Now that the mastermind behind the Benghazi attack is in custody and has allegedly cited the video as the main impetus…uh, who cares? As Hillary said, “Why does it matter?” This was extrapolated by Fox to mean, “Why does it matter four Americans died?” They did this because they lie. That’s not news; they lie every news cycle, but what’s always been interesting to me about this particular “scandal” is how little sense it makes, even by typical Fox News standards. Heh, heh…Fox News standards.

No attempt to make this a scandal has worked and, remember, the GOP came at this from more angles than Pythagoras on crack, during his OCD period. Fox News’s last angle, the Obama knew all along it wasn’t the video that triggered the attack, just collapsed. So even their inane, picky nonsensical shit that no one understands (IPNSTNOU) isn’t panning out. The GOP is like Felix Unger with ADHD, after the head injury episode. Apparently, in several private conversations, Khatallah moved up the attack date after being enraged by an American anti-Islam video, or:

“So, of course, the attacks were linked to the dozens of other embassies overrun on the same day. If the GOP can’t connect those dots, we’re going to need some bigger dots. That is why the attack fell right on movie-trailer night. They used the riots as an excuse…you know, to do the old fake yawn and reach around thing. You think this just happened at the precise moment all of those other protests?”

—Mick Zano, 11/19/12

Isn’t it time to hold republicans accountable for their lies? My quote came soon after the attacks and, let’s be clear, I don’t really care about this part. Who would? Yet, the people who studied this shit, for years, still couldn’t create anything meaningful out of their bullshit, or:

Dear Rick Santorum,

Maybe it’s republicanism, not homosexuality that leads to bestiality…uh, because you people seem to always screw the pooch.

Sincerely,

Reality.

P.S. Wag more, bark less. Woof.

I don’t care about being right, I care that these same wing-nuts are now in position to win the midterms. Imposition? The imposition, here we go, the imposition, what a show. What movie?

Here’s a review of the real culpability on Benghazi:

1. Republicans chose to defund embassy security about a year before the attack.

(I guess hindsight is AK-47.)

2. This ongoing Benghazi distraction greatly diminished the death of Ambassador Stevens and his life’s work, here. And, as a direct result of Project Issa, 21 embassies have closed across the Middle East.

(Hey, but saving on embassy security reduced the deficit by .0000001, while greatly increasing the likelihood of another war, aka, another win win for our fiscally conservative neocons.)

3. The right all but ended the promising career of Susan Rice, not out of some misunderstanding, but from sheer bullshit, aka, the fuel of choice over at the Fox Nation

(Keystone Poopline?)

Fun fact: Republicans no longer require facts, fun or otherwise.

4. Republicans have, once again, wasted millions of tax payer’s dollars on legal fees, special committees, and Obama voodoo dolls. Shouldn’t they pay us back?

(…with interest?)

(Close Guantanamo and open GOPtanamo? Kidding, why feed them? It’s a welfare program.)

The only small difference between my list and theirs is this: reality. These are all facts. Essentially, Bush showed us how ineffective broader military campaigns can be and, now, his friends are making Obama’s weapon of choice, diplomacy, a much harder proposition. I guess having fewer embassy attacks on your watch and then bringing those responsible to justice is the new republican definition of incompetence.

All of the right’s arguments on this “scandal” have been dismantled, which only seems to embolden them. It’s like a wounded animal, on ludes. Here’s what’s next from a stronger, wronger Fox:

Is Obama “Fixing” Khatallah’s Confession?

Amnesty Deal in the Works for Benghazi Mastermind?

The Truth Won’t Stop Next Issa Investigation

Was Hillary Watching Twilight Marathon During Benghazi?

Honestly, I think that last one is true. I have Googled the dates. Hillary, prepare for this one in the debates.

Today, Fox News is interviewing the evil genius known as Alberto Gonzalez—in your spare time, please remove the word genius—about this matter, here. Will the right’s infatuation with people who suck ever end? (Hint: no.) That would start a dumbino effect and could lead to something called rationality. My 2008 dismantling of Bush’s Attorney General, here.

Conservatives should be happy Khattalah was brought to justice—and, if they cared about embassy security, they should fund it next time. If such things mattered to them, wouldn’t they know how many attacks occurred under Bush? Incidentally, no one does, because when you factor in Baghdad, the number is too high to track. Back then their excuse was “we’re fighting them there so we didn’t have to fight them here.” Of course, the they in question weren’t there, until we went there. Now, hear ye, hear ye, they are there…uh …but here? Them’s the facts. And, the only ones who never seem to notice when their arguments fall apart, is them. There, I said it.

