A Specter is Haunting Kevin Graham

[_Droopy]

Which makes you either a rather reckless purveyor of deceit or grossly uninformed and uneducated regarding anything outside your own intellectual and psychological cubbyhole.

You're just borrowing my criticism of you...

I'm not "borrowing" anything from you. The only reason you may think so is because you are unwittingly recognizing your own projection in my counter-arguments.

The fact is I am the only person between us who backs up his claims with direct sources.

Uu huh...

You use Media Matters, MSNBC, The Nation etc., and I use Fox, Frontpagemag, Townhall, Brietbart, Heritage, Hoover, CATO, Von Mises Institutute, the conservative blogosphere etc. Our sources are indistinguishable as media outlets (sources of information) save in their ideological orientation.

You just throw up opinion pieces by authors from the peanut gallery who are almost as obnoxious as you.

Pot, be very, very careful here...

The fact that this same article from the Weekly Standard became the subject of much humilation and laughter in the media, doesn't seem to phase you.

The problem you have is that the facts and evidence of that piece still stand, have been verified repeatedly, and/or are still developing in an evidential sense, and you are in the unenviable position of fighting over, not matters of hypothesis or conjecture, but established reality, and that tells everyone observing these kinds of debates as much about the debater as about the subject matter itself, doesn't it?

the Tea Party is not an anarchist libertarian group but a grassroots conservative organization that is against steep, progressive taxation on all income for the purpose of redistribution of wealth and the ensconcing of a permanent class of professional politicians in power in perpetuity.

The Tea Party is not grassroots, though I'm not too surprised you're naïve enough to believe otherwise. And the acronym stands for "taxed enough already," and during a period of record lows in taxation no less.

The Tea Party is a conservative to libertarian coalition that is, as I said, against "steep, progressive taxation on all income for the purpose of redistribution of wealth and the ensconcing of a permanent class of professional politicians in power in perpetuity." That is the core of its economic message.

Secondly, you can tell this lie about "a period of record lows in taxation" all you want, but all this does is trash your credibility to an ever greater extent each time you do it and makes similar claims on other areas of established knowledge. The only way you can make this claim is to look only at federal tax revenues as a percentage of GDP, and then look only at total income, payroll, and corporate taxes. Gone are dividend taxes, capital gain taxes, estate taxes, unemployment contributions, state and local taxes, and a plethora of federal and state taxes on a wide variety of goods and services, including a massive combined tax on gas (over 50% of the price of every gallon). Also left out is general price inflation, which is essentially a tax and is a government generated phenomenon as an artifact of monetary policy.

They just follow the racist line set out by their masters on talk radio.

This pretty much eliminates you as both a serious thinker and a credible interlocutor. That's about it.

What the emails actually showed was extensive redaction

That's it???? REALLY? [/quote]

Yup.

You say it was to "ensure" something, only because that dovetails with your crackpot attempt to create a scandal, but as the link above proves, their reasons for the editing had absolutely nothing to do with what you attribute to them,

Oh, but you see, Kevin, that's the only inference that makes any sense, under the circumstances, just as its the only inference that bring any intellectual coherence to the various stand down orders that were given.

and virtually everyone in the know (i.e. Petraeus) agreed with and understood their reasons quite well.

Let's see, first Obama claimed that everyone had always called the Benghazi attacks terrorist attacks (which they patently hadn't). Then after rice spent days describing the attacks as a spontaneous protest, the administration picked up the ball and ran with that meme (which Obama and Hillery et al then turned into a two-week spree of deception involving "spontaneous" protests and an obscure You Tube video).

Then, when Patreus testified in Nov. that he never believed the attacks had been spontaneous or extemporaneous, the administration moved to hang him out to dry. This entire psychotic rampage of deception and guile is exactly what could have been predicted (and was) when the Baby Boom generation Left finally got hold of the levers of power in a widespread and deep way inside the federal leviathan. The preview was the Clinton presidency, but this is the triumph of Gramsci and Alinsky in a way Clinton, or Hillery, yet another disciple of Alinsky trained and indoctrinated for the task of cultural revolution, could have imagined at the time.

[_Droopy]

The Tea Party is not grassroots

The Tea Party is a nationwide grassroots organization that is extremely decentralized, and networked through blogs, the Meet-up movement, and local organizing. There is no discernible national Tea Party organization or centralized movement, but thousands of similar movements with similar agendas and beliefs across the nation. You will notice that the once fellow-traveling literary apologist for Soviet totalitarianism (among socialist regimes in other nations over time) Mother Jones says that:

Richard Stephenson, a reclusive millionaire banker and FreedomWorks board member, and members of his family funneled $12 million in October through two newly created Tennessee corporations to FreedomWorks' super-PAC, which used these funds to support tea party candidates in November's elections.

The reason Mother Jones concentrates of Freedomworks, a single 501(c(3), is because that's all they have to concentrate on. The actual Tea Party movement has no central organization or headquarters. Then read David Horowitz' extensively researched book on the Democrats vast financial power base Leviathan, and look at the astronomical differences in the funding of the Left and in the sources of that funding, including the trivial sums handled by Freedomwork's super PAC compared to the vast oceans of money in play within the Shadow Party, and then come back and whine to me that, yes, some Tea Party candidates received some funding from some rich people.

