Category Archives: Congress
Overruled
Senate testimony last week, from outgoing Defense Secretary Panetta and Joint Chiefs chairman General Dempsey, revealed that neither Obama or Hillary answered the 3 a.m. alarm on the night Ambassador Stevens was murdered in Benghazi. Panetta and Dempsey briefed the president on the situation that night at 5 p.m. Obama left the matter up to them and wasn’t heard from again until he flew to Vegas the next day and blamed the attack on a video maker.
Also it was learned that the president overruled advice from the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, CIA Director, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to arm fighters in Syria.
Chuck Hagel
Bret Stephens in the WSJ quotes a Nebraska senator – Roman Hruska in 1970:
“Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers,” said Sen. Roman Hruska in 1970 as a defense of G. Harrold Carswell,..
During his Senate hearing, Chuck Hagel, a former senator from Nebraska, was confused about a number of things but especially containment policy. He had to be corrected twice. Here’s the play by play in Politico.
Hagel
Senate Budget
The 1974 Budget Act requires both houses to pass a budget every year. The senate is four years in arrears.
House Republicans hatched a plan on Friday to raise the debt ceiling, but only if each chamber passes a budget. If senators don’t pass a budget, they don’t get paid.
This sounds suspiciously similar to Charles Krauthammer’s Friday pitch in his Washington Post column, though he didn’t mention the pay part.
Kimberley Strassel, in the WSJ, details how Harry Reid’s rope-a-dope tactics “hide the party’s spending ambitions” and “casts the Republicans as the cause of every legislative crises”.
Deadbeat Nation
In the final press conference of his first term, the president explained what he will and will not do. He might take executive action against guns and he won’t be negotiating the debt ceiling with a gun to the head of the American people .
We are not a deadbeat nation and the full faith and credit of the United States is not a bargaining chip. Except when it is.
Eat the Rich
The tax hike on the rich to avoid the fiscal cliff will bring in 60 billion dollars. This year’s deficit is a trillion dollars. The president doesn’t want to cut spending. Stay tuned.
