Posted By LambChop
Search
Become a Fan
Categories
- Abortion (16)
- Afghanistan (38)
- Benghazi (23)
- Blogs (5)
- Books (24)
- Celebs (10)
- Climate Change (3)
- Congress (5)
- Conservatism (1)
- Crime (253)
- Current Affairs (1378)
- Democrats (9)
- Drug Cartels (61)
- Economy (225)
- Education (12)
- Election (391)
- Energy (43)
- EPA (1)
- Fashion (5)
- Feminism (10)
- Film (33)
- Food and Drink (50)
- Games (16)
- Gay (20)
- Golf (19)
- Government (559)
- Guns (26)
- Healthcare (118)
- Hillary Clinton (1)
- Immigration (81)
- Iran (46)
- IRS (13)
- Israel (75)
- Liberalism (1128)
- Marijuana (4)
- Media (1216)
- Middle East (207)
- Military (53)
- Music (27)
- North Korea (12)
- NSA (9)
- Obama Administration (1022)
- Olympics (1)
- Politics (1229)
- Race (38)
- Real Estate/Housing Market (8)
- Religion (132)
- Republicans (120)
- Russia (19)
- Science (37)
- Social Media (3)
- Sports (44)
- Supreme Court (1)
- Syria (13)
- Taxes (84)
- Tea Party (9)
- Television (47)
- Texas (166)
- U.S. Constitution (70)
- U.S. House of Representatives (3)
- U.S. Senate (10)
- Unions (3)
U.S. Senate
02/10/2014
01/08/2014
Tight-Lipped Former Sec Def Robert Gates Slams Obama's Leadership in New Book
Posted By LambChop
“All too early in the [Obama] administration suspicion and distrust of senior military officers by senior White House officials — including the president and vice president — became a big problem for me as I tried to manage the relationship between the commander in chief and his military leaders.” - Robert Gates from Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War.”
Bob Woodward reported in The Washington Times that former defense secretary Robert Gates criticized President Obama’s leadership and strategy in Afghanistan in his new candid book “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War.” Gates was named Secretary of Defense under President Bush in 2006 after serving for almost 3 decades on the National Security Council and later as the Director of the CIA.
According to his book, Gates said about Obama that he “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.”
Woodward wrote that Gates’ analysis of what happened was “contradictory,” highly emotional” and that Gates wrote the book with a “sometimes bitter tone.”
Excerpts from the Woodward's review of the Gates' book:
It is rare for a former Cabinet member, let alone a defense secretary occupying a central position in the chain of command, to publish such an antagonistic portrait of a sitting president.
Leveling one of the more serious charges that a defense secretary could make against a commander in chief sending forces into combat, Gates asserts that Obama had more than doubts about the course he had charted in Afghanistan. The president was “skeptical if not outright convinced it would fail,” Gates writes in Obama, after months of contentious discussion with Gates and other top advisers, deployed 30,000 more troops in a final push to stabilize Afghanistan before a phased withdrawal beginning in mid-2011. “I never doubted Obama’s support for the troops, only his support for their mission,” Gates writes.
In Gates’s highly emotional account, Obama remains uncomfortable with the inherited wars and distrustful of the military that is providing him options. Their different worldviews produced a rift that, at least for Gates, became personally wounding and impossible to repair.
In “Duty,” Gates complains repeatedly that confidence and trust were what he felt was lacking in his dealings with Obama and his team. “Why did I feel I was constantly at war with everybody, as I have detailed in these pages?” he writes. “Why was I so often angry? Why did I so dislike being back in government and in Washington?”
Woodward’s article in The Washington Post points out Gate’s ambivalence and contradictory statements from a liberal’s perspective, but Woodward has a point. Gates did not stand up against Obama’s political machinations and putting our troops in harm’s way. I suspect standing up against the Obama administration at the time would have been much more difficult than writing a hit (and run) piece after you have retired.
12/18/2013
Morning Joe Goes Apesh*t Over Cut In Military Benefits for Retirees (VIDEO)
Posted By LambChop
Go Joe.
