Christian or Catholic- Say the Word

Blown out in the 2024 election cycle, Democrats know they need a new message. They're all over the place, however, and the only common theme is Mark Cuban's simplistic advice: "just getting angry is not the way to go."

True, but not much of a game plan. Democrats had a chance to annoy Donald Trump and get under his skin by referring repeatedly to "President Musk."  They did so briefly and Trump was forced to play defense, pleading "No, he's not going to be President, that I can tell you. And I'm safe, you know why? He can't be- he wasn't born in this country." They had gotten the President-elect off his game, and Trump doesn't play defense well. So they stopped- too rude.

Currently, Elizabeth Warren has a clue.  She has sent to Elon Musk as chairperson of the Department of Government Efficiency a letter outlining measures which would reduce government inefficiency and save taxpayers at least two trilllion dollars "over the next decade." Noting that she has introduced the bipartisan Stop Price Gouging the Military Act, Warren explains that the Air Force has been overcharged by 7,493 percent for soap dispensers. 

Would it be so difficult for Democrats to deride, say, "$27,000 soap dispensers"?  Ir shouldn't be, but has been. 

"By the mid-1980s," Wikipedia reminds us, defense "spending became a scandal when the Project on Government Oversight reported that the Pentagon had vastly overpaid for a wide variety of items, most nefariously by paying $435 for a hammer, $6,000 for a toilet seat, and $7,000 for an aircraft coffee maker."

The numbers were "inaccurate," apparently, and insignificantly. President Reagan appointed a commission which made several recommendations to reform the procurement process and in 1986 Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 219. Soon after, the Goldwater-Nichols Act reformed the Joint Chiefs of Staff and implemented some of the recommendations.

Positive change came about after the President had responded to misguided, hyperbolic outrage from the public. Understandably, then, when asked whether the Democratic Party should nominate a celebrity as a presidential candidate, Mehdi Hasan in early January explained (at 3:32 of the video below)

Whether it's a celebrity or not a celebrity, whether it's a normal Senator politician, you need Democrats who are not afraid to say wild shit. Focus group bulshit has got to stop. Like, it's got to be- I said this in 2016- Democrats to go on Meet the Press and say "we're going to have a $25 minimum wage" or "we're going to spend a trillion dollars on health care."   

"How are you going to pay for it?"    "We just will. Trust me."    

How are you going to pay for it?"   Canada's going to pay for it."   

Just say absolute bullshit. Trump has set the bar. Say whatever the hell you want. I'm so fed up with a political system, this assymetric warfare which Donald Trump gets up and says "I'm going to buy Greenland and then we have serious discussions about him buying Greenland. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden or Kamala Harris produces a 27-page policy document on child care fully costed. 

That's assymetric warfare, right? It just seems to be it needs to be apresidential candidate who says "vote for me and I'll make sure $30 minimum wage. I'll make sure everyone has the best health care in the history of the world." Just say wild things because that's apparently what the American public wants and that's what social media is mainly.

Saying "whatever the hell you want" may take the form of extreme exaggeration, as Hasan points out, or misrepresenting the opponent's motives while highlighting the effect of his actions. Such an opportunity has been presented to Democrats on a silver platter, and Vice President J.D. Vance has given the good guys a blueprint:

Vance attacks the church: "The US Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to look in the mirror a little bit & recognize that when they receive more than $100m to resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns or are they worried about their bottom line?" pic.twitter.com/YOoMrOtHxy

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 26, 2025

 

The criticism by rhe US Conference of Catholic Bishops is telling because it opposes punitive immigration policies for two reasons: 1) it is generally welcoming to immigrants; and 2) most of the immigrants affected are Catholic.

If most of the newcomers were not Catholic, the Church still would oppose the Trump Administration policy. However, the leaders of the faith are aware of three things: 1) most of the affected individuals are Catholic;  2) most of these Catholics are more committed to their faith then American Catholics are and 3) the Church, facing declining numbers, need these immigrants, their numbers and the vitality they bring. 

This situation is simultaneously both fundamentally different and analogous to the Trump Administration's attack on immigration eight years ago. Campaigning for the presidency, Trump demanded "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." Once he took office, he "stopped nationals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from being allowed to travel to America for 90 days."

The day before President Trump retroacitvely left office in 2021, the ACLU recalled

When Trump implemented his first Muslim ban, the public response was immediate. Crowds of protesters flooded airports in support of Muslims and other impacted communities who were immediately being detained or turned away all over the country. Lawyers and immigrants’ rights organizations nationwide, including the ACLU, filed a series of lawsuits as court after court ruled to block the ban. 

Despite the backlash, Trump issued new iterations of the ban to circumvent the law and conceal its real purpose, which in his own words was to block Muslims from entering the United States. Ultimately, the Supreme Court allowed the third iteration of the ban to be implemented. The Trump administration then further expanded the ban, explicitly targeting Africans. As a result, people from 13 countries still remain barred from coming to the U.S.

By contrast, the Administration crrrently is targeting individuals who entered the USA through our southern border. They are from Latin America and with a few exceptions, are not Muslim. They are not Jewish or Hindu. They are Christian- mostly Roman Catholic, with some evangelical Protestants.

Layered upon that, the Vice President has called out the Church with which most of them identify. Vance asks rhetorically "are they worried about humanitarian concerns or are they worried about their bottom line?"

Both, ovbviously, but there is no shame in doing well by doing good. Nonetheless, the Administration- if Vance was not talking out of his posterior- is hostile to the interests of the Church in building its numbers. Yet only last September

"They're anti-Christian, and it's driving people out," (Catholic League President Bill) Donohue said in a phone interview of Democrats, citing similar comments from former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who recently endorsed Trump. "And the guys I'm talking to, it's not even so much abortion. It's just they feel like they don't speak their language anymore. This whole idea of letting men compete against women in sports abuses the bathrooms, they think they've just gone off the deep end”….

"Kamala Harris hates Catholics and everything we hold sacred. We can’t pretend otherwise. Our institutions, families, culture and belief in the sanctity of all human life are the antithesis of her vision for America. Donald Trump and JD Vance — and now RFK — are the antidote to the ruling class that has destroyed our country," Brian Burch, president of conservative non-profit, CatholicVote, said in the Trump campaign’s press release.

