Security for Diplomatic Embassies and Consulates, etc., are responsibility of the Secretary of State. So, are you denying Stevens requested added security multiple times, or are you just suggesting Clinton was incompetent at her job. Because I don't buy for a minute she did not get briefed on his requests since Lybia was such a hotspot at the time.
This whole thing just seems to be a Captain Hindsight affair. I'm certain a state department got more requests than there are funds and they will always have to make decisions on what to grant and what to deny. At some point a decision might turn out to be wrong, or missing the mark, or unfortunate or bad in hindsight.
The way this Benghazi is made to be a huge scandal over several years is ridiculously unproportionate. Even if the worst possibility, that Clinton made a grave error in judgment, were true. Which no one really ever could conclusively prove, and from what i heard there were roughly 1.396 different investigations into this whole thing. It's just not a viable scandal.
And that Mr. Gowdy has reason to paint a certain picture, well that's politics, not proof.
(05-03-2022, 09:45 AM)hollodero Wrote: This whole thing just seems to be a Captain Hindsight affair. I'm certain a state department got more requests than there are funds and they will always have to make decisions on what to grant and what to deny. At some point a decision might turn out to be wrong, or missing the mark, or unfortunate or bad in hindsight.
The way this Benghazi is made to be a huge scandal over several years is ridiculously unproportionate. Even if the worst possibility, that Clinton made a grave error in judgment, were true. Which no one really ever could conclusively prove, and from what i heard there were roughly 1.396 different investigations into this whole thing. It's just not a viable scandal.
And that Mr. Gowdy has reason to paint a certain picture, well that's politics, not proof.
Just wait until after the GOP takes back the legislative branch and launch investigations into Hunter Biden and his laptop.
(05-03-2022, 10:52 AM)CKwi88 Wrote: Just wait until after the GOP takes back the legislative branch and launch investigations into Hunter Biden and his laptop.
Well if the leaked SC case is correct, I don't think that will happen anytime soon. That will be a gold mine for Dems and a nightmare for Republicans even though both parties will act the opposite.
“History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.”-Thurgood Marshall
(05-03-2022, 09:45 AM)hollodero Wrote: This whole thing just seems to be a Captain Hindsight affair. I'm certain a state department got more requests than there are funds and they will always have to make decisions on what to grant and what to deny. At some point a decision might turn out to be wrong, or missing the mark, or unfortunate or bad in hindsight.
The way this Benghazi is made to be a huge scandal over several years is ridiculously unproportionate. Even if the worst possibility, that Clinton made a grave error in judgment, were true. Which no one really ever could conclusively prove, and from what i heard there were roughly 1.396 different investigations into this whole thing. It's just not a viable scandal.
And that Mr. Gowdy has reason to paint a certain picture, well that's politics, not proof.
Some of you will go to ridiculous lengths to defend her. The amount of money it would have taken to put more security agents and infrasctructure at that consulate is less than a drop in the bucket. The fact all the other Western Govts. closed their shops up and left should have lit someone's light bulb that maybe we needed to leave too, or strengthen security. If you think the scandal is disproportionate, how proportionate do you suppose a US Ambassador and 3 other people's lives should be?
(05-03-2022, 10:55 AM)michaelsean Wrote: Well if the leaked SC case is correct, I don't think that will happen anytime soon. That will be a gold mine for Dems and a nightmare for Republicans even though both parties will act the opposite.
Not really. The pro-abortion voices scream the loudest, but that doesn't mean it will be that big of an issue. About 60% of the country thinks abortion should be legal. Of that 60%, some will also believe it should be a state matter and realize some stated will leave it legal, which is what the SC is saying (supposedly), a large percentage want it legal with some restrictions, and a larger percentage of people are going to be voting on the economy, which affects them daily, not a Federal vs State abortion issue. The Dems are going to get rolled in November.
(05-03-2022, 12:11 PM)Sled21 Wrote: Not really. The pro-abortion voices scream the loudest, but that doesn't mean it will be that big of an issue. About 60% of the country thinks abortion should be legal. Of that 60%, some will also believe it should be a state matter and realize some stated will leave it legal, which is what the SC is saying (supposedly), a large percentage want it legal with some restrictions, and a larger percentage of people are going to be voting on the economy, which affects them daily, not a Federal vs State abortion issue. The Dems are going to get rolled in November.
