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Chris Wallace Demands Answers to Yet More Benghazi Questions That Have Already Been Answered Dozens of Times

by JeannetteHuddle Posted on June 1, 2014

Mother Jones

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I was channel surfing this morning and happened to catch a few minutes of Chris Wallace talking to Claire McCaskill. The subject, yet again, was Benghazi. Why did Susan Rice blame the video? Also: Two sources said they knew it was a terrorist attack immediately, so why didn’t Rice say that? We need these questions answered!

I know, I know. It’s my fault for watching TV. But Jesus. Chris Wallace knows the answers to these questions. He has to know. But just in case he still doesn’t, here they are:

Why did Susan Rice blame the video?

On Chris Wallace’s own show aired four days after the Benghazi attack, here’s what Susan Rice said:

Well, first of all, Chris, we are obviously investigating this very closely. The FBI has a lead in this investigation. The information, the best information and the best assessment we have today is that in fact this was not a preplanned, premeditated attack. That what happened initially was that it was a spontaneous reaction to what had just transpired in Cairo as a consequence of the video. People gathered outside the embassy and then it grew very violent and those with extremist ties joined the fray and came with heavy weapons, which unfortunately are quite common in post-revolutionary Libya and that then spun out of control.

But we don’t see at this point signs this was a coordinated plan, premeditated attack. Obviously, we will wait for the results of the investigation and we don’t want to jump to conclusions before then. But I do think it’s important for the American people to know our best current assessment.

Rice was very clear that she was providing a preliminary judgment. She was very clear about the role of the video: It had inspired protests in Cairo earlier in the week. She was very clear that we believed the Cairo protests sparked protests in Benghazi. She was very clear that we believed this provided extremist groups with a chance to launch an opportunistic attack.

In the end, almost all of this turned out to be true. The video did spark protests in Cairo. Some of the Benghazi attackers were motivated by the video. The attack wasn’t premeditated: it was planned no more than a few hours previously. The only part Rice got wrong was that there were, in fact, no initial protests in Benghazi. That was the best reporting we had at the time, but it turned out to be incorrect.

A couple of sources said they reported immediately that it was a preplanned terrorist attack. Why didn’t Rice and the rest of the Obama administration say that?

Because the intelligence community had multiple sources of reporting about Benghazi, and they conflicted. How hard can it be to understand this? Besides, the best evidence we have today is that it wasn’t a preplanned attack. It was an opportunistic attack organized in less than a day. What’s more, the groups that led the attack had only the most tenuous ties to Al Qaeda.

Aside from that, there’s this continuing weird totem around the word “terrorist.” What’s the point of this? Hillary Clinton called the attackers a “small and savage group.” Susan Rice called them extremists. Others used different words. It’s hard to understand why this matters. The attack was carried out by mostly local militant groups with mostly local grievances and no serious ties to Al Qaeda. The precise word you use to describe these folks can’t possibly be that important, can it?

And an aside….

Critics have focused heavily on the fact that the Obama administration blamed the “Innocence of Muslims” video for the violence that had erupted around the Middle East and then, indirectly, provoked the attacks in Benghazi. But I think everyone needs a trip down memory lane here. That video was a very, very big deal at the time. Maybe everyone has now forgotten this, but it did spark riots all over the region and it was the subject of nearly constant coverage in the local media both before and after the Benghazi attacks. The notion that it was responsible for regional violence at the time and at least partially responsible for what happened in Benghazi was hardly some bizarre flight of fancy.

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Chris Wallace Demands Answers to Yet More Benghazi Questions That Have Already Been Answered Dozens of Times

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Friday Cat Blogging – 30 May 2014

by Obediah Ousley Posted on May 30, 2014

Mother Jones

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Today is snoozing day. Much like every other day, in fact. I recommend that if you’re having trouble falling asleep, take this picture to bed with you and stare at it until you fall serenely into a zenlike feline state. Let Domino be your sleep guru.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 30 May 2014

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Who’s Watching the National Spelling Bee Tonight?

by EmmaY68hrsarhc Posted on May 29, 2014

Mother Jones

I’m just curious: Am I the only one who thinks the National Spelling Bee jumped the shark years ago? The escalating ridiculousness of the words, the World Series-esque television coverage, and the inexplicable geek chic surrounding the event have made the whole thing kind of nuts.

Besides, we all have spell check these days, right?

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Who’s Watching the National Spelling Bee Tonight?

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Mitch McConnell Digs Himself Deeper and Deeper Over Obamacare

by TINStefanpc Posted on May 28, 2014

Mother Jones

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I don’t usually spend too much time on local horse race stuff, but Kentucky is a little different. After all, Mitch McConnell is the minority leader in the Senate, and his Democratic challenger this year, Alison Lundergan Grimes, is running a surprisingly strong campaign. So perhaps Kentucky deserves some extra special attention. Surprisingly, it turns out that Obamacare, of all things, is causing McConnell some serious heartburn.

