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Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Did Benghazi just become a Republican scandal?
That email release from the White House is proving to be a real problem for Republicans. Earlier reports showed that versions of emails leaked by the GOP had been selectively edited, smearing the State Department and the administration with incomplete information that left an inaccurate impression of the email conversations.
Now it turns out that it’s much worse than lies of omission. The Republican version contain outright lies.
CBS News: …On Friday, Republicans leaked what they said was a quote from Rhodes: “We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation.”
But it turns out that in the actual email, Rhodes did not mention the State Department.
It read: “We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation.”
Republicans also provided what they said was a quote from an email written by State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland.
The Republican version quotes Nuland discussing, “The penultimate point is a paragraph talking about all the previous warnings provided by the Agency (CIA) about al-Qaeda’s presence and activities of al-Qaeda.”
The actual email from Nuland says: “The penultimate point could be abused by members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to Agency warnings.”
As I pointed out earlier, Benghazi is rapidly spinning out of Republican control. The ever escalating hype has finally inflated their Benghazi conspiracy theory to the point that the facts can’t possibly support it, so the facts must be abandoned and now the whole thing is propped up almost entirely by fiction.
The question is what are they going to do now? You don’t make shit like this up if you have anything concrete. By leaking these phony emails (and there is no doubt the GOP leaked them) , they practically admit that the whole thing is frosting — there’s no cake here. If anyone has an “editing the talking points” scandal brewing here, it’s the elephant party.
And Darrell Issa’s going to stretch this thing out until 2014? That ought to go well. The whole thing’s in a tailspin now. Keeping it up in the air that long would be a good trick in itself. Keeping from crashing directly into Republican Party HQ and leveling the place would be an even better one.
Bay Area Muslims Face Ongoing Prejudice, Report Finds | PND | Foundation Center
The San Francisco Bay Area, home to one of the largest, most diverse Muslim populations in the United States, has also been home to entrenched Islamophobia in the years after 9/11, a report commissioned by the One Nation Bay Area project finds. Conducted by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (http://www.ispu.org/default.aspx) and believed to be the first of its kind, the Bay Area Muslim Study (144 pages, PDF) found that the six counties surrounding San Francisco include a diverse community of Muslims ranging from new immigrants to highly educated and well-established professionals, to U.S-born Muslims and recent converts, among many others. As a whole, the Muslim community, which represents some 3.5 percent of the region’s population, suffers from a significant socioeconomic gap, with median household income below the Bay Area average. Yet, huge disparities exist within the community, with a disproportionate number of Muslims living below the poverty line, particularly in San Francisco and Alameda County. Moreover, the institutional support of mosques, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies is still underdeveloped. The report also found that Muslims across the region struggle with widespread discrimination, negative portrayals in the media, and a sense of being “double minorities” due to their ethnic and religious backgrounds — despite the fact that many were attracted to the Bay Area because of its reputation for cultural tolerance.
CENSORED NEWS: House of Snakes: US Natural Resources Committee targets Indian lands
the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act of 2013. The Arizona Congressional delegation is pushing for the destruction of sacred land for copper mining. “It is outrageous that members of our Arizona Congressional delegation support a land swap that benefits a foreign mega-mining giant over what’s best for Arizona,” said Terry Rambler, Chairman, San Carlos Apache Tribe. “Resolution Copper Mining (RCM), owned by Rio Tinto which does business with Iran, wants to blast a 7,000 foot deep, massive block-cave mine into sacred land in the Tonto National Forest. This land was set aside in 1955 by President Eisenhower for its religious, cultural, traditional, recreational and archaeological significance. “We, along with many tribes, and recreational and environmental organizations, have opposed this land swap and the mine for more than seven years. Arizona cannot afford this deal. The mine would be an environmental disaster on an unprecedented scale and the job claims made by the copper company are unsubstantiated. As Apaches, we will continue to fight to preserve this land for all Arizonans.”
When the Korean wrote the long series on Korea-Japan relations to explain why Koreans are still angry with the Japanese, a lot of people responded: “Today’s Japan is a very different place from the Imperial Japan during World War II. So Koreans should just get over it.”
Is it now? Today’s Japan has a mayor of a major city, who is considered a potential future Prime Minister, telling the world that sex slaves are necessary in times of war and the U.S. forces in his own country should visit brothels more often. Today’s Japan has a Prime Minister who is a grandson of a Class A war criminal. But rather than having a heightened consciousness about his country’s past crimes, he sits in an airplane with the number 731—clear invocation of Unit 731, which conducted live human experimentation during World War II—grinning and giving a thumbs-up.
The fact that these two leaders think Japan did nothing wrong during World War II was hardly a secret. Prime Minister Abe Shinzo announced to the world that he would withdraw Japan’s apology to former Comfort Women, and denied that Imperial Japan forcibly recruited the Comfort Women to serve as sex slaves. Yet the Japanese people overwhelmingly elected Abe, as well as the candidates for the far-right Japan Restoration Party, to which Mayor Hashimoto belongs.
부처님 오신날 행사
happy buddha’s birthday!
Seen in Jackson Heights
There were varying degrees of enthusiasm toward the photo shoot. The youngest were gung-ho from the start, but Grandma kept trying to walk away.
Los Amigos Invisibles - “La Que Me Gusta” (by Nacionalrecords)
