“Illogical Republican Accusations”: Hillary Clinton’s Blood Clot Isn’t A Benghazi Conspiracy
Hillary Clinton’s impressive career should, on paper, be a sign of women’s advancement in public policy and in society as a whole. That was until her detractors accused her of a higher-level version of the feigned “I have a headache” dodge.
Clinton is recovering from a blood clot in her brain. It’s a scary development, but her doctors say she is making a good recovery. But the chronology of her illness has spurred an absurd series of conspiracy theories, largely centered on the insulting idea that she was lying about being sick so she could avoid testifying before Congress about the Benghazi attacks.
It started with a fall, which Clinton’s staff attributed to dehydration from the flu. The fall led to a concussion. Treatment and testing after the concussion revealed a blood clot in Clinton’s brain, a condition for which she is being given blood thinners. The snide and illogical accusations when Clinton fell—that she was faking so she didn’t have to go to the grown-up version of a high school trigonometry test—look even more ridiculous now. And they follow the same politically-driven theories about the State Department’s handling of the Benghazi episode itself.
Initial intelligence from the attacks was that the episode stemmed from outrage in the Middle East over an Internet video of a film—actually, a “film,”—that denigrated Muslims. Later, intelligence showed that it was a planned attack. Those two assessments are not necessarily mutually exclusive; it could have been a planned attack accelerated by spontaneous anger over the film. But detractors of the Obama administration, hoping to turn a tragedy into a scandal that would fell President Obama’s re-election campaign, made it into a conspiracy by the State Department to trick the American people. They did manage to end the potential nomination of United Nations ambassador Susan Rice to replace Clinton at State, saying Rice misled the American public. Yet Rice was merely doing what public officials do in cases like this—delivering the information the administration had received from the intelligence community (and it borders on delusional to think that the Benghazi episode would make the difference for Mitt Romney in the presidential campaign).
In fact, it’s not surprising that early intelligence from any tumultuous event would be wrong or incomplete. That’s the nature of early assessments. People report what they know at the time, and it’s not always a full picture. It doesn’t make it a lie.
The same is true for Clinton’s illness. First, it’s laughable that Clinton—who has faced relentless scrutiny as a public figure on everything from her health care proposals to her marriage to her hair—is scared of a bunch of congressmen. And those who now question whether we were all given the full story on Clinton’s illness when it first surfaced are guilty of the same conspiracy mindset as those who think the Obama administration deliberately lied in the early hours after the Benghazi attack.
Serious illnesses aren’t always identified at the first symptom, which may not look like the symptom of something dangerous at all. Fainting could mean you have low blood pressure or are dehydrated. Or, it could be something more—there’s simply no way to know until a patient is tested. The only question here is whether Clinton’s initial fall was caused by the blood clot or her flu, but that doesn’t suggest a misinformation campaign. The woman has traveled nearly a million miles in her four years as Secretary of State. If there’s a surprise here, it’s that she didn’t pass out a long time ago from sheer exhaustion.
The technology exists for instant communication, and that has given people the impression that facts will be clear at the same pace. Stories take longer to unfold than that—whether it’s an attack on a U.S. mission or an illness.
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. News and World Report, January 2, 2013
“Lessons Not Learned”: Republicans Who Put Principle Above Country
A lot of the time, politics is about picking the least worst option. Well, the “fiscal cliff” deal jointly crafted by Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was the least worst option, and those who voted against it should not hide behind any phony commitment to principle. This deal or nothing were the two options left after weeks of failed negotiations. Nothing else was possible last night. And while nothing about the deal makes America stronger, the absence of an agreement would make us weaker.
The GOP needs to be the party of low taxes and smaller government. This deal produces the opposite of that. It does nothing to slow spending, reduce the debt or diminish dependency. All it did was avoid a financial shot to the head for millions of U.S. taxpayers.
Of course it is easy to oppose the deal when you don’t consider context, the alternatives and the consequences of doing nothing. It is convenient to believe that, if the GOP had let us go over the cliff, it would have been so bad for so many taxpayers and for the economy that the president and the Democrats in Congress would have agreed to a better deal, including spending reform. In other words, taxpayers were being held hostage and if we would have let them endure a little torture, we could have gotten Obama and the Democrats to cave in to our will.
