Hot Lesbian Never Trumper Action Here!

File under: "History is Not Your Mommy".

A few days ago I noticed that all three of these Clinton-era three hobgoblins were top trending on Twitter and I had to double-check to make sure it wasn't 1995.

Nope. Still 2020.  Damn.

So put a pin in that and lets jump back in time a little more than 26 centuries to talk for a minute about history's most famous lesbian -- Sappho of Lesbos -- who was, during her time, one of the most popular and prolific lyric poets in ancient Greece.  Statues were erected in her honor.  Solon and Plato gave stirring speeches to her genius. She was considered Homer's equal, and frequently referred to simply as "The Poetess", just as Homer was "The Poet".

And yet today almost nothing is known of her life and of the 10,000 lines of her poetry -- which was widely read in antiquity -- only a few fragments survive.

Today, with a few clicks of the mouse from anywhere on the planet I could have a dozen different translations of Homer's  Iliad and Odyssey shipped to my home, so how exactly did Sappho's work suddenly all but vanish from history during 9th century?

One story holds that her collected works were put to the torch by leaders of the Catholic Church because they disapproved of her morals.  A more likely and less dramatic (but no less devastating) explanation is that copying manuscripts was hard work that used up a lot of papyrus, and the celibate, male, Catholic monks who were charged with preserving the written works on antiquity decided that the brilliant work of a long-dead lesbian poetess was not worth recording and passing along to future generations.

Because history is not a law of nature.

History is not physics. History is not plumbing.

And history is definitely not your Mommy.

History is not here to break up your stupid fights or clean up your messes.  It's not history's job to comfort you with promises of retroactively balancing the scales of justice decades from now.  History is not here to tell you that you're wonderful when the world knows you're not.  History is not here to comfort you with fairy tales about how, in the larger scheme of things, all the shit you did really wasn't so bad when the world knows it was.

Pick whichever quote you like --

"History is a set of lies agreed upon." -- Napoleon Bonaparte.

"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it." -- Winston Churchill.

"They got a name for the winners in the world.  I want a name when I lose." -- Steely Dan.

-- but it all comes down to the same thing.  "History" is what gets passed along.  "History" is whatever those with the power to interpret events and stamp their interpretation as "Official" chose it to be.  "History" is a brutal, never-ending barroom brawl over who gets to decide what really happened and why it really happened.

And right now the American political media is doing what they have always done in the face of existential threats to our democracy which they helped to create: expending enormous institutional energies to make sure that history lets them and their friends and fellow travelers off the hook.

Consider this chummy tribunal of well-paid, media insiders warning that naughty people may be laughing now, but the Righteous Judgement of History will definitely come for them and boy howdy are they gonna be sorry!

Rush transcript, with emphasis added:

MIKE BARNACLE:  Everything we're talking about, Parnas, Pompeo, Pence, Trump, all of this is being recorded by an element among us called history. In terms of history, the snap of a finger. The behavior of the Republicans in the united states senator in 1974, it's literally a first.

So my question to you, and to you, too, Rick, is what has happened to the institution, not just the Republicans, but specifically now in the Senate Republicans, what has happened to our institutions is Trump slowly altering things, maybe forever in this country?

RICK WILSON:  I wouldn't say slowly.

[OFF CAMERA] Hope not.

RICK WILSON:  Barnacle, I would say he's altered them profoundly and swiftly. The idea of standing up for your state or your district for a Republican particularly is gone. You're judged only if you're loyal to Trump or not. That's the only scoring system in the Republican party. And he has reduced Washington to this corrupt and sort of corrupted environment. Sort of corrupted environment.

KURT BARDELLA:  I think about being not just history like 1974, but their own history. I remember when he was investigating Benghazi. He put out a report saying security is a priority and the administration failed, that's why we're doing the investigation, that's why we are investigating Hillary Clinton. Where is that Mike Pompeo now when someone's security, an ambassador's, has been compromised? Where is Jim Jordan who was on that committee? All these Republicans turned away from their own history, it wasn't that long ago. It was six years ago they were doing this.

