Discussion: Ex-House Intelligence Chair Abruptly Leaves Trump Transition Team

He obviously failed to “get with the pogrom.”

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In DC-Speak this means 1) nobody is really listening to him, even though he is a RW extremist; 2) he saw some uncomfortable (as yet to be leaked by the FBI, et alia) facts about the Trump-Putin Hack Job; 3) he is joining the GOP cabal that will impeach/ease out Trump in a year or so as to get a bigger possible post.

Wait and see. The Month of the Long Knives™ is coming.

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7 Days on Hold…

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The purging of the GOP establishment has begun. The lunatic right wing (KKK and such) will be in the center of American politics by Christmas. Praise Jesus.

Anyone hear David Duke’s comments on the appointment of Steve Bannon? Anyone need to hear those?

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These sort of things will be the scraps of good news we will have to survive on for the next 4 years.

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Like the article quickly mentioned, it probably had something to do with Rogers’ association with this:

http://intelligence.house.gov/sites/intelligence.house.gov/files/documents/Benghazi%20Report.pdf

US. House of Representatives
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

Investigative Report on the Terrorist Attacks on US Facilities in Benghazi, Libya, September 11-12, 2012

A report by Chairman Mike Rogers and Ranking Member C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

US. House of Representatives
113th Congress

Executive Summary

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (or ‘the Committee’) conducted a comprehensive and exhaustive investigation into the tragic attacks against two U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya on September 11-12, 2012. The nearly two-year investigation focused on the activities of the Intelligence Community before, during, and after the attacks. During the course of thousands of hours of detailed investigation, HPSCI reviewed thousands of pages of intelligence assessments, cables, notes, and emails; held 20 Committee events and hearings; and conducted detailed interviews with senior intelligence officials and eyewitnesses to the attacks, including eight security personnel on the ground in Benghazi that night.

This report details the findings and conclusions of investigation. In summary, the Committee First concludes that the CIA ensured sufficient security for CIA facilities in Benghazi and, without a requirement to do so, ably and bravely assisted the State Department on the night of the attacks. Their actions saved lives. Appropriate U.S. personnel made reasonable tactical decisions that night, and the Committee found no evidence that there was either a stand down order or a denial of available air support. The Committee, however, received evidence that the State Department security personnel, resources, and equipment were unable to counter the terrorist threat that day and required CIA assistance.

Second, the Committee finds that there was no intelligence failure prior to the attacks. In the months prior, the IC provided intelligence about previous attacks and the increased threat environment in Benghazi, but the IC did not have specific, tactical warning of the September 11 attacks.

Third, the Committee finds that a mixed group of individuals, including those affiliated with Al-Qa’ida, participated in the attacks on US. facilities in Benghazi, although the Committee finds that the intelligence was and remains conflicting about the identities, affiliations, and motivations of the attackers.

Fourth, the Committee concludes that after the attacks, the early intelligence assessments and the Administration’s initial public narrative on the causes and motivations for the attacks were not fully accurate. There was a stream of contradictory and conflicting intelligence that came in after the attacks. The Committee found intelligence to support initial assessment that the attacks had evolved out of a protest in Benghazi; but it also found contrary intelligence, which ultimately proved to be the correct intelligence. There was no protest. The CIA only changed its initial assessment about a protest on September 24, 2012, when closed caption television footage became available on September 18, 2012 (two days after Ambassador Susan Rice spoke), and after the FBI began publishing its interviews with US. officials on the ground on September 22, 2012.

Fifth, the Committee finds that the process used to generate the talking points HPSCI asked for, and which were used for Ambassador Rice’s public appearances, was flawed. HPSCI asked for the talking points solely to aid Members’ ability to communicate publicly using the best available intelligence at the time, and mistakes were made in the process of how those talking points were developed.

Finally, the Committee found no evidence that any officer was intimidated, wrongly forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement or otherwise kept from speaking to Congress, or polygraphed because of their presence in Benghazi. The Committee also found no evidence that the CIA conducted unauthorized activities in Benghazi and no evidence that the IC shipped arms to Syria.

