DOWNLOADS: (21)

PLAYS: (64)

Embed

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) on Sunday insisted that "no one is calling for military action in Syria" even though several lawmakers have called for a strike on the country's air defenses to create a no-fly zone.

During an interview on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) if the United States should "stand by and watch the slaughter continue" without taking military action.

"I have met with [Department of Defense] officials, I have looked at what the options -- at what the way the civil war is going, at how fractured the opposition is, at how Al-Qaeda is a huge part of that opposition," Smith explained. "And it's not that I'm not sure. Right now, my position is, if we were to go in there and try to arm rebel groups, it would make the situation worse and there would be an enormous risk of us getting dragged into a war that we don't know the first thing about how it would come out."

"Nobody is calling for military action in Syria. No one," Rogers declared. "There are some great options... This is not something we should be arguing about."

In fact, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Carl Levin (D-MI) suggested earlier this month that the U.S. should take out part of Syria's air defenses to create a no-fly zone.

"No one should think that the United States has to act alone, put boots on the ground, or destroy every Syrian air defense system to make a difference for the better in Syria," McCain explained. "We have more limited options at our disposal -- including limited military options -- that can make a positive impact on this crisis."

"We could use our precision strike capabilities to target Assad's aircraft and SCUD missile launchers on the ground without our pilots having to fly into the teeth of Syria's air defenses. Similar weapons could be used to selectively destroy artillery pieces and make Assad's forces think twice about remaining at their posts. We could also use Patriot missile batteries outside of Syria to help protect safe zones inside of Syria from Assad's aerial bombing and missile attacks."

DOWNLOADS: (136)

PLAYS: (567)

Embed

Oklahoma Rep. Frank Lucas (R) recently told a conservative radio show that President Barack Obama's administration may be engaged in a "conspiracy" to purchase all available ammunition as a form of gun control.

Last week, Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s National Security Subcommittee caved to conspiracies theories in the conservative media and held a hearing about whether the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was buying a billion rounds of ammunition to use against the American people.

In an interview with NewsMax host Steve Malzberg on Monday, Lucas explained that he had joined with Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) to introduce a bill that would limit the amount of ammunition the federal government can buy.

"What do you think that they think they need this for?" Malzberg wondered.

"You know, it's hard to see into the mind of an Obama-appointed official," Lucas opined. "But this is the administration that's super gun control, that really, really, really doesn't trust people with firearms and obviously they don't trust people with ammunition."

"Is this a conspiracy to buy up all the bullets so they're not available to us? I don't know," he added. "But I suspect, Steve, it's a combination of these big purchases by the non-Defense Department government agencies like Homeland Security and a near-panic buying among my constituents, who are afraid that in some gun control bill there were be a limitation on on their ability to buy ammunition. Or the president will do something by executive order."

Although conspiracies theories about government ammunition purchases have been thoroughly debunked, Republican lawmakers have continued to let conservative sites like Alex Jones' Infowars, Glenn Beck's The Blaze and The Drudge Report drive their agenda.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (112)

PLAYS: (686)

Embed

Brilliant, ain't he? Fox News senior legal analyst Andrew Napolitano on Tuesday suggested that President Barack Obama could be impeached for implementing automatic spending cuts in the so-called "sequestration" in a way that embarrassed Republicans.

"If you're talking about the military, for example, the president wants to hire another 100 soldiers, can he only hire 98? Of course not," Napolitano explained to the hosts of Fox & Friends. "He can hire all 100, and he can take that 2 percent cut in decreased spending and apply it somewhere else in the Defense Department."

"The president has an obligation under the Constitution to make the federal government work, and to make it do the things that we have hired it to do," he continued. "You can't get on an airplane without going through the TSA. The plane can't get in the air without an air traffic controller. The country will not stay safe and free without soldiers. These are far more important than other operations of the government, from which he could cut in order to keep those operations that we rely on every day at full force!"

Fox News host Steve Doocy noted that instead of making reductions in spending "as easy as possible," Obama and his administration were "scaring the living daylights out of people... He's become President Panic."

And hey, that's our job!

"This is almost an impeachable offense," Napolitano agreed. "If the president is deciding how to spend money in order to hurt us, rather than in order to provide us with the services for which we have paid and for which we have hired him, he is doing the opposite of what he has taken an oath to do."

"He has taken an oath to uphold the laws. That means make the government work. Don't make it painful, find a way to make it work on 2 percent less."

It seems he's missed the point of the sequester. But that kind of savvy is why he makes the big bucks at Fox.

The former judge concluded: "That's the way the constitution works!"