It's time to turn the tables, for Democrats to point out that Republicans are trying to drive Catholics,or more generally Christians, out of the country. When it was Muslims, Democrats were apoplectic, especially outraged because Trump was singling out individuals based on their religion. 

Now, the Administration is discrimating against Catholics and other Christians. Presumably, that's not by intent, though Vance's comments can be interpreted otherwise. It is, however, a blow against Christianity in effect. 

However, if Democras truly wish to change their message, the President and the Vice President, the former by policy and the latter by words, have given them an opening. You can drive a Mack truck through that gaping hole. Unfortunately, Democrats may be waiting for an electric-powered vehicle to take that drive.

Share |

A Good Show Or Two

This is good policy, from President Trump's perspective. It will mean more death, primarily among people whose health is already compromised and thus don't project the strength Trump adores. However, it's also good politics that the President will be speaking at the West Point graduation ceremony.  Business Insider notes that Trump's recent announcement

stunned officials at the school and raised serious concerns about the safety of the 1,000 cadets who are being recalled as a result, The New York Times reported on Friday. 

Universities across the US, including West Point, have sent students home due to the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19.

The graduation ceremony had initially been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, but Trump's April 17 announcement reportedly kicked planning for the event into gear.

"I'm doing it at West Point, which I look forward to," Trump said at the daily White House press briefing a little over a week ago. "I did it last year at Air Force, I did it at Annapolis, I did it at the Coast Guard Academy, and I'm doing it at West Point.  And I assume they're — they've got it, and I understand they'll have distancing. They'll have some big distance, and so it'll be very different than it ever looked."

This is smart politics because the optics are great. Also smart politics, and great public relations is the event in which

U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds and the U.S. Navy Blue Angels will salute front-line healthcare and emergency response workers Tuesday afternoon when they fly down the Delaware River between Camden and Philadelphia.

The two precision flying demonstration teams have announced the flight, which will begin in New York City and fly over Newark and Trenton before heading to South Jersey along the river and then over Philadelphia.

“We are truly excited to take to the skies with our Navy counterparts for a nation-wide tribute to the men and women keeping our communities safe,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. John Caldwell, Thunderbird 1 and mission commander for the flyover.

“We hope to give Americans a touching display of American resolve that honors those serving on the front line of our fight with COVID-19.

A formation of six F-16C/D Fighting Falcons and six F/A-18C/D Hornets will conduct these flyovers as a collaborative salute to healthcare workers, first responders, military, and other essential personnel while standing in solidarity with all Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, the announcement said.

Not one pair of gloves, face mask, or ventilator will be manufactured or delivered as a result of either performance, nor will either deter the President from continuing to pit one state against another. Nor do we learn in news reports of the cost of either performance. But that's par for the course because when it comes to the military, no expense is too large ever to be questioned. And when it comes to a pandemic, bread and circuses always comes in handy.

Share |

Only If Honorable Is Spelled "Dishonorable"

Former FBI agent Josh Campbell is an analyst with CNN, and a very good one. And maybe we should thank him for reminding us to take at face value what seems to be reasonable action:

Three things can all be true at the same time:

* A President honorably visiting troops overseas

* Deployed troops grateful to see their President

* A White House using troops as political pawns in photo ops

— Josh Campbell (@joshscampbell) December 27, 2018

Admittedly, President Trump on Wednesday visited soldiers in Iraq, whom he used as political pawns in photo ops while they were glad to see him. The New York Times reports

on Wednesday, about 100 American servicemen and women, some of whom were wearing red “Make America Great Again” caps, greeted Mr. Trump with a standing ovation in Al Asad Air Base’s dining facility, which had been decorated for Christmas. He and Mrs. Trump spent about 15 minutes there talking with the troops.

Pictures of red MAGA hats on soldiers, a standing ovation, and a quick in-and-out make for a near-perfect photo-op. The soldiers would have had to be near-insane, or at least aberrant, not to be grateful when someone who occupies an office formerly held by the leader of the Free World flies from half the globe over to see them.

They can be expected to be proud, too, to be congratulated for doing a "great job" and elated being told by Trump that he got them "a big one."

Raise, that is, at least presumably.  The President asserted that he had gotten them a 10% raise after they had gotten no raise at all for 10 years.

The 10% raise was actually 2.6%.  Active-duty military personnel have received a raise each year for at least the past 56 years and this was the third biggest, not the largest, of the past eleven years. Moreover, the increases are tied to increases in private-sector raises, though Congress can hike them. (This was not the first of his lies on the subject; from May, below.)

Otherwise, Trump's assertions were accurate (And how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?). That does not make the President's visit "honorable." Neither was it made more honorable because Trump proudly did a selfie with members of Seal Team Five, whose presence in Iraq had been confidential. (If it's good enough for the Israelis, it should be good enough for our soldiers.)

It's tempting for liberals to show our fairness, objectivity and bipartisan bonafides by supporting President Trump when he does something normal, such as visiting American soldiers in a war zone.  But buyer, beware. Norm Eisen of CREW sums up:

On the other hand,Trump managed on one short trip to lie about the troops’ pay increase, to lead them to violate the rule against political activity by signing his campaign gear, & to expose the identity of Navy SEALs, perhaps endangering their lives. I’d say its a wash at best. https://t.co/zzw36h4gUt

— Norm Eisen (@NormEisen) December 27, 2018

Share |

Not A Good Look

Steve M believes Donald Trump's military parade "will just be a pointless moment of excess" and warns

Don't get worked up about this. If you get worked up about this, your resentment will be the story: There go the liberals, hating America again. Don't give them the satisfaction. Seventy-two hours after it's over, we'll be chasing some ridiculous Trump tweet, and no one will remember the parade even happened.

A reader recognizes that a parade would be "exactly the kind of brutish symbolism that turns out to be very important indeed" but Steve M responds

they'll forget all about it a few days later, and Trump will go back to watching television, while his administration and Congress go back to transferring even more money and power to the rich from the non-rich. That's where the danger lies. Apart from the pro-Russia skew, which is alarming, the real danger of this administration is not that it's fascist, but rather that it's Republican in an effective way.

So far, that is. Admittedly, in this first term of the Trump reign, the Administration hasn't been fascist but instead dangerously "Republican in an effective way."