This report, and the nearly two years of intensive investigation it reflects, is meant to serve as the definitive House statement on the Intelligence Community’s activities before, during, and after the tragic events that caused the deaths of four brave Americans. Despite the highly sensitive nature of these activities, the report has endeavored to make the facts and conclusions within this report widely and publicly available so that the American public can separate the actual facts from the swirl of rumors and unsupported allegations. Only with a full accounting of the facts can we ensure that tragedies like the one that took the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods, and Glen Doherty never happen again.

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I hope you’re joking as Blake Farenthold is one of the most determined mental cases in the House. He’s an intensely partisan asshole to boot.

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I wonder if Priebus will be next?

what fucking qualifications does his two asshole sons, and his daughter have that they should be heavily involved in the white house and have “top secret” clearance? Not too mention his lack of qualifications. We have amateur hour in the white house. One asshole leading another asshole leading another asshole. The fact that half of Americans are proud that this man is our POTUS is the most vile thing about this. It’s no wonder we don’t make anything here anymore, except Roller Coasters and Survivor elimination challenges. (quoting 30 Rock)

President Flavor Flav 2020! (SNL)

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I say we must allow Trump and his team to present themselves in all of their ineptitude. Perhaps the media will make time to actually report on it now that sneering at Hillary Clinton won’t be filling as much of their time!

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So he writes the report in 2014 absolving the Admin/HRC on Benghazi. Invited to Trump’s transition team. Trump wins. Trump then starts his purge of anyone seen as enabling the Obama Admin or not being critical enough. The purge has only begun and will accelerate once he takes office. You will see many, many other Repubs that weren’t critical enough of Obama/HRC publicly demoted, demeaned, humiliated by Trump. That’s how bullies…and fascists…roll. There will be a level of incompetence in his cabinet/staff the likes of which we’ve never seen. I’m only hoping that America can last the 2 years to get back control of Congress…if they can.

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There is a book out about how to survive in an autocracy and one of the primary rules is do NOT count on your institutions to save you

just ordered it on my Kindle

“If there’s a part of you that still holds out hope that, for all his autocratic tendencies, Donald Trump will revert to a sort of political normality as president, you need to read Masha Gessen’s chilling but essential article “Autocracy: Rules for Survival” in The New York Review of Books.
Gessen, a journalist who has devoted much of her career to making sense of Russia under Vladimir Putin, offers a number of hard-won lessons for surviving in the autocracy that we may soon find ourselves living in here in the US.”

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Purge of the week.

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Few years back in the early 90s, , I accepted a job as mgr of a computer integrator. Husband and wife ownership.
I was supposed to manage the half-doz employees, expand customer base and sales. I think I could have done it in about 6 months in a normal set of circumstances and personalities. . .

i quit, middle the afternoon in 12 days. That was about 9 days too long.
Owners were certifiably insane. I came close to punching the husband in the snoot.
I understand full well what it’s like to be confronted by utter, insufferable incompetence.
Now multiply my experience by a factor of 12 and we can understand what this poor man confronted .Like being parachuted into 18th Century Bedlam itself.

They never replaced me, went under in about a year.

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I guess I was taking the rational route of “What did the new guy see that scared him?”

Looks like the team didn’t like the new guy, his actual experience and clear thinking.

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Just heard Katy Tur confirm that fact - Kushner still carries a vendetta against Christie for sending his father to jail and won’t allow Christie any kind of position or significant influence.

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I see Steve Bannon’s fingerprints all over this, with smudges from Gingrich and Giuliani. The guy let Hillary off the hook for Benghazi. He may have been correct, but that was a mortal crime among those folks.

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Yep…the right has come a long way from Grover “Drown the government in the bathtub” Norquist. Bannon wants to stab it into a bloody pulp so that there’s no chance of resuscitation. Sorry if you’re eating breakfast.

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I guess the Trump team thinks they don’t need much planning or coordination to “bomb the shit out of them.”

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Wow. Finally right about something. I should turn back to MSNBC. Watching global warming propaganda film “into the storm”.

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