Mitch McConnell Backs Away From GOP Claims Of Benghazi Cover Up

As noted before, based on what is currently known, none of the three "scandals" that the Congressional Republicans are currently hyperventilating about add up to any real scandal and certainly nothing that implicates the White House and Barack Obama.  Not that this matters to much of the GOP base which is so outraged at having a black man in the White House that they will grasp at anything in the hope of destroying the man.  Interestingly enough, today Mitch McConnell - for who I have no use whatsoever - seemed to be at last backing away from the shrill screams of "cover up" emanating from some GOP circles.  Think Progress looks at McConnell's new found moderation.  Here are excerpts:

On Sunday, during an appearance on Meet The Press, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — the GOP leader in the senate — distanced himself from Republican efforts to portray the Obama administration’s response to the attacks on a U.S. diplomatic issue in Benghazi, Libya as a Watergate-level scandal that should result in impeachment. McConnell’s comments come just days after the White House released 100 pages of emails undermining GOP claims that administration officials doctored the public talking points U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice used to discuss the incident on the Sunday morning talk shows.

“You’re talking about others who may have said various things about this, let me tell you what I think about it. It’s clear there was inadequate security out there and it’s very clear that it was inconvenient within six weeks of the election, for the administration to in effect announce, that it was a terrorist attack,” McConnell said. “I think that’s worth examining, it is going to be examined.”

But asked repeatedly if Republicans should tone down their attacks against the administration, McConnell demurred, saying only that Obama should allow for an investigation. He also couldn’t identify specific evidence of an administration cover-up:

DAVID GREGORY (HOST): But you have specific evidence that they made up a tale, or was it based on information they had at the time?

MCCONNELL: Well, the talking points clearly were not accurate. I think getting to the bottom of this is an important investigation.

E-mails between the White House, CIA, State Department, Justice Department, and the FBI show that Rice’s remarks reflect the early view of the intelligence community and were produced with few changes from the White House.    On Thursday, CBS’ Major Garrett reported that Republican sources misquoted or significantly embellished the emails officials used to draft Rice’s remarks in order to implicate the administration in a conspiracy to mislead the public about Benghazi. 

Why Did the Pope Really Quit?

As much fun as it is to know that Pope Benedict XVI will soon be off the throne of St. Peter, it's even more fun to watch the various conspiracy theories and whispers of new, as yet unknown scandals.  Obviously, it would be deliciously sweet if there were some new bomb shell scandal.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the swirling speculation.  Here are some excerpts:

Now that the shock of Pope Benedict XVI’s surprise resignation has settled in, conspiracy theorists are having a heyday trying to figure out if there is more to the story than meets the eye. With no papal funeral to prepare for and the pope’s final appearances fairly routine, Vatican watchers and bored reporters have been fleshing out a number of theories on why the pope may have really resigned.

While the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal was obviously a huge weight on the pope’s shoulders, Vatican watchers say it was actually the VatiLeaks butler saga and allegations of impropriety at the Vatican Bank that played more important roles in his resignation. “Benedict may not have quit because of the pedophilia scandals or any other specific controversy,” says Vatican expert John Allen. “But it's hard to believe they didn’t play a role, at least as background.”

 There are also rampant rumors that the pope’s health is far worse than anyone realizes. Whispers of late-night helicopter trips to emergency rooms and hints that he is suffering some terminal illness like leukemia pushed forward by Italian gossip site Dagospia are unconfirmed, but still won’t go away.

Beyond the gossip about why the pope might have really resigned are growing conspiracies that there is a faction of cardinals who don’t think the pope should live inside Vatican City after he retires. Several unnamed cardinals have been quoted in the Italian press saying that it would have been better if he returned to Bavaria in Germany or lived out his days somewhere like Monte Cassino, a hilltop abbey south of Rome. 