But this is the first term.  If this extravaganza comes off without major opposition from Democrats or the military- and the GOP maintains control of Congress, thus hindering the Mueller investigation- it might not be the last.  Trump will contrast the event with the Obama "apology tour" and declare that America has been made great again. We might even get to hear that it's "morning in America" again, an actor borrowing from the (successful re-election bid) previous actor-President, as he borrowed the "MAGA" slogan.

President Trump, elected over the objection of a majority of voters and remaining unpopular, has had no mandate to turn the USA into a police state or otherwise.  Although as Steve M. notes he has put into effect a radically conservative policy agenda, his lack of knowledge of how government works, coupled with a Special Counsel's investigation that has kept him off-balance, has blocked any real chance of imposing an authoritarian regime... yet.

Imagine, however, a re-elected Donald Trump, perhaps even with a majority of votes.  At that time, Bill Maher's insightful comment (beginning at 6:35 of the video below) from Friday night's Real Time might prove eerily prescient:

And now tanks in the streets. You know, I mean, I laugh, too. It's a funny premise- comedians, we like a premise like that, too. Ha, ha, ha. I don't- it's not really funny. The idea- because you shouldn't get used to the look of tanks in the streets. We don't have that look in America and when I've seen that look anywhere else in the world it's never been good and to me this is like, hey, better get them used to that- tanks in the streets.









Share |

Only Ego- Maybe

Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to plan a grand military parade to show off the military might (the North Korean way, from 2017, below) the entire world already recognizes.





Steve M realizes

But he's Trump, so he'll just spend hundreds of millions of dollars to ship weaponry to the streets of D.C. because he's an overgrown eleven-year-old boy still mentally living in the 1950s, and also because he's a crushingly insecure plutocrat who needs a steady succession of gaudy displays in order to feel that he's adequately demonstrating his own greatness to the world.

He's evidently confident that

This parade won't be part of a grand plan to crush democracy in America -- there won't be roaming goon squads, and a protest will probably be permitted, though at some distance from the main event. Trump might want the parade to intimidate foreign foes, but it won't accomplish that goal, because the military will probably agree to display only weapons our enemies already know about. This will just be a pointless moment of excess, with Trump using weapons the way, in his hotels, he uses gilt.

Fox will broadcast the entire parade live -- and in order to avoid McCarthyite attacks, so will MSNBC and CNN. The coverage on Fox will be ecstatic (I'm guessing the Fox & Friends crew will do the honors), while on MSNBC, Chris Matthews will probably match the Fox crew in enthusiasm, reprising his embarrassing performance on "Mission Accomplished" day in 2003.

And then it will be over, and we'll be the same country we were beforehand. Trump will have gotten his testosterone rush. The real work of harming America will be taking place elsewhere, in meetings of House and Senate Republicans and in Cabinet-level departments run by cynical, grasping officials who despise ordinary Americans.

SM argues that the primary danger is in overreaction by Democrats, thus

Seriously: Don't get worked up about this. If you get worked up about this, your resentment will be the story: There go the liberals, hating America again. Don't give them the satisfaction. Seventy-two hours after it's over, we'll be chasing some ridiculous Trump tweet, and no one will remember the parade even happened.

They won't remember, but that doesn't mean it would not have had its desired effect.  Researcher-journalist Sarah Kendzior, detecting a parallel between Central America's "spectacular states" and authoritarianism in the USA, has written

In 2010, Laura Adams, a sociologist who conducted extensive fieldwork in the nascent Central Asian states in the 1990s, published The Spectacular State, an analysis of Uzbekistan’s nation-building through massive public spectacle.

“A spectacular state,” writes Adams, “is one where, more than in other countries, politics is conducted on a symbolic level, promoting the state’s domination over the shared meaning of concepts such as heritage and progress.” The ultimate goal of the spectacular state is the restriction of the public sphere, where all ideas of culture and heritage are either filtered through – or respond to – the narrative of the state, ruled by a dictator who has developed a cult of personality. The nation becomes a brand; the dictator, a brand ambassador; the people, a captive audience.

In January, shortly before he began sweeping the primaries after months of hate rhetoric, Trump staged a rallyin which three girls–called “The Freedom Kids”–lip-synched a pop song praising the brutality of their incumbent leader. “Enemies of freedom face the music/ C’mon boys, take them down/ President Donald Trump knows how to make America great/ Deal from strength or get crushed every time!” they sang, dancing in their red, white, and blue outfits before an enthusiastic crowd. Many Americans found it baffling. For those familiar with the decadent patriotism of Central Asian national performances, which commonly feature declarations of loyalty from dancing children, it was disconcerting in its familiarity.

Adams notes that “spectacle enables elites to close opportunities for input from below, but without making the masses feel left out.” Spectacle soothes the masses while distracting them from their suffering. Trump, a master of the American reality TV genre which has made a spectacle of human suffering – he made “You’re fired!” a beloved tagline during one of the worst economic crises in U.S. history – knows how to make an audience feel included through the theatrical exclusion of others. This tactic carries over into Trump’s rallies, where protesters are booted — and sometimes beaten — with fanfare. It also carries over into his policies, which are structured around exclusion: a wall against Mexico, banned entry for foreign Muslims, a database for U.S. Muslims, and a media denied access unless they acquiesce to Trump’s demands.

It's no accident that, as their organizers understand, parades are effective as bread and circuses.  They may serve a critical- though sublimely subtle- purpose as one of many spectacles, which in the whole are intended to make some people feel included and others excluded.  When the leader wishes to build the case for a military of unprecedented size, the dangers are greater. When the leader has shown a partiality for the most bloodthirsty genocidal individual in human history, the danger is greater still.  Although the peril is limited now, it is magnified exponentially in the unlikely event Donald Trump is re-nominated and re-elected (Russian parade plans, 2010, below).





Kendzior, who does not claim a crystal ball, probably understands this. (How it was done some 75 years ago is shown in video below.) She wrote her article 23 months ago.








Share |

Disrupter-In-Chief

Here we go again.

If there is one abiding characteristic- besides profit-taking and corruption- of  this Administration, it may be that if President Obama was for it, President Grump is against it.

In one of its least  significant manifestations, Trump overturned a policy described by The New York Times as "announced in 2016, that allows transgender troops to serve openly and receive the required medical care for their gender transition through the military." Obama's policy could not stand even though "the announcement blindsided top military leaders, who had been moving ahead with plans to integrate transgender troops, based on a 2016 study commissioned by the military."

