Tag Archives: Benghazi

business news

Is this Biden’s ‘Benghazi’?

Hunter Biden’s business activity and the controversy that’s being hyped up about it is beginning to remind me more than just a little bit of … Benghazi!

You remember Benghazi. Terrorists stormed the U.S. consulate in the Libyan city in late 2012. Four people — including the U.S. ambassador to Libya — died in the attack. Republicans blamed Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state during the attack.

Clinton sat before a congressional committee for 11 hours. Republicans on the panel sought to find something — anything — with which to accuse her. They grilled her incessantly.

They found nothing.

So now we have the son of President Biden on the griddle. The GOP insists that Hunter Biden’s laptop contains material that could send the president’s son to prison. They keep yapping about an investigation “when we take back the House.” What, I want to know, do they plan to investigate?

What did he do? Biden accepted high-paying jobs that he got because he is the son of a former U.S. senator, former vice president and current president. He is making a lot of dough working for these companies, even though he has no practical experience in the energy business, which is relevant to at least one of the companies that hired him.

What Is Hunter Biden Being Investigated For? Details of Federal Probe (msn.com)

Is it a crime for the child of a famous person to accept a cushy, well-paying job? Hah! It’s been done many times before and will be done far into the future.

The GOP is trying to hang tax charges on Hunter Biden, contending he didn’t pay his share of taxes.

This business about Hunter Biden has been kicking around for a while. During the 2020 campaign, GOP operatives sought to make Biden’s business dealings a campaign issue to use against his dad. Hunter Biden had taken a job with a Ukrainian energy company, for example, prompting Republicans to wonder aloud about the propriety of the hire. However, a Ukrainian prosecutor declared out loud that neither Biden — not Joe nor Hunter — did anything illegal.

End of story? Hardly!

My sense is that this matter will produce as much credible criminal wrongdoing as the Benghazi tragedy did against Hillary Clinton.

We will have, to borrow a term, a nothing burger.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot

Pipe down, Newtie!

Newt Gingrich, the one-time Republican congressional bomb-thrower and former speaker of the House, needs to settle down and take a quick look back at a little Capitol Hill history.

“I think it’s clear that these are people who are literally just running over the law, pursuing innocent people, causing them to spend thousands and thousands of dollars in legal fees for no justification and it’s basically a lynch mob and unfortunately the attorney general of the United States has joined the lynch mob and is totally misusing the FBI,” Gingrich said over the weekend.

He is projecting that if the GOP takes control of Congress after the midterm election that Democrats on the 1/6 select committee could face criminal prosecution over the way they have conducted the committee’s probe into the insurrection that occurred on Capitol Hill.

What balderdash!

If we flash back to around 2016, when the GOP last controlled Congress, we can find evidence of the Republican-led House Oversight Committee badgering, tormenting and hectoring witnesses as it sought to find something for which it could blame for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Benghazi, Libya crisis. Remember that one? Terrorists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and four Americans — including our ambassador to Libya — died in the melee. What did the House panel do? It launched a years-long probe into, subjecting Clinton, for example, to 11 hours of testimony before the committee.

That panel ran far more amok than the 1/6 committee that is trying to get the truth behind Donald Trump’s effort to block the certification of the 2020 presidential election result.

So, with that I’ll just demand that the ex-speaker shut his trap.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

DC riot, national news

Jim Jordan: GOP weasel

Jim Jordan is seeking to weasel his way out of a declaration he bellowed back when he was involved in a wild goose chase called “Benghazi.”

The Ohio Republican congressman said while serving on a House panel looking into the assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya that no one should avoid testifying before Congress. He said the panel on which he was serving deserved to hear the whole truth about the attack on the consulate and, by golly, Congress is empowered to seek the truth from anyone it sought.

Hah! Well, now comes the House select panel looking into the events of 1/6. It wants to talk to Jim Jordan about a conversation Jordan said he had with Donald Trump on that terrible day.

Jordan’s response? He is refusing to cooperate with the committee.

Jordan’s duplicity isn’t a surprise to those of us who have been watching this 1/6 probe unfold. The committee already has issued taken a bead on Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser who stiffed the panel; it is looking at whether to go after former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who’s done the same thing.

Now we have Jim Jordan. C’mon, committee members. Don’t let this blowhard get away with this line of hypocrisy.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news

GOP should hold off on ‘secrecy’ mantra

Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress need a dose of reticence as they complain about so-called “secrecy” by their Democratic colleagues who are pushing ahead with the impeachment inquiry into Trump’s conduct as president.