What a bunch of baloney. The Republicans who voted “no” hid behind the courage of those who recognized that the McConnell-Biden deal was better — at this time — than the consequences of doing nothing.
Obviously, America’s future depends on our ability to rein in spending. Fights over our spending, including the debt-ceiling debate, will be critical. But no Republicans should boast of their opposition to the McConnell-Biden deal and consider themselves more philosophically pure or more courageous than their colleagues who had to vote for the bill. They are the opposite.I hope party leaders will band together and punish any Republican or Republican organization that tries to use this vote against those who voted for it. Nobody should be vulnerable in a future primary because they voted “yes” last night. If anything, the lesson learned for Republicans should be how hard it’s going to be to get our financial house in order and slow the quickening decline of America.
By: Ed Rogers, The Insiders, The Washington Post, January 2, 2012
“Beating Back The Insurgency”: House Passes Fiscal Deal, Sends Agreement To White House
Seven hours ago, House Republicans were fired up and ready to kill the bipartisan fiscal agreement that the Senate passed easily last night. Tonight, however, the House passed the Senate deal relatively easily, 257 to 167.
House Speaker John Boehner was, as expected, forced to ignore the arbitrary, so-called “Hastert Rule,” and bring the bill to the floor despite the opposition of most of the majority caucus. By the time the gavel fell, however, it was far more than a sliver of House GOP members who bit the bullet and grudgingly supported the compromise — 85 Republicans voted for the bill tonight, while 151 voted against it.
Of particular interest was the division among GOP leaders. Boehner and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan voted for the Senate compromise, while House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy voted against it.
The rumors of sharp fissures among Republican leaders are true, and Boehner and Cantor are obviously not on the same page. It’s a dynamic that’s well worth watching as the new Congress gets underway, and the House GOP leadership tries to govern with an even smaller caucus.
Regardless, while Boehner surely wished he enjoyed more support from his own members, Cantor does not end the evening looking especially strong — he briefly led the insurgency against the fiscal agreement this afternoon, and ignored the wishes of his own Speaker, but the effort to derail the deal ended up failing badly.
President Obama, who will sign the completed agreement quite soon, is scheduled to speak from the White House briefing room any minute now.
But as the dust settles, it’s worth considering how the day unfolded in the House. The GOP caucus gathered for a preliminary, midday meeting at which Republicans insisted on “amending” the bipartisan bill — making it far more favorable to the right — and then sending it back to the Senate with an ultimatum: pass the House version or else.
But by the time House Republicans gathered for a rare evening meeting, the push behind the effort had fizzled, and the earlier threats started to look like empty bluster. So, what happened? A few things, actually.
First, GOP members realized that amending the Senate package would necessarily unravel the entire process, and there would be no doubt in anyone’s mind who would receive — and deserve — the blame for higher taxes and sweeping austerity measures that would do real harm to the economy: House Republicans.
Second, there was limited support for an amended bill, anyway. Remember, Boehner’s “Plan B,” which died an ignominious death just two weeks ago, set the higher marginal income tax threshold at a $1 million and included all kinds of right-wing goodies intended to secure Republican support. It failed miserably. The amended Senate bill would have set the threshold at $450,000 and it would have generated zero Democratic votes. It quickly became apparent that the proposal couldn’t pass, and wasn’t worth pursuing.
The clock only made matters worse — GOP leaders, having already missed the New Year’s Eve deadline, maintained they wanted to wrap this up well in advance of financial markets opening in the morning.
And that left the House with a choice: either pass or kill the deal. With the help of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her disciplined caucus, the chamber chose the former.
One other thought to keep in mind as members head to the cameras tonight: House Republicans had no say in shaping this deal, but that was by design. I saw Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) complain this afternoon that he thinks the Senate acted like a “dictatorship” that wants to rule over the House.
Let’s not forget recent history — which is to say, the history from last week. The White House worked with the Speaker and his office on a compromise, and Boehner abandoned the talks. A few days later, Boehner’s caucus abandoned him, leaving a scenario in which the entire chamber was lost and directionless.
And it was at that point, the Speaker announced, “Now it is up to the president to work with Senator Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff.” In other words, the House GOP leadership gave up and ceded power to the Senate and the White House.