More dramatically and significantly, President Grump now has proclaimed that the USA will recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its embassy to Jerusalem, issues which a succession of American presidents had recognized should be the subject of final status negotiations.

As Thomas Friedman explains, Trump is a chump. But more than that, he's Opposite-Obama.  The GOP was convinced- or appeared convinced- that President Obama's policies were hostile to Israel's interests.  Typically, as recently as a year ago- after the presidential election- Rudy Giuliani claimed that President Obama had "created a false narrative that the Palestinian Authority, as a victim, is morally superior to the state of Israel."

No one can say the same about President Trump, who now has not only enraged Arab governments and the Arab street, but also American allies, and endangered USA security interests in the region. But at least it's something Obama wouldn't have done, so it's all good.





Still doing as Obama did not, and simultaneously reinforcing one of the core tenets of
GOP conservatism

The Trump administration on Wednesday said it would oppose public sector unions in a major case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, reversing the view taken by the Obama administration in an identical dispute.

The Justice Department filed a friend-of-the-court brief against the unions in a case brought by a non-union government employee in Illinois that targets fees his state and many others compel such workers to pay to unions in lieu of dues to fund collective bargaining and other organized labor activities. He is arguing that such fees violate the free speech rights of non-union members.

The high court heard a similar challenge out of California in January 2016 and had appeared headed toward ruling the fees unconstitutional. But conservative justice Antonin Scalia died a month later and the short-handed court ended up with a 4-4 split in April 2016 that left the law intact but set no nationwide precedent. In that case, the Obama administration filed a brief backing the unions.

Determine what President Obama did- then do the opposite. The Trump administration

has already adopted opposing positions to those taken by the Obama administration in other major cases pending at the Supreme Court, including another labor case on whether employers should be able to require workers to sign contracts that prevent them from making class action claims.

The administration also reversed an Obama administration stance by supporting Ohio in its bid to revive a state policy of purging people from voter-registration lists if they do not regularly cast ballots.

Fundamental Republican values include voter suppression and destroying public sector unions, the latter an effort to dismantle the middle and working classes piece-by-piece.  In the Middle East, an incendiary policy encourages terrorist acts, which Trump can then exploit in his jihad against Muslims.

Nonetheless, there may be no policy or program promulgated or eliminated by the Administration which better illustrates Trump's animosity toward Barack Obama than trying to wipe out the transgender ban. The public favored the Obama way, the military was implementing it without controversy, and so Donald J. Trump must sabotage it.   He is, in this and so many ways and at great public jeopardy, the Disrupter in Chief. That isn't necessarily bad. But when Trump moves, it's usually an instance in which things are better left alone.Children should not play with matches.

Ignore That Price Tag

The BBC reports

US President Donald Trump has signed a new measure aimed at rolling back federal funding for the US women's health group Planned Parenthood.The legislation removes an Obama-era rule that prohibited states from withholding funding for family planning services that provide abortions.

A Republican-led Congress passed the measure last month with Vice President Mike Pence casting a tie-breaking vote.Republicans have long vowed to defund the group over the issue of abortions.
Planned Parenthood, a reproductive health organisation, provides birth control, STD testing, cancer screenings, breast examinations and pregnancy terminations.

Mr Trump signed the legislation privately without media present on Thursday, repealing a rule issued in the final days of Barack Obama's administration.He signed the resolution under the 1996 Congressional Review Act (CRA), which allows lawmakers to nullify regulations within 60 days of enactment as long as the president agrees.

Republicans have overturned several Obama-era rules using the CRA.

Mr Obama's regulation prevented states from withholding money from a provider for any other reason than an ability to provide family planning service.That rule was instituted after more than a dozen conservative states denied grants to Planned Parenthood through a Nixon-era family-planning programme known as Title X.





Charlie Pierce remarks

Women are going to get sick. Women are going to die. Many of them are going to live in states that gave the president* a whopping margin of victory last November. You want disgruntled Trump voters? Wait a few months and talk to their families.

If only that were the case.   There is a puncher's chance, and only a puncher's chance, that Trump voters will become disgruntled if they learn that women have died because of the order President Trump will have signed months earlier.

But that will have been months earlier and unaccompanied by video. Contrast that with the dramatic pictures and video which accompanied both the missile attack upon a Syrian base and the detonation of the Massive Ordnance Air Blast upon ISIL militants in Afghanistan a few days later.

Simply mention Planned Parenthood, and the GOP and other right-wing organizations will fall back on Trump's argument in which he claims

As I said throughout the campaign, I am pro-life and I am deeply committed to investing in women’s health and plan to significantly increase federal funding in support of nonabortion services such as cancer screenings. Polling shows the majority of Americans oppose public funding for abortion, even those who identify as pro-choice. There is an opportunity for organizations to continue the important work they do in support of women’s health, while not providing abortion services.

Trump did not let on that there is not much of an "opportunity" if they don't have the funding, and the Administration and the GOP-controlled Congress will make sure they don't.  And he maitained that organizations would do that work "while not providing abortion services," thereby falsely implying that the abortion services provided by Planned Parenthood are federally funded, which, of course, they are not.

Mythmaking is central to the conservative cause.  So is cost, considered when cutting Planned Parenthood, energy assistance for poor people, affordable housing, science research, environmental health, and nutritional assistance to the needy.

There is one area, however, in which expense is to be virtually ignored. When President Trump ordered the missile attack upon a Syrian base, there was tingling up the leg of Brian Williams and Fareed Zakaria, but nary a word about the approximately $1 million replacement cost of a Tomahawk missile. When that was followed by the big bomb in Afghanistan, news anchors and pundits waxed excitedly about the "Mother of all Bombs" without mentioning that each costs approximately $16 million. No military action is to be subjected to any kind of cost-benefit analysis.










We hear from Donald Trump and endless conservatives about the scourge of "political correctness." However, there is little that is more politically correct than the assumption that no expense is to be spared when a bullet is fired, a missile launched, a bomb dropped, or a naval strike group deployed.



                                   HAPPY EASTER
                                                                               and a belated HAPPY PASSOVER





Share |

Bad Day For Marco. Good For US.

