June 29, 2016

WaPo Editorial: Republicans’ Benghazi goose chase comes up empty

By Editorial Board June 28 at 5:23 PM

ON THE night of Sept. 11 and morning of Sept.?12, 2012, U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers in Benghazi, Libya, came under attack by terrorists armed with automatic weapons, mortars and fuel to start fires. By the next morning, four brave Americans lay dead — Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens; his aide, Sean Smith; and two former Navy SEALs providing security, Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty. It was a horrific crime whose perpetrators remain for the most part unidentified and unpunished — and a setback for U.S. foreign policy in the wider Middle East.

As if all of that weren’t bad enough, the Benghazi attacks mutated into yet another of the partisan dramas that U.S. politicians — in this case Republican politicians — generate in lieu of constructive policy making. Unable to turn the events to their advantage when they occurred, during the 2012 election campaign, Republicans have persisted in attempting to milk the “scandal” for the past four years. They have done so even though repeated previous investigations — including by a GOP-led House intelligence panel — found nothing to contradict the Obama administration’s basic account. Diplomatic security, intelligence and other preparation were inadequate in hindsight; but the violence in Benghazi was over before any effective U.S. military intervention could have been organized. Government failures before, during and after the attacks, such as they were, resulted from a combination of understandable confusion and good-faith mistakes — not conspiracy, coverup, politics or deliberate “abandonment” of U.S. personnel, as the Republican right has so often and so feverishly insinuated.

And now, after two years and $7 million, comes Tuesday’s final report of a Republican-led House select committee, which adds exactly nothing substantial to the story. It’s true that the panel’s investigation did, along the way, help trigger the revelation of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server, which is a real issue. On the most sensitive point, however — Ms. Clinton’s personal culpability for what happened in Benghazi — the committee came up empty. Its report contains dozens of pages on the now-famous early statements from the administration implying the attacks were motivated by Arab-world reaction to an anti-Islamic video on the Internet. But even this exhaustive review produces no proof that this messaging resulted from a politically motivated attempt to play down terrorism, as opposed to a genuine factual dispute among State Department and CIA officials, compounded by faulty verbal formulations by then-Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and other hastily briefed administration spokesmen.

There’s much to be learned from the fiasco in Benghazi and from the wider breakdown in Libya that followed the U.S.-aided overthrow of Moammar Gaddafi in 2011. President Obama did contribute to this mess by his refusal to support the new postGaddafi government’s attempt to build security; he and his administration, Ms. Clinton included, can rightly be held accountable for this mistaken policy. Yet for reasons best known only to themselves, Republicans have insisted on pursuing their own more inflammatory and conspiratorial version of events. Maybe someone should investigate that.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/republicans-benghazi-goose-chase-comes-up-empty/2016/06/28/b70addfc-3d5c-11e6-84e8-1580c7db5275_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

June 29, 2016

Ambassador's sister: I don't blame Clinton for Benghazi

The sister of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who was killed in the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, said she doesn't blame former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for what happened.

"It is clear, in hindsight, that the facility was not sufficiently protected by the State Department and the Defense Department. But what was the underlying cause? Perhaps if Congress had provided a budget to increase security for all missions around the world, then some of the requests for more security in Libya would have been granted. Certainly the State Department is underbudgeted," Anne Stevens told The New Yorker.

"I do not blame Hillary Clinton or Leon Panetta." Stevens said they were "balancing security efforts at embassies and missions around the world. And their staffs were doing their best to provide what they could with the resources they had," she said.

"The Benghazi Mission was understaffed. We know that now. But, again, Chris knew that. It wasn’t a secret to him. He decided to take the risk to go there. It is not something they did to him. It is something he took on himself."

more
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/285277-chris-stevens-sister-i-dont-blame-clinton

June 29, 2016

Elizabeth Warren Is Gathering A Democratic Army To Defeat Donald Trump

By Jason Easley on Tue, Jun 28th, 2016 at 6:33 pm

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is urging all Democrats to go on the attack against Donald Trump because now is the time to go after the Republican nominee.

