended, and sometimes poignant interview with Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show,” Vice President Joe Biden discussed the loss of his son, Beau, and calls for his tossing his hat ring for president. Joe Biden is no doubt a really nice man and loving father and husband but even he expressed doubt last night that he has the heart, the soul or the energy to make that run.

“I don’t think any man or woman should run for president unless, number one, they know exactly why they would want to be president; and two, they can look at folks out there and say, ‘I promise you have my whole heart, my whole soul, my energy and my passion,'” he told comedian Stephen Colbert in an interview on CBS’ “The Late Show.”

“I’d be lying if I said that I knew I was there. I’m being completely honest,” Biden continued. “Nobody has a right in my view to seek that office unless they are willing to give it 110 percent of who they are.”

As Charles Pierce at Esquire Politics put it, “it was powerful television, but it doesn’t mean he should run for president.”

This is a guy who already had more tragedy than a merciful god would have allowed and that was before his son, Beau, died earlier this year. Of course, the man broke down. The wonder is that he ever gets out of bed in the morning. What he should do is continue as best he can to be the finest vice-president of my lifetime. What he should not do in his current state of emotional turmoil is run for president. [..]

Joe Biden shouldn’t run for president because he shouldn’t do it to himself. He has earned a unique place in the country’s heart, which is a far warmer place for him as a human being than shivering in some cornfield outside Ottumwa in the cold winter winds. A presidential campaign is a soulless mechanism designed to grind the human spirit into easily digestible nuggets. Moments of profound personal pain and loss are as unavoidable as are concussions in the NFL. It was almost unbearable to watch him speak of his son’s death even to someone as profoundly compassionate as Colbert. I would hate to see him coin that grief into political currency, or fashion it into a portion of a stump speech that would become banal the second time it was delivered. I think, at some level, he would come to hate himself for having to do that.  It’s not that I wouldn’t vote for Joe Biden, though I probably wouldn’t. It’s that I don’t want to see him hurt any more.

Like Charlie, I admire Biden as a person but he is as hawkish as Hillary and just as friendly to Wall Street and the banks as Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. His record as a senator would hurt him just as Hillary’s is hurting her, the nonsensical e-mail tempest aside. The Democratic Party needs to stop tacking right and embrace the popular policies of Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

Yesterday another Republican thew his hat onto the GOP Presidential candidate clown car, billionaire real estate magnate Donald Trump. In a rambling disconnected speech that was panned by both the right and left media pundits, he managed to insult China, Mexico and the intelligence of most voters. Trump made Jon Stewart’s night but what was really the topper was former Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert’s response to The Donald.

Sporting a Trump-style hairdo, Colbert was rolled to a podium in “a giant human trashcan” to announce he would still be hosting the “Late Show.” But mostly, he just rambled for more than six minutes, mimicking Trump’s own rambling speech.

“My mouth still has more to say,” he said as he babbled on about China, Mexico, lunch, bicycle racing, card tricks, hats and more.

“I agree with Donald that America is dead — buried in a coffin, in salted earth with our enemies pissing on it and laughing” Colbert said. “And Donald Trump is the only man who can — excuse me, I’m just moved — I’m physically moved by the knowledge that Donald Trump is the only man who can dig up the corpse of that nation and marry it.”

At one point, he literally foamed at the mouth.

More Americans feel comfortable with a presidential candidate who identifies as gay or lesbian than with one who identifies as an evangelical Christian, according to a new poll.

Really??? Seriously, it is

The latest WSJ/NBC poll listed a series of qualities in a potential presidential candidate and asked respondents whether they’d “be enthusiastic,” “be comfortable with,” “have some reservations about” or “be very uncomfortable with” a candidate with each of those qualities.

The results revealed that Americans are actually quite open to having a gay presidential candidate. Sixty-one percent said they would be either enthusiastic about or comfortable with a gay or lesbian candidate, while only 37 percent said they would have reservations or be uncomfortable.

By comparison, respondents were a little less comfortable with the prospect of a candidate who is an evangelical Christian. Fifty-two percent said they’d be enthusiastic about or comfortable with an evangelical Christian running for president, while 44 percent expressed some degree of hesitancy about the idea. (Two percent of respondents said they were not sure about a gay or lesbian candidate, while four percent were not sure about an evangelical.)