Over on the Republican side, the news couldn't have been better for the Democratic Party. The nearly-unelectable Donald Trump won big. John Kasich, the establishment candidate merely tolerated by the Establishment, came in second while the favorites of the Big Money Boyz, Chris Christie and Marco Rubio, came in sixth and fifth, respectively.

All is not lost, though, for the Florida senator, whose remarks in defeat were almost as eloquent as were cunning those after the Iowa caucus. "Our disappointment tonight is not on you," Rubio generously told supporters. "It's on me. It's on me. I did not do well on Saturday night, so listen to this: That will never happen again."

We already knew, however, that Rubio gives a great speech. Chris Christie reminded viewers of that Saturnday night, as well as that the Senator gives it over and over again. And again.

It may seem like kicking a man when he's down, but given that Rubio is still viable, let's acknowledge how dangerous this man is.   The same guy who claims President Obama "systematically and habitually violates the Constitution" also maintains(video below)  "We are clearly called to adhere to our civil authorities, But when they are in conflict with biblical teachings, 'God's rules always win.'"










Presumably, it doesn't strike Rubio as hypocritical that he charges Obama with "systematically and habitually" violating the Constitution while he himself  advocates following God's law when it conflicts with the Constitution.

Nonetheless, in a race which includes at least two other wannabe theocrats, Ben Carson and Ted Cruz, and every candidate has pledged allegiance to opposing a woman's right to choose, Senator Rubio has stood out (or deserves to stand out) for his unswerving commitment to dishonesty about the military.

Proclaiming "the gutting of our military is not an accident," Rubio on Saturday night claimed

I think the more fundamental challenge we’re now facing is what’s happening to the U.S. military — I’ve said this many times, and I think it’s important to start paying attention to this. Our Air Force is about to be the smallest it’s been in 100 years. I’m sorry, in our history. Our Army is set to be smaller than it’s been since the second World War, and our Navy is about to be the smallest than it’s been in 100 years.

That claim has made almost verbatim by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Politifact, which has found it reasonably accurate, nevertheless asserted after speaking to a consultant "sequestration has hindered military capabilities -- particularly in light of recent developments in Iraq and Syria. The Pentagon has had to make cuts to its day-to-day operations, while carrying out missions in the Middle East that were not budgeted for."

Graham's criticism- which formed the basis of Rubio's- was, Politifact concluded

not a fair comparison because technology and capabilities have grown so much in the past century. The Army and Navy of today are much more capable than they were decades ago, even with fewer soldiers and ships. A better comparison is to look at how the U.S. military stands up relative to other nations.

More insulting is Rubio's vow

to begin to refocus on rebuilding our military because every time we have cut our military in the history of this country we have had to come back later and rebuild it, and it costs more, and it’s a lot more chaotic and dangerous. When I’m president, we are rebuilding the U.S. military.

This is necessary because, the young man says, "It’s about believing, unlike Barack Obama, that the world is a safer and a better place when America is the strongest military and the strongest nation on this planet."

He already had informed us that President Obama is "undermining" the country.  But unlike Fred Kaplan, he did not tell us that the current military budget

amounts to $583 billion, a mere 0.4-percent increase over this year’s budget.

However, that’s only the sum requested by the Defense Department. The Office of Management and Budget, which oversees the entire federal government, speaks of appropriations for “national defense,” which also include the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons programs and assorted items in various other agencies, which together total another $25 billion.

All told, then, the budget request for national defense adds up to $608 billion—a 2.1-percent increase over this year’s budget: not enormous, but not trivial either, and certainly not a cut....

Comparing the eight years of George W. Bush’s base budgets and the eight years of Obama’s (including the one proposed today), Obama’s exceed Bush’s by a sum total of $816.7 billion ($4,121.2 billion for Obama’s two terms, $3,304.5 for Bush’s). (See thecomptroller’s document, Pages 1–4. This chart doesn’t adjust these figures for inflation; if it did, the difference would be smaller but not by much.)

Admittedly, Marco Rubio did not say that President Obama had destroyed the military budget or even cut it. He did, however, maintain that Barack Obama does not believe "that the world is a safer and a better place when America is the strongest military and the strongest nation on this planet." Given the President's defense budgets and the likelihood that someone who touts his knowledge of foreign affairs from his experience on the Foreign Relations Committee would have some clue of this, Rubio likely is lying.

Results from New Hampshire indicate that Chris Chrisite did himself no good by savaging Marco Rubio. However, after six years as governor of a large state and 7+ months as a presidential candidate, he finally has provided a useful service.








Share |

Link To The Past


It was February 3, 2011, three days before what would have been the birthday of Ronald(6) Wilson(6) Reagan(6), and the U.S. Senate was celebrating the legacy of the 40th President. The Hill observed 

Republicans, Democrats, and one Independent senator highlighted moments of Reagan's life and presidency today in a two-hour tribute that is expected to be followed by a similar tribute in the House on Feb. 9...

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) lamented that today, Americans are faced with 'whining' that the nation cannot reduce spending, and said the United States needs to rediscover Reagan’s approach. “That's what we need to return to,” he said."

The Alabaman served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama under President Reagan, who later nominated him to a judgeship of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama, though he was not confirmed.  To Sessions, as to many Republicans, Reagan was nearly a deity and in a defense of the latter's Strategic Defense Initiative, Sessions wrote glowingly in 2008 in the Strategic Defense Quarterly

The president argued that “the human spirit must be capable of rising above dealing with other nations and human beings by threatening their existence.” While acknowledging the technological challenges inherent in missile defense, often compared to “hitting a bullet with a bullet,” Reagan nevertheless “call[ed] upon the scientiic community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weap­ons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.”

Senator Sessions, meet Senator Sessions.   The conservative Washington Free Beacon reports  

On nuclear weapons, Hagel was questioned by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), chairman of the armed services strategic forces subcommittee, about recent efforts to backtrack on his support for an international anti-nuclear weapons forum called Global Zero and a report by the group that advocated sharp cuts in U.S. nuclear forces.

The Global Zero report called for the total elimination of land-based ICBMs and tactical nuclear arms, in talks with Russia or unilaterally by the United States.

Hagel asserted that Global Zero “didn’t propose or call for anything” and that other administrations had proposed such bilateral, not unilateral arms cuts.

Quoting the Global Zero report, Session stated that it called for either bilateral cuts with Russia or cuts to be “implemented unilaterally.”

