Remember that story last week from AnnetteK about the secret GOP group "Groundswell" that's looking to take down the Obama Administration via clever promotion of Twitter hash tags and other diabolical stuff? It was kind of laughable and desperate back then. But now, the blog site Crooks and Liars has tape recordings of their nefarious meetings. Here are some excerpts from their reporting:
On Benghazi:
In the late-night meeting with Gaffney and Boykin, Boehner advised both that they needed to allow the regular order of committee meetings to play out before he would push for a select committee. Issa told him the same thing. Boykin and Gaffney reported this to the group, along with a promise that there "would be answers." Both reiterated that they and former Rep. Allen West were very concerned about the lack of a military response and assured the group that "what we'll find today is that Hillary Clinton made some egregious decisions and the president was basically absent from his post and did not make the decisions that as the Commander-in-Chief he should have been making...because he was focused on some other things."
More after the jump...
On future debt ceiling fights:
...the group received a report about upcoming debt ceiling negotiations, where they are advised that a survey has gone out to conservative lawmakers to see "what they're looking for in exchange for their votes raising the debt ceiling."
Of course, you'd never know from the press they get that there was any intention of raising the debt ceiling at all. Now we all can see that they will in fact do it reluctantly, as Shonda Weery reports when she advises that it's "not a vote they'll want to give without getting back something in return." Let the horse-trading begin.
On voting rights:
During the meeting, True the Vote made a presentation (document below) about their plan to attack groups who are actively working to protect voting rights around the country, particularly after the Supreme Court gutted most of the protections. Code-named "Hydra", True the Vote argues that the left is undermining voting rights, and must be stopped, by hook or by crook.
http://crooksandliars.com/...
These gems are just from the first 20 minutes of the meeting. Crooks & Liars tells us this is but part one of their two-part series on the audiotapes. More to come tomorrow!
Meanwhile, here is a full transcript of the first twenty minutes of the meeting:
http://www.scribd.com/...
There's some pretty icky stuff in there - someone is like, "if we could go now to Allen West on the phone, he's got some great new invented scandal..." (Paraphrased) And then Allen West starts talking about a mysterious helicopter crash in Afghanistan that is somehow all President Obama's fault, or something. It's must-read stuff, for laughs, anyway.
Update 1:
From the comments, rubyr has extracted a couple of golden moments from the transcripts:
Boykin: Hey, is you, BBM? [laughter] That's the big black man.[laughter].
Referring to Ken Blackwell...token POC.
Boykin: Um, Frank and I had -- I'm sorry -- Frank and I actually had meetings last night with Speaker Boehner and Representative Issa also. We've been pushing with the support of Congressman Wolf as well as Congressman Gohmert for a special committee. And I think it's okay to share with you, wouldn't you say so Frank, that the Speaker was, I thought he was very coherent last night when we talked about this.
At least they seem to realize that most of the time Boehner is not coherent. ha ha -
rubyr