SCARBOROUGH:  As a "Morning Joe" contributor, give our viewers a firsthand look back to what it was like when it was Republicans that were investigating Barack Obama. The hypocrisy is staggering.

BARDELLA:  It is so different. I was thinking about the interview last night with Parnas. If something like that was going on when we were in charge of Congress, we would have had a subpoena out that night, wouldn't have waited until the next day. During that interview you would have breaking news, House Republican Darrell Issa subpoenas for testimony. When anything happened that hinted of potential scandal or impropriety with Obama, Republicans were the first to issue subpoenas, have hearings, do closed-door depositions, things they rail about now, they were a big fan of closed-door depositions when they were the majority, it is complete hypocrisy, seeing a different standard. Frankly, we never had close to the volume of evidence that we have now when we were going after them.

When I look at this clutch of media insiders, I spy with my little eye ... one longtime aide to Darrel Issa and former member of the Breitbart goon squad ... one human husk and plagiarist who is now in charge of refilling the Morning Joe Both Sides Do It water cooler every day (or, it is rumored, he is whipped through the streets by Mika Brzezinski) ... one straight-up, life-long Republican ratfucker who found that credulous Liberals would give him more wealth and fame and influence than he ever dreamed possible if he called Donald Trump a shithead ... and two hosts who boost Donald Trump's campaign ointo orbit by giving him million of dollars in free publicity and soft-soap "interviews" on their teevee show.

And all of them have clearly escaped the the Righteous Judgement of History by a very wide margin.

Or consider the case of George Conway, who made his bones as a pro-cancer lawyer working for Big Tobacco and as one of the Republican goons who tried to blow up the Clinton presidency by any means necessary.  Husband to Kellyanne Conway.  Running buddies with Anne Coulter.  And here he is now, cozy in his media sinecure, issuing dire warnings about how Righteous Judgement of History will surely come for naughty people in, oh, five or ten years...

"Republican senators need to look themselves in the mirror," @gtconway3d says, "and think of what it's going to be like 5 years from now, 10 years, what their legacies are going to be. This evidence is going to keep coming out. Truth has a way of coming out..." pic.twitter.com/V5yiPZWNLb

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) January 22, 2020

Or consider the case of a sweaty, bipedal  rodent named Reince Priebus who, if the Righteous Judgement of History were actually a thing, would be spending the rest of his miserable life going door-to-door begging the forgiveness of the American people.  But instead:

CBS hires Reince Priebus, whose firms work for the GOP, the Trump Organization, and lobbying clients

Reince Priebus is a Republican operative who is best-known for his humiliating tenure as President Donald Trump’s first White House chief of staff. Priebus now holds senior roles at affiliated lobbying and legal firms; his law firm is connected to the Trump Organization and has collected over $280,000 in fees from GOP campaign groups such as the Republican National Committee.

Despite all that, CBS News announced on January 22 that the network has hired Priebus as a political analyst. He appeared on its coverage of the Senate impeachment trial, where he was the only political operative guest and his conflicts of interest went undisclosed...

Or consider that Ken Starr still walks the Earth and is solicited for his opinions.

Or consider all the time and money David Gregory and NBC spent making sure that Newt Gingrich's career was completely fenced off from the Righteous Judgement of History and his reputation was immediately rehabilitated every time he said or did something which should have gotten him run out of civilized society on a rail.

Or hell, just consider all the Bush Regime scutwork myrmidons -- creatures like David Frum, David Brooks, Michael Gerson, Bill Fucking Kristol, Peggy Noonan, Joe Scarborough, Marc Thiessen, Bretbug Stephens and Hugh Hewitt  (and yes, I know the complete list is much longer) -- who walked away from the bloody and monstrous catastrophes they helped to author with nary a paper cut from the Righteous Judgement of History.  Who, in fact, walked straight into promotions and tenured positions in the Beltway media where no one would dare to be rude enough to bring up their horrifically inconvenient past.