But many Vatican experts in Rome have been writing that whether the former pope should stay will actually be up to the new pope. After all, he will have full charge of all the affairs inside Vatican City. Archbishop Rino Fisichella told Corriere della Sera that he thought the pope should “rethink his plans” even before that, saying that having two popes inside Vatican City can only lead to trouble. Citing a potential “cohabitation issue” Fisichella says that he believes the pope will eventually choose to move out.

Whether any of the rumors will prove true is anyone’s guess. But with little happening beyond cardinals lobbying for the pope’s old job from now until the conclave begins sometime after March 15, there is no question that the rumor mill will keep churning.

Plagued by Scandal, Vatican Focuses Instead on Attacking American Nun

Apparently in the minds of the bitter old men in dresses at the Vatican the way to counter a steady drip of scandals is to attack women or at least American nuns who seemingly have stopped drinking the Vatican's Kool-Aid, accept modern knowledge and see sexuality as something more than a nasty means to produce more children that can be subjected to religious brainwashing by the bitter old men.  In the upside down world of the Nazi Pope and his fellow child rapist enablers and protectors in Rome things like masturbation, homosexuality, gay marriage and divorce are the greatest evils facing the world - or at least Roman Catholicism.  Would that the legions of predator priests had pleasured themselves via masturbation rather than raping and molesting tens, if not hundreds of thousand of children and youth around the world while the Vatican sought to sweep it all under the rug.  But to the bitter, power mad cardinals at the Vatican (who at times  strike me as a modern version of the power hungry court eunuchs of the ancient Persian Empire) anything that strikes as sexual pleasure is an abomination.  First, these highlights from Reuters and the ongoing infighting in the Vatican:

Pope Benedict got no rest on Sunday from a leaks scandal when an Italian newspaper published documents showing that his butler was not the only person in possession of confidential correspondence indicating a Vatican in disarray.  

[I]n its Sunday edition, the Rome newspaper La Repubblica published documents it said it had received anonymously after the arrest of the pope's butler on May 23.  A note received by the newspaper said there were "hundreds more" documents and that the butler, Paolo Gabriele, was just a scapegoat.  The furor over the leaked correspondence, which shows power-hungry cardinals and scheming within the walls of the city state, has gripped the Vatican .  .  .  .  

Unable to keep their own house in order, much less protect children and youth from sexual predators, the Vatican nonetheless lashed out at the book, “Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics” by Sister Margaret Farley.  Priestly sexual abuse of children and youth is apparently okay with the Vatican so long as the media doesn't get wind of it.  But healthy, normal sexuality - both gay and straight - is something abhorrent.  Indeed "intrinsically and gravely disordered actions."  Here are excerpts from the Toronto Star:

The Vatican on Monday sharply criticized a book on sexuality written by a prominent American nun, saying it contradicted church teaching on issues like masturbation, homosexuality and marriage and that its author had a “defective understanding” of Catholic theology.

The Vatican’s orthodoxy office said the book, “Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics” by Sister Margaret Farley, a member of the Sisters of Mercy religious order and emeritus professor of Christian ethics at Yale Divinity School, posed “grave harm” to the faithful.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith [formerly known as The Inquisition] said that in the 2006 book, Farley either ignored church teaching on core issues of human sexuality or treated it as merely one opinion among many.

The Farley critique, signed by the American head of the congregation, Cardinal William Levada, comes amid the Vatican’s recent crackdown on the largest umbrella group of American sisters. The Vatican last month essentially imposed martial law on the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, accusing it of undermining church teaching and imposing certain “radical feminist themes” that were incompatible with Catholicism.

It ordered a full-scale overhaul of the group and appointed three bishops to carry it out.
The crackdown on Farley, a top American theologian, will likely fuel greater resentment at Rome among more liberal-minded American sisters.

The Vatican examination of the book began in 2010 and involved seeking Farley’s responses to its concerns. After her replies failed to satisfy the Congregation, it moved to a full-fledged “examination in cases of urgency” that concluded Dec. 14.

