Benghazi Boogaloo: Pickering and Mullen seek to testify

By CNN's Jake Tapper and Alison Harding

In a letter to Rep. Darrell Issa exclusively obtained by CNN, the co-chairmen behind an independent review of September's deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya, expressed irritation over the House Oversight Committee chairman's portrayal of their work and requested he call a public hearing at which they can testify.

"The public deserves to hear your questions and our answers," wrote former Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, co-chairmen of the Accountability Review Board that was convened to investigate the September 11th attack.

READ THE LETTER HERE

Eight months after their report cited "systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies" at the State Department," Issa continues to be a leading critic of the accountability board, calling its review "a failure" and asking for further investigations into the Obama administration's response during the attack and its aftermath.

The dispute between Issa and the co-chairmen came to a head after neither Pickering nor Mullen attended a May 8 House Oversight Committee hearing on the attacks, sparking a heated back and forth about who was invited and when. The rhetoric intensified Sunday during a highly contentious joint appearance with Issa and Pickering on NBC's "Meet the Press" in which Issa maintained the two "refused to come before our committee." Pickering insisted that he was not invited despite expressing a willingness to testify.

"Chairman Issa sent word back that he might want to take me up some time in the future" Pickering said.

Issa also suggested on the program that Pickering and Mullen meet with the committee behind closed doors so as not to create "some sort of stage show." But the two assert in their letter that a public hearing is a "more appropriate forum" and accuse Issa of changing his "position on the terms of our appearance."

"Having taken liberal license to call into question the Board's work, it is surprising that you now maintain that members of the committee need a closed-door proceeding before being able to ask "informed questions" at a public hearing," they write in the letter.

Pickering and Mullen assert that since they are not witnesses, but rather officials asked to serve on a review board, they should be permitted to testify in public.

"While we understand and respect that your committee has the authority and responsibility to review the Benghazi attacks, we ask that you similarly understand and respect that the Accountability Review Board bore its own authority and responsibility to review Benghazi," they write.

"What the Committee is now proposing is highly unusual in the context of senior officials who are not fact witnesses but instead are reporting their own independent review."

Last year’s attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

Pickering and Mullen have proposed May 28 or June 3 for a public hearing.

So, Issa doesn't want Pickering and Mullen to testify about Benghazi in public before his committee. My surprise, let me show you it.

CNN's On The Case of the Gitmo Detainees

OK, well, one of the headlines at CNN.com is this:

          GITMO DETAINEES HURL INSULTS, EXCREMENT

Guards Hit With Feces

Exclusive: The men and women guarding detainees at Guantanamo deal with abuse every day.

EXCLUSIVE!!

Sounds like it will be a thoughtful, insightful piece.

I wonder if CNN will interview any of the detainees’ lawyers?

I wonder if CNN will ask any questions about how people should be expected to deal with being confined for 10+ years without charges.

Dr. Ben Carson - Apostate Christianity's Latest Pathetic Spokesperson

You might have heard recently that the noted neurosurgeon and best-selling author of books about himself, Ben Carson, took to the podium at the nation's celebrated "prayer breakfast" or whatever it's called to speak on behalf of his aggrieved class of fellow high earners and privileged religionists. Rather than afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted the good doctor agitated for a flat tax, because the slightly higher tax rates that the upper middle income and wealthy pay on a fraction of their generous income is incredibly burdensome and so terrible unfair, even though marginal, not to mention average, tax rates in this country are still lower than they've been since the Great Depression, not even accounting for the multiple tax deductions most of us fortunate householders and charity givers are allowed to take, drastically reducing the ultimate tax incidence any of us are subject to, but let's not discuss that here. He also called attention to the unconscionable oppression suffered by well to do Christians from sea to shining sea who suffer under the lash of having Happy Holidays said to them instead of Merry Christmas while shopping for unneeded goods during the nation's grotesquely commercial and materialistic year-end celebration of itself and all things bought, produced and sold.

God, what a sorry spectacle we've become, this nation, it's so-called Christian class of value warriors. It's small wonder that more and more Americans affiliate with no religion and are abandoning the Christian world. Pathetic.

An Open Letter to Hobby Lobby, Opus Dei Catholics and Other Conservatives having Butthurt over the Contraception Mandate

It didn't have to be this way.

You could have played a constructive role in the healthcare debate. You could have helped ensure increased access to healthcare for many millions of Americans, and on terms that were preferable for you. Americans who, by the way, support the current taxpayer subsidized, employer-based healthcare system but don't get anything in return for it. And yes, anyone who works and draws a paycheck in the economy pays taxes. No matter their earnings level, federal income taxes are taken out of every employee's paycheck every time they get paid, and those taxes help subsidize health insurance for many working Americans.

Politically, you also enjoyed the benefit of having a new president who campaigned on the basis of changing the political culture and reaching out to members of the other party and to those with different ideas. You might not have believed this of him, but you could have pursued the olive branch he was extending and participated in a process that aimed to establish, finally, a universal healthcare system, or something much closer to it than we have ever had before. And even if taxpaying Americans weren't "worthy" of better, or any, healthcare, and even if the president wasn't agreeable to you, universal healthcare access is a goal you should have supported as your Freaking Christian Duty anyway. And I shouldn't have to remind you about that.

