Motley Moose – Archive

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Benghazi Select Committee Will Have 7 Republicans, 5 Democrats

The soon-to-be-formed select committee to investigate the Benghazi attacks will have 7 Republican members and 5 Democratic members, a senior GOP leadership aide confirmed to TPM on Tuesday afternoon.

That means Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will reject a request by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) that the panel be evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats in order to be “fair.”

HAHAHAHAHA!!! “Fair” definitely belongs in quotes.

Congressman Warns New Benghazi Committee Could Cost ‘Tens Of Millions’

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) has been an outspoken critic of the Republican-led effort investigate the Obama administration’s response to the attack on a diplomatic outpost in eastern Libya. When asked how much the new special committee would cost taxpayers, Schiff was not optimistic about it being cheap. “I think unquestionably it will be in the millions,” Schiff said in a phone interview with ThinkProgress. “And it depends on how long they stay at it. They seem to have an insatiable appetite for this subject, so clearly in the millions. Whether it will go beyond that into the tens of millions may depend on just how crazy they are.”

Joan Walsh: Democrats should boycott latest Benghazi charade

Five House committees have already investigated the Benghazi tragedy and issued biased reports; there have been two Senate committee reports plus the Accountability Review Board’s findings. The bipartisan reports found errors on the part of State Department personnel and recommended staffing and other changes. But because none of the investigations were able to charge then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with incompetence, or prove that President Obama tried to cover up the truth to get re-elected, Republicans won’t believe them, and insist there’s more to “investigate.”

Thus we have the latest House Benghazi stunt – and Democrats should stay away from it. […]

Gowdy’s committee is best understood as as a base-energizing fundraising tool for the GOP, part of what Politico’s Michael Hirsch calls “the Benghazi industrial complex,” engineered to damage Clinton so much she either can’t run for president or decides it’s not worth the pain. Of course, Benghazi fever hasn’t spread beyond the fever swamps of Obama hatred that afflict the GOP’s far-right base. But that’s enough to keep it alive, and potentially make it a potent midterm-election organizing tool. House Democrats should make that role clear by boycotting it.

Norman Ornstein, speaking to Greg Sargent (WaPo) asked: “The question is, does it make more sense to be in there, participating in the process and pointing out Republican overkill again and again, or does it make more sense to further destroy the image of the committee by staying out of it?”

Short answer: after 2 years there is literally NOTHING that a Democrat can point out that would make a whit of difference. They are there as fig leafs. Period.  

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From the White House Science Guy, Dr. John P. Holdren:

Hi, everyone —

Today, we released the third National Climate Assessment report, by far the most comprehensive look ever at climate change impacts in the United States.

Based on four years of work by hundreds of experts from government, academia, corporations, and public-interest organizations, the Assessment confirms abundant data and examples that climate change isn’t some distant threat — it’s affecting us now.

Not only are the planet and the nation warming on average, but a number of types of extreme weather events linked to climate change have become more frequent or intense in many regions, including heat waves, droughts, heavy downpours, floods, and some kinds of destructive storms.

The good news is that there are sensible steps that we can take to protect this country and the planet.

Those steps include, importantly, the three sets of actions making up the Climate Action Plan that President Obama announced last June: cutting carbon pollution in America; increasing preparedness for and resilience to the changes in climate that already are ongoing; and leading the international response to the climate change challenge.

We’ve made great progress in the year since his announcement — but there’s much more work to be done.

Watch this short video to learn more about the new report and see how climate change is affecting people across the United States today:

Explore the full report, and find out how you can help — because every one of us has to do his or her part to meet the challenge of climate change.

Thank you,

John

Dr. John P. Holdren

Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy

The White House

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On Sunday morning, the above-the-fold headline in the Wisconsin State Journal, the paper of record for the State of Wisconsin, declared “Assembly members against secession”.

Let’s ignore for a moment how low the bar for political sanity has been set if the paper is reporting as NEWS(!) that the Republican caucus in the state assembly is not in favor of Wisconsin seceding from the Union.

Let’s also ignore the fact that not all of the Republicans in the state assembly signed the letter that Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) sent to the delegates meeting this weekend at the Wisconsin State GOP Convention. Because it makes me cringe to think that my fellow Wisconsinites would elect state representatives who don’t even believe in the United States Constitution.

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The President’s Weekly Address post is also the Weekend Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, the President provided an update on the work his Administration has done to strengthen the economy and expand opportunity for hardworking Americans in this Year of Action. While Republicans in Congress are setting records in obstruction, the President is making progress for the American people and has taken more than 20 executive actions since January.

The President vowed to continue taking action on his own wherever possible, but underscored that much more progress could be made if Republicans in Congress were less interested in stacking the deck in favor of those at the top, and more interested in expanding opportunity for all.

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At Winter Solstice, the light starts returning; gradually the memory of the long nights fades until the light and dark are equal on Spring Equinox. From that point on,  the light returns more rapidly and on May 1st we arrive at the midpoint between equinox and Summer Solstice.

Today, my sunrise was at 5:47am CDT and my sunset will be at 7:48pm … more than 14 hours of daylight, adding 2 hours since the equinox. By the end of May, we will have added 49 more minutes of daylight.