Appeals to the Judgement of History to balance the scales of justice at some point in the future are like appeals to an Almighty God to send bad people to hell.  At best, they provide comfort to the powerless and oppressed.  But at worst, they are the alibis of cowards who want to outsource the hard work of fixing shit here-and-now -- of holding monsters accountable here-and-now -- to imaginary people far in the future (who will apparently be very much better and wiser than we are), or to an all-powerful deity in the hereafter.

As for me, whenever I catch the antics of Bush Regime dead-enders yucking it up on cable teevee, or being paid to pass off their shopworn drivel as profundity in America's major newspapers, I wonder how anyone can continue to believe that eventually the Righteous Judgement of History will catch up with Conservative assholes.

Because as long as the Beltway media puts the full might of its "Strategic Forgettery" machinery behind helping these ghouls and grifters walk away from their crimes against journalism and democracy unscathed over and over again, the  Righteous Judgement of History might as well give up and go pick blueberries for a living.

History Is Bunk!

The Best $8 Million Of Your Money They Ever Spent

Having done exactly what it set out to do, the taxpayer-funded Republican SuperPAC known as the "Benghazi Select Committee" folded it's tents today.

From USA Today:

House Benghazi committee files final report and shuts down

Mary Troyan , USA Today 6:07 p.m. EST December 12, 2016

WASHINGTON — The special congressional investigation into the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi is officially over now that the panel filed its final report the day before the House adjourned for the year.

The Select Committee on Benghazi initially released its findings in June but remained in place for months afterward trying to declassify supporting documents like emails and interview transcripts for public release.

The final report, not including dissenting views from committee Democrats, clocks in at more than 322,000 words. It was added to the official House record without fanfare on Dec. 7 by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., the panel’s chairman.

The panel, which spent more than $7.8 million over two and a half years, disbanded at the end of the 114th Congress, before a new Congress begins in January.

...

The panel’s top Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, said Monday that the final report was a “desperate rehash.”

“Republicans voted on this partisan report five months ago, but delayed filing it and completing the committee until after the election,” Cummings said. “Republicans promised a process that was fair and bipartisan, but the American people got exactly the opposite.”

Of course, traditionally the end of one Benghazi show-trial signals the beginning of the next Benghazi show-trial, but this time the trolls and traitors have packed up their red-white-and-blue Benghazi dunking stools for good because they have finally fulfilled the solemn promise they made to the Pig People years ago:  to stoke the tragic death of five Americans into a toasty Republican Reichstag Fire big enough and hot enough to cripple the candidacy of Hillary Clinton:

Because while they suck at almost everything else, nobody is better at perverting the levers of federal government power (and your tax dollars) to cynically exploit dead Americans for partisan gain than our own, home-grown American Fascist Party.

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.

Fail-Gunner Ted Promises To Keep Benghaaaazing

Only until the GOP needs glasses.

But of course --

-- they already do, don't they?

From The Hill:

Senators push to join Benghazi probe

By Alexander Bolton - 11/25/14 06:00 AM EST

Senate Republican leaders are under pressure from GOP lawmakers with presidential ambitions to join the House in investigating the 2012 Benghazi attack.

Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), three young rising conservative stars who are weighing 2016 bids, say the Senate should participate in a joint investigation with the House.

“The House is doing its job and engaged in oversight. For six years under [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid [D-Nev.], the Senate has refused to do its job. I am hopeful and optimistic the Senate will finally begin meaningful oversight. That is its constitutional responsibility,” Cruz told The Hill.

...

For those keeping score at home, this would be the eighth consecutive Benghaaazi witchhunt for the GOP, which I am willing to wager is going to look in retrospect like a wafer thin mint compared to the Great Impeachment Pie Eating Contest they have waiting in the wings.

So thanks again to all the heroes who stayed home on election day.  Your sacrifice was not in vain!

