At The Pillory Clinton Hearing

At The Pillory Clinton Hearing.

Morning Session:

Elijah Cummings (D -- Maryland):  Remember a couple of hearings ago when Darrell Issa was a lying dick about this same question?

Hillary Clinton:  Vaguely.  We were all so young then.

Susan Brooks (R -- Indiana):  I have many piles of emails from different years.  We have weighed and counted them.  This one is big.  This other one is small.  Why are they different and why do you hate Murrica?

Hillary Clinton:   I don't do most of my business on email.  Let me now explain to you -- slowly and using little words -- how the office of Secretary of State is different from you texting your BFFs on the SnapChat about what you had for breakfast.

Martha Roby (R-Alabama):    I will now make a speech about how you didn't care about Murrica, Libya or Ambassador Stevens.  Look at the piles, Mrs. Clinton!  Look at the piles!  I also have here an unconfirmed, unattributed email between two staffers who are gossiping on email about what one of them thinks they overheard.   Why won't you just admit that you hate America?

Hillary Clinton:  Are you fucking kidding me?

Martha Roby (R-Alabama):    I will now continue to dwell on the this hearsay email between two unnamed staffers.  Damning, Mrs. Clinton!  Damning!

Hillary Clinton (peeling an apple with a bayonet):  What's that now?  I'm afraid I got distracted by your incompetence.

Martha Roby (R-Alabama):    Don't you agree that these are damning, Mrs. Clinton!  Damning! 

Hillary Clinton:  What are their names again?

Martha Roby (R-Alabama):    Look at tab 38!  Look at it! 

Hillary Clinton:  Just read me the damn names little girl.

Martha Roby (R-Alabama):  Rosencratz.  And -- I may be mispronouncing this --  Guilderstern. 

Hillary Clinton:  They're not on my staff.

Martha Roby (R-Alabama):  But...  but... 

Hillary Clinton:  They're not on my staff.  And I'm not going to comment on what two lunch ladies in the State Department cafeteria may or may not have heard.

Martha Roby (R-Alabama):  But...  but... Tab 38! 

Hillary Clinton (resumes peeling the apple).

Martha Roby (R-Alabama): I'm out of time. 

Hillary Clinton:  Ain't that just the truest fucking thing you clowns have said all day.

Tammy Duckworth (D - Illinois):  Haters gonna hate, but there were problems.

Hillary Clinton:  True dat.

Tammy Duckworth (D - Illinois): So what has been done to make our people safer?

Hillary Clinton:  I'm glad you asked!  Here's a long list...

Adam Smith (D-Washington): Fucking reruns again, amirite?

Hillary Clinton:   Damn skippy.  And not even good ones.  This is like being forced to watch Season Two of True Detective over and over again.

Adam Smith (D-Washington):  “Maybe it’s just a little too close to sucking a robot’s dick.”

Hillary Clinton:  Boom.

Adam Smith (D-Washington):  One final question -- How badly does GOP continually sabotaging the budget screw up the State Department?

Hillary Clinton (rolls eyes):  These children can't take care of their basic responsibilities.  Makes us look kinda stupid to the rest of the world.

Update 1:

Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas):  I will now dazzle you with my math skills.  Which I learned.  In Kansas.  The people of which have many question.

Hillary Clinton:  You learned math in Kansas?  My hat's off to you.

Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas):   Sidney.....Blumenthal!

Hillary Clinton:  Do you have a question?

Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas):   No.  I just like saying " Sidney.....Blumenthal".  Who is a friend of yours and whose email you read.

Hillary Clinton:  Yes?  I guess?

Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas): Here is a meaningless chart which I made up.   And I have another chart.

Hillary Clinton:  Ok.

Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas): Here are some pictures of people you don't know which will prove that your people were in league with ... Al Qaeda.

Hillary Clinton:  Which of my people and what now?

Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas): Aha!

Linda Sanchez (D -- California):  Was " Sidney.....Blumenthal" your primary go-to guy regarding Libya as every one of these Republican knuckleheads have been saying for months now.

Hillary Clinton:  No.

Linda Sanchez (D -- California):  Who were your Libya experts?

Hillary Clinton:  I have a long list (reads list).

Linda Sanchez (D -- California):  Here's a clip from "Meet the Press" exposing Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas) as a big, stinky liar.  What do you think of that clip.

Hillary Clinton:  I cannot attest to Representative Pompeo's stink.  The rest of it is obviously and self-evidently true.  To everyone.  Except, apparently, the people of Kansas. 

Linda Sanchez (D -- California):  WTF are we doing here?

