Republicans are ignoring important issues

Let's take ISIS, for example.

Although the evil Islamic State (ISIS) continues to terrorize the world and victimize the people in the Middle East, the Republicans are imploding because of internal political turmoil over numbers of convention nomination votes.

It's impossible to  understand why the news isn't covering news!
Especially, this important news about progress against ISIS, as reported on CNN:

ISIS: The Business of Terror
ISIS is struggling to fund its war machine



ISIS is loosing oil money like a bucket with a hole in it- but it's fascinating to ponder how the information in this CNN article was verified?  Think about it (or, in Twitter language #TAI.)

It's getting harder for ISIS to finance its evil war machine, due to its shrinking territory and crippled oil business.

ISIS' monthly revenue has fallen by 30% in recent months, according to information and analysis firm IHS.

In March, the group collected only $56 million, a significant reduction from estimated monthly revenue of $80 million in mid-2105.

The decline in revenue is now seriously constraining the ISIS' ability to fund its reign of terror, according to the U.S. State Department and several scholars who track the group.

Already, ISIS has been forced to cut its fighters' salaries in half. Additional pressure is now forcing ISIS to ration medical supplies, according to counterterrorism analysts.

It's a major change for a group that became the world's richest terrorist organization by taxing the people on its territory, selling oil on the black market, smuggling stolen archeological artifacts, and demanding kidnapping ransoms.

CNN last month reported that ISIS was struggling financially, but it was unclear to what extent. Now there's evidence ISIS is taking major steps to compensate.

Lost land, new taxes
ISIS has ceded 22% of its territory to Kurdish, Syrian and Iraqi forces over the past 15 months, according to IHS. During that time, the population living under ISIS rule has fallen from 9 million to 6 million.

"There are fewer people and business activities to tax. The same applies to properties and land to confiscate," said Columb Strack, a senior analyst at IHS.

Tax revenue, which provides roughly half of the group's funding, has fallen by 23% since last summer, IHS reports. As a result, ISIS is desperately finding new ways to squeeze money out of the people still living in its territory.

We already know the group imposes a 10% income tax, 15% business tax, 2% sales tax and 5% fee on cash withdrawals from banks. There's also a mafia-like protection insurance, called jizyah, that Christians are forced to pay.

New rules require anyone who repairs a broken satellite dish to pay ISIS a special fee. People must also pay a religious fine if they are unable to accurately answer questions about the Quran, IHS analysts said.

ISIS is so strapped for cash it has also started giving people accused of violating Sharia law the option of paying a cash fine instead of suffering severe physical punishments, IHS reports.

"This new stance represents a strong indicator of the financial difficulties the group is going through," Ludovico Carlino, senior analyst at IHS, wrote in his latest report.

More air strikes, less ISIS oil (Nevertheless, can't imagine if the landscape will ever recover but, like the dessert sands shrouded Egyptian pyramids and ruins, eventually the earth will reclaim the devastation caused by the war against ISIS.)
The U.S.-led coalition bombing campaign is also hurting ISIS' oil business, according to IHS.

Revenue from crude sales is down 26% from last year, IHS reports. And daily production in the region has dropped from 33,000 barrels last summer to 21,000 barrels.

Crude oil sales account for 42% of ISIS' revenue, but experts said the group has not raised the price it charges smugglers at the wellhead.

Carlino said ISIS cares more about quick sales -- even if that means lower revenue. Plus, many people inside its territory -- who buy ISIS oil -- are running short of spending money.

The terrorist group is also having trouble recruiting engineers and repair its oil and gas equipment, according to Jean-Charles Brisard, chairman of the Center for the Analysis of Terrorism.

"These reasons also explain why ISIS is dedicating large resources to expand itself, notably in Libya," Brisard said.

Even though Libya is 1,400 miles southwest of the ISIS stronghold between Iraq and Syria, experts say the terrorist group is now shifting resources to take advantage of poorly policed coastlines in the region.

Horror never ceases, because, the new potential ISIS business?

It's Drugs.

CNNMoney (New York) First published April 21, 2016

Mrs. Clinton's composure over Republican inquistion

By 9 PM on October 22, 2015, the Twittershere was breaching into an incendiary conflagration about the ongoing harassment of Mrs. Hillary Clinton, conducted by the stupid Republicans on the Congressional Benghazi inquisition committee. Hashtags like #stopthetorture and #Imwithher were trending, with very little push back from right wing nuts who typically infect these kinds of political discourses. It's highly likely, the right wing nuts had turned off the inquisition after 11 hours, and abandoned the pointed head chairman, Congressman Gowdy, of South Carolina. In fact, if the hearing weren't so "real time" serious, I would've sworn Gowdy was a plant from the Saturday Night Live "Conehead" skits.