You see, unluckily for McConnell, Kentucky has possibly the best, most popular Obamacare exchange in the country—though nobody calls it an Obamacare exchange, of course, since Obamacare is the work of Satan. It’s called Kynect. Everybody loves Kynect. So when McConnell was asked recently if he favored getting rid of Kynect, he had a problem. It’s Obamacare, and he’s on record favoring the root-and-branch repeal of Obamacare. But Kynect is popular. Nobody wants to see a root-and-branch repeal of Kynect. What to do?

So far, McConnell has taken a creative approach to this dilemma: He basically denies that Kynect has anything to do with Obamacare. McConnell remains in favor of total repeal of Obamacare, but says this wouldn’t cause any problems with Kynect. It would just keep motoring along without missing a beat.

Now, this is a little peculiar. Politicians tell whoppers all the time, but usually they do it cleverly enough that they can somehow defend themselves. This, on the other hand, is just a flat-out fantasy. Without Obamacare, there’s no exchange; there’s no federal funding; there are no subsidies; there’s no community rating; and there’s no mandatory coverage of people with pre-existing conditions. Kynect is dead, and everyone knows it. It’s hard to imagine even Fox News somehow twisting this to claim that McConnell is staking out a defensible position.

So far, Grimes has been a little tentative about attacking McConnell over this. After all, she has exactly the mirror-image problem: She wants to express her undying support for Kynect but without ever mentioning the dreaded word “Obamacare.” Greg Sargent says he feels her pain, but nonetheless thinks this is a good opportunity to tighten the screws on McConnell further:

As Joe Sonka points out in a good piece, McConnell is betting that press coverage won’t clearly explain to voters just how absurd his position really is. But perhaps now that Grimes is engaging on the issue — to some degree, at least — that could serve as a hook for top shelf reporter and commentator types to take a peek at what’s really going on here.

It should be self evidently newsworthy that the leader of Senate Republicans, who have based their entire 2014 strategy on the idea that Obamacare is a long term political disaster and massive repudiation of liberal governance, refuses to take a clear position of his own on the law’s future in the state he would represent, and on whether hundreds of thousands of his own constituents should continue to enjoy its benefits.

Well, we’ll see. McConnell is a crafty old survivor, and the odds remain pretty strongly in his favor even if he isn’t making any sense about Kynect. Still, stuff like this makes me wonder if Grimes has a better chance of beating him than I would have thought. There’s some real opportunity here if she can figure out how best to keep McConnell twisted into knots over this.

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Mitch McConnell Digs Himself Deeper and Deeper Over Obamacare

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For Some, 13 Years Still Not Long Enough in Afghanistan

by silownie_zewnetrzne_krone Posted on May 27, 2014

Mother Jones

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President Obama has finally announced his plan to withdraw from Afghanistan:

Under the plan, outlined by Mr. Obama in the Rose Garden, the United States would leave 9,800 troops in Afghanistan after 2014, but cut that number by half in 2015. By the end of 2016, it would keep only a vestigial force to protect the embassy in Kabul and help the Afghans with military purchases and other security matters.

That’s fine. The part that’s going to be hard to take is the inevitable knee-jerk bellowing it provokes from the McCain/Kristol faction. What’s it going to be this time? America losing its standing in the world? A lack of guts from a weak-kneed president? Emboldening our enemies? Well, here’s Rip van McCain:

The President’s decision to set an arbitrary date for the full withdrawal of U.S. troops in Afghanistan is a monumental mistake and a triumph of politics over strategy…..Today’s announcement will embolden our enemies and discourage our partners in Afghanistan and the region. And regardless of anything the President says tomorrow at West Point, his decision on Afghanistan will fuel the growing perception worldwide that America is unreliable, distracted, and unwilling to lead.

Got it. How about Rip van Kristol? He doesn’t seem to have weighed in yet, but here’s Gary Schmitt subbing in for Kristol at the Weekly Standard:

The decision to halve and then zero out those forces by 2016 is a reminder not only of how seriously unserious this president on strategic matters can be but also how cynically partisan he is….I suppose if there is any positive thing that might come out of the president’s ploy it’s that conservatives will get to see pretty quickly which of the GOP contenders in 2016 has a strategic backbone.

There you have it: no cliche left unturned. We’re emboldening our enemies. America is unwilling to lead. Obama is unserious about national security. Conservatives need to stand up and show some backbone. It’s as if these guys jerked awake after ten years and started reciting whatever anti-liberal boilerplate happened to be most recently on their minds.

I guess it’s nice to know that some things never change, regardless of facts on the ground. After 13 years (!), we still haven’t stayed in Afghanistan long enough. I’m pretty sure that it could be 2114, and the McCain crowd would continue to insist that if we just gave it a few more years we could finally wipe out the Taliban once and for all.