Update 2:

Jim Jordan (R-Ohio):  But there was no video!  What about the video!  Who started this false narrative? J'accuse!

driftglass aside -- 

I case you are wondering WTF hysterical idiot Jim Jordan is shouting about, early on the wingnuts latched onto a few statements that some State Department officials made about an inflammatory video which had caused several protests in the region and during a time when there information was incomplete was unclear and contradictory.  This is the "long form" birth certificate of the Benghazi Truthers: a completely non-existent "cover-up" which clowns who have had their skulls hollowed out and filled with Fox News poo will take as gospel until they day they die.

 -- end aside.  

Hillary Clinton:  Jesus you're a moron, Jimmy.  I wrote an entire chapter addressing this question in my book.  I'll send you a copy.  Now let me speak to you calmly as one would a hysterical child to explain exactly what happened and why we did what we did.

Jim Jordan (R-Ohio):  But I read a sliver of an out-of-context email!  What more proof do you need?

Hillary Clinton:  I'm sorry the facts don't fit your fairy tale, Congressman.

Adam Schiff (D-California):  This mountain of unimpeachable facts prove  that this hearing was bought and paid-for by the "Stop Hillary PAC" and everyone damn well knows it.  And nothing about this will ever be "final" because the witch-hunters will never allow it.  They're out to hang you personally.  Period.

Update 3:

After which, Trey Gowdy (R-Dog Patch) went full Jeremy Jamm, obsessing over Sidney Blumenthal, parsing the meaning of "unsolicited" to death and insinuating all kindsa nonsense

Trey Gowdy (R-Dog Patch): Did you or did you not tell Sidney Blumenthal to -- and I quote -- "Have a nice day" in three separate emails! 

Then, Elijah Cummings and Adam Schiff made Trey Gowdy eat a bag of poo, demanding that, if Gowdy was going to slander Blumenthal in-absentia based on leaked emails, why not release Blumenthal's whole transcript, to provide context and in which he defends himself? The parliamentarian said it was cool and anyway, as the chairman, Gowdy has the power to do anything he want to do

Gowdy Doody clearly did not want any of it, and took the whole thing right into to sewer, promising dire vengeance later in the day and insisting that Schiff and Cummings don't give a damn about dead Americans or their families.

Then, lunch time!  

Update 4:  Lunch is over.

Trey Gowdy (R - Dog Patch):  This is not a prosecution.  Not!  Now...on with the prosecution. Before I use the magic conjure words "Huma Abedin" I would like to reinvoke the magic conjure words "Sidney Blumenthal".

Hillary Clinton:  I get lots of email from lots of people. Also people talk to me on the street, and friends send me newspaper clippings and pea soup recipes.

Trey Gowdy (R - Dog Patch):  The question is not who Chris Steves talked to: the question is who has access to you.  For example, do you deny that you had many, many emails from a certain "Nigerian Prince" in your email in-box? 

Hillary Clinton: There were processes in place to deal with lots of things, including providing assistance to our embassies. 

Trey Gowdy (R - Dog Patch): But what about the Nigerian Prince !?!

Hillary Clinton:  Your head looks funny.  Do you cut your own hair?  Do you have to use special tools, like a cheese grater or lemon zester? 

Linda Sanchez (D-California):  The chairman waited a year and spent 5 million dollars to get you here, and now he is fapping around over the meaning of "unsolicited", Sidney Blumenthal, Media Matters, and a lot of other bullshit Fox News talking points. 

Hillary Clinton: I cannot speak to what the chairman is doing with his tiny hands under the desk.

Linda Sanchez (D-California): Did Ambassador Stevens know a lot about Libya and give you advice about Libya?

Hillary Clinton: Yep.

Linda Sanchez (D-California): Is it true that Ambassador Stevens knew that Libya was dangerous and yet strongly advocated our continued presence there? 

Hillary Clinton: Yep.

Susan Brooks (R-Indiana):  Libya, I'm sure you would agree, is a country in the world. Here is a map.  There are many cities in Libya.  Also waterways and beaches.  Their major import is pie.  Their major export is emails.  Would you agree that Libya is a Land of Contrasts?

Hillary Clinton: Sure.

Susan Brooks (R-Indiana):  Why wasn't Chris Stevens at  your meeting with Ambassador Cretz?  Wasn't Chris Steven your expert on Libya?

Hillary Clinton: Ambassador Cretz was also an expert on Libya.  He was, y'know, the ambassador.

Susan Brooks (R-Indiana):  I have no idea how humor works or how humans respond in emails, so I will continue to read everything in every email with implied Ominous Hamster Gopher Music.

Adam Smith (D-Washington):  Just to clarify, Ambassador Stevens talked to you often, right?

Hillary Clinton:  Yep.

Adam Smith (D-Washington):   And Ambassador Stevens never recommended that we bail out of Libya, right?

Hillary Clinton: Yep.

Adam Smith (D-Washington):   Weird isn't it that this committee has prioritized  Huma Abedin and Sidney Blumenthal's emails above everything else?

