Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for November 19, 2017

They knew what they were getting into.

Finally, a Sunday strip that doesn’t mention Trump directly! What a special treat!

The idiot in chief from Wyoming has decided to spread more lies about American History.

To address the claims made I will start with Plessy v. Ferguson._ As most of us know, this case established the legal dictum of “separate but equal.” Of the 7 justices that voted in the majority, 4 had been appointed by Republicans. This included Henry Billings Brown who wrote the majority opinion.

Now, let’s move forward. The idiot mentions Brown v Board of Education. This case was preceded by several cases that chipped away at Separate but Equal. One of these cases was Sweatt vs. Painter, et al. The case argued by Robert Lee Carter and Thurgood Marshall for the plaintiff was that separate law schools for blacks and white in the University of Texas system were unconstitutional. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1950 that separate law schools were unconstitutional. Every justice in that unanimous decision was appointed by a Democratic President.

Now, let’s look at Brown v Board of Education. The ruling in that case was also unanimous. Every justice on that court except for CJ Earl Warren had been appointed by a Democrat. The most adamant integrationists were William O. Douglas, Hugo Black, Harold H. Burton, and Sherman Minton. All appointed by Democratic Presidents and all but Burton Democrats themselves.

Now as for Hayes withdrawing troops from the South. Hayes did not do this because white Southerners were going to have a sudden change of heart. He did this because of the 1876 election. He was awarded the contested electoral votes from 3 Southern states — La, SC, Fl — by an electoral commission. To keep the Southern States happy, he withdrew the troops.

Well, to paraphrase Madam Clinton, what difference, at a his point, does it make! I remember when this strip used to be funny, at least some of the time.

Pity they don’t know the difference between soldiers on patrol and an ambassador at a US facility.

And they want a 22nd!

And after the passage of civil rights legislation, most southern democrats of the 19th and first 2/3 of the 20th became republicans of today

But Benghazi is so much easier to pronounce, for Faux News commentators, than Niger !

Funny thing about Infantry patrolling, sometimes you run into an ambush . . . Funny thing about Embassy duty . . . that is supposed to be a prepared defended position that does not move . . . Other than that they seem completely the same, NOT!

Ta-DAAHHH!!!! Weasel you way out of THAT one, Gowdy!

The Trump admin is bombing civilians and not talking about it.

https://theintercept.com/2017/09/25/syria-us-airstrike-civilian-death-hrw-tabqa/

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-syria-iraq-air-strikes-civilians-killed-injured-casualties-children-mosul-offensive-latest-war-a7771146.html

Seems possible the Russian trolls have taken up a North Rattlesnake Hills identity for the time being. Willful, detailed stupidity and ignorance masquerading as political commentary. No intention of anything except fomenting conflict and ignorance. this is exactly what the Russians did during the election. Maybe it’s just a deluded regressive, but I doubt it. As with most of the regressives, when challenged with facts, they dissemble, deflect, project, and whine. No counter arguments. No seeking of truth. No factual standards.

It’s not Benghazi, it’s Viet Nam. “Advisors” in active combat roles. Sending U.S. soldiers to a nation against which no declaration of war has been issued. In other words, the status quo for the U.S.

An enemy attack can happen anywhere. Splitting hairs about the place where the attack happened should not win anyone any points.

“segregation, racial discrimination, intimidation of black voters, whites-only lunch counters, whites-only restrooms, whites-only drinking fountains, whites-only swimming pools, whites-only movie theaters, whites-only hotels, and on and on and on.”

The REAL question is, which party would support the return of those policies? Because there’s a large group that wants it all back.

The Democrats are very good at ‘tu quoque’, “you did worse things!”One’s opinion depends on one’s value system and measuring stick. Here, let us use the Code Pink metric, further to the left than Gary Trudeau.1r Doing military operations in Niger is wrong. That an American squad was ambushed and 4 killed can only be described as ‘deserved’. Ditto btw for American military operations pretty much anywhere.1d Much the same thing can be said of having a consulate in Benghazi. I’ve heard that Ambassador Stevens was in Benghazi to supervise shutting down the consulate. That should have been done months earlier. And the same thing could have been said of the American Embassy in Tehran Iran in 1979; knowing the antagonism of the new Iranian rulers towards America we should have pulled out before it was ever invaded. The State Dept. are fools for thinking that other countries can or will uphold the Vienna Convention protecting diplomatic persons and facilities.

Hillary Clinton told us in 2008 that she could better answer a 3:00 am phone call than Barack Obama. Benghazi was a 3:00 am phone call, and both HRC and Obama botched it. Supposedly HRC held up any response insisting on getting Libyan government buy-in and painting American equipment to look ‘Libyan’.

(Reagan, and Bush 41, handled such things more competently than subsequent presidents.)

In the last frame Trudeau has Rick Redfern give a particular partisan dig. To Republicans 21 committee investigations reflects 1) Obama and HRC resistance to getting investigated, and 2) A certain spinelessness of Republican leadership, no doubt in the face of media pro-Obama bias, towards actually sticking the fork into the center of it. I and many others certainly think that HRC & co. failed.

Whole lot of difference between embassy guards in an American embassy and green berets out on a mission.

@RALPH NEWBILL

Let’s look at the entire statement made by HRC in which she said “what difference does it make.”:

With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they’d they go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator. Now, honestly, I will do my best to answer your questions about this, but the fact is that people were trying in real time to get to the best information. The IC has a process, I understand, going with the other committees to explain how these talking points came out. But you know, to be clear, it is, from my perspective, less important today looking backwards as to why these militants decided they did it than to find them and bring them to justice, and then maybe we’ll figure out what was going on in the meantime.