Case in point, Iraq is now Obama’s fault. Who knew? My take here.

In the end, it doesn’t matter. The right wing media desperately wanted to create a false reality and, at this point, they have succeeded. On a national scale my arguments are clearly losing ground. It doesn’t mean they’re wrong, it just means propaganda is often more effective. This may come as a shock to some of you, but O’Reilly is beating me in all timeslots, for all age groups, in all places on earth…except maybe Portlandia. Woot! Meanwhile, on behalf of reality: you all owe Ambassador Stevens and Susan Rice an apology…oh, and while you’re at it, ME! I could have obviously spent my time more wisely.

[Midget porn joke omitted by the editor.]

Today the New York Post is running a story suggesting Hillary didn’t believe it was the video that triggered the attack, here. This is what worries me—at times Hillary seems to be more neocon than a liberal. Sometimes there isn’t nearly as much light between her and republicans as I would like. She is distancing herself from Obama for all the wrong reasons. She knows the right’s fantasy narrative is gripping our nation, so she’s feeding into it in the hopes of some political gain. She’s a sellout. I don’t think we need to distance ourselves from issues that Obama got right.

But lest we forget this Fox News gem:

Fox News: “We Stand By Our Reporting On Benghazi”

Well, I too stand by my coverage of this issue, here, here, and here. And, once again, I beat an entire network of goofballs. Look, uh…if I’m a spoof news blogger, what exactly are you people supposed to be? I’m afraid republicans have broken the Flynn Effect over their dunce caps.

Okay. I’ll end with another of my nuggets, only because the last IF in this little equation was finally answered today and, as usual, the right is wrong on all counts. Lucky for them, they can’t count.

Did you see the parade of war criminals surface all across the Fox Nation this week? You know, the ones who never got anything right about Iraq and should be in jail? They have more advice now that Iraq is descending into a civil war. Fox also started running endless 2007 republican Surge-justification-quotes (SJQ). Here’s the thing, saying Iraq will fall apart without U.S. support in 2007 is kind of like Churchill, instead of his famous 1940 speech, saying, “You know, I think Hitler’s up to something.”

Here’s the first wisdom nugget:

“You could see in the Shia south, the Iranians reaching over and grabbing to take power. You could see in the Sunni northwest, the Al-Qaeda folks taking power and leadership in that area.”

—Mitt Romney (2007)

Fox says this was so “eerily accurate” that he must have had a “time machine”. I would like to add that, because he’s a republican, he must have set the controls wrong on that thing. Uh…because most of us figured that shit out back in ‘04, three years earlier. Romney’s ‘insight’ is like saying, “you know, the Alamo is going to be really nasty” while a guest on Anderson Cooper tonight.

Here’s the 2^nd wisdom nugget:

President Bush’s Dire Warning Ignored! Tell us more, oh Nostradumbass

Well, look who’s still talking? Make no mistake, republican’s revisionist history for this time period is now complete. Their conclusion: if only we’d listened to George W. Bush on Iraq. Sadly, it’s really no worse than the rest of their conclusions. I guess we can close that chapter from The World According to GOP. How about this one, Bush Accurately Predicts Own Incompetence on Handling of Iraq, or, better yet:

What they lack in brains, they make up for in balls. Republicans are so far beyond absurd, they can no longer even see absurd from their flying unicorns. The Iraq War is something I got right, not in 2007, in two thousand & fucking two. More importantly it’s one of the things Obama got right, in fact, it’s why he’s president. Forgot that part, huh? It’s also why I chose Obama over Hillary. So to hear a bunch of architects of one of the greatest foreign policy blunders in our nation’s history say “told you so” is astounding, even by normal republican delusional standards (NRDS).

NERDS!!! Wait, we are the nerds and the jocks…so republicans are the, uh, I’m going to have to peruse my high school yearbook and get back to you.

Colin Powell warned Bush, “You break it, you bought it” and “you know you’re going to own this place, right?” That doesn’t excuse his anthrax performance, but it still shows some insight, which was sorely lacking with that bunch.

But everyone knew by 2007—even republicans knew—there were no good answers in Iraq by 2007. It’s that same time delay I keep talking about. It takes years before information is properly processed by…oh, who am kidding? They can’t process information.