Hillary Clinton: Weird indeed.

Adam Smith (D-Washington):  Also too, this damn well is a "prosecution" and everyone damn well knows it.  The story these wingnuts are trying to sell is that you, personally, decided to not do your job in Libya just because.  You, for whatever reason, just decided to let your friend and three other people die because...wheeeee!

Hillary Clinton gave a very moving account of what happened the night of the attack  Here is what Famous Hollywood Actor and noted unhinged person, James Wood, took away from that account:

So basically Mrs Clinton finally got us to understand that Chris Stevens killed himself. #BengahziHearing

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) October 22, 2015

On with the sham!

Trey Gowdy (R-Dog Patch):  Democraps suck.  They pissed away $50 million on training five ISIS fighters but won't lift a finger to save Murricans.

Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas):   Yes indeed, Democraps on this committee sure do Hate Murrica!  For example they refuse to cross-examine this horrible, horrible woman about how she had Chris Stevens murdered like Vince Foster and instead insist on talking about what a partisan sham this partisan sham has been. Also Sidney Blumenthal has been to your house but Chris Stevens never even got a dinner!

Hillary Clinton:  As I recall Sid and I watched secret Planned Parenthood videos, cackled about all the money we we're gonna make selling babies parts and quoted Saul Alinsky back and forth to each other until we passed out drunk from Commie vodka.  Also Hail Hydra!

Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas):   What about your people's secret collusion with... Al Qaeda!

Hillary Clinton:This is the best you got?  Jesus.  Better get used to saying "Madam President".

Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas):  Are all ARPS created equal?

Hillary Clinton: This is the best you got?  Jesus, people.  

Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas):   Leaders lead!

Hillary Clinton:  Damn right, so you better get used to wrapping your mouth around the words "Madam President".

Next up, Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois) -- Good stuff.

Then...

Peter Roskum (R-Illinois): Isn't it true that you toppled the Qaddafi regime to advance your political career?

Hillary Clinton: No.

Peter Roskum (R-Illinois): Sure you say that, but isn't it true anyway?

Hillary Clinton: No.

Peter Roskum (R-Illinois): Didn't Sidney Blumenthal tell you to get on camera immediately?

Hillary Clinton: But that never happened.

Peter Roskum (R-Illinois): But you might have thought about it, so don't you agree that you toppled the Qaddafi regime to advance your political career? You were on the Sunday shows for God's sake!

Hillary Clinton: I have no idea what the hell any of that has to do with why we are supposed to be here.

Update 5: In which Adam Schiff breaks out the napalm

Lynn Westmorland (R-Georgia):  I'm kinda tired.

Hillary Clinton:  We're all kinda tired.

Lynn Westmorland (R-Georgia):  Gonna take a little nap now.  But first, let's parse the word "robust".  Row-bust.  Row.   Bust.  That's kind of a "woody" word innit?  Woody.

Hillary Clinton:  O...k.

Lynn Westmorland (R-Georgia): By the way, why did you stand by and let all them poor folks die?   Bazinga!  You thought I was gonna take a nap but a din't take a nap!

Hillary Clinton:  Let me explain all of this one more time.

Lynn Westmorland (R-Georgia): So...what did you do exactly?  Y'know. In Benghazi? What was your job again?

Hillary Clinton (Sighs.  Patiently answers the same question for the 1000th time)

Adam Schiff (D-California):   The reason my Republican colleagues do not want the Sidney Blumenthal's transcript released to the public is because they do not want the public to know what they asked him.  They have been up here all day piously swearing that this is not a partisan exercise and not intended to target you.  Which is bullshit.  I don't have the power to release the Blumenthal transcript, but I can tell you by the numbers that there were almost no questions about Benghazi or security or foreign policy, but hundreds of questions about the Clinton Foundation, Media Matters and Mr. Blumenthal's business dealings.

I'm glad we stayed because these ambulatory Fox News talking point dispensers need someone around to call them on their bullshit.

Jim Jordan (R-Ohio):  But what about the video!  Huh?  Huh?

Jesus, this again.  This freak wants to be Sean Hannity's pocket square in the worst way. Representative  Jordan excitedly bounces up and down in his chair and wanking himself off on camera, quoting -- second by second -- emails from was  happening in the first, confusing hours after the attack as if he had just found the Lindbergh baby in Hillary's purse.

Finally...

Hillary Clinton:  This was all explained thoroughly and in depth in previous witch-hunts.  Don't you freaks read your old porn?

Final Update: Peter "Baseless Accusations Pulled Out Of My Ass" Roskum (R-Illinois) is up at bat again.

Peter Roskum (R-Illinois):  Based on the weigh of various piles of emails, the voices in my head and stuff that my feeble-minded shut-in constituents write in the Breitbart comment section, my theory is that you are a sneaky-sneakypants whose secret motives for overthrowing Qaddafi were sneaky and terrible.  Isn't that true!?!