@B2PLUSA2

To all the people who scream “BENGHAZI!!!,” the US embassy at the time of the attack was in Tripoli.Stevens was making a day trip to Benghazi, a city that was known to be in turmoil.

State had transferred all diplomatic personnel from Benghazi to Tripoli in March of that year. The US compound there was reclassified as a “Special Diplomatic Mission” to provide cover for the CIA. Of the 35 US personnel 28 were CIA or CIA contractors. All had military background or intelligence background.

The US base was not a consulate. It did not provide consular service nor was it accredited by the host nation as a consulate.

The situation in Benghazi had been deteriorating for some time. Turkey and Tunisia had both closed their consulates in Benghazi after coming under attack. A convoy with U.K. Ambassador had come under attack during a “day trip” to Benghazi.

The US ambassador had canceled a trip to Benghazi in August — a month before the attack — because of security concerns.

All the information I have provided are a matter of public record.

Thanks, you never hear the part that doesn’t come out of context to serve republican talking points.

It is amazing how many will stick up for millionaire chicken hawks in this country.

How very sad. Attempting to conflate the incident in Niger with the debacle in Benghazi is contemptible.

@B2PLUSA2 said: Reagan, and Bush 41, handled such things more competently than subsequent presidents.

In April 1983 the US Embassy in Beirut was attacked by a suicide truck bomber. More than 63 people were killed including 17 Americans. The most significant deaths were of Robert Ames, chief CIA analyst for the Near East and CIA station chief Kenneth Haas. The death of Ames, Haas and other CIA personelle did serious damage to the US ability to gather intelligence in the Middle East for years to come.

One would think after such an attack, the US government would take precautions to not let it happen again. But 6 months later 241 US Marines were killed by a suicide bomber.Now that’s 2 attacks in the same place in the same manner in little over 6 months.

After the April 83 Embassy attack, the US set up a temporary embassy in a “safer” neighborhood in Beirut. On Sept 20, 1984 the temporary Embassy was attacked by a cat bomber killing 2 US soldiers.Now, that’s 3 attacks in the same place in the same manner in less than 18 months. Remind me again how competent was Reagan at handling these things.

These guys write pretty well for citizens of the former Soviet Union.

Well, of COURSE t’Rump doesn’t want to talk about Niger.

He doesn’t know how to pronounce it!

@ANDREW LITKOWIAK posted the following response to my post about Benghazi:

What’s your point? Seriously.

You have laid out a partial set of facts while failing to provide a fact set for the actual incident and the US response.

Is there a particular conclusion you want us to draw? Will that conclusion change if we review the entire body of fact instead of limiting ourselves to what you have presented?

Here is my reply:

The point is this: there have been claims made that the State Dept didn’t do enough for the security in Benghazi.

1- State moved all diplomatic personnel to Tripoli in March 2012, which was probably the wisest thing they could do.

2- At the time of the attack in September, all US activity in Benghazi was exclusively CIA. The fact that 21 hearings were held in which they tried to blame this completely on HRC was nothing more than a witch hunt. The members of Congress knew what the situation but they saw it as an opportunity to hurt HRC. The fact that HRC didn’t throw the CIA under the bus over this just confirms she was more qualified to be POTUS than a man-baby who publicly attacks the US IC on Twitter.

The something from Wyoming posted the following response:

Attention: BE THIS GUYYou didn’t disprove one single thing that I said. All that you did was go to Google and make a cynical attempt to cherry pick whatever you could to support the narrative that you wanted to present.In your make-believe world, the Democrats had absolutely no connection at all to the Confederacy, slavery, Jim Crow, Ku Klux Klan, segregation, white supremacy, and racial discrimination.As late as the 1963, one of the most prominent Democrat governors in the South shouted the following words in public at his inauguration ceremony:“Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”Now let’s see you deny that.Or maybe just call me another name for bringing it up.

Here is my reply:

It wasn’t a Republican that gave the following speech:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7BEhKgoA86U

.

дасвиданиа, товарищ

Saw Trey at Wade’s last year. Didn’t ask him why he looked like Ed Grimley.

@CRITICAL COMIC REVIEW

You must be the John Barron of comic critics.

What an enjoyable revision of American history, although it’s shorter and more accurate to call it “lies by omission”, and writing things a reasonably intelligent middle school student can spot the gaps in.

I love the “Twenty years of Democratic nightmares” from 1932 to 1952, because as we all know the 1929 Stock Market crash was caused by Democrats despite the Republicans controlling the White House and Congress since 1920, and by 1932 Hoover and Mellon had everything back ship-shape and booming again. Of course FDR and the Democrats had absolutely nothing to do with the economic recovery, or with beating Germany, Japan, and Italy. The Marshall Plan was an utter failure in preventing a Communist takeover of Western Europe, and the Berlin Airlift was just stupid. And consistent with Republican inability to win a real war (except for beating up crippled countries like Spain and Iraq) since 1865, and you know the Republicans would have stood idly by while North Korea overran South Korea.

We’ll also ignore how the Republicans controlled the White House for all but sixteen of the seventy-two years between 1860 and 1932, and controlled Congress for most of that time as well, but somehow never passed any civil rights legislation after Lincoln died.

But the modern Republican Party has read only three books: They use Mein Kampf for inspiration, 1984 as an instruction manual, and Atlas Shrugged when they masturbate.