Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and his House Intelligence Committee just wrapped up two years of Benghazi!!!. They turned up no red meat for the base. No ground beef. No flavored broth. Not even a bouillon cube.
Among the Intelligence Committee’s findings, according to Thompson:
— Intelligence agencies were “warned about an increased threat environment, but did not have specific tactical warning of an attack before it happened.”
— “A mixed group of individuals, including those associated with al Qaeda, (Moammar) Khadafy loyalists and other Libyan militias, participated in the attack.”
— “There was no ‘stand-down order’ given to American personnel attempting to offer assistance that evening, no illegal activity or illegal arms transfers occurring by U.S. personnel in Benghazi, and no American was left behind.”
— The administration’s process for developing “talking points” was “flawed, but the talking points reflected the conflicting intelligence assessments in the days immediately following the crisis.”
For chrissake GOP. Your boy Romney committed an awful faux pas that night when he went after Obama before the bodies were cold. You just don’t step on dead American diplomats like that and you especially do not do it before anyone knows what exactly happened. Some things should be sacred. I get why Republicans tried to whip up a bullshit milkshake over the issue; doing what Romney did when he did wrapped in a neat little package the many reasons the man will never, ever be presidential material. I think at the heart of BENGHAZI!!!1one! you will find a deep shame about what Romney did and how much it made an embarrassing farce out of the rest of the election. Everyone saw the pie on Mitt’s face when Barack Obama cordially asked him to keep digging, even people who will never admit it out loud. Shame can be a powerful emotion. I have seen folks do a lot of things to deny it, hide it, destroy it or escape.
Accepting shame and moving on is an important measure of a mature adult. I genuinely think even Darrell Issa will one day work through every stage of grief and poop out a report late some holiday eve. Trey Gowdy, well, I expect eventually they will wheel him out of the Rayburn building in a straitjacket ranting at statues about freemansons and lizard people.
Peter
“Accepting shame and overcoming is an important measure of a mature adult.”
Unfortunately never admitting that you’re wrong is an important measure of politicians, pundits, public figures, and 99% of internet commenters.
trollhattan
“House Intelligence Committee”–three words that should never be strung together in the house of Boehner.
Time now to look at all the diplomatic corps fatalities during the GWB administration? Didn’t think so.
Roger Moore
Kind of like the grain of sand at the middle of a pearl or the tiny noise that starts deafening feedback in an audio system. Worries about Romney might have started the Benghazi nonsense, but it rapidly grew out of control and took on a life of its own. People who never heard Romney’s statements are sure, sure I tell you, that there was some kind of massive problem in Obama’s handling of the situation. It really shows how the right wing echo chamber can blow anything out of proportion.
Linda Featheringill
I’m rather surprised that the committee issued a report that was composed of truth.
Hunter Gathers
This won’t stop them from screaming BENGHAZI! for the next few years. I half expect Candy Crowley to ask Clinton during the second debate between her and Ted Cruz ‘Why didn’t you send Iron Man or Captain America? Or at least contact Director Fury?’
Mike in NC
Not even some stale tofu, then? Our tax dollars at work!
The Tea Party NC legislature rolled out their despicable new budget the other day. Lots of the usual tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy, plus many cuts to programs for non-wealthy people. They managed to find enough surplus money to hire three full-time investigators to look into cases of voter fraud. Too bad there isn’t any.
Eric U.
@Linda Featheringill: seems to me that the first Whitewater committee did much the same and then a little while later they opened up another committee which totally ignored the findings of the first committee. They have introduced the idea that something wrong was done and now they can go back and mine it some more if they want
Belafon
@Hunter Gathers: Do not give them any ideas:
“How we having the Avengers change your foreign policy?”
“Have you thought about what to do about the mutant problem?”
“Why do you allow Tony Stark to run lose, continuing to flout is technological superiority over the rest of us?”
big ole hound
Their mission was accomplished in that they got the news media to focus on Bengazi rather than the obstructive GOP congress and the ACA success. The major crook and good soldier Issa did his job. Smear the Prez.
Amir Khalid
This has turned out to be precisely the nothingburger every sane observer knew it was. But Darrel Issa will still want to do Obama some damage with this, won’t he? So I wonder what options remain for Issa.
White Trash Liberal
Everyone knows the House Intelligence Committee is full of RINOs like Michelle Bachmann. True Conservatives know this was a coverup.
Mustang Bobby
The Republicans will still want to impeach President Obama for this because, well, shut up, that’s why.
Hal
So how will this affect Draco Malfoy’s super duper investigation? It’s August so they could always just drag their feet until November.