Oh, and he also does standup at bar mitzvahs and weddings.

(h/t: Media Matters)

DOWNLOADS: (115)

PLAYS: (362)

Embed

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is a fan of Barack Obama's decision to use drones for the targeted killing of American citizens, but says that the president "wants" to do "serious, serious damage to our military" by nominating former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) to be secretary of defense.

"I think it’s a good program and I don’t disagree with the basic policy that the Obama administration is pursuing now in those regards," he told CBS host Charlie Rose in an interview that aired on Tuesday.

But Rose wondered if there should be some "checks and balances" by another branch of government on the president's ability to "take out" American citizens overseas.

"When we hire the president of the United States he gets to live in a big house, makes all that money, he’s getting paid to make difficult, difficult decisions," the former vice president explained.

The CBS host also asked Cheney to defend his accusation that Obama was appointing a "second-rate people" like Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry to his cabinet.

"I’m very, very concerned, Charlie, about what I see happening in the national security arena, I think the administration’s policies are very flawed," Cheney declared. "I think the president’s performance by my standards in the international arena, in the middle East and so forth is worse than many of my friends and colleagues deem his domestic policies.”

"If you look at what the president's motives are for picking Chuck Hagel, I think he wants a Republican to go be the foil, if you will, for what he wants to do to the Defense Department, which is I think to do serious, serious damage to our military capabilities."

(h/t: The Hill)

DOWNLOADS: (205)

PLAYS: (2256)

Embed

A woman who said she was a former member of the foreign service called C-SPAN on Wednesday to blast Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Rand Paul (R-KY) for being "asses" who deserved to be moved to the Senate Agriculture Committee where they could "dish dirt" after they grilled Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over the 2012 attacks in Benghazi.

At the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, McCain told Clinton that there were warnings before the attack, but "with all these warnings, we didn't have a single Defense Department" force to protect Americans at the consulate.

"I categorically reject your answers," McCain said. "The American people deserve answers and they certainly don't deserve false answers."

Paul went even further, saying he would have fired Clinton for her "culpability for the worst tragedy since 9/11."

"Had I been president at the time, and I found that you did not read the cables from Benghazi, you did not read the cables from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post," the Kentucky Republican ranted. “I think it’s inexcusable.

Following the Senate hearing, C-SPAN took a call from women named Sarah from Sterling, Virginia on the Democrats line.

"As a former member of the foreign service, I thought that Sen. Rand Paul and Sen. John McCain made complete asses of themselves, if I can use that word," Sarah volunteered. "They have no idea with regard to the status of forces agreement and to what the role of the U.S. Marine Corps is in embassies."

Sarah went on to explain that she had been stationed in a Middle East country where American staff had only been provided one security guard by the host country.

"The State Department has no control over that unless there is a status of forces agreement that allows Marine security guards to step out of their comfort zone," she continued.

"And Rand Paul has no idea, has no clue of what happens at an American embassy. I suggest that he change committees and go over to the Agriculture Committee, that's where you can dish dirt. And that's exactly what he did. He was a disgrace and he should not be on that committee."

But it wasn't only Democrats who were ripping into McCain and Paul. Sarah's call was followed by a call from Natasha in Lansing, Michigan on the Republican line.

"As a Republican, I am thoroughly embarrassed by the way they acted," Natasha said. "And I guess it would be very appropriate to say, there's no fool like an old fool, unless he happens to be a young fool. This woman who has worked so hard for our country and has donated, well, practically her health had -- they had no business in talking that way to her."

"For them to get up and grandstand, no wonder our Republican Party is going down the tubes when we have two people that act as foolish and ignorantly as these two did," she added.

DOWNLOADS: (289)

PLAYS: (789)

Embed

As Think Progress reported this Monday morning, Senators John McCain and Kelly Ayotte are out there raising fears about the pending cuts to the military budget which are coming as part of the sequestration plan passed by Congress during the debt ceiling debacle, but they had some trouble making a legitimate case on CNN as to just how those cuts would be "devastating."

McCain Can’t Explain Why Military Spending Cuts Would Be ‘Devastating’:

In their current campaign against automatic military spending cuts, Republican Senators John McCain (AZ), Lindsey Graham (SC) and Kelly Ayotte (NH) claim the reductions will be “devastating” to the U.S. military. But when asked to provide specifics on that claim on CNN this morning, McCain came up empty: [...]

Panetta does repeatedly say the military spending sequester would be “devastating” to the U.S. military but he has also failed to explain why. Panetta’s most specific remark on this point has been to say that the U.S. would have to reduce its presence in Latin America and Africa — i.e. hardly a “devastating” blow to the military or U.S. security. Moreover, a recent non-partisan Congressional Budget Office report found that the automatic spending cuts would bring the Pentagon’s budget back to what it spent in 2006.