Hillary Clinton:  (Attempts to answer question)

Peter Roskum (R-Illinois):  Yadda yadda yadda! This is what you do with warnings! (Rips a piece of paper).

Hillary Clinton:  It looks like you just ripped up the cover sheet for your TPS report.  I wouldn't want to be in your shoes when Lumbergh find out.  Also ... (attempts to answer question)

Peter Roskum (R-Illinois):  Oh that's your answer?  Hit "resend"?

Hillary Clinton: (Attempts to answer question)

Peter Roskum (R-Illinois):  You created an environment where you refused to listen.

Hillary Clinton: (Attempts to answer question)

Peter Roskum then reads a fictional statement which Petey thinks Chris Stevens should have written damning Hillary Clinton for her faithlessness and for getting him killed.

Peter Roskum (R-Illinois):  Don't you agree with the imaginary deathbed accusations I just made up?

Hillary Clinton: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, no.

I'd like to say that Roskum's display was as shameful a parade of ugly as I have seen from an elected official in a long time, but that would not be true.  Roskum is just another Republican.  They're all like this now, staying alive by feeding gobbets of rotting meat to the Pig People who keep them in office.

On the plus side, this reeks of desperation.  The Neo-Know Nothing Party is down 3-0 in the series, It's the bottom of the 8th and they're down 22-0 and their fans are headed for the exits.

Tammy Duckworth (D - Illinois) was thoughtful and substantive.

Susan Brooks (R -- Indiana):  Prove that you cared about Chris Stevens!  Prove it!

Linda Sanchez (D-California): Sorry for my colleagues, Hillary.  They're used to just making shit up and pretending it's real when Reality doesn't line up with their fairy tales.

Hillary Clinton:  Meh,  Republicans -- can't live with 'em...

Linda Sanchez (D-California): Is there a second part of that saying?

Hillary Clinton: Nope.

Linda Sanchez (D-California): For context, could you shed some light on the mishegoss that was going on all over the region that you were keeping tabs on.

Hillary Clinton does, in great detail.

Martha Roby (R-Alabama): The night of the attack, after you abandoned your post and snuck home, was your lover Sidney Blumenthal there?

Hillary Clinton:  Hahahahaha!

Martha Roby (R-Alabama): I don't see what's funny about asking than.

Hillary Clinton:  Of course you don't, you poor little windup killbot.

Martha Roby (R-Alabama):   I'm now going to read a long list of names and demand that you tell me exactly where they were and what they were thinking on the night of the attack.

Adam Smith (D-Washington):   I know the Wingnut Inquisition keeps chastising me for pointing out that this is an Inquisition, but here we are.   Asking the same ridiculous questions, making the same wild, ludicrous accusations.  Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with these people?

Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) would like Hillary Clinton to swear that she will defenstrate herself from atop the mountain of her email is the FBI if they find anything amiss anywhere.

Lynn Westmorland (R-Georgia) boldly picks up the "Baseless Accusations Pulled Out Of My Ass" baton from from Peter Roskum and runs with it.  Well, not "run" exactly.  More "wanders the committee room theorizin' in his best Foghorn Leghorn voice".

Adam Schiff (D-California):  Your testimony has now gone on longer than all the other hearings combined.  So congratulations, you win a free Subway sammich!  I would like to quote the chairman of this committee who said on Fox News that your emails don't have shit all to do with anything.

Speaker Boehner did not want to form this committee...but the Pig People demanded it.  And so while every Republican clown up here has been trying all day to be the one to get the "Gotcha!" they they can play on an infinite loop on Fox News, not one of them appears to give the tiniest damn about what happened in Benghazi, the people who were killed and what can be done to prevent it from happening again.

Elijah Cummings  (D-Side of the Angels):  Thank you for putting up with this nonsense.  We are better than this!  Our country is better than this.

Hillary Clinton closes gracefully and professionally.  I hope the statesmanship can overcome the partisanship.

Mike Pompeo (R-Kansas):   A lot of blah blah blah about human resources procedures.  And it sounded a little something like this...

Hillary Clinton:  All proper procedures were followed.

Trey Gowdy closed for the committee ny threatening to run the questioning out forever if he didn't get he meek compliance and proving that he is every bit the pissy little dick you knew he was.

By the end, Hillary Clinton was coming across like Jimmy Stewart in the last reel of "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" while her Republican inquisitors looked remarkably like the Defenders of the Faith from the Monkey Trial in the "Planet of the Apes":

They may not know it because the only people these Republicans answer to are the billionaires who own them, the teevee network who pimps them and the Pig People who vote for them, but Hillary Clinton destroyed them and laid to rest once and for all the fantasy that the Republican Party is a political party at all anymore.