Day: August 6, 2013

A Rancid Duel

By now all the Righties have gotten wind of this through their grapevine and all have an opinion….none of them are especially accurate….but in case you have been busy watching re-runs of Hillbillies For Hire let me assist….

CNN and NBC had better pull the plug on their plans to bring Hillary Clinton to the small screen, or Reince Priebus is threatening to take his 2016 presidential debates and find them another network home. In a sternly worded letter today to network honchos, the RNC chair calls NBC’s forthcoming miniseries and CNN’s documentary “disturbing and disappointing,” and a “thinly veiled attempt at putting a thumb on the scales of the 2016 presidential election.” In case his point is proving elusive, Priebus admonishes the networks for producing an “extended commercial” and a “this political ad masquerading as an unbiased production.” But Priebus isn’t just speaking softly: If CNN and NBC won’t listen to reason and yank the programming before August 14, he says he’ll “seek a binding vote of the RNC stating that the committee will neither partner with you in 2016 primary debates nor sanction primary debates which you sponsor.” Neither NBC nor CNN had immediate comment, notes the AP.

And now both organizations have issued statements….

NBC News has already separated itself from its planned miniseries, with the network’s Communications Director Erika Masonhall tweeting, “NBC News is completely independent of NBC Entertainment and has no involvement in this project.”

How about the other culprit in this conspiracy, CNN?

“CNN Films, a division of CNN Worldwide, commissioned a documentary about Hillary Clinton earlier this year. It is expected to premiere in 2014 with a theatrical run prior to airing on CNN. This documentary will be a non-fiction look at the life of a former First Lady and Secretary of State. Instead of making premature decisions about a project that is in the very early stages of development and months from completion, we would encourage the members of the Republican National Committee to reserve judgment until they know more. Should they decide not to participate in debates on CNN, we would find it curious, as limiting their debate participation seems to be the ultimate disservice to voters.”

I bet you thought there could not be another scandal for awhile……you were wrong!

My take on this is…..I can understand the paranoia of the RNC…….but Hilary Clinton is a compelling story and that from a person that is not one of her best defenders.  A successful lawyer, first lady of Arkansas, first lady of the nation, US Senator and the Secretary of State….tell me why she is not a compelling story?  I can see why a documentary would be made about this women and her successes.

So here is a compromise for the RNC…..give the networks the names of conservative women with equal successes and they will do a vid of her….oh wait!  There are NONE!  Why?  Women are not especially important to the RNC.  The party spend a lot of time making women less than the men that roam the halls of conservatism.

But by all means, give them some women that you feel represent the successes of women in the party.

This is just another piece of crap to feed to the ignorant to keep them from asking hard questions that the GOP has NO answers……….another imaginary “scandal”….maybe it will give dumbass Issa something to do since his other scandals were flops.

To my friend, Rancid Prius, stop trying to appear to be relevant……..you are NOT!

Then There Is Syria

Another one of those conflicts that seem to drift from the headlines until it is needed……..awhile back I wrote that there was little chance that Syria, as a single country, could survive….that after the fall of Assad there would be a deeper civil war pitting factions against faction for control………and it appears that I was not alone in that prediction……

(AP) – As Syria’s bloody civil war grinds on, the country is now split into three parts—each boasting its own flags, security agencies, and judicial system—and the longer the conflict lasts, analysts say, the more difficult it will be to piece together a coherent Syrian state from the wreckage. “There is no doubt that as a distinct single entity, Syria has ceased to exist,” says an analyst at IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center. “Considering the sheer scale of its territorial losses in some areas of the country, Syria no longer functions as a single all-encompassing unitarily-governed state.”

The regime holds a firm grip on a corridor running from the southern border with Jordan, through the capital Damascus and up to the Mediterranean coast. The rebels control a chunk of territory that spans parts of Idlib and Aleppo provinces in the north and stretches along the Euphrates River to the Iraqi border in the east. Tucked into the far northeastern corner, meanwhile, Syria’s Kurdish minority enjoys semi-autonomy. In each area, religious, ideological, and turf power struggles are under way and battle lines tend to ebb and flow, making it impossible to predict exactly what Syria could look like once the combatants lay down their arms.

There are so many different factions that can turn on one another in the future…..Druze, Shi’a, sunni, Kurds, AQ….just to mention a few….the question that needs to be asked is where will the US fall into these conflicts?  You know we will be ass deep in them, one way or the other…….then ask…what will the cost to this country be?

Remember Benghazi?

That is Benghazi, Libya….does it ring a bell now?  It was that massive “scandal” that the GOP just knew would bring the prez down….well….it fizzled!

Just yesterday I read a moronic blog that is still ass deep in a scandal mode…..they are so tiring……

Back during the height of the “scandal” I wrote that there was something odd about an ambassador going to a hot spot light on security……I said that IMHO he was on some secretive mission that he needed not to draw attention to himself……and BAM!  Looks like I was pretty close!

(Newser) – A new CNN report might resurrect the controversy of last year’s attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that killed ambassador Chris Stevens. The report asserts that not only did the CIA have “dozens” of operatives on the ground at the consulate before the attack, it is now going to “unprecedented” lengths to keep them from talking about what they were doing. An excerpt:

  • “Since January, some CIA operatives involved in the agency’s missions in Libya have been subjected to frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations, according to a source with deep inside knowledge of the agency’s workings. The goal of the questioning, according to sources, is to find out if anyone is talking to the media or Congress.” (It’s described as “pure intimidation.”)

What might the secretive mission have been? “Speculation on Capitol Hill has included the possibility the US agencies operating in Benghazi were secretly helping to move surface-to-air missiles out of Libya, through Turkey, and into the hands of Syrian rebels,” says the report by Drew Griffin. Could this have played a role in triggering the attack? At the Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf thinks Congress must investigate. The Benghazi debates that played out during last year’s election might have been political hot air, but this looks to be substantive. “If CNN’s report is correct, the CIA is at minimum trying to hide something huge from Congress, something that CIA agents might otherwise want to reveal—itself a reason for Congress to press hard for information.”

I will at this point like to quote the four most beautiful words in the English language…..I TOLD YOU SO!