“I don’t believe that’s consistent with the policy of the country as a whole,” Sessions said.

Sessions said he was troubled by Hagel’s anti-nuclear views.

“I believe the secretary of defense should be the core, the rock-solid person for defense of America,” Sessions said. “I believe he should project an image of solidity and steadfastness that the whole world and American people can depend on. And I’m more than a little troubled by the report that you participated in, Global Zero report, that calls for the total elimination of nuclear weapons and clearly suggests that’s an achievable goal in a realistic period of time, although certainly not immediately.”

Hagel, as would be expected, denies the charge.  So, too, does Politifact, which assessed the validity of the accusation of Americans for a Strong Defense- which was formed to oppose the nomination of the Nebraskan to Defense Secretary-  that the nominee has advocated "an end to our nuclear program."  Politifact concluded

Hagel has called for the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons, but with some major caveats the ad ignores. He is a supporter of Global Zero, which has called for worldwide elimination by 2030. The report he co-authored calls for reducing the U.S. stockpile to 900 nuclear warheads by 2022, but it says that the best way to achieve that reduction is together with Russia and other countries.

But an official who blissfully ignores dangers posed to the Free World by our enemies and naively "calls for the total elimination of nuclear weapons" is irresponsible.  So, too, it was in, respectively, 1985, 1984, 1986, and 1983 when the President of the United States declared

“We seek the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth.”

“A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The only value in our two nations possessing nuclear weapons is to make sure they will never be used. But then would it not be better to do away with them entirely?”

“It is my fervent goal and hope…that we will some day no longer have to rely on nuclear weapons to deter aggression and assure world peace. To that end the United States is now engaged in a serious and sustained effort to negotiate major reductions in levels of offensive nuclear weapons with the ultimate goal of eliminating these weapons from the face of the earth.”

“I can’t believe that this world can go on beyond our generation and on down to succeeding generations with this kind of weapon on both sides poised at each other without someday some fool or some maniac or some accident triggering the kind of war that is the end of the line for all of us. And I just think of what a sigh of relief would go up from everyone on this earth if someday–and this is what I have–my hope, way in the back of my head–is that if we start down the road to reduction, maybe one day in doing that, somebody will say, ‘Why not all the way? Let’s get rid of all these things’.”

Republicans revere (or pretend to revere) Reagan.  Democrats are intimidated into withholding any criticism of the former President and instead praise him in an effort to establish their centrist bonafide.   Few in the mainstream media, therefore, will recognize in Jeff Sessions' overblown criticism of Chuck Hagel a classic case of GOP mythmaking.




Share |

Opening Salvo

The good news is that I appear- thus far- to have been wrong in assuming that Barack Obama will concede ground even before starting to negotiate.  The bad news is that we're in only the bottom of the first inning.  The worse news is that I continue to use tired, worn sports parallels.

The baseball analogy is apt, though one should beware of someone referring to his own remark as "apt."   Team Obama has put out its opening bid, as summarized by Wonkblog's Suzy Khimm:

STAGE ONE:

Taxes

Immediate increase in both top marginal rates, as well as capital gains and dividends: +$960 Billion
Additional taxes: +$600 Billion
2009-level estate tax
AMT and business tax extenders: -$236 Billion
Payroll tax extension or alternative policy: -$110B
Bonus depreciation extension

Spending/Extras

$50 billion stimulus package in FY13
Mass refi mortgage proposal
Deferral of sequester
Savings from non-entitlement mandatory programs
Extension of unemployment insurance: $30 billion
Medicare SGR Patch: $25 Billion
Increase in the debt limit to avoid requiring Congress to vote to increase

STAGE TWO:

Tax reform consistent with $1.6 trillion tax increase
Entitlement policies from President’s FY13 budget that could total $400 billion in savings

Despite a cut in the Medicare program and nothing about defense, that's a better proposal than we had a right to expect from Obama and may reflect a notion on the part of the President that he ought to stop negotiating with himself.
  
On Thursday, Charles Krauthammer charged on GOP TV

What Geithner offered, what you showed on the screen, Robert E. Lee was offered easier terms at Appomattox, and he lost the Civil War.   There are not only no cuts in this, there's an increase in spending with a new stimulus. I mean, this is almost unheard of. What do they expect? They obviously expect the Republicans will cave on everything. I think the Republicans ought to simply walk away.

Squealing loudest, Rush Limbaugh claims  "Now, as I say, if we ever needed any proof what I've been saying for the last couple days is true, we got it yesterday with this ridiculous opening bid.  Santa Claus wants to take his sleigh over the fiscal cliff. There's no question about it now.  None.  Whatsoever."    

According to Fred Barnes, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (to whom Limbaugh says he spoke) "says he 'burst into laughter' Thursday when Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner outlined the administration proposal for averting the fiscal cliff.  He wasn’t trying to embarrass Geithner, McConnell says, only responding candidly to his one-sided plan, explicit on tax increases, vague on spending cuts."

And House Speaker John Weepy Boehner- who is almost as influential as Limbaugh- remarked “Let’s not kid ourselves.   Right now, we’re almost nowhere.”

Unless they're auditioning for an Academy Award, Repubs really do appear annoyed by the President's initial proposal, which is a splendid sign.   Still, it's a little disconcerting to read from the well-connected Ezra Klein

If Republicans want to cut Medicare, let them propose the cuts. If they want to raise revenue through tax reform, let them identify the deductions. If they want deeper cuts in discretionary spending, let them settle on a number. And, above all, if they don’t like the White House’s preferred policies, let them propose their own. That way, if the White House eventually does give in and agree to some of their demands, Republicans will feel like they got one over on the president.

This suggests that Obama primarily wants the GOP to request the debilitating cuts in the social safety net he then would largely accept.   At that point, it would be left to the left to oppose a destructive measure- if it is up to the task.

Share |

Coming Our Way


Optimism is such a fine thing.  But it won't be found here, at least not today.

In his interview on August 21 with Time's Michael Scherer, President Obama promised that if re-elected

I will continue to reach out to them and work with them wherever I can. And I think it’s important to note that even in the two years that Republicans have controlled the House, we’ve gotten a lot of stuff done. We have passed a payroll tax cut that affected almost every American. We’ve helped veterans get hired as they come home. We’ve gotten two major trade deals that open up markets and are contributing to us doubling exports.