Admittedly, Romney’s speech lays out one important detail, and details are often lacking in the GOP’s foreign policy rhetoric. His sage like advice from that quote on Iraq also included:

“Handle carefully.”

—Mitt Romney (2007)

I’m not kidding, that was the only advice after he stated the obvious. So we didn’t handle Iraq carefully between 2003 to 2013. Damn it, guys! I said bomb the shit out of Baghdad, carefully. Maybe Iraq needed a giant warning label scrawled across the country, Handle with Care, or the Shiite could hit the Fallujah. Or, maybe, with the aid of drone strikes, we could have spelled out Fragile, so Palin could see it from her house. I think historians will be wrestling with questions like this forever, well, historians from the Heritage Foundation on ‘shrooms.

The “eerily accurate” quotes our friends on the right keep citing this week come from the ramp-up to the “Surge”, which I felt only acted as a Bushian human shield—you know, so he could quietly sneak away to go paint, or clear brush, or conduct some other task more suitable to his relative skill set, or:

“The closing of the American Mind under Rove’s direction seems almost complete. The Republican Party, however, has brought the concept of denial to levels unrealized since Pee Wee Herman’s dream of a new unsupervised playhouse.  Now, the catastrophic decisions by Bush and co. are swept away by the success of ‘the surge,’ which equates to a billion dollar a week pause button in the endless clusterfuck that is the Iraq War.”

—Mick Zano (2008)

Unfortunately this site only goes back to 2008, but here’s a fun Iraqi review:

1. Bush lied and started a war (see Downing Street memo).

2. The resistance to the occupiers escalated after we disbanded the whole Iraqi army (fun fact: they’re now an important part of ISIS).

3. Another fun fact: ISIS is the Egyptian Goddess of what are republicans smoking.

4. We propped up a Shiite, Maliki, who hates Sunnis. Who could have foreseen that that would become an issue? (Fun fact: he tried to have his Sunni VP killed, which was all part of Bush’s: Operation Iraq 1776).

5. Regional ethnic cleansing began, neighborhood by neighborhood (fun fact: Sunnis Shiites and republicans were all cool with this because they stopped shooting at Americans for a brief period. Winning!)

6. Years later, the election of Maliki bolstered Iran’s position and power in the region, which is still true today (Fun fact: isn’t that fun enough?)

7. During a pause in the civil war, at the conclusion of this ethnic cleansing, Bush “Surged” by sending more troops under Operation: please just kill each other not our troops long enough so I can leave office.

8. Al-Qaeda, who were never even in Iraq under Saddam, moved into the vacuum of power (this started under Bush and continued under Obama, which, of course = impeach Obama).

9. The marginalized Sunni’s waited very patiently to take revenge on the Shiite majority (this was set to begin whenever the fuck we wised up and left).

10. Civil War is beginning now (see: duh).

11. We reached number 11! Because my tutorials go to eleven! If that weren’t enough, the whole invasion sparked a more regional Sunni Shiite war across the Middle East, predicated by many before we invaded, including Bush’s daddy. But Bush Jr. has daddy issues so as a result hundreds of thousands of people died. (Fun fact: this example is the only time Freud was ever right about something psychological.)

So let me get this straight, the guy who didn’t want us to invade Iraq in the first place, Obama, is now wrong and the people who figured out we were fucked, a few years later than anyone else, are the new brain trusts? Really? Is that what the history books will say? Hey, why not add Bush and Jesus riding into Baghdad on dinosaurs? What? Too soon?

Reality Check:

A few years back during my 21^st century scorecard, out of 14 of the most important issues of our time, the GOP only got one full point for “The Surge”, but with this caveat:

“Oh, and when Iraq completely descends back into chaos, I’m taking that “Surge” point back! I hope to hell it doesn’t happen, but I have to contend with something they don’t, reality.”

—Mick Zano

Today, I’m taking back that point, right on cue. So the republican collective has yet to get any significant issue right…in this century! Hell, most real issues aren’t even identified yet by this bunch, story here. See my full two-parter takedown here, part 1 and part 2. Every word still rings true, especially the part about Smurfs. Hint: my comments tend to remain valid while their comments typically have a shorter shelf life than the Mad Cow meatloaf over at the Roadkill Café.

You can’t take something you totally got wrong and try to twist it into some type of anti-Obama argument. Oh, that’s right, that’s all you do. But this is offensive to those of us who got it right before the war and, especially, those who served and suffered because of these lies and blunders. As I have repeated ad infinitum, we will never change the mind of a single Foxeteer—that, in and of itself, is part of the problem. So, more importantly, we need to work together to keep them out of office. Organize for the midterms. Register as a Democrat and then, some day, when we once again have two viable parties in this country, you can switch back to independent. Until then, Go Hillary!