During an interview on The View, Sen. Warren (D-MA) said, “You know, the way I see it is the Republicans waited way too late to go on the attack after Donald Trump, and they waited until he had basically seized the nomination and then a bunch of them are saying: Oh my God, that man is not ready to be president of the United States. That man is dangerous. That man holds a bunch of views that are really horrible views, but it was too late for the Republicans. Well, my view on that is, I’m not waiting. I waded in on Donald Trump. Now’s the time to go after him. You bet.”

Warren is correct. Democrats have learned from the mistakes of the Republican Party. They aren’t falling for Trump’s tabloid style tactics. They aren’t kidding themselves that Trump is a fad, or that he will go away. Democrats are taking Donald Trump seriously, which is why they are coming after him early and often.

The worst mistake that Democrats could make would be to be complacent with Trump. Most Republicans thought Trump could never win, and now he is their presidential nominee. Democrats need to hit Trump early and often. Most importantly, they can’t let up until the job is done.

Donald Trump isn’t a joke. He is the Republican nominee for president. Sen. Warren has it figured out. Trump is dangerous, which is exactly why Democrats should be relentless on him though Election Day.

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http://www.politicususa.com/2016/06/28/elizabeth-warren-gathering-democratic-army-defeat-donald-trump.html

June 29, 2016

Democrat Kamala Harris holds stunning 25 point lead in Senate race in California

By Daily News Bin | June 28, 2016 |

The 2016 Senate race in California has been an unusual one, both in the sense that it’s the first time a Senate seat has been vacated in the state in decades with the retirement of democrat Barbara Boxer, and in that the the top two contenders to succeed her both happen to democrats as well. California Attorney General Kamala Harris and Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez were the top to vote getters in the Senate primary race, and now it turns out Harris has a staggeringly large lead heading into the general election.

The state of California uses an uncommon format which stipulates that the top two vote getters in the Senate primary race will face each other in the general election, regardless of party. That means all the republican candidates have already been eliminated from the race, and that the seat is guaranteed to remain in the hands of the Democratic Party once the votes are tallied in November. Still, there has been some debate as to whether the more liberal Harris or the more moderate Sanchez might have the edge in a head to head matchup; some had speculated that republican voters in the state might turn out for Sanchez just to try to keep things from veering left.

However, the first post-primary polling suggests that there is no such trend underway. Kamala Harris is polling at 47% statewide, while Loretta Sanchez is polling at just 22%, according to Los Angeles Times polling this month. Another 26% of registered voters, most of them republicans, say they don’t plan to participate in the choice between the two democratic candidates at all, with just 5% listing themselves as undecided.

That gives Kamala Harris a stunning twenty-five point lead, suggesting she could enter the United States Senate with one of the larger blowout wins in recent memory. Still, there are four months until voting day, and there may be time for Loretta Sanchez to find a way to close what is essentially a two-to-one gap in the polls. But Harris is clearly in the drivers seat for now.

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http://www.dailynewsbin.com/news/kamala-harris-opens-up-blowout-lead-in-2016-senate-race-in-california/25040/

June 28, 2016

White House Blasts Benghazi Report As 'In-Kind Contribution' To RNC

Source: Talking Points Memo

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest tore into House Republicans' Benghazi committee report on Tuesday, sarcastically questioning whether the Republican National Committee counted the investigation as a campaign contribution.

"Is the RNC going to disclose the in-kind contribution that they received from House Republicans today?” Earnest said at his daily media briefing. Earnest went on to note that House Republicans spent $7 million taxpayer dollars on their investigation, which he said was intended to "tear down Secretary Clinton's poll numbers."

Clinton herself responded to the report earlier in the day, saying it was "time to move on." House Republicans determined in their report that President Obama's administration acted too slowly in response to the attacks.

"The variety of conspiracy theories that have been flowering on the Republican side of the aisle are politically motivated fantasies," Earnest said.