Turnout and money. Both will explode for the Dems.
“History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.”-Thurgood Marshall
Security for Diplomatic Embassies and Consulates, etc., are responsibility of the Secretary of State. So, are you denying Stevens requested added security multiple times, or are you just suggesting Clinton was incompetent at her job. Because I don't buy for a minute she did not get briefed on his requests since Lybia was such a hotspot at the time.
I'm denying, still, that there is any documented evidence such requests crossed Hilary's desk. You still have not provided that, after claiming there was. A claimed "disconnect" does not count. That you don't "buy" it is not proof of any sort.
Busy this afternoon, but in an hour or two I will to respond to this and your post to Hollo, given your questions about security there need some contextualization. It may also help if I explain why I don't blame Trump directly if 4 special forces members die in Niger because of poor decisions taken at the operational level.
One final point for the moment--I don't "crap on anything from Fox" because it is from Fox. As I have stated before, I evaluate every news report/article on its own merits, regardless of source. I wish others would follow me in that practice as well. You are probably wasting time sending me news reports of any stripe about the investigation, as these tend to be second hand reports of primary documents I have already read. They are only helpful to me in assessing how different news sources slant their reporting of the same info.
(05-03-2022, 12:06 PM)Sled21 Wrote: Some of you will go to ridiculous lengths to defend her.
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that some of you will go to ridiculous lengths to attack her? She murdered Vince Foster, Clint McDougal, Seth Rich, and Jeffrey Epstein? Trafficked children out of a Pizza Hut? Gave 20% of U.S. uranium to Russia? Absence of evidence cannot mean absence of crime--only that she "got away" with all those crimes we always already KNOW she committed. That she got off is only proof there is a double standard for the Clinton, the elite pedophile. There may be a clue here as to how Hilary's "guilt" for Benghazi has really been established as well--and for whom, and why Fox facts continue circulate as "findings." Imagine how all this looked to the Russians in 2016. She was the perfect target around which to feed election disinformation. A DHS dept. dedicated to challenging disinformation and giving people the tools to recognize it may now be too little too late.
(05-03-2022, 12:06 PM)Sled21 Wrote: The amount of money it would have taken to put more security agents and infrasctructure at that consulate is less than a drop in the bucket. The fact all the other Western Govts. closed their shops up and left should have lit someone's light bulb that maybe we needed to leave too, or strengthen security. If you think the scandal is disproportionate, how proportionate do you suppose a US Ambassador and 3 other people's lives should be?
Let's start with the bolded as a first step towards contextualizing Benghazi--by comparing it to other U.S. foreign policy actions which also ended tragically; let loss of men, material and geopolitical risks/consequences on one hand, and the scale of official (Congressional) investigations and public outrage in each case on the other, set a baseline for determining "proportionality." I've lived long enough to remember the Pueblo (1968) and Mayaguez Incidents (1975); the former resulted in 1 dead, 82 captured and the loss of spy ship; and the latter claimed 38 lives, including Marines who died in battle, the three who were "left behind," captured and apparently executed by the Khmer Rouge, and 23 Airmen who died in a helicopter crash during an initial rescue attempt;three helicopters were lost in the rescue attempt. Recall also the Operation Eagle Claw (1980), in which 8 Americans died, one helicopter lost, and the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut (1983), which cost 241 marines their lives--over 50X the loss at Benghazi. And finally the embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya (1998), which killed 200+ people, including 12 Americans. The first three involved mobilization of entire carrier groups and risked war with another sovereign nation. All were national humiliation on a large scale highlighting limits to U.S. power. The Pueblo is still a Museum to Yankee aggression in Pyongyang. Its sophisticated comm equipment was reverse engineered and shared with the Soviet Union. The captain and a Lieutenant were recommended for court martial by a Navy Inquiry, but the Sec. of the Navy nixed that. No Congressional hearings, so far as I know. The Mayaguez incident abandoned 3 Marines to the Khmer Rouge, who apparently executed them, not to mention other bodies "left behind." All died AFTER the Mayaguez and crew had been released. Riots broke out in