The Select Committee On Benghazi Hillary Clinton

Gawd-a'mighty, it feels good to take a piss... old men are not built to listen to three and a half hours of uninterrupted hostile Republican inquiry inquisition without a break.

Clinton

Rep. Trey Gowdy (tell me, folks, do you know any real men named "Trey"? OK, do you know any non-Republicans named "Trey"?) rambled on in defense of his indefensible bullshit saying that this was no court case and hence no prosecution. He is right about that— but I have to say, there is a PERSECUTION of former Secretary Clinton.

Hostile GOPer asshole

Gowdy reminds me a great deal of Dan Burton a couple of decades ago. If you're too young to remember that bastard, consider yourself lucky.

Here's the link to the livestream on TPM. Don't drink too much coffee before the next session starts; you'll live to regret it. The coffee, I mean, though you'll probably regret watching the session as well.

I am now convinced... as I have been in the past... that notwithstanding Mrs. Clinton's political differences from me, if Bernie is not selected to be the Democratic presidential candidate, I can live with Mrs. Clinton as a bright, capable, sturdy and assertive substitute. More about that later.

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Thu 10/22 4:05PM CT: the above-linked livestream is dead. The Committee took a break to go to congressional session for a floor vote; shortly after the break began, the committee livestream shut down. Maybe you can find it at the MSNBC site if they come back in time.

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Kurt Eichenwald at Newsweek has the following observation (about midway through the linked article):

The historical significance of this moment can hardly be overstated, and it seems many Republicans, Democrats and members of the media don’t fully understand the magnitude of what is taking place. The awesome power of government—one that allows officials to pore through almost anything they demand and compel anyone to talk or suffer the shame of taking the Fifth Amendment—has been unleashed for purely political purposes. It is impossible to review what the Benghazi committee has done as anything other than taxpayer-funded political research of the opposing party’s leading candidate for president. Comparisons from America’s past are rare. Richard Nixon’s attempts to use the IRS to investigate his perceived enemies come to mind. So does Senator Joseph McCarthy’s red-baiting during the 1950s, with reckless accusations of treason leveled at members of the State Department, military generals and even the secretary of the Army. But the modern McCarthys of the Benghazi committee cannot perform this political theater on their own—they depend on reporters to aid in the attempts to use government for the purpose of destroying others with bogus “scoops” ladled out by members of Congress and their staffs. These journalists will almost certainly join the legions of shamed reporters of the McCarthy era as it becomes increasingly clear they are enablers of an obscene attempt to undermine the electoral process.  [Bolds mine. - SB]

Shame on you, Republicans! SHAME! If there is a Hell for people who commit despicable political acts, you are headed straight to it!

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The GOP Key

AFTERTHOUGHT: Between the aperiodic events resembling today's Benghazi committee hearing, I forget, and find myself gasping in shock, at how deeply many Republicans truly HATE Hillary Clinton— HATE, HATE, HATE her! Often enough, I've seen that hatred manifested by otherwise ordinary Americans, e.g., coworkers; one guy I knew hated her so much that in any conversation in which her name came up, his eyes would get big and the veins near his temples would pulsate with the anger. I'm not exactly a calm fellow, but I don't think there's anyone out there whom I've not personally known but whom I've actively hated that much. I guess you have to be born with the capacity.

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AFTERTHOUGHT: a question for the Republicans on that committee: Didn't your mothers ever tell you not to talk to people like that? If I'd turned loose on people I didn't like, the way those GOPers turned loose on Hillary today, my sainted mother would have (metaphorically) washed my mouth out with soap. Which brings up the question:

Q: When you wash a Republican's mouth out with soap, what kind should you use?
A: Lye soap, of course!

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