So, throw your hat in the ring, Huckleberry, you might actually have a good chance, but you have to stop saying nonsense like this:

“Al Qaeda, Al Nusra, Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula… Everything that starts with ‘Al’ in the Middle East is bad news” – these were Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina words at an AIPAC New England Leadership Dinner in Boston’s Convention Center last night.

Senator Graham, who strongly hinted about his intentions on running for presidency, should have probably checked the dictionary before making such a comment. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Al in Arabic is simply meaning “the.” “It often prefixes Arabic proper nouns, especially place-names; an example is Al-Jazīrah (Arabic: “The Island”), the name of an interfluvial region in Sudan. The article is often used in lowercase form, hence al-Jazīrah.”, Britannica explains.

Lindsey, dear, we know you were just being “funny” but the Islamaphobia won’t win you the nomination or the White House.

Jim Gilmore is running for President. Maybe

If you’re thinking of the father in the TV series “The Gilmore Girls,” you’re way off, that was “Richard Gilmore” played so well by the late Edward Herman.

This Gilmore is James Stuart “Jim” Gilmore III, the  governor of Virginia from  January 17, 1998 to January 12, 2002. Gov. Gilmore is a Republican and threw his hat onto the GOP clown car back in 2006 for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination for president. That didn’t work out so well, mostly because of name recognition and funding, so he withdrew his name and shortly after announced he would run for the Senate.

The seat was, and still is held, by Sen. Mark Warner (D), who was up  for re-election and had initially decided not to seek reelection, then changes his mind. Sen. Warner, a right leaning Democrat, roundly defeated Gov. Gilmore by a wide margin. The governor only garnered 34% of the vote and even lost in normally strong Republican districts. But then, it was the presidential election that brought Barack Husein Obama to the White House.  

He sat out the 2012 fray but has decided that he’s the guy with the experience to be the president in 2017.  Thus he has become one of the nineteen Republicans vying to face off with who ever the Democrats nominate (like we all don’t know who that very well maybe).

Welcome to the circus, Jim

The silly season starts earlier and lasts longer with each cycle, to the point that it is now one big blur. Trying to make a choice which candidate to support for just the nomination is going to be tough this time. On the Republican side there is a bus load of right wing extremists while the Democrats appear to have the “inevitable” Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Republican platform is still stuck on what Governor Bobby Jindal (R-LA) called “stupid” from social and economic issues to foreign policy. The Democrats may differ with them on social issues, however, on economic and foreign policy their actions speak louder than their words.

So where does that leave the large Democratic left? Thank FSM there is time to ask questions and maybe get some satisfactory answers. But sadly, that may not be too easy considering the quality and tenor of the mainstream news media. Take for example the media obsession with Secretary Clinton’s announcement of her candidacy, her trip by van to Iowa and her stop at a local Chipotle. So far there hasn’t been any substantive discussion about the issues that are most important to the vast majority of America. Except that there has been; it’s just been hard to find.

Fortunately, we have journalists like Democracy Now!‘s Amy Goodman to provide a panel and a serious debate about Hillary Clinton and the issues.

Former secretary of state, senator and first lady Hillary Clinton has formally entered the 2016 race for the White House in a second bid to become the first woman U.S. president. We host a roundtable discussion with four guests: Joe Conason, editor-in-chief of The National Memo, co-editor of The Investigative Fund, and author of “The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton”; Michelle Goldberg, senior contributing writer at The Nation; longtime journalist Robert Scheer, editor of Truthdig.com and author of many books; and Kshama Sawant, a Socialist city councilmember in Seattle and member of Socialist Alternative, a nationwide organization of social and economic justice activists.

I have to agree with Charles Pierce at Esquire Politics that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is hardly an example of a progressive but this is what will be heard for the next 19 months.

Former senator, 2008 Democratic candidate for presidential nominations and  former Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton has announced she is again seeking the office of President of the United States.

Not everyone is jumping on board, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio told “Meet the Press” that he is holding back his endorsement until Mrs. Clinton clarified her economic platform. Too friendly with Wall St isn’t her only problem. She has been silent about the m P5+1 negotiations with Iran over it’s nuclear program. She has supported arming the so-called “moderate rebels” in Syria uprising. Where does she stand on drone attacks, targeted assassinations and overall use of military force, the out of control surveillance community?

Right now, like the song goes, “Still I wish there was somethin’ you would do or say, to try and make me change my mind and stay.”