Thailand, because the U.S. used for a staging ground without permission of the Thai government. Yet the disaster boosted Ford's approval rating, possibly because people thought his efforts to rescue the ship were right regardless of outcome, and possibly because in those days more people understood that politicians have to make tough decisions, and so tolerated mistakes which appeared honest, even through horrible consequences. None of these incidents provoked 10 separate investigations, let alone seven Congressional. Investigations were handled by the appropriate service branches, except for the Beirut bombing, for which Reagan appointed a special committee, which found the military chain of command, not him, at fault. You'd have to add the Iraq war to get something close to Benghazi scale Congressional attention--and that falls short even if you include the British investigations as well--though a thousand times more Americans died in Iraq than in Benghazi, not to mention 150,000 Iraqis and a final bill for a war of choice which may exceed 3 trillion. To approximate more closely the actual loss of blood and treasure at Benghazi, you'd best compare it to a tragic post-Benghazi event--the deaths of 4 special forces members in Niger in 2017. Although these deaths were the result of miscalculation and perhaps negligence at the operational level, and occurred Trump’s and Tillerson’s watch, there was no Left-wing noise machine to drive accountability right up to Trump, or even his secretary of state, to the point that Congressional hearings were demanded and given. Again, the investigation was handled by the appropriate service branch. The Iraq War level response to a Niger-level event may be why Hollo found that response "ridiculously inappropriate." I do too. To answer your bolded question above, a State Dept. investigation would have been “appropriate” along with one from the CIA. Next step will be to contextualize the security requests.
(05-04-2022, 04:34 PM)Dill Wrote: The Iraq War level response to a Niger-level event may be why Hollo found that response "ridiculously inappropriate." I do too. To answer your bolded question above, a State Dept. investigation would have been “appropriate” along with one from the CIA.
Oh yeah I owed an answer here... my answer is what Dill just said. Yeah I know all this stuff too, being a walking encyclopedia and all.
Im late to the party and haven't read through 4 pages on banter, but here's my take....
This should scare everyone. It should 100% be a hard NO and it should cut across ideologies and party lines. No exceptions. No but but but..... Just no.
(05-03-2022, 02:09 PM)michaelsean Wrote: Turnout and money. Both will explode for the Dems.
I know this topic has hi jacked the original point, this is a and is exactly Krystal Ball's take. It definitely opened my eyes and made me think quite a bit. It's quite obvious once you see it, and both sides do it.
(05-07-2022, 05:30 AM)StrictlyBiz Wrote: Im late to the party and haven't read through 4 pages on banter, but here's my take....
This should scare everyone. It should 100% be a hard NO and it should cut across ideologies and party lines. No exceptions. No but but but..... Just no.
(05-05-2022, 05:48 AM)hollodero Wrote: Oh yeah I owed an answer here... my answer is what Dill just said.
A few more thoughts on Benghazi issue, Hollo, to more clearly connect it to the thread topic. I’d have made the extreme disparity in accountability between then/now Republican/Democrat more visible, had I focused on the degree of planning and direction exercised by top political leadership in comparable disasters, as opposed to mid management.
Thought experiment: imagine we send Hilary back to 1975 to be a president, during the chaotic fall of Saigon. Two weeks after that blow to U.S. Cold War superpower prestige on her account, she’s informed the Khmer have seized the U.S.’ first container ship—the Mayaguez.
She can’t claim the request for aid never crossed her desk, as she was immediately in conference with her NSC and the Pacific fleet, ok’ing rescue attempts against the advice of the admiral responsible for that region, who wanted to wait for a nearby carrier to arrive, affording a full-spectrum response.
The discovery that Marines had been dropped onto the wrong island, held by 100+ battle-hardened, fanatical child soldiers bunkered in with heavy weapons—minutes AFTER the Mayaguez and crew, held elsewhere, had been released—took U.S. prestige down yet another notch. A military morale breaker too, given that some Marines, dead and alive, were left behind, with the living remainder themselves needing rescue, as their helicopters had been downed immediately. Then the execution (and likely torture) of the captured Marines, followed by no punitive action. This is FAR more serious than the case of an ambassador who refused security details from Tripoli and launched out on his own on a day of expected unrest—on Hilary’s “watch.”