10/25/2013
10/22/2013
The Battle in the Republican Party is Not a Civil War, It's a Generational Battle Supported by the American People
Posted By LambChop
The budget standoff ended last week and the mainstream media has labeled it a “defeat” for the GOP. Liberal media points to the Republicans’ “misguided strategy” to tie defunding Obamacare to the debt ceiling debate, ultimately playing chicken with the Senate Democrats and daring them to shut down the government. The game resulted in just that – a 16 -day shutdown courtesy of President Barack Hussein Obama and Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Republican establishment folk and liberals alike blamed their “less seasoned” colleagues for “holding the government hostage” and forcing the House leadership to bow to their wishes.
The GOP establishment trotted out squishy former Governor Jeb Bush for his elder statesman-like moderate viewpoint. Practically pleading for us all to get along during an interview for “This Week,” Bush encouraged the GOP to come up with an alternative health insurance solution and “show some restraint” in their negotiations. ABC’S John Karl asked Jeb Bush about advice for Senator Ted Cruz and his efforts to repeal Obamacare. Bush said, “So have a little bit of self-restraint. It might actually be a politically — a better approach to see the massive dysfunction…And when we have these spikes of political conversations that are not grounded in reality, the rest of the world looks at us as untrustworthy.”
Meanwhile Senator Ted Cruz had this to say to his critics like Bush during an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash: “Some Republican gray beards in Washington who make the point, ‘Let’s just let this collapse,' and then Republicans will benefit. I profoundly disagree with their message…I want to step on their message. Number one, I consider that very…the ‘Bad Samaritan Theory.’ Basically inflict a bunch of harm on the American people and hope we benefit politically from it. What a terrible, cynical approach.”
The New York Times gleefully quoted the irrelevant Richard Viguerie: “It’s civil war in the G.O.P.,” said Viguerie, an 80-year-old conservative who last supported Ron Paul in 2008.
The reality is that not ONE SINGLE REPUBLICAN VOTED TO PASS OBAMACARE. They all campaigned to repeal or defund the highly unpopular law especially after Justice John Roberts became the swing vote to uphold the constitutionally shaky legislation. Today, they are all apparently now for it despite the fact that they used to be against it.
Meanwhile, tongues are wagging about the supposed rift within the GOP – a war between establishment leaders versus the upstart populist tea party extremists, but that is not the real issue. The real issue is that majority of the American people who identify as Republicans are fed up with the establishment. Resentment has percolated for quite some time starting with George W. Bush’s legacy including a large Medicare drug coverage expansion, proposed immigration reform and the emergency bailout in 2008. Conservatives were already disillusioned in presidential elections in 2008 with the McCain nomination and again in 2012 with the Romney nomination. The elections were lost primarily because GOP folks stayed home or switched sides. The establishment claims there is an absence of strategy on the Tea Party side while the Tea Party focuses on the winning message of controlling government spending.
The anomaly was the Tea Party domination of the midterms in 2010 resulted in historic Democrat losses across the board. The fact is that because of 2010, there is an established precedent today of Tea Party candidates winning primaries against Republican rivals with long-term corporate and lobbyist backing. Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks told The New York Times: “We’ve always been outspent by orders of magnitude.”
So fast forward to October, 2013. The Republican Establishment and liberal media have joined forces. The Republicans have FINALLY discovered Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals (Obama’s blueprint for campaigning) and are using Alinsky tactics to eat their young.
These Establishment Republicans who have fed from the trough for decades patently reject the notion that if all forty-six Republican Senators had stood with Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Mike Lee instead of trashing them, the political ramifications would be very different– more like 2010. Obama and the Senate majority would have been exposed for their hypocrisy, the Obamacare enrollment website would have failed and Republicans would be considered prescient. What would be the political fallout if they had actually done what the American people wanted and stood their ground against Obamacare and the debt ceiling? - Victory.