Venerable American Manufacturer To Go Out Of Business

The massive stampers are silent now and the lathes have spun their last as sad news arrives from Washington D.C. that another renowned American manufacturer -- the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee -- will be shuttering its profitable Benghaaaazi Conspiracy Division:

House panel: No administration wrongdoing in Benghazi attack

Carolyn Lochhead

Published 3:53 pm, Friday, August 1, 2014

(08-01) 11:42 PDT WASHINGTON -- The House Intelligence Committee, led by Republicans, has concluded that there was no deliberate wrongdoing by the Obama administration in the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, said Rep. Mike Thompson of St. Helena, the second-ranking Democrat on the committee.

The panel voted Thursday to declassify the report, the result of two years of investigation by the committee. U.S. intelligence agencies will have to approve making the report public.

Thompson said the report "confirms that no one was deliberately misled, no military assets were withheld and no stand-down order (to U.S. forces) was given."

...

While this move will undoubtedly result in the loss of some highly-specialized Benghaaaazi Conspiracy manufacturing and distribution jobs, industry experts remains very positive that the overall market demand for Benghaaaazi Conspiracy products will remain robust and that the loss of production capacity from the House Intelligence Committee shutdown can easily be compensated for by increased output from Fox News, Hate Radio and the Darryl Issa Conspiracy Fun Factory.


PS:  I saw this article shortly after it was published and was gearing up to write a post about it when I noticed that, at the time, no other news outlets were reporting on it.  None.  Zip.  While there were the usual flood of wingnut-driven Benghaaazi hair-on-fire "news" stories choking the internet over the weekend, so far as I could find, there was nothing related to this story (other than this SFGate article) when I searched for news about "House Intelligence Committee" or "Mike Thompson".  Because when it comes to Benghaaazi (and pretty much every other wingnut fairy tale), as far as the Beltway Media is concerned, if it's not roaring out of Roger Ailes' Bullshit Machine, it's not news.

Mighty Like A Ruse: Welcome to Whitewater 2.0

The dancing was desperate, the music was worse
They bury your dreams and dig up the worthless

Remember back when the exact GPS coordinates Bill Clinton's naughty bits was somehow as bad or maybe worse than Nixon's systematic demolition of the United States constitution in order to carry out political vendettas and destroy anyone he perceived as his enemy?

No?

Well it really happened.  That was the actual verdict rendered by the late "Dean" of the insulated, inbred tribe of Very Serious People whose opinions set the terms of every public discussion of anything:

"Clinton's behavior is truly Nixonian. And it is worse in one way. Nixon's actions, however neurotic and criminal, were motivated by and connected to the exercise of presidential power. He knew the place he occupied, and he was determined not to give it up to those he regarded as 'enemies.' Clinton acted--and still, even in his supposed mea culpa, acts--as if he does not recognize what it means to be president of the United States."

-- David Broder, Washington Post (8/19/98)

But if you are too young or too Republican to remember those halcyon days of yore when shadowy wingnut billionaires stalked the land, deploying their paid slander-trolls and counter-jumpers in the media and in Congress for an all-out/knives-out campaign to destroy a Democratic president, don't sweat it!  Because the sewer-dwellers of Party of Jefferson Davis have saddled up their Fake High Dudgeon to rerun the  entire Whitewater/Vince Foster/Monica Lewinsky 1990s all over again.

Except, of course, this time for all of their howling and taxpayer-funded witch-hunts, they're not even going to come up with a stained blue dress.