With the Mayaguez disaster clearly following from Hilary’s decision, would the right wing in ‘75 demand her resignation? Or would her poll numbers rise afterwards, as did Ford’s? I’m guessing the latter, because something present in our current politics did not exist then, or only so in kernel form, on the fringe, with no voice in the “liberal” press.
One could also reverse this experiment: bring Reagan back to 2012. How might Hannity have responded if 4* people (as opposed to 241) died on his “watch”—the standard applied to Hilary? Would he demand Reagan apologize to each of the families? Would he praise McCarthy/Republicans for using the investigations to diminish poll numbers? I’m guessing no, as he had the opportunity to do that on Trump’s “watch” five years later, but did not.
What is being compared here is not Reagan vs Hilary, but the U.S. electorate pre-1986 and now, in order raise this question—
Do millions of U.S. voters groomed to act on Fox/Trump prompts (NOT the “fake news”)—prompts easily mimicked on social media by our adversaries—pose a threat to national security and democracy worth addressing?
In this context, is public education designed to challenge mal-and disinformation the greater threat? Who would want us to think so? That there is even controversy about this suggests much confusion about the nature and requirements of democratic governance. I fear that voters coming of age post Limbaugh and Gingrich have no memory of time when this kind of noise wasn’t part of our elections and, worse, attribute it to “both sides.”
*Or maybe just 2, if you figure the CIA Annex is not “on Hilary’s watch,” but the CIA Director’s. “But BOTH were on Obama’s watch!” some might respond. But O. was not destined to run in the 2016 election. Hilary needed to be stuck with that bill.
Good Lord could you imagine reading that in your second language? I’m questioning my own proficiency in English.
“History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.”-Thurgood Marshall
(05-08-2022, 12:40 PM)Dill Wrote: Well, I haven't seen that particular show.
Perhaps he mentioned the DB BEFORE the "New Rules" segment?
He does not directly reference it in the segment.
If he is talking about the DB, where did he learn its mission was to "ban untruth"?
If that is NOT the mission of the DB, it sounds like you got the impression it was
from Maher "knocking it out of the park."
The purpose of The Board is to give guidance to the DHS on how to handle disinformation regarding to national security. Although The Board and the DHS lack the power to directly make and implement laws that would "ban untruth," all too often governmental departments make recommendations that do in fact become 'law.' Look no further than the CDC's guidance and recommendations over the past two years as evidence.
While you may trust that the creation of The Board doesn't give the DHS too much power to potentially curtail your first amendment right, I don't. While you may be comfortable giving the DHS the power to potentially do so, I am not. If you don't see or think that this is a possibility, then you're naive.
If Donald Trump runs and wins in 2024 and hand picks his head of the DHS who then hand picks his head of The Board, would you be comfortable with that? Would you be comfortable with their ability to silence and squash the ability to expose any of his illicit dealings? Again, I wouldn't. Imagine them being able to quash the Ukrainian and Russia-gate stories in their infancies? In matters such as these, it is best to ask yourself how you'd react if it wasn't your guy, your side, or you ideology in charge.
Regarding Maher, although he doesn't directly mention The Board or the DHS, the whole point of his monologue is that it is YOUR job to protect yourself by sifting through the (mis)information and opinions on social media, and not someone else's (your mother, Twitter, the government, or Twitter under pressure or orders from the government). After watching the clip, do you really think that Maher is okay with the formation of The Board?
(05-08-2022, 04:29 PM)Dill Wrote: Do millions of U.S. voters groomed to act on Fox/Trump prompts (NOT the “fake news”)—prompts easily mimicked on social media by our adversaries—pose a threat to national security and democracy worth addressing?
Yes. All due respect to your examples, but they aren't really necessary to reach that conclusion, imho.
(05-08-2022, 04:29 PM)Dill Wrote: In this context, is public education designed to challenge mal-and disinformation the greater threat?
Public education designed to challenge misinformation... well, on its face, no. I am very much for challenging misinformation in varying different ways, and that can include education. The problem though appears to be that doing this by a government-run board like described, it is not done in an apolitical manner. At least many doubt it would be, and those people include me. I don't really like to be, but in the end I'm with SSF, StrictlyBiz and others on this one.