Instead, Republicans opted to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The final bill funded the government with a completely suspended debt ceiling and created a bicameral budget super committee (which failed before). Gallup, NBC and Wall Street Journal polls conducted after the end of the shutdown noted that the GOP achieved its lowest favorability rating since polling of this kind began.
The Republicans achieved very little with the public infighting. Future battles will cause the Republican establishment to back down quicker for fear they will be saddled with blame for shutdown threats during debates – they have, in effect, lost their strong position they had after the 2010 election results. It also gave the Democrats the ability to lie to the low information public that the GOP shutdown caused the problems with the Obamacare sign -up. The only bright side to the Republican schism is that they held the line on the sequestration number – spending limits are still at 2008 levels, keeping the baseline low from which to negotiate a budget.
Republicans are actually suffering from a generational battle - the Gen Xers versus the Baby Boomers. Boehner is 63; McConnell is 71; McCain is 77; and Pete King is 69. Ted Cruz referring to the “gray beards” in the GOP during his interview with CNN reflected this generational conflict. Senator Rand Paul was born in the mid 1960s while Senators Cruz and Lee were born in 1970 and 1971 respectively.
Paul, Cruz and Lee are products of Generation X who see the liberalism and excess of the Baby Boom generation as a negative. Feminism did not have the net positive effects for women, the sexual revolution ushered in the breakdown of the family, and liberalism promoted the growth and abusive power of government over the individual.
Gen Xers lost 45% of their wealth during the Great Recession of 2008 as their median net worth dropped to about $42,000 in 2010, from $75,000 in 2007. Unlike Baby Boomers who profited during the dot com and housing bubble booms, Gen Xers are facing insecure retirements and downward mobility as they age. They are pissed off. Angered over government overreach and spending, the mismanagement of our fiscal house, the ponzi scheme of our government entitlements like Social Security, GenXers have had enough.
Paul, Cruz and Lee have capitalized on this undercurrent of dissatisfaction, tapping into the psyche of Americans who are doomsday prepping in record numbers. Establishment Republicans have underestimated the power of this group. The results of the debt ceiling battle and government shutdown combined with news of NSA spying and IRS targeting have angered this sleeping giant – the Tea Party 35-50- year -olds who are out for blood. American is a center right country and Obama’s 15 minutes is up. It will be up to the new Generation, the Xers, to fight this battle. But the American people are on their side despite what The New York Times prints.
10/17/2013
Pizza Diplomacy
Posted by LambChop
H/T: NY Post:
Fantastic to know the Republicans made the historical decision to cave-in to the absurd and evil shenanigans by Senate Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Obama... while carbo-loading.
And now pizza can claim to be the food responsible for ending the US government shutdown and averting a global economic disaster.
Senate leaders announced a bipartisan deal to reopen the US government and raise the debt ceiling overnight.
The Senate announced the deal to “end the government shutdown” (it actually only postponed the battle to early 2014) after gluttonous quantities of pizza were delivered for late night negotiations.
Pizza Boli’s who has proudly claim to helping avert disaster.
Winners: Pizza Boli, Socialist Democrats
Losers: American People, Waistlines of Congressional Republicans
John McCain Back on Porch Warning Tea Partiers to Get Off His Lawn
Posted By LambChop
JOHN MCCAIN: “ The idea seems to be that if House GOP refuses to raise the debt ceiling a default crisis or gradual government shutdown will ensue, and the public will turn en masse against Barack Obama.
The Republican House that failed to raise the debt ceiling would somehow escape all the blame.
Then democrats would have no choice but to pass a balanced budget amendment and reform entitlements. And the tea party hobbits could return to Middle Earth having defeated Mordor. This is the kind of crack political thinking that turned Sharon Angle and Christine O’Donnell into GOP Senate nominees. The reality is the debt limit will be raised one way or another.”
From CNN's Ashley Killough:
Sen. John McCain is already pre-negotiating the Republicans’ cave- in position for the next battle in early 2014 with the Democratic majority. He apparently promised Thursday that “the government will not shut down again,” despite the fact that the legislation actually signed into law merely kicked the proverbial can down the road – for another fight over the exact same fiscal issues. The bill the President signed at midnight only keeps the government open through January 15, 2014 and allows the government to borrow through February 7, 2014, giving House and Senate members time to work out a budget before December.