Instead, you, by your silence or active contrivance, helped incite the mob of John Birchers who raged at congressional town hall meetings across the country about "Socialism", "death panels" and "2nd Amendment solutions". Remember that? You either acquiesced or zealously supported the hateful and deceitful vitriol spewed forth about healthcare reform (not to mention everything else) by the conservative media complex of talk show radio hosts, cable television pundits, and "family" research institutes. Maybe you hoped this mob would successfully intimidate the president and members of Congress into not doing anything.

But you fucked up. The healthcare law passed without you and because you didn't help or participate, you got nothing.

So how's that workin out for ya?

I'm real sorry for your precious religious liberty you now say is being violated. But you had your chance to exercise your Christian Liberty in a helpful way that would have generated good will and helped many vulnerable Americans. Now, you have to hope the courts will yet rule in your favor. But if they don't, you will have gotten what you deserve.

Gay Marriage at the Ballot: How You Like Me Now?

Couldn't let this year's post-election experience depart without highlighting this thought from Ta-Nehisi Coats:

It was only four years ago that the advocates of same-sex marriage stood tentative before the ballot. Then came The Great Mauling.

So how you like me now?

Nine states and Washington, D.C., have now legalized same-sex marriage. Though it remains unpopular in the South, rights campaigners see the potential for legislative gains in Delaware; Hawaii; Illinois; Rhode Island; Minnesota, where they beat back a restrictive amendment last Tuesday; and New Jersey, where Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a bill to legalize same-sex marriage in February.

A rapid shift in public opinion is bolstering their cause as more people grow used to the idea of same-sex marriage and become acquainted with openly gay people and couples. "The pace of the change in opinions has picked up over the last few years," said Michael Dimock, associate research director of the Pew Research Center in Washington, "and as the younger generation becomes a larger share of the electorate, the writing is on the wall."

This is the great civil-rights struggle of our time. Again, it shouldn't be subject to the ballot. Whatever. Nothing quite matches the thrill of seizing your opponent's crooked rule-book, thumbing through the pages, and then throttling him senseless with the thing.

Sometimes even your schadenfreude is respectable.

 

 

Great stuff. Here in Maryland, marriage equality passed both houses of the legislature and was supported by the governor, but opponents got enough signatures to put it on the ballot, as every equality measure most be personally approved by voters, you know, just like every other single piece of legislation. Anyway, the opponents failed at the ballot box, just as they did in Minnesota, Washington State, and Maine last week.

Very Happy but Not Gloating

There are a lot of reasons to be thankful for Tuesday night's election results. The most important are, not in any particular order: The ACA gets a new lease on life, probably irreversable--most of its protections kick in 2014; marriage equality wins in Maine, Maryland and Washington State, also likely irreversable--even though another vote in another year could technically reverse these outcomes, it would be much harder to take away someone's marriage once granted; a continuing Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, which hasn't looked at all likely since 2010; and critical opportunities to ensure the Supreme Court doesn't shift dramatically to the right if Obama needs to replace one or more justices in the next four years.

Beyond that, though, there are good reasons for caution. Some of this comes from having felt greatly chastened in 1994 and 2010 (and to a certain extent in 2000 and 2002) by elections in those years after Democratic presidential wins. Although unemployment was still high (7.9%), Obama was the incumbent running for his party's second consecutive term, and only one such incumbent lost in the 20th century (Carter; GHW Bush and other incumbents lost seeking their party's third or fourth consecutive term). So Obama should have been the favorite.

It's also worth considering the relative closeness of this election and the electoral vote circumstances that frame any presidential election. Narrow wins in Ohio, Florida (likely) and Virginia, suggest how the shifting of a few thousand votes in such places can dramatically alter outcomes. That states which turned blue for us in 2008 (Indiana and NC) flipped back this year should also provide reasons not to be overly optimistic next time.

Additional reasons for caution lay in the country's fiscal situation. There is a wide and deepening chasm between what the country spends or will need to spend on income support and defense and the tax levels it seems willing to pay for them. Obama's stance on wanting to raise taxes on incomes only above $250,000 is not encouraging. Much more revenue than this will be needed if Social Security and health care are to be fully or reasonably funded in the next decades. Our party's unwillingness to address this has perhaps helped in the short term but could be costly in the years ahead if not changed.

It is true that the economy should improve, however, which should both help Democratic prospects in 2016 and help the country's revenue projections at least somewhat.

But by 2016 it also seems likely voters will nevertheless be more inclined to a Republican messenger (as they proved to be in 2000 after eight years of Clinton/Gore), and there are an infinite number of things that can go badly in the next few years to make that inclination greater. And I think this remains true even given the new demographics. Republicans will get better at fashioning themselves for a shifting electorate, whether that consists of more stringent voter eligibility requirements (which we've already witnessed) or the nominating of minority candidates, or both. In short, by 2016 the country might just well be sick of us in a way they weren't yet this year.

We Democrats have also been mighty fortunate. Republican conservatives have proven very adept at shooting themselves in the foot with ignorant and stubborn candidates (Akin and Mourdock this year, Christine O'Donnell last time), which we might not always be graced with.

Finally, while the U.S. Senate continues to be led by Democrats, some of these Democrats represent very red states (ND, Montana, and Indiana, etc) and their votes will not always be with us.

While there's a lot this election accomplished, there's much it did not. So I leave you, happy but not gloating.

Voting Early and Often

Voted to re-elect the President today, and to approve teh gay marriage in Maryland. Also voted to approve Maryland's version of the Dream Act and to expand gambling in the state. Ordinarily I wouldn't be in favor of the latter, but the "No" ads were really irritating and most of the local pols were in favor, so I did my partisan duty in that regard.