House Republicans weren’t really in a position to wait until Jan. 1 and then decide it had changed its mind about who deserved to have a hand in crafting a bipartisan agreement. The Senate didn’t play the role of a “dictatorship”; it simply did the work the House was unable and unwilling to do.
And now, the process is over, and the bill heads to the White House for the president’s signature. We’ll have plenty more coverage in the morning.
BY: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, January 1, 2012
“I’m Not Holding My Breath”: Will Republicans Apologize For Accusing Hillary Clinton Of Faking Concussion
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital to undergo treatment for a blood clot, a potentially serious condition stemming from a concussion she suffered earlier this month. Aides say that Clinton, 65, is currently being treated with blood thinners, and that further action may be required to prevent the clot from worsening. In a worst-case scenario, the clot, if located in the head, could cause a brain hemorrhage.
The concussion forced Clinton to cancel weeks’ worth of engagements, including scheduled testimony before Congress on the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. Republicans have been highly critical of President Obama’s response to Benghazi, with many suggesting that the administration tried to cover up the incident. Clinton’s illness prompted several conservative commentators and prominent members of the GOP to speculate that she was faking her concussion to avoid testifying. John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, described Clinton’s condition as a “diplomatic illness.” Ousted Rep. Allen West (Fla.) said, “I’m not a doctor, but it seems as though — that the secretary of state has come down with a case of Benghazi flu.” Charles Krauthammer, the influential conservative columnist, told Sean Hannity of Fox News that Clinton had likely come down with “acute Benghazi allergy,” which led Hannity to respond, “Let’s see the medical report on that.” Other conservative news outlets also demanded a medical report.
Now that Clinton’s condition has taken a more worrisome turn, will these Republicans offer their apologies? “I’m not holding my breath,” says PBS’s Jeff Greenfield. The fake Clinton concussion will probably join a long list of conservative conspiracy theories that, despite overwhelming evidence to contrary, continue to thrive in certain corners of the GOP (see: Obama was born in Kenya, the polls are skewed, et al.). Indeed, it’s just as likely that the fake Clinton concussion will morph into the fake Clinton blood clot.
By: Ryu Spaeth, The Week, December 31, 2012
“A Pig By Any Name Is Still A Pig”: Why Congress Cannot Operate Without The Bribing Power Of Earmarks
It seemed like a great victory at the time.
After years of federal taxpayer dollars being misappropriated to pay for pet projects in the districts of congressmen and senators looking to curry political favor with the voters back home, a moratorium was passed in 2011 ending the Congressional pork parade known as “earmarking”.
It appeared to make sense. Federal taxpayers had grown sick and tired of paying the bill for something like the construction and renovation of a botanical garden project in Brooklyn, New York when such a project, obviously, had nothing to do with core federal objectives, serving only to improve the re-election prospects of the Congresswoman who brought the money home to Brooklyn—along with the few Americans who spend their Saturday’s enjoying a picnic in the greatly improved botanical gardens at your expense and mine.
While the concept of earmarking—at the outset—had merit in that it compensated for the inability of the executive branch, who proposes the federal budget, to fully understand what might be rightfully required to achieve federal objectives in a state far away from the nation’s capital, earmarking quickly devolved into a system of vote-buying where a Member of Congress, reluctant to cast a vote for a particular piece of legislation, could be ‘persuaded’ to do so if enough pork was piled onto that Member’s plate in the effort to satisfy an important constituency at home.
Let’s face it—at a point, almost any elected official’s objection to a bill or judicial appointment will crumble when offered enough goodies to ensure endless re-election to office because the elected official is bringing home the bacon to the voters who hold his or her fate in their collective hands.
So, when the Senate and the House of Representatives agreed to end the earmarking process a few years ago, it certainly appeared to be a positive step in the direction of gaining a little control over wasteful government spending and a move towards bringing a bit of honestly to the process of government.
But what actually happened?
For starters, if you believe we have done away with the concept of earmarking money for special projects back home—thing again. The earmark moratorium has brought forward an even more insidious process called “lettermarking” where Congressional slush funds are created as tools for funding pet projects without even the limited accountability and public information that came with earmarking. While earmarks required publication of a pork project—along with the amount of taxpayer money being spent and identification of the elected official proposing the earmark—lettermarking allows for such expenditures without any identification of the project, sum and sponsoring legislator whatsoever.