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Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/white-house-in-kind-rnc-contribution

June 28, 2016

Benghazi Committee Head Trey Gowdy Won’t Say ‘Hillary Lied’

During a press conference following the release of his committee’s final report on the 2012 Benghazi attacks, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) refused to say that Hillary Clinton “lied” about her role in its aftermath.

Asked by one reporter if T-shirts and bumper stickers that read “Hillary Clinton Lied, People Died” are “true,” Gowdy replied, “You don’t see that T-shirt on me, and you don’t see that bumper sticker on any of my vehicles.” Asked more directly if he thinks she “lied,” Gowdy said, “That’s a word you couldn’t use in a courtroom.”

He urged reporters to read the full report before drawing any conclusions about Clinton’s actions.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/06/28/trey-gowdy-won-t-say-hillary-lied.html

June 28, 2016

Reid Fires At Rubio: Florida Taxpayers Should Sue Him For Not Doing His Job

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) called on constituents to sue Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) for not doing his job Tuesday.

“I feel that Marco Rubio should be sued to pay back all the money that the federal government paid him while he was off playing around, running for president,” Reid told reporters, according to Politico. “Not only did he take those checks, cash every one of them, every month, he was never here and the state of Florida was missing a senator during that period of time.”

It was just the latest Democratic burn against Rubio, who announced last week he will run for re-election to stay in the Senate. When he was running for president, Rubio was often criticized for missing votes and prioritizing his campaign. Those attacks have resurfaced since he announced his re-election.

"Marco Rubio, in my opinion, owes the American taxpayer money and owes the people of the state of Florida some time," Reid said, according to Politico.

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/reid-florida-constituents-should-sue-rubio

June 28, 2016

The most revealing paragraph in the House Benghazi report

by Zack Beauchamp on June 28, 2016, 12:10 p.m. ET

-snip-

For example, a big question in the highly partisan fight over the Benghazi attack has been whether the Obama administration could have stopped the attack with nearby US military assets but simply chose not to. This has been a theory, in some right-wing circles particularly, for a long time.

The House Select Committee’s report finds that there were no American forces in range, the same conclusion as previous reports. Yet it positions this fact as evidence of the Obama administration’s failures:

In other words: The facts find the administration wasn’t responsible for failing to stop the Benghazi attack, but the report tries to spin this evidence in a way that’s bad for Team Obama anyway. You see similar attempts to spin non-damning facts as damning in other parts of the report as well.

-snip-

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/28/12051226/benghazi-house-republican-report-paragraph

June 28, 2016

Polls are telling Donald Trump the truth, but he's not listening

By BYRON YORK (@BYRONYORK) • 6/27/16 11:31 PM

Polls used to tell Donald Trump something. They told him he was winning the Republican primary race, that his message and style were connecting with voters, that he was more popular than any of his rivals.

Trump talked about polls all the time, at his rallies, his news conferences, his interviews with reporters. Day and night, it was polls, polls, polls.

And by the way, the polls were right — and Trump was right about the polls. He really was winning the GOP race.

Now the polls are telling Trump something else. He's not winning. He's behind Hillary Clinton by a substantial amount in national polls and by smaller amounts in key state polls. The polls tell him he is in deep trouble with major voting groups — like Republicans, and women — without whose substantial support he can't win.

more
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/york-polls-are-telling-trump-the-truth-but-hes-not-listening/article/2595055

June 28, 2016

Senate Democrats block Zika deal ahead of recess

Source: The Hill

Senate Democrats on Tuesday blocked a deal to fight the Zika virus, virtually guaranteeing Congress won't get a deal to President Obama's desk this month.

The Senate voted 52-48 on a procedural hurdle for the House-Senate conference report on a military and veterans spending bill, which includes $1.1 billion to fund the Zika virus research. Sixty votes were needed to move forward with the legislation.

The votes leaves the current fight over the Zika virus at a standstill with days left before the July 4th recess.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told reporters Tuesday that "there's not going to be another opportunity to deal with this for the near future."

-snip-

Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/285156-senate-democrats-block-zika-deal-ahead-of-recess