Despite the federal government asking for a moratorium on home foreclosures for the good of the national economy, recent figures paint a grim picture for the middle class. Please read this before you consider foreclosure! Oh, and please consider reading only this article as these guys are a little…well, you know.

341,000 new foreclosures were issued recently. Foreclosure auctions have risen by 35%. That’s one in every 159 homes. Those figures are up 49% from the same month last year, and up a whopping 111% from 2008! That’s worse than the Ghetto Shaman’s bar tab.

In Arizona, where the housing market is one of the worst in the nation, one in every 54 homes are in foreclosure. 49,000 homes were foreclosed on in the first quarter alone, even more if you can’t add. At that rate, almost a quarter of a million families could lose their homes annually. How long can any state absorb that financial loss?

The banks however are profiting from this tragedy. In this buyers market, since the federal bailouts, the majority of their losses have been effectively covered. Now as they foreclose on properties, they have whatever payments were made plus profit from the sale.

Once the foreclosure’s complete, the bank has ruined one person’s credit, while improving the credit and standing of the new buyer. This transfers money and power from the new middle class to the old money, aka our firmly entrenched upper middle class.

There’s little the average person can do to fight back in this situation. In most cases, people just want to protect themselves. That’s not always possible either. Legislators (mostly wealthy lawyers and bankers) have stacked the deck against you.

You can however, legally make every last dime off your property, just as the bank plans to do. You need to act when you know you’re going to lose the property, but BEFORE it goes into actual foreclosure. You should start to literally gut the entire home of everything of value in it. Gut everything, from the copper plumbing pipes, to every bit of electrical wiring. Rip out the flooring and the drywall, but don’t haul it away. Leave that expense to the bank. However, be careful not to flood the property, unless it’s already on fire, in which case the flooding might actually help.

Also, remove every window and door. Sell them, or donate them to a charity like ‘Habitat for Humanity’. You have every right to do this because you haven’t been foreclosed on yet. You still own it. Take everything out of the yard, including plants, hot tubs, swing sets, even dog houses. The idea here is to reduce the property value as much as humanly possible. Even leave some of the other Discord contributors on your couches. This will also hurt the banks.

Before leaving some people have such resentment, they’ve reverted to defecating on the floor and spray painting obscenities on the walls…kind of like last year’s Discord Christmas party. There’s no need to do this. By stripping out the property of all its value, the bank is forced to invest thousands of dollars before they can make a profit. If everyone of the thousands of foreclosed families were to do this, the banks would be forced to stop taking advantage of the American people.

There’s also a much easier, but illegal method. This only works if you have an older home. Strip the rubber off the electrical wires to an old lamp, plug it in, and leave for the weekend. Make sure you visit an out of town relative who’ll provide an alibi. You’ll lose everything you own, but you’ll actually make money. Even if you’re upside down on your home, you’ll at least make money off your lost belongings. Because this is illegal, I can’t and won’t suggest it. The Daily Discord will though, because the’re unscrupulous and one more lawsuit probably won’t bother them.

Yes, this is my foreign policy for Demmies. Whatever the hell the Obama Doctrine is, can we keep it? …or at least rent to own? If there is anyone who wants to retry the Bush Doctrine in 2016, how about we book you a Fallujah special? It’s sort of a Motel-6 after the blast. Most rooms come with a fire—not a fireplace, just a fire. We’ll leave the fight on for ya’.

Yes, I’m climbing out onto Obama’s rickety foreign policy limb, but why is this limb rickety? (Isn’t that a gin drink?) This limb should be of the Muir Redwood variety, but even some Dems are distancing themselves from Obama—faster than the NRA from their Climb a Clock Tower Tuesday promotional, which was at least better than their all-you-can-skeet buffet.

Do you remember when Romney was running? He said, “Obama is making error after error on every key foreign policy issues… Look, this is a failed presidency.” Yet Romney couldn’t really articulate anything meaningful on the subject, nor could he explain where the Bushies had erred—in either of his presidential runs—not because he was playing some party line, he really didn’t seem to know.

The Fox News Effect Protecting our politicians from reality since 1996

I think Mitch McConnell actually said Obama’s foreign policy failed in January of 2008, while he was still unloading his stuff from the presidential U-Haul. That was part of Obama’s first scandal, Fast & Fragile, wherein Michelle never really labeled stuff adequately and just threw shit into boxes.

