The outrage is pretty fucking real, even if you’re devoid of it.
Yeah, this about covers it:
First 5-10 minutes. Nothing more than fear-mongering the base as usual.
The outrage about Benghazi is ridiculous. Really, is this what they have? Where was the outrage about attacking a country that had nothing to do with 9/11? Where was the fucking outrage then? Where is the outrage about killing thousands of people in Iraq? This is the most ridiculous “outrage” I have ever seen. Sure the US government lies. Are you that fucking naive?
And as far as the IRS thing, the President has no control over the fucking IRS. Does anyone here think that Obama set them on the Tea Party? Really? Naive yet again.
Wake up morons. The President can not and will not affect the IRS which is out of his jurisdiction.
Damn you folks are stupid.
Out of his “jurisdiction”? Which branch of government is the IRS part of and which one is Obama head of? I mean, when he isn’t watching the county line for bail-jumpers.
Says the guy who moved TO Florida.
haha but seriously…
I’ll have to go ahead and disagree with you on that one. Part of Nixon’s impeachment involved charges that “He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavoured to… cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be intitiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.” Plus all of the charges of political abuse of the IRS by the Bush admin, or at least during the Bush admin, in the other thread we have going on right now about the IRS scandal.
So obviously many, many people on both sides of the issue think that the president can and will affect the IRS and its policy based on what HIS policy is, enough that it can come up during a serious effort at impeachment. The House Judiciary Committee might know better than you whether the President can affect the IRS.
I know this site, and its my favorite site and the only one I check every other day or so, is like 80-20 liberal/other. So I try hard to stay out of P&R because it mostly just pisses me off. And my thread title was incendiary (any post from me past 10p my time probably means I am liquored up), but come on.
Benghazi was absolutely a cover up. Best case the administration decided to call it a protest vs a terrorist attack because the election was around the corner. They KNEW it was a terrorist attack as it was happening. Worst case…it seems to me they could have done a lot more to support a US embassy under attack for 7-8 hours than what they did.
The IRS stuff speaks for itself, somebody decided to focus on conservative groups, it didn’t just happen on its own. We won’t profile radical muslims but we will profile the Tea Party? Are you fucking kidding me? And the AP phone record stuff should offend everyone, its un-American. But the media is the liberal’s best friend, why are you people not outraged?
If if you’re going to cite Stewart, I’ll retort with the Onion Sasha Obama Suspicious After Doing A Little Digging Around On Benghazi
If even the Onion is jumping on board to criticize the administration on Benghazi (and ABC, CNN, etc.), it’s pretty silly to try to diminish and dismiss the misconduct as solely partisan fear-mongering.
Thanks for taking the time to write this up! I appreciate it. Its hard enough to understand the politics of one’s own country, let alone one a billion miles away.
This.
I’m not a native, but i’ve followed the AP story a bit and thought it sounded pretty out of whack. First things first beware of ‘outrage’, i think it might have been trademarked by the Republican party and Fox News. So that is that dealt with a little i hope.
Second things is do you care to follow the source of the ills in your democratic process at all on these kind of topics? I mean really follow the source, which is a-political. The Republican/Democrat thing is just the control method, the flavour of choice to point fingers at and lay blame. It keeps you in-line. Nothing more. Once you get that you will see why ‘outrage’ is always best kept in perspective as in this post 9/11, war-of-terror world we allowed the erm Republicans to create, all bets are off and no-one is safe, not even you. And really you can’t be surprised that the Democrats will use the legal frameworks set down, even ones they didn’t make themselves (when out of office). Plutocracy is a dangerous thing, but you can change it if you really want to, just understand that ultimately you are all american citizens and it really does not matter if you vote Republican or Democrat, you are all in it together and those labels are just set to divide you so the plutocracy can keep doing what it does.
Ultimately, the rich and powerful get away with things as long as they have nothing to fear.
I like the government involved in things that keep the powerful in check, and not involved in things that keep the ordinary citizen or activist in check. Government is meant to be a bulwark for the weak against the strong, as that is necessary for progress and maximizing the social benefit to society.