UPDATE: I just caught a few minutes of Kristol on Crossfire. He usually keeps his cool pretty well, but not this time. He was hot, hot hot. From memory, a few of his comments were “unbelievably irresponsible,” “Obama has sent tens of thousand of troops there and now he’s making their sacrifice in vain,” and “what’s the lesson for anyone around the world who wants to stand with us?” It’s the cliche trifecta!

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For Some, 13 Years Still Not Long Enough in Afghanistan

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Here’s Why It’s a Mistake to Foxify the VA Story

by Cheryle07G Posted on May 22, 2014

Mother Jones

A couple of days ago I was emailing with a friend who was bemoaning President Obama’s slow response to the crisis at the Veterans Health Administration. It’s obviously hard to take the other side of that argument, especially since Obama made the poor performance of the VHA a big campaign issue in 2007. Here’s what he said:

It’s time for comprehensive reform. When I am President, building a 21st century VA to serve our veterans will be an equal priority to building a 21st century military to fight our wars. My Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs will be just as important as my Secretary of Defense. No more shortfalls — it’s time to fully fund the VA medical center. No more delays — it’s time to pass on-time VA budgets each and every year. No more means testing — it’s time to allow all veterans back into the VA. I will immediately reverse a policy that led the VA to turn away nearly 1 million middle and low-income veterans since 2003.

Obviously this makes Obama an even bigger target than he would have been anyway. And the charges aimed at the VHA are pretty ugly. They need to be taken seriously.

Nonetheless, I replied that there was more to this than we were getting from the feeding-frenzy stories offered up by the media. Perhaps somebody ought to do a deep dive on the story of the VHA over the past couple of decades? I don’t have the background to do this myself, but in the meantime I’d like to offer a few quick bullet points that anyone writing about the VHA should at least be aware of. Here they are:

During the Clinton administration, the performance of the VHA was revolutionized under Kenneth Kizer. The old VHA of Born on the 4th of July fame was turned into a top-notch health care provider that garnered great reviews from vets and bipartisan praise on Capitol Hill. The best account of this is Phil Longman’s 2005 article, “Best Care Anywhere.”
In 1999, Republicans decided to play dumb political games with Kizer’s reappointment. Eventually, with the handwriting on the wall, he chose to leave the VHA.
Under the Bush administration, some of the VHA’s old problems started to re-emerge, most likely because it no longer had either presidential attention or a great administrator. As early as 2002—before the Afghanistan and Iraq wars made things even worse—claims-processing time skyrocketed from 166 days to 224 days.
Under the Obama administration, the patient load of the VHA has increased by over a million. Partly this is because of the large number of combat vets returning from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and partly it’s because Obama kept his promise to expand access to the VHA.
It was inevitable that this would increase wait times, and the VHA’s claims backlog did indeed increase during the first three years of Obama’s presidency. Over the past couple of years, however, wait times have shrunk dramatically. A digital claims system has finally been put in place, and the claims backlog today is less than half what it was at the beginning of 2013.
What’s more, despite its backlog problems, the VHA still gets high marks from vets. Overall, satisfaction with VHA care is higher than satisfaction with civilian hospitals.
The most sensational charge against the VHA is that 40 or more vets died while they were waiting for appointments at the VA facilities in Phoenix. But so far there’s no evidence of that. The inspector general investigating the VHA testified last week that of the 17 cases they’ve looked at so far, they haven’t found any incidents of a patient death caused by excessive wait times.
In February, Republicans killed a bill that would have funded two dozen new medical centers. “I thought that maybe, just on this issue, this Senate could come together and do the right thing for our veterans,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders. Nope.

Finally, it’s important to distinguish between complaints about medical care and complaints about access to the VHA system. There are lots of complaints about the latter, partly because the rules about who’s eligible for VA coverage are fairly complex. Both of these things are fair game, but they shouldn’t be confused. They have different causes and different repercussions.

None of this is really meant to exonerate the Obama administration from whatever faults the VHA still has. He’s been president for more than five years, after all. At the same time, the VHA has had a lot of problems for a long time, and their origins span parties, administrations and branches of government. Obama may deserve to get knocked around for not doing more to fix them, but he also deserves credit for finally making significant progress on issues that have festered for decades.

This isn’t a story that deserves to be treated like Benghazi 2.0. Leave that to Fox News. If you’re going to tell this story, you need to tell it all, both good and bad.

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Here’s Why It’s a Mistake to Foxify the VA Story

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The November Midterm Election is Anyone’s Game

by Garland36G Posted on May 21, 2014

Mother Jones

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The wonks at The Monkey Cage think Republicans have a 77 percent chance of taking the Senate in November. The wonks at The Upshot think Republicans have only a 43 percent chance of taking the Senate. The wonks at 538 seem to think it’s close to a toss-up.