Frankensteinbeck
@Linda Featheringill:
Ditto. Can’t we at least have a Simpson-Bowles ‘The real committee didn’t decide what we want, so we’ll release our own decision and the punditocracy will pretend it was the official decision’?
Villago Delenda Est
@Frankensteinbeck: That sounds about right.
Of course, there’s always the “government never works” angle, which would have some marginal support from all these investigations that failed to tell us what REALLY happened, because we know, just know, that the ni*CLANG* ordered his Mooslim minions to attack in the first place.
Schlemizel
@Mike in NC:
Stinky tofu perhaps?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stinky_tofu
Tom Levenson
I demand a gif.
Villago Delenda Est
@Belafon: It’s the “mutant menace”.
I remember once back in the 80s (!) when Pat Robertson devoted some time on his 700 Club to discussing the totally fictional “mutant menace” of Marvel Comics and drew the not so obscure conclusion that Marvel’s treatment of the issue was a dig at “Christian” asswipes like, well Pat Robertson.
KG
@Mike in NC: I really don’t get the corporate tax break position by republicans. Kashkari, the guy who is going to lose to Jerry Brown has proposed giving companies that relocate to california and create 100 new jobs a ten year break on corporate taxes. That seems insane to me, even with my libertarian leanings. Also, included in his jobs plan is fracking (good luck with that in california), and limiting non-economic tort damages to $250k (another hobby horse I don’t get).
He does have one good idea, which is a ten year sunset/reevaluation of regulations
Also, apparently he spent a week being homeless
to generate some free pressto show that it’s still hard to find a job. I’m curious if his experience might change his mind about the ways to help create jobs.Villago Delenda Est
@Hunter Gathers: Fat Tony Scalia would have suggested sending Jack Bauer.
Villago Delenda Est
@KG:
Limiting punitive damages, which are the ones that are there to actually make corporate misdeeds hurt corporations in the only way that really matters, must go away, because the fact that they have money means that they cannot do wrong.
KG
@Villago Delenda Est: like the vampires in true blood, the mutants in marvel took on something of a parallel with civil (gay) rights. So I could see how that would bother someone like Robertson
soonergrunt
@big ole hound: Darrell Issa has been many things, but “good soldier” has never been one of them.
Hunter Gathers
@Villago Delenda Est:
A significant factor in the rise of Benghazi! to national prominence was the fact that The Doctor didn’t stop it. But Fat Tony doesn’t know about The Doctor because he’s stupid.
EconWatcher
This is all based on a House Dem’s claim of what the report will say. Is he engaging in some kind of kabuki? (Not that I’d blame him.) I still find it hard to believe that a committee of this particular House will actually release a report exonerating Obama on Benghazi.
JustRuss
@KG:
From what I read about Kashkari’s homeless stint, he learned we need fewer regulations so the job creators can unleash their superpowers. So, no.
Roger Moore
@KG:
It’s the other side of trying to eliminate regulations in favor of lawsuits. First you say that prospective regulations are too burdensome, and people should only be able to recover damages when somebody has done them actual harm. Then you make it impossible for them to certify as a class for class action lawsuits. Finally, you cap damages so their lawsuits are neutered even if they manage to file one and win.
Mnemosyne
@KG:
I think I can answer that: no. No, it won’t.
Frankly, it’s one of the most frustrating things about some of the smarter conservatives: they can accurately report on facts, but they have no ability to analyze those facts and come to a conclusion other than the one that fits their ideology.
MattF
Funny that this doesn’t seem to be getting much coverage. I guess with Congress out-of-town, the media have fled.
Villago Delenda Est
@JustRuss: So, he committed the crime of the fallen Jedi in Knights of the Old Republic II: he learned nothing from his experience.
Roger Moore
@KG:
That might make sense in an area with functional government. If the Republicans get their way, it will mean an end to all regulations after 10 years.
Villago Delenda Est
@MattF: They’re all on the Vineyard sipping gimlets and chomping on cocktail weenies.
Frankensteinbeck
@KG:
Cleek’s law, basically. Reagan convinced the spiteful Republican base in the 80s that nigger-loving liberals want to regulate business. Since liberals must be opposed and proven wrong in all things, the base has enthusiastically supported giving businesses everything they want since. Extra points because poor assholes are entirely sympathetic with the desire of rich assholes to treat their employees like shit. It makes sense to them on a gut level.
We actually do want to regulate business, and they’ve got us dead to rights on wanting racial equality, so this isn’t going away any time soon. We can only defeat them, not convince them.
Stella B.
@KG: We’ve had that limit in tort damages for medical malpractice since the 70s. Guess what, med-mal lawsuits didn’t go away! Surprise!