Additionally, we now find that when an elected official is unsuccessful in convincing an agency of the executive branch to contribute money to a pet project, that official often turns to blackmailing the agency involved by threatening to cast a vote to deny some Administration objective. This is precisely what occurred when Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) threatened to block Obama administration appointments unless money was provided for a harbor dredging project in his home state.
But something even more insidious has followed the ban on earmarking—
Without the persuasive powers of the political ‘carrot’, congressional leaders and the President no longer have the ‘stick’ required to move Congress to get anything of significance accomplished.
The moratorium on earmarks went into existence in February 2011. Since that time we have seen some of the greatest legislative fails in the history of the nation, highlighted by the debt ceiling fiasco of 2011, the inability to pass a jobs bill, an ever-increasing vacancy rate in the federal judiciary as one nominee after another is shelved and, of course, the current fiscal cliff clunker that might be the most embarrassing and damaging display of congressional incompetence of all.
One cannot help but wonder if our current inability to legislate our way out of a paper bag might be different were party leaders and the President to, once again, be free to avail themselves of the one thing that could always win the hearts and minds of elected officials who care, first and foremost, for their own jobs—a healthy and legal bribe.
If the fiscal cliff fiasco has taught us anything, it is that our elected officials no longer even pretend to place the needs of the nation ahead of their own—to quote Mel Brooks—phony baloney jobs. Does anyone imagine that it is a coincidence that Speaker John Boehner has disappeared into the background in the final days of the fiscal cliff debate so as to avoid another misstep that might cost him the Speakership? Does anyone doubt that Boehner’s inability to deliver his own caucus’ support for his ill-conceived “Plan B” is the direct result of special interest groups—such as Club For Growth—whose political contributions are the life-blood that flows into the treasure chests of the more extreme elements of Boehner’s GOP caucus and remain the only carrot of any value when it comes to winning the affections of Congressional Members ?
Indeed, the only politician involved in this game of political chicken who appears to have a reason to actually put the public before politics would be the President—not because he is above playing the game, but because he no longer has to run for political office.
Accordingly, as we head into the new Congress and the expiration of the earmark moratorium, should we not be questioning whether the ban on earmarks has delivered the results that were intended? If Congress has already found a way around the ban—and is doing so by using a process that is even less transparent than what we previously had in place—maybe we would be better off simply accepting that our government only works when legalized, congressional bribery is allowed to more easily enter into the equation.
Cynical? Absolutely.
But how is it any more cynical than a political system that welcomes the bribery offered up by special interests in the guise of huge and often unlimited campaign contributions that benefit incumbents in exchange for their vote—particularly if the cost of earmarks to the taxpayer is far less than the cost to taxpayers when our legislators refuse to act, despite knowing that their inaction will cost our economy, and therefore our taxpayers, even more money?
According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, the cost of earmarks to taxpayers in 2010 totaled $15.9 billion dollars—a drop in the bucket when compared to the economic losses resulting from the failure of Congress to act rationally during the 2011 debt ceiling drama or what we stand to suffer if government cannot find a little courage as we hang over the edge of the fiscal cliff.
Accordingly, while returning to earmarks may mean a return to wasteful spending of taxpayer money on projects that bring no benefit to the nation as a whole, it could also mean saving even more money than is wasted by avoiding the financial setbacks that come with endless debt ceiling debacles and fiscal cliff fumbles.
Until we decide to completely remove the systematic rigging of elections to favor incumbents—which is precisely what earmarks seek to do as does the unlimited money that flows to incumbents from the myriad of special interests who call the shots in Washington—we may as well give in and allow the system to, at the least, function.
Conversely, if you are offended and troubled by earmarks—and you should be—you should be equally offended and troubled by the special interest groups that have taken their place. When incumbents cannot gain an advantage over challengers by bringing home the pork, they will go for the next best thing—enough campaign cash to allow them to outspend their challengers at election time.
To get rid of one without getting rid of the other makes no sense. At least earmarks produce legislation that might protect and create jobs for taxpayers while unlimited campaign money produces only jobs for elected officials themselves.
By: Rick Ungar, Op-Ed Contributor, Forbes, December 29, 2012
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