2015 American Politics Thread: The 114th Congress Is in the House!

some of my best friends are brain surgeons

understandable

so you a) don't know any brain surgeons and b) missed the reference?

No, everybody got the reference; nobody else was so shit-brained stupid that they thought it required more than 100 words of explanation.

The Washington Post's morning inside the beltway politics email "The Daily 202" after focusing on the tea party caucus reaction to Paul Ryan adds this down near the bottom--

With a bigger profile, Ryan is about to become a bigger boogeyman on the left. Several liberal outlets are attacking him for hypocrisy. Here is a taste of the headlines:
• Jezebel: “Paul Ryan, Opponent of Paid Family Leave, Demands Congress Respect His Need for Family Time.”
• The Nation: “Ryan Was Already Rejected for a Leadership Position—by 2012 Voters.”
• Salon: “Ryan is arrogant clown, drunk on years of flatterers lying about how smart he is; GOP Rep thinks he’s a Randian hero, but is quickly learning that even conservatives find his arrogance revolting.”

meanwhile BENGHAZI

i am listening to it in the background while i work because apparently i hate myself with a burning passion

I still can't believe this is real: http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--XncX0XtS--/181u5acpq4f8yjpg.jpg

I also can't believe this is real: http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTk5Mjg4NDg4NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMTQzMjA0NjE@._V1_SY317_CR1,0,214,317_AL_.jpg

looks like Ryan is in

I give the Freedom Caucus 3 months before they turn on him

Didn't Michael Bay want to wait to hear what comes out of the hearings?! And what about the Oscars? A mid January release makes it tough to keep on the awards radar for a whole year. He better hope there are more hearings, because NEVER FORGET!

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2015_10/clintons_opening_benghazi_stat058251.php

In Hillary Clinton’s opening statement at today’s Benghazi hearing, she began by extolling the virtues of Ambassador Chris Stevens and explaining why he wanted to serve in Libya and why he was in Benghazi taking risks with his life. In Clinton’s estimation, it’s critical that our diplomatic staff be engaged in dangerous places and willing to put their lives on the line in order to talk to people.

She then went right for the throat by bringing up the attacks on our personnel in Beirut during the Reagan administration that killed over 250 people. She also mentioned other attacks on our diplomatic corp that took place during the administrations of her husband and George W. Bush. In other words, why is this particular attack the focus of such obsessive attention?

Did I hear on the radio this morning that Freedom Cocks "support" Ryan even though they are officially "endorsing" another candidate?

sort of, details here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/22/us/politics/paul-ryan-house-speaker-freedom-caucus.html?_r=0

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YGCrjQpTzUk/ViggGjHTwII/AAAAAAAAcAE/TI6wG6hz-RY/s640/Screenshot%2B2015-10-21%2Bat%2B4.30.14%2BPM.png

She then went right for the throat by bringing up the attacks on our personnel in Beirut during the Reagan administration that killed over 250 people. She also mentioned other attacks on our diplomatic corp that took place during the administrations of her husband and George W. Bush. In other words, why is this particular attack the focus of such obsessive attention?

heh - gotta say this is pretty classic

Classic Hillary.

"PS my parents are brain scientists (not surgeons). before that, my dad was a rocket scientist. literally, as joe biden would say."

Wait, so are you making an argument against nature or nurture?

he's explaining why his parents are so disappointed in him

did they go to top 5-10 schools tho

when they were younglings

"PS my parents have the highest midichlorian count anyone has ever seen. even higher than master yoda. from a certain point of view, as obi-wan would say"

LOL

Gowdy patting himself on the back...

If those previous congressional investigations were really serious and thorough, how did they miss Ambassador Stevens' e-mails? If those previous investigations were serious and thorough, how did they miss Secretary Clinton's e-mails? If those congressional investigations really were serious and thorough, why did they fail to interview dozens of key State Department witnesses, including agents on the ground who experienced the attacks firsthand?

