19 thoughts on “News/Politics 10-31-12”

  4. I heard something on the news this morning that I was not aware of. After the contended Bush election, Maryland (the fourth most liberal state in the country) passed a law that all 10 of our electoral votes must be cast for the candidate who wins the general election country-wide. For a totally Democratic state, that would be hilarious if Romney were to win the general election. However, the law would only take effect if some number (I forget what the number is) of other states do the same thing, which has not yet occurred. So it won’t actually kick in for this election but it certainly does have the potential to backfire on them in the future.

    The thing that most bothers me about this though, is that it is a way for states to totally circumvent the constitution and the founders intentions regarding the electoral college vs. the popular vote.

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  7. I’m glad to see this come out in the Post. I used to take it and the Times too. Now I take the times weekly. Political news us usually dated, but Bill Gertz and some others give an international view, especially WRT China, that I’ve seen nowhere else.

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  8. from Salon:

    Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice defended the Obama Administration’s handling of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, departing from the many conservatives who have accused the White House of mishandling its response to the attack, or worse, covering up its incompetence.

    “When things are unfolding very, very quickly, it’s not always easy to know what is really going on on the ground,” Rice told Fox News host Greta Van Susteren.

    Condi continued: “So there’s a big picture to be examined here. But we don’t have all of the pieces, and I think it’s easy to try and jump to conclusions about what might have happened here. It’s probably better to let the relevant bodies do their work.”

    Secretary Rice is correct – we don’t have all the pieces and the speculation is just that speculation.

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  9. You know why it bothers me, CB? It’s the deliberate lying–in this case for weeks–of a far fetched story.

    As we used to tell the kids, I’ll be unhappy, disappointed and I may have to punish you for misbehaviors, but we’ll deal with it as fairly as possible (I’m big on natural consequences to choices).

    However, if you lie to me, it’s all over.

    Had the administration said, “We are investigating what happened in a wild situation. Mistakes were made and we’ll get to the bottom of this, ” I don’t think I would have paid much attention. I understand things can get out of control in a volatile situation.

    It was the insultingly stupid lying that put up my radar–and which the administration has now abandoned, but refuses to admit was wrong.

    I’m concerned about the diplomatic implications of revealing all details and I can understand why the administration would be justifiably leery of telling the whole story.

    But it’s the lying that pushes me over the top.

    Or as my favorite military guy says and did, “You have to tell the truth and let people know what’s going on because the rumors will be even worse.”

    That very well may be what is happening here. Some of the conjectures are pretty outrageous–but given the administration’s track record on this story . . . Well, who can anyone believe? 😦

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  10. There is a cover up of some sort. Everything that comes out is negative.
    Fact: They knew that it was dangerous.
    Fact: They didn’t have enough marine protection.
    Fact: They knew the site was being attacked.
    Fact: Resources to relieve them were available.
    Fact: Some of them -we don’t know who, explicitly – were told to”stand down”.
    Fact: They knew it was a terrorist, not spontaneous attack.
    Fact: They tried to make us think that it was spontaneous.
    Fact: There was no attempt to save the men under attack.
    The only thing we don’t really know is Who and WHY

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  11. I appreciate Rice’s comments, but I agree with Michelle here. Just based on what we already know, something’s amiss. And the video story-line seemed to be an outright blatant attempt to say to the public “nothing wrong here, this wasn’t a terrorist situation, the terrorists are on the run, you know, but this was unavoidable, very spontaneous, and we will be arresting the filmmaker shortly.”

    Huh? Not a lot of people believed that one, even at the time. If they simply didn’t know, then just say “We don’t know the details, we are investigating.” Why the video story that was pushed-pushed-pushed at every turn?

    This probably won’t begin to be sorted out until after Tuesday’s election, but there has been some pretty obvious stone-walling now that serious questions are finally being raised. I’m glad to see the Post publishing more about it, too.

    Seriously, I think most of us would agree had this happened on a Republican president’s watch, it would have caught a lot more attention and front-page space.

    I wonder if this election will even be over on Tuesday. The polls are budging very little.

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  12. I agree, Donna, and if it is too close to call, it may end up Gore-Bush all over again and that will NOT be pretty or good for our country.

    So, I guess we pray for a good margin, no matter who wins–for the good of our country.

    Who’s the patriot, then, here King Solomon? 😦

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  13. Michelle, isn’t that the truth? Either way, whoever wins needs to get a good 5% margin, minimum, with no questionable swing state results hanging in the balance.

    We went through it in 2000 — but I honestly think if it happened again it would be absolutely horrible for the country, much worse than before.

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  14. Seriously, I think most of us would agree had this happened on a Republican president’s watch, it would have caught a lot more attention and front-page space.

    That’s an understatement!

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  16. You know when something like Benghazi occurs, we often don’t know exactly what happened and may never know exactly what happened. Officials rely on what the CIA, State and DoD can piece together. Sometimes in a case like Benghazi, those bureaucracies try to guard particular assets, for example, press reports say that the cables released by Cong. Issa outed a Libyan human rights activist and put her life in danger. You’re right Michelle that the immediate points should have been “we’re investigating”. Instead it seems like the other protests going on in the Middle East got wrapped in to what happened in Libya and there was a good bit of confusion.

    There will be a report from State, fwiw after it has concluded its investigation.

    Ree

    Really? How badly was President Bush hurt by Falluja? by no WMD? How badly was Pres Reagan hurt by Beirut? I don’t see a huge bit of difference in how the media (aside from the right wing blogosphere, faux journalism sites) is treating Libya in comparison,

    Donna

    In the main, al Qaida is a shadow of its former self — that doesn’t mean it is completely gone. This Administration has been doing well on the terrorism front as did the Bush Administration post 9/11 but that doesn’t mean no acts of terror will be successful.

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  17. Donna, that was interesting. BTW has any one seen the new show called “Revolution”. It seems to coming out rather pro-2nd amendment.

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