They are complaining that Democratic-led House committees are conducting a clandestine hearing by listening to witnesses in private, behind closed doors, out of public view. They contend the secrecy removes legitimacy from the impeachment probe.

It does nothing of the kind.

The so-called secrecy is standard operating procedure in the House. Republicans did the very same thing when they launched their hearings into the Benghazi tragedy in 2012. You recall that, yes? A House select committee examining the circumstances regarding the fire fight that killed four U.S. embassy officials in Libya did so in private. It looked for complicity by Hillary Clinton, who then was secretary of state. Then, after collecting evidence, they went public. They put Clinton at the witness table for 11 hours. Oh, by the way: They came up empty!

Now the shoe is on the other foot, metaphorically speaking.

Democrats are going by the book. Eventually, and I hope it is soon, they will throw open the doors and the entire world will hear much of what they have heard already in private.

For the GOP alliance lining behind the president to suggest a “coup” and an attempt to “overturn the results of the 2016 election” is just so much demagoguery.

Then again, that is torn straight out of Donald J. Trump’s playbook.

State news

Due process anyone? Anyone?

Hey, what happened to due process, the presumption of innocence, the, um, rule of law?

Ted Cruz, the Republican running for re-election to the U.S. Senate in Texas, fired off a real knee-slapper Tuesday night in response to a supporter yelling “Lock him up!” in reference to Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke.

“Well, you know, there’s a double-occupancy cell with Hillary Clinton,” Cruz said. “Y’all are gonna get me in trouble with that,” he added at a campaign rally in Georgetown, Texas.

Doesn’t that just crack you up? That guy is hilarious, man!

Hillary Clinton was the object of GOP mobs yelling “Lock her up!” during the 2016 presidential campaign. They were just so darn angry over that email matter, Benghazi and other assorted fabricated crimes that they were ready to send her in shackles to the nearest — or farthest — penitentiary possible.

Now it’s Beto O’Rourke feeling the Republicans’ burn as he campaigns against the Cruz Missile.

I am unaware of anything in O’Rourke’s history that would prompt such a ridiculous shout-out from a Cruz clown.

Oh, but hey. That’s just politics … I guess.

national news

Hillary talked for hours; now it’s Trump’s turn

Evan McMullin, who ran for president as an independent in 2016, poses an interesting thought via Twitter.

McMullin wrote: Hillary Clinton testified to the House Benghazi Committee in public for 11 hours and won’t even sit with the special counsel for a minute. Now, why is that?

He might have posed his question rhetorically, but I think I can answer it for him.

I believe it’s because Donald Trump doesn’t want to get trapped into lying under oath, which I believe is entirely possible, if not probable.

You should recall that the U.S. House of Representatives impeached President Bill Clinton in 1998 for lying to a grand jury. He took an oath to tell the truth. He didn’t. The House used perjury as the basis for its impeachment.

Special counsel Robert Mueller might want to summon the president to talk about whether his 2016 campaign colluded with Russians who interfered in our election. Trump, in my view, cannot tell the truth. He is not wired for truthfulness.

It’s dangerous for him to talk to a meticulous lawyer, such as Mueller.

national news

Let the Mueller probe continue … and conclude

Congressional Republicans keep harping on the length of time special counsel Robert Mueller has been investigating whether the Donald Trump presidential campaign “colluded” with Russians who meddled in our 2016 election.

They keep saying it’s gone on too long. They want Mueller to wrap it up now.

Hold on here.

Mueller’s probe hasn’t lasted as long as the Whitewater investigation that ended up with President Clinton’s impeachment; or as long as the Iran-Contra probe; or as long as the Benghazi probe that looked for years to find criminality against Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Mueller has been given the opportunity to find the truth to a highly complicated set of issues. The president keeps saying there was “no collusion.” He keeps calling the investigation a “witch hunt.”

If that’s the case, then let the probe continue to its conclusion.

And has anyone noticed that Mueller’s team has been water tight? There have been zero leaks? Can the president’s team make that claim? No.

Let the special counsel reach his conclusion at his own meticulous pace. Then let the man deliver his report to the nation.

And stop griping, Republican partisans, about the length of time he’s taking.

legal news, national news

No, Mr. VPOTUS, it’s not yet time to ‘wrap it up’

Uh, this note is for Vice President Mike Pence.