Congressman Trey Gowdy of South Carolina has a head that looks like he was a clay  model for a Ku-Klux-Klan hood

Although the Benghazi Inquisition Committee (BIC) was determined to break down Mrs. Clinton's composure (truth, of course, wasn't what the inquisition sought; after all, they knew the facts beforehand), they completely failed to rattle her composure. Nevertheless, the 11 hours of relentless questioning was as close to real time torture of an American citizen as we'll ever witness. Congressman Gowdy should be impeached for leading this unwarranted witch hunt. Moreover, every Republican in America owes Mrs. Clinton an apology, because after 11 hours of questioning, no new information was revealed during the BIC.

Obviously, the BIC backfired on Republicans, who were intent on creating a bombastic sound bite to use against Mrs. Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign.  They failed. During the inquistion, the Republicans gained a double negative. Repubicans didn't get any sound bite and, also, they didn't gain any new information about the deadly September 11, 2012 attacks in Benghazi. Obviously, the four Americans who were murdered in Benghazi can never be recovered and Republicans were unable to provide evidence of a scandal about how the heroic victims died.

Instead, the Republicans who were responsible for the Benghazi inquisition are faced with how to dig out of the political trench they dug during the failed 11 hour BIC hearing, without any measurable results.

Speaker of the House candidate evidently can't "speak"

Are Republicans about to elect a Speaker of the House who can't speak?

Republicans want to create a brahaha about Hillary Clinton, but they're putting their House "speaker" focus on the wrong person to talk about their obsessive muckraking of the issues. If Republicans believe they can undo Hllary Clinton's presidential candidacy, they'll soon hire the wrong person to do the speaking. "We put together a special Benghazi committee,....she's 'untrustable'",says the potential speaker, a man who obviusly can't speak.  (McCarthy calls Hungary "Hungria". Clearly, he never took "geo-grahia", .in school.)

Congressman Kevin McCarthy wants to be House Speaker, but his "speaking" is un-understandable

In fact, McCarthy quickly revealed the farce of the Benghazi committee.  It was created to undermine Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy. Republicans don't care about facts, unless the information perpetrates their muckraking.  

McCarthy, the man who wants to be the "Speaker" of the House, spoke the truth today to Fox News. He said the Benghazi committee was created to undermine Secretary Clinton and to create her as a person who is "untrustable"?  I'd say Congressman McCarthy is "un-understandable". (Wow! How will Fox News defend this McCarthy truth? They're media is so into perpetrating lies, they just "can't handle the truth").

In fact, there's no more information to learn about the sadly deadly attack in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, unless the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chooses to reveal something new. Inserting my own side bar here, why has no one ever told us, during all these useless investigations, about why it was that Ambassador Stevens left the Embassy in Libya to travel to Benghazi, in the first place? No one has ever answered that question. Ambassador Stevens left the US Embassy for a reason. He didn't go out on a daily exercise regimen. Yet, no one has explained what he was doing in Benghazi.

Additionally, there are no email messages in Hillary Clinton's home server with damaging information. She didn't give any information to anyone who was unauthorized to receive her email.  (General David Petreaus, on the other hand, gave intelligence information to his mistress, Paula Broadwell. He didn't even have a court martial.)

Republicans are doing a dangerous dance by continuing to play political games with our government  They invent issues, like trying to shut down the government, because they don't want to fund Planned Parenthood?  Oh paaaaleeze! Republicans have been shutting down the government at every chance they get and it's always backfired on them. Nevertheless, they've created turmoil, regardless of how their useless energies have damaged our international credibility or hurt our nation's internal interests. People depend on government, but Republicans just don't care.

Governor Bobby Jindal, Republican of Louisiana, gave the label of "stupid party" to his political colleagues. Well, guess what? As the Republican President, Ronald Reagan said, "there you go again...".  Indeed, Republicans handed Hillary Clinton’s embattled campaign a gift after months of damage over the former Secretary of State’s use of a private email server.

Kevin McCarthy, the House majority leader and a candidate to replace John Boehner as Speaker of the House, credited the House Benghazi Committee with lowering Clinton’s poll numbers, a gaffe that undermines Republicans’ claim that the committee is a nonpartisan investigation. (Anybody who believes that certainly deserves to be card carrying members of the "stupid party".)