So even in a pretty sour political circumstance, we’ve been able to get some things accomplished. And I believe that in a second term, where Mitch McConnell’s imperative of making me a one-term President is no longer relevant, they recognize that what the American people are looking for is for us to get things done.

Last August, Congress agreed as part of the Budget Control Act of 2011 (in which the debt ceiling was raised) a deal to create a super committee .   If this committee failed to devise a plan to trim at least $1.5 trillion from the national debt over the following ten years, $109.3 billion in cuts, half from the Defense Department and half from (mostly discretionary) social spending would take effect.

Several Republicans already have complained about the Pentagon's contribution to holding the line on the national debt.  And their presidential nominee, apparently satisfied with cuts to Medicare, education, transportation, and the like, a week ago Sunday on Meet the Press criticized the defense spending portion of the sequester when he argued "I thought it was a mistake on the part of the White House to propose it.  I think it was a mistake for Republicans to go along with it."     Romney was even more explicit when on September 11 he stated  "The return of our troops cannot and must not be used as an excuse to hollow out our military through devastating defense budget cuts."

That doesn't quite square with the approach last summer of Romney's running mate, who after voting for the bill bragged to Sean Hannity

What conservatives like me have been fighting for, for years, are statutory caps on spending, legal caps in law that says government agencies cannot spend over a set amount of money.  And if they breach that amount across the board, sequester comes in to cut that spending, and you can’t turn that off without a super-majority vote. We got that in law.

But now GOP leadership is appalled. On Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner called a press conference to blast the President over the latter's alleged failure to suggest an alternative to sequestration.  But as Suzy Khimm explains

Of course, Republicans — Boehner included — had agreed to the deal as well. The defense cuts were part of those consequences. What’s more, House Republicans refused to agree to a debt-ceiling deal that didn’t include some kind of consequence if the supercommittee failed. The White House, conversely, would happily have signed a clean debt-ceiling increase. But the Republicans said there would be no deal if there wasn’t some kind of deficit-reducing backstop in the event the supercommittee failed. That’s where the sequester came from.

And Democrats insist that they chose their particular poison: Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told Politico that they offered the GOP the option of having “a lot of special interest tax loopholes” eliminated instead if the supercommittee failed, but that Republicans chose the defense sequester option instead.    

Majority Leader Cantor even claimed "How is he going to lead to make sure our military is not hollowed out?"

President Obama, though, has offered an option.  His 2013 budget, unanimously rejected by the Senate in a sort of political theater after Republicans brought it up without the policy language or specific proposals attached, calls for eliminating all the automatic cuts for the full ten years.

Congressional Republicans and the party's presidential nominee are not the only ones who want to protect the Pentagon at the expense of the poor and elderly.  Khimm notes "The president instead wants to avoid the cuts by allowing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to expire and by cutting spending on mandatory programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, among other changes."

"In a second term," Barack Obama tells the New York Times, they (will) recognize that what the American people are looking for is for us to get things done."  

Hopefully, the President is simply naive.   But he hinted in his nomination acceptance speech what those "things" might be.   In Charlotte, he declared

I refuse to ask middle class families to give up their deductions for owning a home or raising their kids just to pay for another millionaire’s tax cut.I refuse to ask students to pay more for college; or kick children out of Head Start programs, or eliminate health insurance for millions of Americans who are poor, elderly, or disabled – all so those with the most can pay less.

He will not support eliminating the deduction for interest paid on home mortgages, or increasing college tuition, or cutting Head Starts or eliminating- eliminating- health insurance for some of the poor, elderly, or disabled... not in order to reduce taxes for the wealthy.  But as part of a Grand Bargain including tax cuts for the rich (or for simply not reducing them), those "things" apparently are on the chopping block.   Quite a Socialist, that Barack Obama.




Share |

Total Failure, Total Disgrace

Maybe we have been a little too harsh on former President George W. Bush.    Perhaps it wasn't only Mr. Bush who was grossly ineffective in his/her job prior to the Obama Administration, and played a key role in the greatest foreign policy blunder in American history.

Today, not coincidentally on September 11, a commentary appears in The New York Times by Kurt Eichenwald, a Vanity Fair editor and former reporter for The NYT.    Eichenwald says he read excerpts from the (not released) presidential daily briefs preceding the famous one of 8/6/11, as well as other recently declassified reports, and found

The direct warnings to Mr. Bush about the possibility of a Qaeda attack began in the spring of 2001. By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that “a group presently in the United States” was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be “imminent,” although intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible.

But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat. Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives’ suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day.

In response, the C.I.A. prepared an analysis that all but pleaded with the White House to accept that the danger from Bin Laden was real.

“The U.S. is not the target of a disinformation campaign by Usama Bin Laden,” the daily brief of June 29 read, using the government’s transliteration of Bin Laden’s first name. Going on for more than a page, the document recited much of the evidence, including an interview that month with a Middle Eastern journalist in which Bin Laden aides warned of a coming attack, as well as competitive pressures that the terrorist leader was feeling, given the number of Islamists being recruited for the separatist Russian region of Chechnya.

And the C.I.A. repeated the warnings in the briefs that followed. Operatives connected to Bin Laden, one reported on June 29, expected the planned near-term attacks to have “dramatic consequences,” including major casualties. On July 1, the brief stated that the operation had been delayed, but “will occur soon.” Some of the briefs again reminded Mr. Bush that the attack timing was flexible, and that, despite any perceived delay, the planned assault was on track.

Yet, the White House failed to take significant action. Officials at the Counterterrorism Center of the C.I.A. grew apoplectic. On July 9, at a meeting of the counterterrorism group, one official suggested that the staff put in for a transfer so that somebody else would be responsible when the attack took place, two people who were there told me in interviews. The suggestion was batted down, they said, because there would be no time to train anyone else.

That same day in Chechnya, according to intelligence I reviewed, Ibn Al-Khattab, an extremist who was known for his brutality and his links to Al Qaeda, told his followers that there would soon be very big news. Within 48 hours, an intelligence official told me, that information was conveyed to the White House, providing more data supporting the C.I.A.’s warnings. Still, the alarm bells didn’t sound.