Mr. Vice President, pardon this disagreement from a blogger out here in Flyover Country, but it’s not yet time for special counsel Robert Mueller to conclude his investigation into what Donald Trump once called “the Russia thing.”

Indeed, sir, he needs to continue pursuing all the angles, leads and hunches he has in order to reach a conclusion that we all can presume is fair — and complete!

I get that it’s been a year, as you noted in your recent interview, since this investigation began. Do I need to remind you, Mr. Vice President, that the probe into Hillary Clinton’s email matter lasted far longer? Or how about the Benghazi probe that went on for two-plus years? Nothing came of either of those congressional probes, Mr. Vice President — which I’m sure you’re aware of, right?

Did you or your fellow Republicans join Democrats then in calling for an end to those fruitless investigations? Of course you didn’t! Y’all wanted it to go on forever. And ever. And then some!

The special counsel has a lot more ground to plow regarding that lawyer of the president’s, Michael Cohen. He also wants to talk directly to the president himself, who keeps changing his mind on whether he wants to submit to questioning from the special counsel.

You said the administration has provided “millions of documents.” Do you think Mueller and his team can read all that paperwork over a weekend? It takes time, Mr. Vice President, for the legal eagles to pore through all that stuff.

So, give it to them. Let them finish their work on their schedule, not yours, or the president’s or any of your supporters.

I’m not one of them. I want a thorough investigation to reach a conclusion under its own power.

With that, sir, I’ll close with this. I didn’t vote for you in 2016, but you still work for me, as well as for the 65 million-plus Americans who voted for Hillary.

Therefore, as your boss, I implore you to, um … keep your trap shut!

national news

Nothing to this probe? Check this out

Matthew Dowd is no squishy liberal, a “snowflake.” He’s a long-standing Republican political operative.

He also serves as a broadcast and cable news “contributor” and, yes, he is a Donald J. Trump critic.

He sent out a tweet just a while ago that reiterated something he said this morning on ABC News’s “This Week” program: As i said on to give some perspective: “Benghazi was a 4 year investigation, there were zero indictments. The Clinton emails was a 2 year investigation, there were zero indictments. The Mueller investigation has been 14 months, there have been 23 indictments.”

“Benghazi” involved a terrible firefight that occurred at a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya on the watch of then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; the “Clinton emails” also involved the former secretary’s use of her personal email account while serving in the State Department.

The Mueller investigation? Well, it’s that probe that is occurring at the moment to explore questions relating to Trump’s presidential campaign and its possible relationship with the Russian government … among other things.

GOP hardliners want Robert Mueller’s probe to end. Now! They forget about the length of time they insisted on maintaining while GOP members of Congress looked at Hillary Clinton’s conduct.

All that time, money and effort produced zero indictments. None, man!

Mueller — who, by the way, also is a Republican — so far has harvested a much healthier crop of criminal complaints.

And, no, this isn’t a “witch hunt.” It is a serious investigation being conducted by a serious public servant.

International news, national news, political news

Memo to GOP: Remember ‘Benghazi’?

Republicans in Congress and their friends in the media are now singing loudly from the same political hymnal.

They want special counsel Robert Mueller to either be fired or they want him to conclude his investigation into the “Russia thing.”

Oh, they have such short memories.

I feel compelled to remind them all of one word: Benghazi.

The GOP conducted an investigation with seemingly no end. It involved then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and whether she committed some sort of crime in relation to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The attack killed four Americans, including the nation’s ambassador to Libya.

They held hearings. They brought Clinton before congressional panels. They quizzed her, berated her, threatened to “lock her up!” over the chaos that ensued from that tragic event.

It went on for years. From 2012 until 2016. It cost millions of dollars of public funds.

Now we have Mueller on the hunt for the truth behind another highly sensitive matter: whether Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russian government officials who sought to meddle in our 2016 presidential election.

They now are alleging bias in the Mueller team. They point to two staffers who exchange pro-Hillary email and text messages — before Mueller fired them when their antipathy toward Trump became known.

Some in the conservative media are pressuring the president to fire Mueller. Big mistake, folks! The president says there’s no evidence of collusion. Fine. Then, let Mueller’s team reach that conclusion on its own.

As for the calls for the special counsel to wrap up his probe, Republicans on Capitol Hill and around the country need to examine their own conduct during another probe involving a prominent Democratic politician.

If we’re going to demand a thorough probe into alleged wrongdoing, then it must apply to everyone.

Isn’t that only fair?