“Everybody though Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” McCarthy said in an interview with Fox News. “But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought.”

Nevertheless, regardless of how Congressman McCarthy wants to create un-understandable narrative about Hillary Clinton, the job he is seeking as Speaker of the House requires for him to "speak".  Moreover, the Speaker of the House must also lead.

If Congressman McCarthy can't speak, then he will become the laughing stock "Saturday Night Live" caricature of all Republicans.  

Obviously, Congressman McCarthy is unqualified to be Speaker of the House.  He can't even correctly pronounce the name of foreign countries, like "Hungria". 

McCarthy's un-understandable speaking abilities, will never be able to lead our US House of Representatives.

House Republicans must be on notice tonight. They need to find another candidate to be Speaker of the House.  

In fact, the Republcians must find a person who can pass a 4th grade geography test, and put an end to the witch hunts called "Benghazi" and the non news "email news", plus keep the government open.  

I nominate retiring Ohio Congressman John Boehner for the job. 

worthy of a re-blog - Benghazi Congressional Hearings Didn't Accomplish Much

I seldom re-blog, but this one on Benghazi is very well done.

GOP Star Witnesses Debunk Right-Wing Benghazi Conspiracy Theories

By Hayes Brown on May 8, 2013 at 5:00 pm

The “whistleblowers” at today’s House Oversight Committee hearing on what really happened in Benghazi, Libya last September were supposed to break the dam that would lead to President Obama’s eventual downfall, in the eyes of conservatives. Instead, these witness actually served to debunk several theories that the right-wing has pushed on Benghazi, leaving the hearing a fizzle for the GOP:

1. F-16s could have been sent to Benghazi

Part of the prevailing theory surrounding the events the night of the Benghazi attacks is that the Obama administration did not do enough militarily to respond to the crisis. Gregory Hicks — a Foreign Service Officer and the former Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya — claimed during his pre-hearing testimony that fighter jets could have been flown over Benghazi, preventing the second wave of the attack from occurring.



Ranking Member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) questioned that statement, asking Hicks whether he disagreed with Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Gen Martin Dempsey’s assessment that no air assets were in range the night of the attack. Hicks didn’t disagree, saying he was “speaking from [his] perspective” and what “veteran Libyan revolutionaries” told him, rather than Pentagon assessments.

2. Hillary Clinton signed cables denying additional security to Benghazi

House Republicans came to the conclusion in their interim report on Benghazi that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lied to them about what she knew and when during her testimony this January. This includes her statement that at no time was she aware of requests for additional security at the diplomatic facility in Benghazi prior to the attack. 

Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) used her time to take issue with this claim, asking all three witnesses about standard protocol for cables leaving the State Department. All three agreed with Maloney, that the Secretary of State’s name is placed at the bottom of all outgoing cables and telegrams from Foggy Bottom, whether the Secretary has viewed them or not, shooting down the GOP claim.

3. A Special Forces Team that could have saved lives was told to stand down
One of the most shocking reveals in the lead-up to today’s hearing was that a team of Special Forces in Tripoli were told not to deploy to Benghazi during the attack. That decision has led to an uproar on the right, including claims of dereliction of duty towards Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey for not taking actions that could have saved lives.

During questioning, Hicks confirmed that the team was ready to be deployed — not to join the fighting at the CIA annex — but “to secure the airport for the withdrawal of our personnel from Benghazi after the mortar attack.” Hicks also confirmed that it was the second such team to be readied for deployment, with the first having proceeded to Benghazi earlier. Despite the second team not deploying, the staff was all evacuated first to Tripoli, then to Germany, within 18 hours of the attack taking place.

4. The State Department’s Accountability Review Board isn’t legitimate
Republicans have been attacking the State Department’s official in-house review of the shortcomings seen before, during, and after the assault in Benghazi. That criticism prompted House Republicans to write their own report. When asked point blank about the recommendations of the Board, however, the witnesses didn’t cooperate with the GOP narrative. “Absolutely,” Eric Nordstrom, the Regional Security Officer for Libya prior to the assault in Benghazi, answered when asked if he believes implementing the recommendations would improve security. “I had an opportunity to review that along with other two committee reports. I think taken altogether, they’re fairly comprehensive and reasonable.”

 

Hicks, when questioned, said that while he had some issues with the process by which the Board gathered its information, he demurred on criticizing the report itself.