Mother Jones never actually analyzes the Tea Party movement, as Kevin insinuates they do in his post, but only a 501(c)3 organization funneling money to certain Tea Party candidates (as if this is somehow immoral, as if Democrats don't utilize exactly the same means for their own highly astroturfed corporate/foundation/Hollywood/527 laundered piggy bank involving many billions of political dollars, or as if the entire 527 structure didn't arise and proliferate on the Left in response to McCain-Feingold).

Fail again, Kevin. Everything you attempt to defend and sustain is always just one more big blue screen saying fatal exception.

[_Kevin Graham]

You use Media Matters, MSNBC, The Nation etc., and I use Fox, Frontpagemag, Townhall, Brietbart, Heritage, Hoover, CATO, Von Mises Institutute, the conservative blogosphere etc. Our sources are indistinguishable as media outlets (sources of information) save in their ideological orientation.

Wrong. Even EA has occasionally stepped up to defend MediaMatters because it is far superior than your sites because they go straight to the sources. You folks either ignore or edit sources to make them says things you want them to say. In a nutshell, your sources manufacture scandals and conspiracy theories, while media matters is dedicated to the refutation of myths.

The problem you have is that the facts and evidence of that piece still stand, have been verified repeatedly

Like what? You don't say. Verified by whom? You don't say. You just assert again. And again, and again…

, and/or are still developing in an evidential sense, and you are in the unenviable position of fighting over, not matters of hypothesis or conjecture, but established reality, and that tells everyone observing these kinds of debates as much about the debaters as about the subject matter itself, doesn't it?

This is your fantasy world obviously, but instead of going on and on with this back and forth "yes it is, no it isn't," why don't you finally, for once, substantiate your claims? I already did, proving several times how the released emails shattered the credibility of your Weekly Standard. Bcspace listed a half dozen talking points which were also shattered by the emails he never bothered to read, and apparently he has the good sense to know when he's been beaten down by the evidence; he refuses to defend his use of those arguments. You, on the other hand? Well, your history speaks for itself. No amount of evidence could possibly sway you from your hard-headed positions. Your faith in your Right Wing blogosphere is about as bullet proof as your faith in Mormonism.

Secondly, you can tell this lie about "a period of record lows in taxation" all you want, but all this does is trash your credibility to an ever greater extent

With whom, you? Do you really think I care what the ignorant think of me? You keep repeating these ridiculous claims but what you're really saying is that your discredited blogosphere does not recognize these facts due to extreme ideological concerns; therefore they don't exist to your mind.

Yup.

So your "scandal" about Benghazi is now reduced to the simple fact that the talking points were edited! Well, no crap they were edited! But that's the extent of your evidence of a scandal, by your own admission now? Do you really not understand how dumb that makes your side look? You guys had about two dozen talking points, asserted as factual by your Right Wing media for many months, all based on theory and "inferences", which have now been debunked, and you're going to pretend this "edited talking points" argument was the only one you guys relied on from the beginning?

Oh, but you see, Kevin, that's the only inference that makes any sense, under the circumstances, just as its the only inference that bring any intellectual coherence to the various stand down orders that were given.

But you don’t understand the circumstances. All you understand is the there were changes made, and your bloggers on the Right inferred a sinister motive for it. You your theory is refuted by the simple fact that there were no "stand down orders" and you've never provided evidence to the contrary.

Robert Gates, who served under both Obama and George W. Bush, confirmed the Pentagon and administration assertions that military forces could not have responded to the attack in enough time to prevent any casualties. In a May 12 Face the Nation appearance, Gates argued that the notion that any military forces could have responded in time to possibly avert further attacks without being in harm's way was a "cartoonish impression of military capabilities."

Furthermore, it is known that "there was nothing within range that would've made a difference" because those assets were deployed. During a February 7 Senate hearing about the Benghazi attack Defense Secretary Leon Panetta explained that President Obama ordered him to "do whatever you need to do in be able to protect our people there." In that vein, Panetta ordered two anti-terrorism security teams stationed in Spain to deploy to Libya and another special operations team to deploy to the region. The anti-terrorism team headed to Libya arrived after the attack.

It was a simple matter of no one being able to reach the area in time. I've provided this information several times already and you keep ignoring it.

But it is nice to see you begin to admit the weakness of your position, by saying it is really based on "inference," even though it is really based on a desired inference by a bunch of scandal-mongering idiots on the Right.

Let's see, first Obama claimed that everyone had always called the Benghazi attacks terrorist attacks (which they patently hadn't).

Of course they were terrorist attacks. Obama even said as much, even though your Right Wing media hawks, including Mitt Romney, ignored his clear statements to that effect. The public refutation of Romney’s ignorance, before millions of viewers, was absolutely golden.