Rep. Issa is now demanding a special prosecutor for IRSgate. Good luck with that.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
Learning something wasn’t the goal. Getting some publicity and then announcing that his experience just confirmed his existing beliefs was always the plan. The underlying problem is that experiencing homelessness can only tell you how bad it is to be homeless; it doesn’t give you any practical insight into the larger causes or solutions to the problem. Spending a week pretending to be poor and homeless can only be a publicity stunt; you can get more practical information about what to do about homelessness by spending a few hours reading studies by economists and social scientists who study the issue.
Matt McIrvin
@KG: I think the sunset is a terrible idea, though it seems to have a deceptive appeal to progressives.
Practically the entire business of the legislature would have to move over to doing these sunset reviews of regulations, and the default action would be to deregulate everything in the world (default choices are important, as Richard Mayhew likes to say). Even with a sympathetic Congress, there could be no progress on anything because we’d just be stuck debating whether mercury poisoning is bad over and over and over forever.
Shakezula
Bridges, get your bridges here! Buy two and get a free unicorn!
@Roger Moore: Or even talking to the poor and the homeless, something a person Kash & Kari wouldn’t do if you paid him.
SatanicPanic
@Amir Khalid: Find some other “scandal”? Or just keep looking for “the truth” of Benghazi. Why not?
Alex S.
This report is just a distraction from the real Benghazi committee.
Roger Moore
@Shakezula:
I thought he was spending time talking to homeless people while he was living on the street. Again, though, the underlying problem is that they don’t have jobs, or at least not jobs that pay well enough to keep a roof over their head. The only way you get past that point is by talking about why they don’t have (good) jobs, which gets straight back to politically defined preconceptions. And even if you think the right solution is to talk to homeless people, you’re better off reading the work of somebody whose whole job that they’ve been doing for years or even decades is to talk to homeless people and figure out what’s going on with them. They’re going to be able to give you a much more complete picture than you can get by going out and talking to them in person.
ETA: Trying to learn about homelessness by living on the street for a week is like trying to learn about global warning by monitoring your home weather station. It can only give you a tiny slice of the total information out there. You’re really much better off listening to the experts, but that goes against the Conservative distrust of expertise.
JustRuss
@Roger Moore:
Or, call me crazy, you can talk to actual homeless people (they aren’t that hard to find!) and the people who work with them every day.
D58826
@Peter: ‘Accepting shame’ assumes some degree of self-awareness. I doubt that you will find a nickels worth in the GOP
Villago Delenda Est
@Frankensteinbeck: We want to regulate businesses because they need to be watched. We’re disciples of Adam Smith…we know that whenever merchants get together, they inevitably discuss ways to defraud the public.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore: Well, yes, of course, it was a stunt, and one that I’m sure deeply impressed the denizens of Free Republic that perhaps this guy isn’t as RINO as they thought.
The rest of us, you know, the ones with more than three working synapses, know that it was a stunt, and that it’s painfully obvious that the dipshit wasn’t about to let any facts get in the way of his fucked-up ideology.
David Hunt
@Villago Delenda Est:
Unfortunately, the situation was over in less than 24 hours, so Bauer would have been unable to save the diplomats in time.
TR
Don’t forget, the House Armed Services Committee came to many of the same conclusions, so it’s two GOP led committees that have admitted there’s nothing there.
James E. Powell
@Stella B.:
We’ve had that limit in tort damages for medical malpractice since the 70s. Guess what, med-mal lawsuits didn’t go away! Surprise!
The statute in California, known as MICRA, was supposed to address a medical malpractice insurance crisis. The limits on non-economic damages, which haven’t been updated since 1976, did nothing to control med/mal insurance premiums.
Suffern ACE
@KG: o.k. in a State where you have a drought, the solution is to pump polluted groundwater into the ground to find natural gas? I can’t bathe. I can’t wash my vegetables. I can’t drink. But I can send gas to the MW this winter?
cmorenc
@KG:
The key to understanding the motivation for the $250 limit to non-economic damages isn’t really the degree to which the ability to go for un-capped non-economic damages might undeservedly reward plaintiffs, but rather the effect such a limit would have to hobble the economic viability for plaintiff’s lawyers to take on cases on a contingency fee arrangement.
Roger Moore
@JustRuss:
Sure, but you’d be better off farming that work out to people who do that as their job and just getting the summary. That’s what business leaders like Kashkiri are supposed to do; hire good subordinates and trust them. If he can’t even bring his business expertise to governing, what good is he?
kindness
I think Republicans lost the capacity for shame a long time ago. That’s how they act at least, unless it’s one of their own caught in bed with a
hooker/diapers
little boy/girl
staffer
The order changes.