Someone on the right gets it:

“Foreign policy, the interventionist critics claim, has no place for nuance or realism. You are either for us or against us. No middle ground is acceptable. The Wilsonian ideologues must have democracy worldwide now and damn all obstacles to that utopia. I say sharpen your knives, because the battle once begun will not end easily.”

—Rand Paul

Rand Paul has some foreign policy sense, which disqualifies him from becoming the republican nominee in 2016. As Todd Aiken reminds us, when someone’s got a brain, “The GOP has a way of shutting that whole thing down.” Did you see their last convention? Did you see what just happened in Mississippi? It seems that system is working well. Perhaps too well.

Sorry, I love that. I gotta have some fun. But it’s no surprise republicans are giving Rand Paul a hard time. The GOP is now only taking applications from those who promise to:

1. Amplify the disparity of wealth domestically, and:
2. Rule the rest of the world with an iron fist.

(You know, part Hoover part Hitler.)

Why am I constantly forced to defend competence? Oh yeah, this is opposite world. Today’s average congressman D or R make our 2008 Republican Vice Presidential candidate look insightful. Don’t remember who that was? (Hint: I can see her blouse from here.)

But damn our President for muddling! He’s muddling! Sure the plans Obama is putting into motion are gradually yielding fruit, but he’s muddling. Americans don’t muddle. They act swiftly and decisively, against the wrong country.

Look, Obama learned from Libya (his Iraq), which had no loss of American lives and cost about 12 bucks. But he factored Libya into his algorithm when dealing with Syria. Yes, liberals have algorithms and republicans rely on Roger Ailesgebra or Drudge Nuggets. Okay, I made that up, just like they do.

What almost no one in this country seems to understand, or even mention, is that since sanctions began Syria has handed over an estimated 90% of their WMDs…uh, which had no loss of American lives and cost about 12 bucks.

“Wait, so he accomplishes shit without killing lots of Americans and endangering our economy? That’s un-American.”

—John Q. Republican

P.S. Impeach!

I think I kind of nailed this one via a funny little post, here. Look, if you take out these despots things will continue to unravel. There ha never been any good answers in the Middle East. I don’t want to drone on about this, pardon the bomb, but the worst case scenario seems to involve broader military campaigns—you know, the GOP’s only strategy. (Hint: The GOP always employs the worst strategy. See: list of GOP 21^st century successes.)

“Actually try Googling that shit. Nothing comes up.”

—Captain Obvious.

Besides:

“An era of American primacy has finished, and the many, many smart people among us understand this. These Americans are able to see their nation in historical terms.”

—Patrick L. Smith

This is the reality of our collective future; Bush simply hastened things a bit. I would like to blame it all on him, but I’m not an all-or-none thinker like my friends on the right. The world has been falling apart for a long time, a trend that certainly accelerated post 9/11. Our neocons have taught us, and the world, just how incapable we are at intervening anywhere. What would republicans actually have done between 2008 and 2014? I have never seen a group blather on about nothing for so long since my last existential Meetup group.

Reality Check:

“Obama is battling a knee-jerk sentiment in Washington in which the only kind of international leadership that means anything is the use of military force.”

—Fareed Zakaria

“Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.”

—Barack Obama

Fareed then quoted a similar sentiment from Eisenhower’s exit and feels this may capture the essence of the Obama Doctrine.

“I’ll tell you what leadership is… It’s persuasion — and conciliation — and education — and patience. It’s long, slow, tough work. That’s the only kind of leadership I know — or believe in — or will practice.”

—Dwight D. Eisenhower

Bingo. I understood Bush’s blunders during each tragic misstep because, like My Pet Goat, he was a pretty easy read. Obama is smart, so it’s much harder to glean all of his longer term strategies. I remain cautiously optimistic that Obama, with what he was given, is moving us toward a new era in the best manner possible. History will likely agree, or:

“I have always been impressed with Obama’s ability to navigate these foreign minefields. Republicans, on the other hand, tend to just kick every rock…with their dicks (Cheney joke omitted by the editor). Thankfully our president can reassess, change in the moment and weigh options in real time…w/ Bill Maher.”

—Mick Zano

So, once again, on behalf of those few of us still residing in a place I like to call reality, thank you, Mr. President!

And as for our republican friends, I’m sure you had other ideas for this time period…um, because you have no idea.