Then after rice spent days describing the attacks as a spontaneous protest

It was a protest and a very violent one at that. There is plenty of evidence from the ground, which was reported on by several outlets, that say the attackers were motivated by what was going on in Cairo. Petraeus was upset that this point wasn't further made in the talking points. So what's your problem, aside from the fact that Rice was dead right? You seem to have difficulties grasping the concept that something can happen for a variety of reasons by a variety of people.

the administration picked up the ball and ran with that meme (which Obama and Hillery et al then turned into a two-week spree of deception involving "spontaneous" protests and an obscure You Tube video).

Here we see you do not understand how to absorb evidence into that small brain of yours. The fact is every version of the CIA talking points, including the version ultimately used by Rice, stated that the attacks were "spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo." So there was no shift in argument as you keep asserting, and the changes were made as several agencies were working together on them; it wasn't strictly a "White House" (Hillary/Obama) decision.

The attack was a combination of spontaneous responses to the events in Cairo, as well as coordinated efforts by those with ties to known terrorists. Idiots like you insist it has to be one or the other despite what the evidence suggests. As I pointed out earlier, the author of that Weekly Standard article was so dumb that he didn't even understand that he posted the evidence that disproved his own argument. All three versions which HE POSTED, refer specifically to the demonstrations in Cairo!

Then, when Patreus testified in Nov. that he never believed the attacks had been spontaneous or extemporaneous

Actually the opposite is true. Petraeus disapproved of the talking points because they didn't do enough to connect the Benghazi attacks to the demonstrations in Cairo. According to CBS News, in a September 15 email, Petraeus wrote that "he doesn't like the talking points and he would 'just assume they not use them... This is not what [Rep.] Ruppersberger asked for. We couldn't even mention the Cairo warning. But it's their call.'"
So again, the facts refute your mimicking of the peanut gallery. Of course you'd be hard pressed to find that citation unedited on your preferred websites, because most of them intentionally edited that last part out. I just googled the citation and it appears on none of your preferred Right Wing websites. Gee, wonder why that is?

the administration moved to hang him out to dry.

More crackpot theories for which there is absolutely no evidence.
I swear I’ve posted this stuff about five times now and you keep ignoring the data.

[_Kevin Graham]

Oh this is classic!

GOP Aides Mock House Republicans’ ‘Crazy’ Benghazi Witch-Hunt

GOP aides are criticizing the House Republicans’ partisan witch-hunt over the Obama administration’s handling of the attacks on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya last year, arguing that the Party should focus more on substantive issues, such as lessons learned and how to recalibrate diplomatic security.

Roll Call reports that Republican aides are saying staffers are getting bogged down chasing bogus accusations.

“We have got to get past that and figure out what are we going to do going forward,” a GOP aide told Roll Call. “Some of the accusations, I mean you wouldn’t believe some of this stuff. It’s just — I mean, you’ve got to be on Mars to come up with some of this stuff.” Another aide expressed frustration at accusations that military assets weren’t properly deployed during the night of the attacks and that a team from Tripoli could have been flown in to fight off the attackers:

“There are some real issues there and then there is just some crazy stuff,” the senior House GOP aide said. “The crazy stuff is, you know, the airman in Ramstein [Air Base, Germany,] that knew that the Predator [drone] was armed. There are no armed Predators in the region there. The [status of forces agreement] does not allow us to fly them armed, and everybody knows it.” [...]

GOP aides described another criticism aired at a recent House Oversight Committee hearing that there were four security officers at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli who were ordered to remain in the capital for several hours after the first reports of an attack, rather than being scrambled to assist the consulate in Benghazi.

“The stand-down order was for four guys,” the GOP aide said. “When you step back and say how were the people killed at the annex, they were killed by an indirect fire mortar round. Four more M-4s [rifles] inside the annex doesn’t change that outcome. In fact, they might have just created more casualties. We have got to get down to what really happened on the DoD side and for us the DoD side was not properly postured, why?”

It appears that some Republicans are also beginning to see that the GOP’s Benghazi affair isn’t paying dividends. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell backed away from some Republicans’ baseless claims of an Obama White House cover-up. And Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) in an interview on Fox News on Monday warned his colleagues about taking the issue too far:

BLUNT: I think the real challenge here for Republicans, frankly, is to be patient and methodical when you’re outraged. It’s hard to do when you’re outraged. But the right thing to do here is let the facts come out, don’t try to prejudge what they are.

Rep. John Mica (R-FL) recently dropped his support for a select committee to investigate the Benghazi attacks. Republicans have been calling for creating the committee, but House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) hasn’t been supportive. “I think Mr. Boehner made the right decision,” Mica said.
Behind the scenes in the House, a GOP aide told Roll Call that staffers will push to address lessons learned from Benghazi. “We’re trying to stay on the substance of it,” one senior GOP aide said. “There has got to be some good that comes out of those fatalities.”

The State Department thinks so too. On Monday it released a fact sheet detailing its implementation of the Benghazi Accountability Review Board’s 24 unclassified recommendations, which include “plans to send dozens of additional diplomatic security agents to high-threat embassies, install millions of dollars of advanced fire-survival gear and surveillance cameras in those diplomatic posts, and improve training for employees headed to the riskiest missions.”

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) introduced a bill last week to provide funding to increase embassy security. The focus “should not be to score political points at the expense of the families of the four victims,” he said. “It should be on doing all we can to protect our personnel serving overseas.”