Eg. they are quite right, this board probably would have called the Hunter Biden stories misinformation (turned out that in some parts they were not), meaning the government would have done so. And then all good intentions in the end lead to a ministry of propaganda, that also serves in the interest of the presidential party and bends the facts in their favor, uses real power to do so, plus has no real credibility. That, imho, is not the way to do it. Even more so when Trump or anyone like Trump regains power and uses this instrument.
But these debates in the end always lead me to the point that there's a reason why so many non-liberal people are so willingly swallowing each and every anti-liberal talking point. Imho it's not just them being them, but there's an external factor to that, it being that so many liberals feel and outright claim they are the side of reason, decency, humanity, intelligence etc and therefore the other side are those primitive, backwards rubes that oppose those noble things. From observing debates, I can understand why there's so much anger towards the liberal side that imho often reeks of sheer arrogance.
And in the end, creating such a board plays right into that narrative. At the very least it deepens the trenches even further. At least that's my take.
(05-09-2022, 10:45 AM)hollodero Wrote: Do millions of U.S. voters groomed to act on Fox/Trump prompts (NOT the “fake news”)—prompts easily mimicked on social media by our adversaries—pose a threat to national security and democracy worth addressing?
Yes. All due respect to your examples, but they aren't really necessary to reach that conclusion, imho.
Clearly, a significant portion of the U.S. electorate would answer "no" to my question.
In answering "no," they keep alive the real possibility of another, more vindictive Trump presidency, or falling short of that, the GOP rendering the country ungovernable as a superminority.
But you answered "yes," so iyho what is or would be necessary to "reach that conclusion," to address the disinformation?
You said you were all for challenging misinformation, but rule out a "government run board" focused on external security threats.
Whatever we have now isn't working, so what might?
I suspect a difference between us may be that I see NOT addressing the disinformation as a far greater threat to continued free
speech than a DHS Dept. of Disinformation.
(05-09-2022, 11:19 AM)Dill Wrote: Clearly, a significant portion of the U.S. electorate would answer "no" to my question.
In answering "no," they keep alive the real possibility of another, more vindictive Trump presidency, or falling short of that, the GOP rendering the country ungovernable as a superminority.
But you answered "yes," so iyho what is or would be necessary to "reach that conclusion," to address the disinformation?
You said you were all for challenging misinformation, but rule out a "government run board" focused on external security threats.
Yeah because the noble ends do not justify questionable means to that end. That's why I do not follow through with your logic here. For in the end, you could just as well say misinformation is such a grave threat that the government should have the right to prison people for untruths. These untruths being such an existential danger, after all. - I am full aware that the board in question is nowhere near that hypothetical extreme. But your argument could just as well be used for justifying said extreme, and hence I do not see it as a a particularly convincing one.
For sure, I can not really answer your question on what to do instead. My approach often is to stop the conviction terror and to not be so arrogant towards the conservatives, that might lead to an actual conversation instead of trading insults and digging in. I get why that does not fare well with you, for you do not really see this arrogance as part of the problem the way I do. I also have to acknowledge that it is a tough ask to not be arrogant towards people that claim Trump is the savior, a genius, the smartest person on earth who never lies and so on. To me, your system created the perfect everlasting rift and Trump is the perfect specimen for it. He's actually everything the liberals perceive republicans to be. But one could try to be better still, especially with those that also dislike Trump (or say the style Trump represents), but just dislike liberals even more. Which imho are more people than the actual Trump fans.
So yeah, the actual answer is to get rid of this extremely toxic two-party system, which imho is the root of many of these issues. But that will not happen, can never happen, so this is a hypothetical with no value. Other ideas might be getting money out of politics and lending different parties some defined space on the network channels and the papers instead, but yeah that is a hypothetical with no real value too. I really have no good idea (though I think the misinformation does get addressed plenty, people just do not listen to it), in fact I turned cynical and think the US is doomed to go down the authoritarian path and there's no solution. I just claim a government-run board is not a good idea either, for reasons already stated (first and foremost, despite all good primary intentions in the end such a board can very well be used as a viable tool to cement said authoritarian path).
![[Image: 4CV0TeR.png]](https://i.imgur.com/4CV0TeR.png)
and is exactly Krystal Ball's take. It definitely opened my eyes and made me think quite a bit. It's quite obvious once you see it, and both sides do it. 