Tag Archives: National Republican Congressional Committee

Benghazi as a fundraising tool? Seriously??

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You can tell that it’s an election year.  This week, Lois Lerner has been held in contempt of Congress for exercising her Constitutional rights.  Then, there’s the go-to, defacto, base rousing scandal known as Benghazi.

It seems that the original accusation by Republicans that accused the Obama administration of playing politics with the death of 4 Americans has flipped 180 degrees with Republicans now playing politics, using dead Americans as fundraising tools.  Here’s three different screen captures that I took less than an hour ago.

National Republican Senatorial Committee

Just click the green button in the upper left hand corner. There's nothing political about this.

Just click the green button in the upper left hand corner. There’s nothing political about this.

National Republican Congressional Committee

Who knew that demanding answers from Congress would set you back $25 at a minimum?

Who knew that demanding answers from Congress would set you back $25 at a minimum?

The American Center for Law and Justice

If you demand the truth from the ACLJ, they'll save you $5 off the Congressional going rate.

If you demand the truth from the ACLJ, they’ll save you $5 or more off the current Congressional rate.

The common thread between those three screens has to do with the word “DONATE”.  If you’re very passionate about demanding answers, you can turn your donation into a monthly tax-deductible gift.  How can you claim that the Obama administration was playing politics with this attack when you’re using it as a fundraising tool?  Did anybody stop long enough to contemplate the optics of this, or does the GOP operate in a vacuum-sealed, logic-free environment?  I see that Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) did, but obviously, he doesn’t hold any sway within the decision-making apparatus of the GOP.

What happened in Benghazi was a tragedy, nobody’s debating that.  What I don’t understand is why there is such a focus on how the talking points were formulated as opposed to what should be important, finding and capturing the people responsible for this.  To date, it’s reported that eight different congressional committees have looked into the Benghazi attack.  There have been more than a dozen hearings, 50 briefings, and more than 25,000 documents have been examined while investigating the attack.  Now, we’re going to have a select committee do another investigation based on an email that talked about the talking points.

When does America get to hear what Congress is going to do to ensure the safety of our fellow citizens abroad?  What legislation have they enacted to put programs in place so there is a quick response force within distance if one is ever needed?  When do we hear about the great programs enacted to defuse tensions between America and other countries all around the world?  What has the president done to reassess and reinforce security for our personnel in dangerous and threatening environments?

I can’t speak for any other Americans, but I can honestly care less about damn talking points.  I want to know what has been done to avoid another situation just like this.  To date, I don’t recall any type of security legislation that has been passed by Congress to actually address security and safety issues for Americans working overseas, but please continue to dazzle us with bullsh*t and use the death of Americans as a means to pad your campaign coffers.  That’s the new age American Exceptionalism at work.

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Republicans giving desperately needed sensitivity training

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Earlier, I wrote about what I perceived as an impending train wreck for the GOP in regards to their attempted outreach to Black Americans.  I was thinking of a slow motion train wreck that has the potential to be thwarted, but also one of those where people are to infatuated to stop watching.  That was before I read where the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is giving male Republicans training on how to campaign against women.

In a release from Politico:

The National Republican Congressional Committee wants to make sure there are no Todd Akin-style gaffes next year, so it’s meeting with top aides of sitting Republicans to teach them what to say — or not to say — on the trail, especially when their boss is running against a woman.

Speaker John Boehner is serious, too. His own top aides met recently with Republican staff to discuss how lawmakers should talk to female constituents.

“Let me put it this way, some of these guys have a lot to learn,” said a Republican staffer who attended the session in Boehner’s office.

[…]

Boehner urged his colleagues Thursday in response to this POLITICO story to “be a little more sensitive” when running against women.

“Some of our members just aren’t as sensitive as they ought to be,” Boehner said.

That doesn’t sound like it should be such a hard task.  After, there’s not a living man who doesn’t have a mother.  Whether they get along with her is a different story, but we all have a woman or women in our lives.  Therefore, it seems as though it should be quite easy to communicate with women.  Well, there’s always an exception to the rule, and the exception in this case is Republican men.  If you don’t believe me, then let me take you down a short list of fairly recent events.

From The New Civil Rights Movement website:

Today, nine-year old Liz Maquez, a U.S. citizen whose father is in danger of being deported, approached Cantor in the halls of Congress. Maquez tried to talk to Cantor about her dad and immigration reform, but the Virginia Congressman couldn’t give her the time of day.

In a video released by FIRM, the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, it took Cantor less than five seconds to blow off the nine-year old girl.

“Please” was all she got to ask.

“I can’t help you. Good to see you,” was Rep. Cantor’s response.

And perhaps he was actually, in a rare moment, being truthful.

Then, there’s my “favorite” insurance commissioner, Ralph Hudgins…

From Jim Galloway at the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

“I’ve had several companies come in and they have said just the fact — just the fact — that in the individual market pre-existing conditions have to be covered on Jan. 1, that that is going to double the cost of insurance. And if you don’t really understand what covering pre-existing conditions would be like, it would be like in Georgia we have a law that says you have to have insurance on your automobile. You have to have liability insurance. If you’re going to drive on Georgia’s roads, you have to have liability insurance. You don’t have to have collision. You don’t have to have comprehensive. You don’t have to have rental car or towing or anything else. But you have to have liability.

“But say you’re going along and you have a wreck. And it’s your fault. Well, a pre-existing condition would be you then calling up your insurance agent and saying, ‘I would like to get collision insurance coverage on my car.’ And your insurance agent says, ‘Well, you never had that before. Why would you want it now?’ And you say, ‘Well, I just had a wreck, it was my fault and I want the insurance company to pay to repair my car.’ And that’s the exact same thing on pre-existing insurance.”

Yeah, sell that pre-existing crap to parents of a child with a serious medical condition.  How about trying to sell that to someone just diagnosed with colon cancer and facing the potential of having their colon removed and using an ostomy bag for the rest of their life.  Yeah, they’re just like a wrecked car.

Sensitivity training should be the least of worries for Republicans.  What needs to be done is they need to teach humanity and humility.  It seems as though politicians are getting drunk with power and forgetting about the people they’re elected to govern for.  When a politician lacks the capacity to deal with the people that he swore an oath to serve, that person needs to leave the office.  We should not tolerate this behavior regardless to what party or sex is guilty.

I originally saw a slow speed train wreck, but I think we’re gravitating towards Acela territory.

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