Cervantes
Thanks, Tim. Good post.
I don’t understand the following:
Where will I find this deep shame, and when? Does it exist?
Trollhattan
@Cervantes:
Shame was the reason Princess Ann wore that eye-boggling bird blouse more than once, in public. It’s how she rolls (and proves she doesn’t just throw each clothing item away, once worn).
On reflection, the Romneys might be the strangest people to run for president in my lifetime, at least for the two major parties. Who let the weirds out, who, who?
catclub
But way in front of that deep shame will be a whole lot more of doubling down to make Romney look correct. I see no signs that the GOP has recognized the shame yet. The weird thing is that they continue to do it after the Romney 2012 motivation is gone. Maybe that is due to shame.
Elizabelle
WaPost reporting James Brady has died.
ETA: Former Reagan press secretary, aged 73, no further info.
Bubblegum Tate
He absolutely did.
That was Obama’s most devastating line of the campaign by far. And yeah, most saw the pie on ol’ Mitt’s mug. But not the wingnuts.
To normal people? Sure. (Although I think the biggest problem Romney has is that he comes across as being about as sincere as a used-car salesman.) To the wingnuts? Not so much. Hell, they’re trying to talk themselves into Romney ’16.
nellcote
Also turning up “no red meat for the base. No ground beef. No flavored broth. Not even a bouillon cube”
*House Armed Services Committee
*House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform
*House Committee on Foreign Affairs
*Senate Intelligence Committee
*independent State Department Accountability Review Board
*Senate Armed Services Committee
*Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee
Roger Moore
@Cervantes:
In Republicans, shame manifests itself as extreme defensiveness and an assumption that everyone else engages in the same misdeeds.
Trollhattan
@Bubblegum Tate:
Please procede, Republicans.
“Romney 2016: we really mean it this time! (Not like that other time, and the times before that. Did we mention the Olympics(tm)?”
Cervantes
@Trollhattan: You never know. She might have bought more than one of those shirts. They were cheap, only about a thousand dollars each.
As for weird, if you like weird you would have loved Richard and Pat Nixon.
Cervantes
@Roger Moore: I might like to believe that but with Occam’s Razor in mind I am not sure.
KG
@Matt McIrvin: it all depends on how it is done. regulations are usually generated by the administrative branch (the so called fourth branch of government), not the legislature. given the rate at which technology is advancing, having periodic reviews of regulations isn’t a bad thing… hell, even in non-technology driven areas of law, having a periodic review of regulations isn’t a bad thing. if for no other reason than it forces us to consider that things might be different today compared to when the regulations were passed – on the federal level, for example, we haven’t had major immigration reform since the mid-80s; there are a lot of countries that exist today that didn’t exist then, and some of the countries that existed then don’t exist today.
BlueDWarrior
@KG: I am all for administrative review and re-calibration. I just think that a hard sunset clause on all or most regulatory law would cause the system to completely seize up any time we have the current or a similar phase of insanity in our Legislature.
Then again I guess legislative insanity is a feature and not a bug for a democratically-derived system.
JaneE
Is there anything in this report that we didn’t already know? I hope that the Democrats throw all these redundant committees with the same findings at the GOP the next time they want to cut funding for anything. Talk about wasting taxpayer money. I hope the Dems can put a price tag on all the political BS and use it in every election.
Uncle Cosmo
This diary over at the Great Orange Satan conjectures that after Boehner took Benghazi away from his committee & gave it to Gowdy’s special committee, Issa arranged for Rogers’ committee to issue a report exonerating the Administration, thereby knocking the pins out from under Gowdy before he even gets started. I’m not really sure how Issa could have managed this, but it does make for interesting speculation.
low-tech cyclist
The administration’s process for developing talking points was flawed? Oh noes!!
Seriously, I’m guffawing here.
Cervantes
@low-tech cyclist: That’s funny — but to be honest, Tim had me at “Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) and his House Intelligence Committee.”
Dog On Porch
@Roger Moore: “It really shows how the right wing echo chamber can blow anything out of proportion”.
Worse, they’ve even stampeded the United States to war utilizing no more than simple lies.
There are literally no crimes to which the GOP will not stoop in its ongoing (and successful) efforts to subvert our Republic.
StringOnAStick
Don’t be so sure we’ve heard the last of this from the House; Gowdy’s committee issued this report, but Issa’s committee’s investigation into Benghazi continues. I suppose the question now is are the rethugs going to sit still for two committees coming to two different conclusions, or is Issa going to switch his attention to a different set of chew-toys?
Debbie
How long until Rodgers’ pillorying is announced?
David Koch
But, but… Griftwald says it’s worse than Watergate!