As for McCain’s jobs argument, defense industry CEOs and other experts have said warnings that the military spending cuts will damage the economy and cause massive layoffs are “overblown.” And if you’re going to argue that federal spending is necessary to create jobs — a concept Republicans are now embracing in order to protect the nation’s bloated military budget — it’s probably better to, as one study has found, try to direct those dollars away from the Pentagon toward other domestic priorities.

Neither of them did a good job of explaining why we need a military budget, as O'Brien pointed out, five to eleven times larger than China, Russia or Britain. And McCain just completely brushed off the fact that his party is protecting the wealthy by refusing to raise taxes on the richest among us. And sadly neither of them were really challenged on any of their assertions by O'Brien. Another softball interview where politicians are allowed to spew their talking points unchallenged from CNN. It doesn't do much good to ask the right questions and then refuse to do any follow up when those questions aren't answered or answered with lies.

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (183)

PLAYS: (480)

Embed

Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham is calling for cuts to Social Security and lower tax rates, but at the same time he worries that the Department of Defense will be "destroyed" by deficit reduction measures.

If the Super Committee fails to find $1.2 trillion worth of deficit reduction by Nov. 23, it will trigger an equal amount of cuts from domestic programs and defense spending. President Barack Obama has introduced his own plan reduce the nation's debt by more than $2 trillion, about half of that coming from increased taxes on high-income earners.

Fox News' Chris Wallace asked Graham Sunday if it was really fair to balance the budget on the backs of the poor while asking nothing of the top earners.

"Well, what you do with Medicare and Medicaid reforms, you do what Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill did: you work together to protect near-term retirees," Graham explained. "[Obama has] had a lot of input and advice in a bipartisan fashion from the Gang of Six, but he's going down a partisan route. He's trying to elevate class warfare... He's using, in my view, a strategy of class warfare, divide and conquer in order to survive this next election. It won't work."

"If Congress is so divided and the congressional Super Committee only has only two months to come up with another trillion dollars in cuts, what are the chances for a compromise?" Wallace wondered.

"See if you can flatten the tax code -- something I support -- lower rates, flatten the tax code, do entitlement reform in a way that doesn't hurt near-term retirees and get our fiscal house in order," Graham suggested. "At the end of the day if this commission fails, there is a trigger cutting defense by $600 billion if they can't perform their job."

"I will introduce legislation, Chris, to protect the Defense Department from devastating cuts... I want an across-the-board cut as a trigger, the whole government being on the table with a five percent reduction for the whole government, and cut our pay by 10 percent rather than devastating the Defense Department. I hope the Super Committee works, but if it fails let's don't destroy the Defense Department."

DOWNLOADS: (556)

PLAYS: (2684)

Embed

I'm not sure if "Republican strategist" or probably better described, U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbyist, John Feehery meant to actually say this out loud on television, but I think he accidentally told the truth on Hardball. While defending Paul Ryan and the Republican's plan to turn Medicare into a voucher program as a means of "saving" Medicare, at the very end of the segment Feehery lets one slip with their real priorities. Medicare and our social safety nets must be sacrificed if we want to keep a Department of Defense.

So we've got to keep pouring billions into these bottomless pits where we invaded countries that were not a threat to us and our so-called "war on terror", or we gut Medicare. Those are the choices. No raising taxes to pay for invading other countries. No cuts to our military industrial complex. Take it out of the hide of the poor and our seniors instead. We knew these were their priorities already. It's just unusual to hear one of them actually say it out loud.

And as Digby noted on the rest of Feehery's spin here:

This is some great GOP messaging from strategist John Feehery today on Hardball:

Feehery: This is the same program that was put out by John Breaux and Bill Thomas back in the 1990s. We have to fix Medicare for the long term. Obviously competition has to be involved with it. Obviously what Paul Ryan has said is, "if you're under 55 this is something you might have to deal with, if you're over 55 it's not gonna touch you." That's something that polls very well with seniors. This is a beginning of a conversation. This is a beginning of a conversation and it has to happen.

Matthews; You sound desperate. You're skirting and saying it doesn't matter if you're over 55.

Feehery: That's what the plan says, if you're over 55 it's not going to impact you. And that's an important talking point. All the members of congress that I've talked to when they go back to their constituents over 55 that sells. Now I don't happen to think that's fair. I'm under 55 and if there's going to be reform I think the old guys have to pay as well, but I'm not running for office so ...

Read on...