Five or six years from now, when the Benghaaaazi Freakshow is the rear-view mirror and a few of the braver members of the Washington press corps dare to opine that maybe the GOP went a little too far, it will be clear that all of their sound and fury came to nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

And just like the 1990s, foreknowledge that this is nothing but another ;pile of steaming, Republican treachery served with a side of fraud will not deter them in the slightest, because as the continued public existence of  treason-mongers like David Brooks and Bill Kristol and Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh continues to demonstrate, there are never, ever any consequences for Conservatives lying, no matter how grotesque the lie or lethal the consequences.  Which is Crazy Uncle Liberty and all of his dear friends in elected office and in the media will Just Keep Shouting Benghaaazi Louder until something breaks, or someone gets killed, or they get a head or two on a pike.  Because as this outstanding summary by Karoli over at Crooks and Liars shows, every bit of this latest Republican ratfuckfest has been staged-managed from the start:

Boehner Announces Select Committee On Benghazi To Satisfy Restless Donors

By karoli May 3, 2014 7:00 am

Friday afternoon, Speaker John Boehner announced that he would appoint a select committee on Benghazi. It's no surprise -- they've been planning to do it for at least a year.

Speaker John Boehner announced Friday afternoon that he will appoint a select committee to further investigate Benghazi. Not because there's anything there to investigate, you understand, but as Ed Henry admits in the video, it keeps their base frothing at the mouth.

This is no surprise. It was planned exactly one year ago when narratives were formed in order to push Darrell Issa and John Boehner into appointing a select committee with subpoena power to gin up the base and paper the White House with meaningless subpoenas for the next three years.

One Year Ago, a Groundswell

On May 8, 2013, the online conservative "messaging" group known as Groundswell convened their weekly meeting in Washington, DC.

First up on the agenda was Benghazi, and the question of when they would get their select committee with subpoena power. This was so important to Groundswell's leadership that they forced late-night meetings with John Boehner and Darrell Issa. From the transcript of the recording:

Um, Frank [Gaffney] and I had -- I'm sorry -- Frank and I actually had meetings last night with Speaker Boehner and Representative Issa also. We've been pushing with the support of Congressman Wolf as well as Congressman Gohmert for a special committee. And I think it's okay to share with you, wouldn't you say so Frank, that the Speaker was, I thought he was very coherent last night when we talked about this. And that he believes that the process needs to play out before we get a special committee. His concern is that the media will portray this as just simply an attempt to bring down the Obama administration, until their current committee system plays itself out.

He continues:

Again, the key takeaway here is we're not backing away from a special committee, we're still pushing for that. But we kind of have a pledge from both, I think Issa and the Speaker, that they want the system to play out a little more before they start to call for that. The Speaker did say he's not opposed to it but he wants to let the committee structure as it stands right now continue until it would potentially merit bringing a special committee.

...

Having Breathlessly Reported One Benghazi Lie After Another For A Year And A Half...

...the unholy nexus between Bloody Bill Kristol's Weekly Standard and Roger Ailes' GOPTV now reports:

HEARD ON FOX

Hayes: Americans believe there is 'some kind of a cover up' on Benghazi

Steve Hayes, senior writer for the Weekly Standard, told viewers Wednesday on “Special Report with Bret Baier” that the American public is “fascinated” by the Obama administration’s handling of the aftermath of attacks in Benghazi that killed four Americans.

“They do believe that there was some kind of a cover up. I think they have reason to believe,” Hayes said.

...

They invent the story.

The catapult the flaming shit out of the story 24/7 for a year and a half with every means at their disposal.

Then they report on "the Murrican people's" belief that there must be something going on here!

You want to know why the Pig People keeps harping on the same, ghoulish lie no matter how many times Reality punches their teeth down their throat? Why the same people who humped every Conservative bigot, cheered every traitorous, blood-soaked, Republican war criminal, slept through thirteen -- Count!Em!Thirteen! -- Bush "Benghazis" and got everything wrong for 30 years are now suddenly so deeply, impeachment-ly concerned about four American dying in a dangerous place far, far away?

Because Vince Foster.

Because Whitewater.

Because it fucking works.

And as one, long-discredited hack once said:

...

They are a cultural deadloss and their beliefs are a pestilence, and until the plague rats of the Right

are directly confronted, quarantined and driven into the sea, there will be no end to the havoc they wreak on our civilization.

Benghaaazi!

Last Stop For The Lost!

(h/t to Blue Gal for noticing that this was playing on AMC today.)