Dem. Cummings---But, Madam Secretary, you are sitting there by yourself. The Secretary Of Defense is not on your left. The director of the CIA is not on your right. That's because Republicans abandoned their own plans to question those top officials.

trying to recall the last time there was such a highly publicized Senate hearing at which absolutely nothing was at stake beyond the pure political theater

Congressional hearing, I mean

like, everyone knows there is no significant legislative or foreign policy or legal issue at stake here, it is strictly the parties trying to score points against each other (Clinton as guilty on that count as much as Gowdy)

https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/657221560642572288

If the Republicans were a serious party, they could absolutely devastate Hillary by looking at large disaster of Libya not just Benghazi.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/hillary-clinton-2016-libya-intervention-213277

Hillary backers just say Libya would be even worse off if we had not proceeded as we did

Michael McFaul ‏@McFaul 12m12 minutes ago
As ambassador in Russia, I enjoyed multiple ways to communicate with Secretary Clinton. Email was never one of them.

https://hollywoodhatesme.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/smuggery.jpg

waiting for the eventual Benghazi telegraph scandal

Anyone know Hillary's Grindr handle?

Asking for a friend.

swipe right

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/doratheexplorer/images/a/a4/Fark_bY5Phj8vgi54Vzxt7cRQdXP6L8.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140726173248

so this happened

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/257798-obama-vetoes-defense-bill?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

http://www.theonion.com/article/paul-ryan-awaiting-soulcycle-instructors-approval--51709

Started watching this hearing around five, feel asleep in the chair for a while, have had it in the background as I mark. It's so convoluted. I suspect that Clinton is covering up incompetence of some degree. Anyone tuning in now who doesn't already have his or her mind made up, I think they'll see someone in her ninth or tenth hour of testimony who's essentially being badgered. Which isn't to say that Clinton, whether triggered by fatigue or exasperation, shouldn't keep her laughing outbursts to a minimum--they don't come across well.

its hard to stay on message when youre being interrogated for hours on end.. I pray to god I never get deposed

PROSECUTOR: "Well that contradicts what your statement earlier when you said that –"

ME: "Yeah, I probably did. Is it lunchtime yet?"

Mr. Gowdy's quite creepy.

Started watching this hearing around five, feel asleep in the chair for a while, have had it in the background as I mark

you have strange enthusiasms

Pierce:

I would like to congratulate the United States House of Representatives for the very fine show they put on today on the stage provided by the Special Committee To Keep Benghazi In The News Until The Polls Drop. There has been no better example of non-governance displayed on TV since the last time Marco Rubio gave a speech. There has been no better view granted of the sheer stupidity and incompetence that has run riot in those halls because of the last two midterm elections since the last time Steve King parted his brain on the left side. There has been no more sterling example of the now-undeniable truth that modern movement conservatism has declined into a tangled mess of myth, shibboleth, and outright fabulism since the last time Ed Klein wrote a book. A whole philosophy of government, and still an influential one, stands exposed as little more than a puppet show for the national Id, and not a particularly sharp one, either. A movement full of grifters and ignorami, acting out a simulacrum of representative government for the benefit of an audience steeped in comfortable, narcotic delusion. Seriously, today's hearings performed roughly the same public service that Patricia Neal did in A Face In The Crowd, when she threw open Lonesome Rhodes's microphone when he wasn't looking.​

i wish i loved america enough to be more outraged by four dead servicemen in wartorn libya than i am by thousands of dead citizens on american soil on 9/11. i guess i'm a communist

an unusually lucid fox news moment

http://i.imgur.com/6QxHcq7.png

Physician, kill thyself.

http://tktk.gawker.com/times-campaign-reporter-familiarizes-self-with-c-span-1738142673

The hearing was so newsless that conservative media outlets turned toward minor details: The Drudge Report leads this morning with a Weekly Standard item about a coughing fit Clinton had in the final hour of her testimony.

physician, dive headfirst into an empty pool