So stuff like this does irk me, though overall I think the current Dems are less dangerous in office than the current Republicans. (when I was younger I was a Republican. I changed after 9/11- ironically my parents went from normal to far right)
However, the Dems have to be called out on stuff like that and using the IRS politically (though the real issue are the laws that encourage the shadowy groups the IRS was targeting being pro-powerful)
There are a lot of things to get outraged about in politics right now.
Benghazi and the IRS thing? Hardly sponge worthy.
“OMG scandal!” That’s seriously LOL.
The AP thing though, that is troubling.
Where you see malicious intent, I see confusion. Information is often compartmentalized, and the people talking to the press didn’t have access to the clearest data. It usually takes a couple of days for information to settle down into its correct form after any major disaster or attack. It’s nice to think that people inside the government have better and clearer reports than the general public, but it’s not always so.
As for being able to do more, that’s not really the case. Our nearest air assets were in Italy, and would require several hours of transit and in-flight refueling to reach Benghazi. The US military doesn’t do anything half-cocked, so getting them mobilized, into an area with an unknown quantity of anti-air, was not feasible. Meanwhile, the Marines that were on the ground were separated from the people who were eventually killed and were busy protecting the majority of staff while they evacuated. Our ability to project force anywhere in the world requires a LOT of planning and logistics, and you can’t do that level of logistics in that kind of time frame.
Agreed. Eric Holder needs to resign. That type of crap erodes more of the foundation of our democracy than anything else.
and the people talking to the press didn’t have access to the clearest data.
Well, the most recent emails that got leaked a few days ago suggest that a lot of the confusion stemmed directly from various staff members specifically trying to work “the message” that they wanted in the public eye, so it wasn’t quite as accidental as you seem to think.
Every politician at the national level has people working for them that try to “work the message” and create talking points that support their agenda. That the White House would do the same should come as no surprise to anybody. Every president, member of Congress, Agency head, etc… they all do this, both republican and democrat. What is this a surprise and/or how is it a coverup? Was it poorly handled: Yes. I don’t think anybody would argue that it was handled well. But that doesn’t mean it’s some vast conspiracy. They fucked up their talking points and it has come back to bite them in the ass.
I haven’t read the emails, but I found this summary. Sounds to me more like they were trying to figure out how much to divulge to avoid compromising intelligence. Given that the consulate was at least in part a CIA front operation, that seems reasonable to me. Not that I’m a huge fan of spooks and their influence over what the public gets to know, but it’s business as usual for the last thirty years or so.
But of course. I’m not trying to deny anyone’s emotion, I’m just pointing out that the emotion is a result of cynical manipulation of the credulous.
I don’t really understand what it is about Benghazi that is outrageous. I don’t even comprehend how it can be seen as having been spun by the administration for political gain. That whole side of it is just tinfoil hat nonsense for frothing partisans.
An attack on a diplomatic post that killed two Americans is pretty small potatoes compared to Bush involving the US in a war on false pretenses that killed thousands of Americans. Or as was pointed out on the daily show, the scores of attacks on diplomatic posts with many casualties that occurred during the Bush years.
A shitty thing happened, people died, and now the republicans are trying to milk that tragedy for political gain. That should be the real outrage.
Anyway hopefully it will get set aside for the genuine IRS and AP scandals which have happened on Obamas watch and for which he is effectively responsible. He should be taking swift action: the IRS chief should be gone, Holder should be gone, probably a broader swathe of firings too. I would say he should reign except I guess presidents don’t really do that unless the are facing successful impeachment.
IRS chief is already gone. I wouldn’t miss Holder either.
I don’t think you understand how the Onion works.
They’re making fun of the stupidity of Benghazi. It’s what they do. How can you not see that?
Benghazi is a non-issue. There is nothing covered up and nothing to find. “If he did X” is no proof of shit. It’s just shit.
The IRS thing isn’t Obama since the presidency is insulated from the IRS thanks to Nixon.
The AP thing however is far more of an issue. But no one wants to talk about that as much since they want to abuse the same powers once they’re in power.