So I don’t know what to think. I guess we’ll have to wait for the actual election to happen. How very 20th century.

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The November Midterm Election is Anyone’s Game

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How the Koch Brothers Became the Koch Brothers

by LeonardoGrow Posted on May 20, 2014

Mother Jones

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Need some lunchtime reading? We have a long excerpt up from Daniel Schulman’s new book about the Koch brothers, Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America’s Most Powerful and Private Dynasty, and if you want to learn how and why David and Charles Koch became such ruthless fighters for the conservative cause, this will tell you. Long story short, they got it from their family. Their father passed down an obsessive, conspiratorial conservative streak, and endless fights with their brothers toughened them up for the political arena.

The excerpt is here. Enjoy.

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How the Koch Brothers Became the Koch Brothers

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Chris Christie Takes Blowhardism on the Road

by JoleenRayner Posted on May 20, 2014

Mother Jones

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Being a blowhard has worked well for Chris Christie at home, so it’s no surprise that he endorses blowhardism as a foreign policy too. In a speech on Sunday, he assured everyone that a Christie administration would….would…..well, something:

In Sunday’s speech, with rhetoric reminiscent of President Bush’s first speeches after 9/11, the governor made a moralistic case for clearly distinguishing between “good” allies and “evil” enemies.

….Though Christie offered few specifics, he particularly trashed Obama’s policies on Russia, Syria, and Iran. “We see Russian activism once again rearing its head in the world, we see an America that backed away from a commitment made by the president of the United States in Syria, we see a country, our country, permitting even a thought of a terrorist state like Iran having nuclear capability,” he said. “Here’s something that should not be up for debate, that once you draw that red line, you enforce it — because if you don’t, America’s credibility will be at stake and will be at risk all over the world.”

There should be a constitutional amendment or something banning speeches like this unless you’re willing to explain, in some detail, exactly what you would have done instead. Cut and run, like Christie’s hero Ronald Reagan did in Beirut? Lie your way into a disastrous war like his hero George Bush did? Or what? I’m really tired of hearing nonsense about how we should have “supported” one side or another in Egypt or Syria or Ukraine. Or how we should have sent heavy arms over, even though no one was trained to use them and in some cases we didn’t even have anyone reliable to send them too. Or that somehow just giving another “evil empire” speech would have sent the mullahs screaming into the night.

We didn’t win the Cold War because Reagan gave some speeches. We won because of low oil prices, a foolish war in Afghanistan, poor harvests, and the effective bankruptcy of the Soviet Union. We’re not going to win any of these other conflicts with bluster either. So let’s hear it. Is Christie planning a military strike against Iran? Troops on the ground in Syria? Cruise missile strikes against Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border? If Christie doesn’t have the guts to say this stuff outright, he should keep his bluster to himself. Without specifics, this is just laughable schoolyard bravado.

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Chris Christie Takes Blowhardism on the Road

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Republicans Would Rather Blow Up the Budget Than Admit That Global Warming Is Real

by Fay4232lippdzs Posted on May 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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It seems like every year we have lots of wildfires out west, and every year there’s not enough money to fight them. How come? Brad Plumer provides the nickel explanation:

The first key fact to note here is that US wildfires have gotten much bigger over the past three decades. There’s some variation from year to year, but the overall trend is upward. One recent study in Geophysical Research Letters found that wildfires in the western United States grew at a rate of 90,000 acres per year between 1984 and 2011. What’s more, the authors found, the increase was statistically unlikely to be due to random chance.

….Put it all together, and many experts and politicians have argued that the way Congress plans for wildfires has become obsolete and counterproductive. Right now, Congress gives agencies like the US Forest Service a budget for fire suppression that’s based on the average cost of wildfires over the previous 10 years. Of course, if wildfires are getting bigger over time, that’s going to create constant shortfalls.

The problem should be pretty obvious. If you take a look at the chart above (to which I’ve added the handy trend line), you can see that the average of the past ten years is going to be where the line was around 2008. That’s roughly 5 million acres. But the trend line keeps going up, and in 2014 you can figure that it’s likely to be around 6 million acres.

Obviously there’s a large amount of variability, and even if you plan rationally you’re still going to fall short some years. Still, at least you’d come closer. So why not do it?

I’ll take a guess: Aside from the fact that members of Congress always prefer rosy forecasts so they can pretend their budgets are more balanced than they really are, there are the reasons that wildfires keep getting bigger and deadlier. One culprit is poor forestry practices. There are invasive species. And there’s global warming.

Oh yeah: global warming. That’s the big one. If Republicans in Congress acknowledged that wildfires were getting steadily bigger over time, it would be tantamount to admitting that global warming is real. And we can’t have that, can we?

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Republicans Would Rather Blow Up the Budget Than Admit That Global Warming Is Real

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