"We may still have some gridlock," he later added. "Maybe we'll have continuing resolutions that - we're not going to shut down the government again. I guarantee it," he told CNN's Kate Bolduan.
Laughably, McCain claimed that Obama who disappeared, refused to negotiate, lied and taunted the other side will have to "engage" next time around. Yeah, right.
"He has got to understand that magnanimity in victory is a very important quality to have. He won," McCain said. "Now you sit down with your adversaries and get things worked out. If you don't, obviously you're not going to be a successful president."
McCain seemed proud at the GOP declining poll numbers and the fact that they got the blame for the rancor and gridlock in light of Harry Reid and Obama’s abominable positions and statements, including threatening the nuclear option. "You know, I have this line that I use all the time: We're down to blood relatives and paid staffers. Well, I got a call from my mother who's 101…I even lost my mother."
McCain had the unmitigated to gall to say, "Don't speak ill of your fellow Republicans," he said. "We've done way too much of that."
Earlier this year McCain called Ted Cruz a “wacko bird,” referred to Ted Cruz’s position on Obamacare as a “fool’s errand,” and one of McCain’s advisors went on the record with GQ Magazine saying that “my boss f**king hates Ted Cruz”.
READ MORE: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/17/mccain-no-more-shutdowns-i-guarantee-it/
10/08/2013
Power play: Harry Reid sidelined Joe Biden - POLITICO.com
Posted By LambChop
According to POLITICO, Vice President Biden has been shut out of deal negotiation by Harry Reid:
The vice president’s disappearance has grown ever more noticeable as the government shutdown enters its eighth day with no resolution in sight and a debt limit crisis looms. Biden was once Democrats’ deal-maker-in-chief, designing budget pacts with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in the summer of 2011 and New Year’s Eve 2013.
But Biden’s deals rubbed Democrats raw. He gave up too much, they said.
And for that, they have frozen him out — at least for now.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/joe-biden-government-shutdown-debt-ceiling-97969.html#ixzz2h9R81Lnv
Power play: Harry Reid sidelined Joe Biden - Jonathan Allen and Carrie Budoff Brown - POLITICO.com.
09/30/2013
09/26/2013
Liberals Portray Sen Ted Cruz as 'Mean Study Buddy' at Harvard
Posted By LambChop
In a continued effort to find ANY dirt on Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) , the left has resorted to making up MEAN STUDY HABITS. Uh ok.
The Harvard Crimson published a blog post yesterday against Ted Cruz resuscitating the rumor that that Cruz, while at Harvard Law School, would only study with other students from Ivy League colleges- Harvard, Princeton or Yale, stating: “But when Senator Ted Cruz—a 1995 Harvard Law School graduate and Republican from Texas—was a student at HLS, his own study groups had an admissions standard almost as inflated as his own ego.”
GQ in their featured article on Cruz (released this week) already had to print a retraction after one of Cruz’s study buddies (from Northwestern no less) came forward and disputed the rumors.
Meanwhile liberal icon and famed Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz ranked Sen. Ted Cruz among his school’s smartest students ever. “He was always very active in class, presenting a libertarian point of view. He didn’t strike me as a social conservative, more of a libertarian,” said Dershowitz. “He had brilliant insights and he was clearly among the top students, as revealed by his class responses.”
Cruz “was an outstanding student in my class,” Dershowitz said. “Without a doubt he is among the smartest students I’ve ever had… I’ve had great students but he has to be at the top of anyone’s short list, in terms of raw brain power. Cruz’s “career has not surprised me. I thought he would go on to accomplish important things.”
Dershowitz says he and Cruz would often debate issues presented in Dershowitz’s criminal law class. “Cruz’s views were always thoughtful and his responses were interesting,” the law professor explained. “I obviously disagreed with them and we had good arguments in class. I would challenge him and he would come up with very good responses.”
Recent Comments