On July 24, Mr. Bush was notified that the attack was still being readied, but that it had been postponed, perhaps by a few months. But the president did not feel the briefings on potential attacks were sufficient, one intelligence official told me, and instead asked for a broader analysis on Al Qaeda, its aspirations and its history. In response, the C.I.A. set to work on the Aug. 6 brief.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Bush officials attempted to deflect criticism that they had ignored C.I.A. warnings by saying they had not been told when and where the attack would occur. That is true, as far as it goes, but it misses the point. Throughout that summer, there were events that might have exposed the plans, had the government been on high alert. Indeed, even as the Aug. 6 brief was being prepared, Mohamed al-Kahtani, a Saudi believed to have been assigned a role in the 9/11 attacks, was stopped at an airport in Orlando, Fla., by a suspicious customs agent and sent back overseas on Aug. 4. Two weeks later, another co-conspirator, Zacarias Moussaoui, was arrested on immigration charges in Minnesota after arousing suspicions at a flight school. But the dots were not connected, and Washington did not react.

Neoconservatives believed Saddam Hussein was more dangerous than Bin Laden, whom they argued merely was pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration. On September 8, 2002- a year after the terrorist strike and prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq- CNN's Wolf Blitzer interviewed National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who maintained

We know that he has the infrastructure, nuclear scientists to make a nuclear weapon.  And we know that when the inspectors assessed this after the Gulf War, he was far, far closer to a crude nuclear device than anybody thought -- maybe six months from a crude nuclear device.The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.

To be fair to Rice, it was neoconservatives at the Defense Department who downplayed the threat of  bin Laden and played up the that from Saddam Hussen.   However, even after the terrorists struck on 9/11/01, the National Security Adviser, who had been lauded as the individual who taught Bush everything he knew about foreign policy, radically exaggerated the threat presented by the Iraqi dictator.   And it was partly on that premise that the Bush Administration began Gulf War II and minimized the menace posed by the leader of Al Qaeda- after largely ignoring those presidential daily briefs which warned of a possible attack by the evil Saudi national.

At the first GOP convention following his departure from office, George W. Bush is ignored at the party's national convention by all but his brother, who lamely protests "My brother, well, I love my brother" and claims- more bizarrely than ostentatiously- "during incredibly challenging times, he kept us safe."

Condoleezza Rice, however, was honored by being given a time-prime speaking slot during which she rhetorically asks "where does America stand?’ ... Indeed that is the question of the hour."   She answers "You see when the friends or foes alike don't know the answer to that question, unambiguously and clearly, the world is likely to be a more dangerous and chaotic place.

Noting that allies and enemies both have more respect for the U.S.A. under the current President than the one who was si disastrously served by Rice, Slate's Fred Kaplan responds "a top adviser in the most disastrous, reputation-crippling foreign-policy administration in decades—has no business lecturing anybody on this score."

Obviously, George W. Bush was a dreadful president in more ways, especially in the economic sphere, than in turning a figurative blind eye to Osama bin Laden.  But he has been, justifiably, pilloried; the individual who advised him first as a Director of the National Security Council and then as Secretary of State has been given a pass by her party, Augusta National Golf Club, and in the media reports following her speech at the Republican National Convention.   It is more than "chutzpah,"a term ably applied to Rice by Kaplan; it is virtual collective amnesia.




Share |

Hardly Bold



There it was- twice- in Paul Ryan's lecture acceptance speech (transcript, here) last night at the Repub National Convention in Tampa, Florida:   a reference to "responsibility."   Halfway in, Ryan remarked

Ladies and gentlemen, these past four years we have suffered no shortage of words in the White House. What's missing is leadership in the White House. And the story that Barack Obama does tell, forever shifting blame to the last administration, is getting old. The man assumed office almost four years ago— isn't it about time he assumed responsibility?

Near the end, Ryan used the word again, claiming "We will not duck the tough issues, we will lead. We will not spend four years blaming others, we will take responsibility."

After taking apart Mitt Romney as someone who "takes on the really tough issues," as Chris Christie put it the night before, Ezra Klein writes on his Wonkblog

But if you’re looking for a guy who doesn’t duck the tough issues, who never obscures the hard truths, who tells you the unpleasant facts you don’t want to hear, who isn’t deterred by the polls, Romney isn’t your guy. Christie or Ryan may be, but Romney isn’t.

That's being far too kind to the New Jersey Governor (he of the budgetary sleight-of-hand), but  Christie isn't running for anything this year.  Paul Ryan, tragically, is.    The Hill on August 21 reported

Paul Ryan attacked President Obama over looming cuts to the defense budget during a campaign stop at a helicopter museum in Pennsylvania on Tuesday afternoon, saying the president would be responsible for putting at risk "almost 44,000 jobs."

The vice presidential hopeful said "national defense is the first priority of the federal government," framing the sequestration deal as a failing of presidential leadership. The House Budget Committee chairman said Democrats wanted the GOP to choose between "tax hikes on small businesses" and cuts to the Pentagon.

"It's either lose defense related jobs in Pennsylvania or put small businesses further at a competitive disadvantage … I got a good idea – why don’t we take away President Obama’s job and create jobs for everybody no matter what industry they are in?" Ryan said.

In response, Talking Point Memo's Benjy Sarlin noted

Despite Ryan’s new attack, he not only voted for the bill containing the cuts, he went out of his way to tout just how difficult it is to undo them.

“What conservatives like me have been fighting for, for years, are statutory caps on spending, legal caps in law that says government agencies cannot spend over a set amount of money,” Ryan told FOX News’s Sean Hannity shortly after the agreement was reached last August. “And if they breach that amount across the board, sequester comes in to cut that spending, and you can’t turn that off without a super-majority vote. We got that in law.”

Like many Republicans who publicly praised the deal’s passage, Ryan has since joined in condemning the cuts and blaming Democrats for the bill they signed onto.

Even before the final bill, Ryan expressed willingness to put defense cuts on the table in order to bring down government spending.

“You can’t throw $700 billion at a government agency and not expect waste to occur,” Ryan said in January 2011.

It’s not the first time Ryan has attacked his own legislation on the trail in recent weeks. After including $716 billion in Medicare savings in his previous two House budgets, he now routinely condemns the cuts as a devastating blow to seniors in campaign speeches.

If we want someone to tell us unpleasant truths, it isn't Mitt Romney or Chris Christie.  And it surely isn't Paul Ryan, no matter how often he will tell you that is exactly what he's doing.

 


Share |