 Farley, for example, writes that masturbation doesn’t raise any moral problems and can actually help relationships rather than hinder them. The Vatican asserted that according to church teaching “masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.”

Farley wrote that homosexual people as well as their activities should be respected. Church teaching holds that gays should be respected but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.”

On gay marriage, Farley said legal recognition of gay marriage can help transform the stigmatization of gays. Levada wrote back that approving gay marriage would not only signal approval of “deviant behaviour” but would obscure the value of traditional marriage between man and woman in society.

Farley has received 11 honorary degrees over her lifetime, is a past president of the Society of Christian Ethics and the Catholic Theological Society of America, and won an award in 2008 for “Just Love.”  That said, Farley doesn’t identify herself as a member of the Sisters of Mercy on either her official Yale biography or on the book’s cover.

Vatican Scandal Continues - Is a Cardinal Involved?

Personally, I find few things more fun to watch than the dirty laundry of the Vatican being dragged out into the light of day.  Where the current “Vatileaks” scandal will go is hard to tell, but it seems the Italian media is in a frenzy and that speculation exists that tales of a power struggle and other titillating tidbits may come out.  Given all the evil that the Church hierarchy has done and continues to do, I for one hope the scandal shakes things up to the core of the secretive and possibly illegal activities that center on the Vatican.  The only thing more fun would to have documentation come forward that Benedict XVI has a gay lover.  Here are highlights from an updated story in the Washington Post:

One of the Vatican’s biggest scandals in decades widened Monday with the pope’s butler — arrested for allegedly having confidential documents in his home — agreeing to cooperate with investigators, his lawyer said Monday.

Paolo Gabriele’s pledge to cooperate with Vatican magistrates raises the specter that high-ranking prelates may soon be named in the investigation into leaks of confidential Vatican correspondence that have shed a light on power struggles and intrigue inside the highest levels of the Catholic Church.

Italian media reported Monday that a cardinal is suspected of playing a major role in the “Vatileaks” scandal. However, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, denied the reports. He said many Vatican officials were being questioned in the investigation but insisted “there is no cardinal under suspicion.”

He also dismissed as “pure fantasy” a rash of other unsourced reports about the investigation in the Italian media, which have been on a frenzy ever since reports of Gabriele’s detention emerged Friday.

Gabriele, the pope’s personal butler since 2006, was arrested Wednesday evening after documents he had no business having in his possession were found inside his Vatican City apartment. He remains in custody in a Vatican detention facility, accused of theft, and has met with his wife and lawyers.

Gabriele’s arrest gave the already sordid scandal of the leaks an unfathomable Hollywood twist. So far, he remains the only one who has been arrested, but Lombardi stressed that the investigation was continuing.

Palin Affair Story a "Vicious Lie" or Not?

While I do not typically consider the National Inquirer to be a legitimat news source, it seems that something a little strange may be going on in connection with the rumor that Sarah Palin had an affair with her husband's business partner who subsequently was a divorce from his wife. John McSenile's campaign has vigorously denied the rumor and has reprotedly threatened the National Inquirer with a lawsuit. Why then did Sarah Palin's alleged lover just file an unsuccessful emergency motion to have his divorce papers sealed? One theory is that Sarah might be named in the court proceedings. Another is that the court files might show some other attempt to use political influence for personal matters. The Barracuda surely seems to have a lot of soap opera about her. Personally, after the way the wingnuts have embraced her, nothing would be more fun that to have her expolde all over them as a fraud and one who is not so good about living up to "family values.." The Court case index can be found here. Here are highlights what the Sydney Morning Herald reported about camp McSenile's threats:
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The McCain campaign has vigorously denied a report in the National Enquirer magazine that the Republican's vice-presidential pick, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, has had an extramarital affair with her husband's business partner.
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The story, which appeared just hours before Mrs Palin was due to address the Republican convention, was branded "scurrilous" by the chief strategist, Steve Schmidt. He said it was totally untrue.
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Here's a portion of the Case Index from the Court's records: