Senator Rafael 'Ted' Cruz Set to Shutdown Government Again in January - Will House Members Follow Cruz Again?

“The Hastert Rule never really existed. It’s a non-entity as far as I’m concerned.” Former Speaker Denny Hastert

While less then 10% of Americans like Ted Cruz, he goes back to Texas and the hard right gives him an eight minute standing ovation.  The Republican Party can no longer claim it is only the Tea Party that is hard right -- it is most of the party that has shifted hard right.  Over 2/3rd's of Republicans in the House and Senate voted to keep the Government shut down and default.  That flies in the face of Speaker Boehner that it was only 30-40 Tea Party they had to answer to and why they allowed the shutdown to go on so long.  He finally had to accept the support of the Democrats to reopen Government and not default.  

Turns out Boehner was lying on another front as well -- the 'Hastert Rule.'  Boehner doesn't even talk to Hastert but maybe he should as the former Speaker always included the Democrats in discussions for the good of the Country while Boehner ignores Democrats unless he really needs them and then it is for the good of Boehner as Speaker first and the Country a distant second.  Republicans in the House keep touting the "Hastert Rule" but there is not such rule according to former Speaker Dennis Hastert:

The former Republican speaker’s ‘rule,’ that you can’t bring legislation to the House floor without a majority of GOP votes, is cited as the reason Boehner can’t end the shutdown. But Hastert tells Eleanor Clift it’s a ‘non-entity’—and ‘if we had to work with Democrats, we did.’ 

There’s been a lot said in recent days about the so-called Hastert Rule. It is cited as the main reason why House Speaker John Boehner won’t allow a vote to fund the government with no Obamacare strings attached—under the rule, no legislation can be brought to the floor without a majority of Republican votes. But the rule’s namesake, former House speaker Denny Hastert, told The Daily Beast on Wednesday, “The Hastert Rule never really existed. It’s a non-entity as far as I’m concerned.”

He explained that at the 2006 press conference where he is credited with instituting the rule, he was speaking generally and philosophically. A reporter asked if Hastert, who was having trouble getting an immigration reform bill out of committee and building support in the GOP conference, couldn’t get Democrats to work with him. The genial speaker replied that relying on the other party for the bulk of votes is “something I would not generally do,” a fairly benign statement, as he remembers it now, that appears to have morphed into an ironclad rule. “Generally speaking, I needed to have a majority of my majority, at least half of my conference. This wasn’t a rule. I was speaking philosophically at the time…The Hastert Rule is kind of a misnomer.” 

Now we can safely say that Boehner and his leadership team have been lying about the non-existent Hastert rule just like they are focus testing words to use so they keep using the same words over and over again.   Is this man, Senator Rafael Ted Cruz, the de facto Speaker of the House?

Below are examples of numerous stories around the Internet about Ted Cruz and his actions including after the Government re-opened and didn't default.  Looks like Cruz is ready to shut down the Government again in January.  Cruz has trouble with the truth and facts but people still follow the jerk. That is one reason why the GOP is losing more and more people.  Cruz IMHO is nothing more then a puppet of the Koch Bros and their puppet Jim DeMint of Heritage.  Just remember that Ted Cruz is now the face of the Republican Party and believes every Republican supports him even though he is the most despised man in the Senate by both parties.  His arrogance knows no bounds. 

Even a threat that he wanted police to investigate turned out to be from Twitter not from a phone call or mail.  How do we know one of his people didn't Tweet to get him publicity?  Thin skinned Rafael 'Ted' Cruz has a true arrogance problem that has been with the Cuban descendent for a long time.

Ted Cruz Is Just the Figurehead of The Koch/DeMint Destroy Government Conspiracy

It is completely normal for human beings to focus their rage and anger at one person whom they feel assaulted them; especially if they think the person jeopardized their country’s economic health and shut down their government. It is doubtful there are many decent Americans who are not outraged at Ted Cruz for his role in the government shutdown, and it is likely he relishes the increased attention as conservatives’ messiah. Cruz appeared to be the de facto Republican leader who shut down the government and threatened a credit default as leverage to eliminate the Affordable Care Act, but the teabag hero was little more than a figurehead of a much larger conspiracy whose real leaders are teabaggers Charles and David Koch and Jim DeMint. 

While Cruz-led Republicans are plotting their next fiscal crisis to avenge their failure to tank the economy unless the President and Democrats paid a ransom, the Koch brothers and DeMint have been waging a ferocious battle to take the health law down in the states as well as in Congress. Americans should make no mistake that Republicans and their masters the Kochs and Jim DeMint will go to any lengths to derail the health law, because when all is said and done, they intend to deprive Americans from having access to healthcare regardless the cost to the nation’s economy or the people they lust to dominate. 

Americans have a two-and-a-half month respite until Republicans in Washington enact their next fiscal crisis to eliminate the health law, but Virginia residents are feeling the full effect of the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity crusade to stop a key feature of the health law, Medicaid expansion, to deny poor Virginians access to healthcare. The primary target of the Koch-funded AFP is a long-time Republican tasked with leading a commission to decide if Virginia will expand Medicaid and provide the poorest residents with basic health care services. The man, Republican state senator Emmett W. Hanger Jr. reports he is coming under heavy fire from Americans for Prosperity and their army of operatives deployed to spread Koch propaganda that expanding Medicaid is tantamount to ceding America to Adolf Hitler.

The Reasons Why Ted Cruz Dreams of Economic Armageddon

Ted Cruz and the sedition caucus never intended to raise the debt ceiling.  The 144 Republican House members and 18 Republican Senators voted against reopening the government and raising the debt ceiling because default was their goal.  Sure, they wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. However, that was an added sugar coating to their objective of destroying our credit rating and ultimately, repudiating our debt. 

Debt repudiation originated with Confederates who resented taxation to repay the Union’s war debt, while the Confederate debt was repudiated. That resentment is why section 4 was added to the 14^th Amendment of the Constitution that the Tea Party always says it loves, but prefers to ignore. 

Bruce Barlett explains the connection between the post-war South and today’s debt repudiators.

After the Shutdown, Just 38% Think Republicans Should Be in Charge of the House

Republicans like to say that America wanted divided government, and that’s why they are in charge of the House, but Republicans fixed that. Americans no longer want the GOP in charge of the House. 

As a new CNN/ORC poll shows Republicans losing their only base over their ObamaCare shutdown and indicates that more than half of the country is not happy with Republicans holding majority power in the House, perennially wrong Ted Cruz is claiming that Senate Republicans are the biggest problem heading into 2014. 

Cruz told CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash in an interview, “The single-most damaging thing that has happened to Republicans for 2014 is all of the Senate Republicans coming out, attacking the House Republicans, attacking those pushing the effort to defund Obamacare and lining themselves up opposite of the American people.”

Cruz vs. McConnell: GOP Senators On Collision Course Over Next Shutdown

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) doesn't want another government shutdown, but Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is already egging on the next one. A power battle brewing between the two senators is growing personal ahead of the next critical deadline.
Federal government funding expires again on Jan. 15 and the two influential senators are already on a collision course after Cruz's quixotic push to defund Obamacare fell flat in the recent budget debacle and badly damaged the GOP's standing before the party surrendered. 

"There will not be another government shutdown," McConnell said Sunday. "You can count on that." 

Cruz, by contrast, isn't the least bit chastened after systematically undermining GOP leaders and goading his party into a self-defeating predicament. In fact, he wants a do-over.

"I would do anything, and I will continue to do anything I can to stop the train wreck that is Obamacare," said the freshman senator, when asked if he'd risk another shutdown. "What I intend to do is continue standing with the American people to work to stop

Cruz Slams His Republican Critics: They Want To ‘Inflict A Bunch Of Harm’ On Americans For Political Purposes 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) pushed back against Republicans who have criticized his efforts to shutdown the government in an effort to defund the Affordable Care Act, arguing that they are trying to harm the American people “and hope we benefit politically.” Cruz’s remarks signal a growing rift between conservative and more moderate establishment Republicans over how to combat President Obama’s health care law as uninsured Americans begin to enroll in coverage.

While some — including Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Tom Coburn (R-OK), and John McCain (R-AZ) — are urging the party to refocus on other issues, pointing to Obamacare’s rocky implementation as proof that the law will unravel on its own, Cruz, joined by Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT), Marco Rubio (R-FL) and groups like FreedomWorks and the Heritage Foundation, says that Republicans should seize future budgetary fights to defund the measure. 

This man says what a lot of us have been saying for a long time and while we are helping Democrats in 2014 to Take Back the House and Keep the Senate.  A lot of us want no part of today's Koch Bros hard right Republican Party.

Why are Republicans in Congress Against a Balanced Approach Versus Sequester?

Are Republicans so hard headed in their stance against Obama on Sequester that they have no idea that the American people are fed up with their obstructionism?
Congressional Republicans in the Senate cannot get it through their heads that 90% of American people want background checks for all sales at gun shows to preclude terrorist/felons buying weapons.  They also want tougher laws on drug trafficking.  Guess I should not be shocked that today's hard, hard, hard, hard right (to quote Joe Scarborugh) members of Congress don't care what the American people think about sequester if they voted against background checks.  
Why not get with the President and replace Sequester with a balanced approach?   That's a pipe dream that is not going to happen because it is the President's idea.  Some of the racist Republicans will not go along with any idea the President has come up with preferring to allow our economy to tank and people lose benefits.  Despicable is actually too nice of word to describe a lot of today's hard right Republican office holders.  
Watch the video and ask yourself why the Republican Party is so loathe to compromise with the President as his ideas are good common sense?

This is hard for me to even think because I was a Republican for so many years, but I think the GOP in Congress is permeated with a bunch of neanderthal racists in the hip pockets of major donors.  How else can you reason some of the dumb statements Fox News and Republicans make against the President? According to the website Right Off A Cliff, 95% of what the far right says about Obama is false with most of it coming From Fox news which the hard right members of Congress repeat day after day.  Here are some examples:

Obama has been the biggest spending President in history!  FALSE.  Year to year spending increases have been less than 1%.  They’re also at their lowest rate of year to year increases since Eisenhower. 

Obama has spent more than all other Presidents in history!  FALSE. On January 20, 2009 our national debt was $10.6 trillion, today it’s $16.7 trillion—for a $6.1 trillion increase.  For the mathematically challenged, $6.1 trillion is less than $10.6 trillion.  This also doesn’t factor in the money spent in 2009, which gets tagged to President Obama, was actually passed by Bush.  *This also doesn’t take into account much of the cost of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars had not been put on our books by the Bush administration. 

Obama is a Muslim!  FALSE. You’re an idiot and I’m not even going to explain why. 

Obama isn’t an American!  FALSE.  See above. 

Obama is a Communist/Socialist/Fascist!  FALSE.  They’re all different—it’s impossible to be all 3.  Then with stocks setting new records, having their best 10 day stretch since 1996, and increasing by more than 100% since their lows in 2009…he would be the worst Communist, Socialist or Fascist that has ever existed. 

Obama is always on vacation!  FALSE.  President Obama took 131 vacation days in his first 4 years in office.  That puts him on pace for 262 days during 8 years in the White House.  By contrast Bush took 1,020 days (including a 5-week vacation–the longest by any President in nearly 4 decades), and Reagan took 484 days.  Once again for the mathematically challenged, Obama is on pace to take fewer vacations than both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. 

The economy has gotten worse under Obama!  FALSE.  Are you insane, have selective memory or both?  In February 2009, we lost  651K jobs.  In February 2013, we added 236K jobs.  Again, for the mathematically challenged, that’s a positive shift of 887K jobs from our losses in February 2009 to our gains in February 2013. 

I’ve seen the rebuttal to these numbers, so I’ll squash it right now before moving on:
Those jobs numbers are a lie!  No, they’re from the same source which Republicans have used to saddle Obama’s job losses (from his first year in office… and only his first year).  So you can’t use a source to support your argument, then ignore that very same source when it no longer supports what you want to believe. 

Unemployment is at record highs!  FALSE.  Unemployment hit a high during November 2009 of 10%, it’s now at 7.7%. 

I can already hear the Republican rebuttal to this one as well, “But that doesn’t include the people who have stopped looking for work!”  I hate to burst your bubble, but the unemployment rate never includes those who have given up looking for work.  This isn’t a shift in what defines our unemployment rate, this is how it has been calculated for quite some time.

Read some fun History lessons at ForwardProgressives.com to get the facts not the spin Fox News and the hard right put out as news.
Some members of Congress did a good job of hiding they were hard right over the years.  Many of us never would have supported them or worked for their campaigns if we knew they were hard right zealots against minorities, women, veterans, and education for starters..  I have had enough of the hard right to last a lifetime from some websites so never would have supported some of these Republican office holders that are now part of the hard right run by the Koch Brothers.  
When are people going to finally wake up and realize that conservative talk radio, Fox News, and the hard right is not supported by the vast majority of the American people?  Guess they didn't learn a thing from 2012 or Mark Sanford wouldn't have gotten the nomination in SC.  RNC should be prepared for a shock in 2014 as more and more Republicans tell GOP candidates to go jump refusing to work or donate to them.
Would be gone from the GOP if Independents could vote for candidates in the primary, but not giving up my primary vote.  

Hate and Extremism has NO Place in the United States

Since Obama’s first term, our numbers have doubled and now we’re headed to a second term, it’s going to triple,” one Virginia Klansman told WTVR-TV in Richmond. 

Some of us who were Republican have been complaining about the hard right extremist groups for years that are anti-government and filled with hate.  That was in the late 90's when we went after them on conservative sites for their hate rhetoric and anti-government talk.  That was nothing compared to the hate groups today which have exploded all over the Country since President Obama was elected.  Some of it is because he is black but it is also an excuse for the people in the shadows to become more mainstream in the Republican Party.  Started with the Koch Bros Tea Party movement which was orchestrated not something that grew out of dissent - hatred became the name of the game for a lot of these people who took to the streets demanding their rights be returned when they hadn't been taken.

Some of the usual hard right loons stepped up to the plate with their hate rhetoric to drive some of these hate filled groups even harder right.  Today if I see the word 'Patriot' in an email, I automatically assume it is hard right and get off their mailing list.  I have never signed up to any Patriot group but I keep getting added.  Someone has sold mailing lists -- RNC and local State GOP is my guess.  These people are scary with their comments that are not true (my bold):

“Freedom ends. Tyranny begins,” tweeted Fox News Radio host Todd Starnes. “Get ready,” TeaParty.org said. “Right now government gun grabbing plans are being covertly organized.” 

“MARTIAL LAW IN THE UNITED STATES IS NOW A VERY REAL POSSIBILITY!” added the ConservativeDaily.com’s Tony Adkins, responding to Obama’s use of executive orders to further gun control with a doomsday prediction that could have come straight from the Patriot movement. “SUSPENSION OF THE U.S. CONSTITUTION IS A VERY REAL POSSIBILITY!” The Conservative Monster, a similar website, concluded that the president was conspiring with a variety of foreign enemies “to force Socialism on the American people.” 

Even further to the right, the reaction was more intense yet.... 

Chuck Baldwin, a Montana-based Patriot leader long associated with the Constitution Party, made the unusual claim that Christ had ordered his disciples to carry “their own personal arms” and vowed to refuse to register or surrender his firearms. The Oath Keepers, a conspiracy-oriented Patriot group of current and former military and law enforcement officials, issued a threat — “MESSAGE TO THE OATH BREAKERS AND TRAITORS: We will never disarm” — and added that gun control plans were “unconstitutional filth.” Judicial Watch founder Larry Klayman called the proposals “a declaration of war against the American people” and demanded “liberation” from the “evil clutches” of proponents.

Anyone who knows me know that I have zero respect for Chuck Baldwin or Larry Klayman who is nothing but a media hog out to make his own millions using any cause that will help him make money.  Frankly think the all mighty dollar drives a lot of these so-called leaders with their radical comments.

The John Birch Society that the Koch Bros Dad helped found was kicked out of the Republican Party but now it is back and has a voice in the GOP?  Koch Bros seemed to have bought and paid for the GOP today which would explain some of the extremism in the GOP Platform:

The latest and most dramatic example of that may be the completely baseless claim that Agenda 21 — a United Nations sustainability plan that was signed by President George H.W. Bush but has no mandatory provisions whatsoever — is part of a plan to impose socialism on America and strip away private property rights. 

That claim has been pushed heavily by, among others, the John Birch Society, a conspiracist Patriot organization that was exiled from the conservative movement a half century ago after claiming President Dwight D. Eisenhower was a Communist agent.... "Last year, the Republican National Committee passed a plank opposing Agenda 21 and describing it as a “destructive and insidious scheme” to impose “socialist/communist redistribution of wealth.” The state of Alabama passed a law barring any policies traceable to Agenda 21 without “due process.” 

RNC passed a plank about Agenda 21 a UN sustainability plan with no mandatory provisions?  Get that NO MANDATORY PROVISIONS yet it ends up in the GOP Platform like the Government wants to impose "socialist/communist redistribution of wealth."

With all of this, how can today's Republican Party be shocked they are losing long time members and activists.  Some have their heads buried in the sand and refuse to admit they have lost their original base who had common sense to be replaced by some really scary people who want to take to the streets to defend their homes against the Government that is not coming to take anything.  These people are being preyed on by the ilk of the hard right and don't even realize that are being used because they have become so mad they refuse to listen to reason.  Facts mean nothing it is the narrative which is frankly frightening.

People like Wayne LaPierre (NRA), Sarah Palin, Rand Paul, Larry Klayman, Chuck Baldwin, Hannity, Rush, Glen Beck, and most of Fox Entertainment News for starters know better but are pushing their hate rhetoric to these people who believe what they say.  It is despicable but also very scary that the hard right media is stirring all this up because a black man was elected President instead of one of their chosen ones?  Small minded, despicable people IMHO who I wouldn't walk across the street to hear speak, buy one of their books, or watch on my TV.  Hate mongering is not welcome in my home.

This new report out by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on Hate and Extremism Groups should make everyone stop and think that this could end very badly.  Time for everyone to ask what they can to help diffuse the situation.  Hate filled right talk radio with an agenda and narrative not facts needs to go the way of the dinosaur.  There should be some law that says you cannot spew lies day after day to enrage/incite listeners to the point they want to go take action against other people or the Government.  The days of right wing talk radio being entertainment are gone - now it is hate filled.

Have excerpted parts of the the synopsis of the SPLC below which gives me chills but it is only a synopsis to their full report on Hate and Extremism in America:

The Year in Hate and Extremism
By Mark Potok, Senior Fellow, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) 

Capping four years of explosive growth sparked by the election of America’s first black president and anger over the economy, the number of conspiracy-minded antigovernment “Patriot” groups reached an all-time high of 1,360 in 2012, while the number of hard-core hate groups remained above 1,000. As President Obama enters his second term with an agenda of gun control and immigration reform, the rage on the right is likely to intensify. 

The furious reaction to the Obama administration’s gun control proposals is reminiscent of the anger that greeted the passage of the 1993 Brady Bill and the 1994 ban on assault weapons supported by another relatively liberal Democrat — Bill Clinton. The passage of those bills, along with what was seen by the right as the federal government’s violent suppression of political dissidents at Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in the early 1990s, led to the first wave of the Patriot movement that burst into public consciousness with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The number of Patriot groups in that era peaked in 1996 at 858, more than 500 groups fewer than the number active in 2012. 

For many, the election of America’s first black president symbolizes the country’s changing demographics, with the loss of its white majority predicted by 2043. (In 2011, for the first time, non-white births outnumbered the births of white children.) But the backlash to that trend predates Obama’s presidency by many years. Between 2000 and 2010, the number of hate groups rose from 602 to more than 1,000, where the count remains today. Now that comprehensive immigration reform is poised to legitimize and potentially accelerate the country’s demographic change, the backlash to that change may accelerate as well.

(snip) 

The Hysteria MountsEven before the Dec. 14 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, gun and ammunition sales shot up in the wake of the re-election of the country’s first black president, the result of shrill conspiracy theories about Obama’s secret plans to confiscate Americans’ guns. When the killings actually did spark gun control efforts that clearly had not been in the Obama administration’s plans, the reaction on the political right was so harsh that it seemed to border on hysteria. 

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) proposed a law that would nullify any executive gun control actions by Obama, accusing the president of having a “king complex.” U.S. Rep. Trey Radel (R-Fla.) said the president could be impeached for those actions. State lawmakers in Arizona, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee proposed laws that sought to prevent federal gun control from applying to their states. 

Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff who sued the Clinton administration over the Brady Bill’s imposition of background checks on gun buyers, claimed that of 200 sheriffs he’d met with, most “have said they would lay down their lives first rather than allow any more federal control.” Matt Barber of the anti-gay Liberty Counsel said he feared that the nation, which he described as already on the brink of civil unrest, was headed for “a second civil war.” 

(snip)  

Progress and BacklashesEven before serious talk of gun control began in Washington, the far right was already in something of a meltdown in the immediate aftermath of Obama’s re-election, which came to many who got their campaign news from right-wing sources as a jarring shock. Hundreds of thousands of Americans signed petitions seeking the secession of each of the 50 states. Right-wing outfits like TeaParty.org said a “Communist coup” was under way. The anti-gay Family Research Council charged Obama with “dismantling” the country. 

Polling after the election showed how broad antipathy toward President Obama remained in a deeply polarized America. A Public Policy Poll survey found that 49% of all Republicans believed that ACORN — a community organizing group that went belly up in 2010 after attacks from the far right — had stolen the election from Mitt Romney. A quarter of GOP members in the same poll favored secession. A January 2013 poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind project found that 36% of all Americans still don’t believe Obama is a citizen, despite the 2011 release of the president’s “long-form” birth certificate. 

As they did in 2008 and 2009, groups on the radical right clearly benefited from that antipathy. “Since Obama’s first term, our numbers have doubled and now we’re headed to a second term, it’s going to triple,” one Virginia Klansman told WTVR-TV in Richmond. Daniel Miller, president of the secessionist Texas National Movement, said that his membership shot up 400% after Obama’s re-election. White News Now, a website run by white supremacist Jamie Kelso, said that it had had “an incredible year” in the run-up to the vote, reaching more people than ever. 

To the surprise of many prognosticators, anti-black racism in America — not just that limited to the far right — actually rose over the four years of Obama’s first term, according to a 2012 Associated Press poll. The poll found 51% of Americans expressed explicitly anti-black attitudes, compared to 48% in 2008, while 56% showed implicitly anti-black attitudes, up from 49% four years earlier. Another AP poll, in 2011, found that 52% of non-Latino whites expressed explicitly anti-Latino attitudes, a figure that rose to 59% when measured by an implicit attitudes test.

(snip)

The American Family Association issued predictions for the future that included the claims that conservative Christians will be treated like African Americans before the civil rights movement, that the state will take charge of children at birth, and that cities with names like St. Petersburg will be forced to change their names. Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality said the 2012 election of openly gay Tammy Baldwin to a Senate seat representing Wisconsin signaled that America is “falling apart.” The volume of these kinds of comments seemed higher than ever before. 

Conspiracies and Terror 

Another factor driving the expansion of the radical right over the last decade or so has been the mainstreaming of formerly marginal conspiracy theories. The latest and most dramatic example of that may be the completely baseless claim that Agenda 21 — a United Nations sustainability plan that was signed by President George H.W. Bush but has no mandatory provisions whatsoever — is part of a plan to impose socialism on America and strip away private property rights. 

That claim has been pushed heavily by, among others, the John Birch Society, a conspiracist Patriot organization that was exiled from the conservative movement a half century ago after claiming President Dwight D. Eisenhower was a Communist agent (see story, p. 24)."Last year, the Republican National Committee passed a plank opposing Agenda 21 and describing it as a “destructive and insidious scheme” to impose “socialist/communist redistribution of wealth.” The state of Alabama passed a law barring any policies traceable to Agenda 21 without “due process.” 

The radical right last year produced more than its fair share of political violence. Most dramatically, a neo-Nazi gunman stormed into a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, murdering six people before killing himself. In Georgia, meanwhile, officials arrested 10 people, most of them active-duty military, who were allegedly part of a plot to take over the Army’s Fort Stewart, among many other things. The group is accused of murdering two former members suspected of talking. 

Then, this January, an Alabama high school student was arrested for allegedly plotting to attack his black and gay classmates and bomb his school. Former friends of the student said he and a group of up to 11 other students regularly shouted “white power” and gave stiff-arm Nazi salutes in the halls of their Seale, Ala., school but were ignored by school officials and security officers. 

These were only the latest incidents of just over 100 domestic radical-right plots, conspiracies and racist rampages that the SPLC has counted since the Oklahoma City bombing left 168 men, women and children dead in 1995. 

Now, it seems likely that the radical right’s growth will continue. In 2012, before Obama’s re-election and the Newtown, Conn., massacre, the rate of Patriot growth had slackened somewhat, although it remained significant. Anger over the idea of four more years under a black, Democratic president — and, even more explosively, the same kinds of gun control efforts that fueled the militia movement of the 1990s — seems already to be fomenting another Patriot spurt. 

Even before the election last year, self-described Patriots sounded ready for action. “Our Federal Government is just a tool of International Socialism now, operating under UN Agendas not our American agenda,” the United States Patriots Union wrote last year in a letter “sent to ALL conservative state legislators, all states.” “This means that freedom and liberty must be defended by the states under their Constitutional Balance of Power, or we are headed to Civil War wherein the people will have no choice but to take matters into their own hands.”

Excerpts:  Read the full synopsis at SPLC

If you witness anything out of the ordinary in your community that could lead to a tragic event like the Murrah Bombing in Oklahoma City which was perpetrated by domestic terrorists with ties to the militia movement, please get in contact with federal authorities in your state - FBI is a good place to start or the US Attorney's office who will protect your identity.  This is not something to take lightly as you will read in this report:

Terror From the Right: Plots, Conspiracies and Racist Rampages Since Oklahoma City

At 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, a 7,000-pound truck bomb, constructed of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and nitromethane racing fuel and packed into 13 plastic barrels, ripped through the heart of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The explosion wrecked much of downtown Oklahoma City and killed 168 people, including 19 children in a day-care center. Another 500 were injured. Although many Americans initially suspected an attack by Middle Eastern radicals, it quickly became clear that the mass murder had actually been carried out by domestic, right-wing terrorists. 

The slaughter engineered by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, men steeped in the conspiracy theories and white-hot fury of the American radical right, marked the opening shot in a new kind of domestic political extremism — a revolutionary ideology whose practitioners do not hesitate to carry out attacks directed at entirely innocent victims, people selected essentially at random to make a political point. After Oklahoma, it was no longer sufficient for many American right-wing terrorists to strike at a target of political significance — instead, they reached for higher and higher body counts, reasoning that they had to eclipse McVeigh's attack to win attention. 

What follows is a detailed listing of major terrorist plots and racist rampages that have emerged from the American radical right in the years since Oklahoma City. These have included plans to bomb government buildings, banks, refineries, utilities, clinics, synagogues, mosques, memorials and bridges; to assassinate police officers, judges, politicians, civil rights figures and others; to rob banks, armored cars and other criminals; and to amass illegal machine guns, missiles, explosives and biological and chemical weapons. Each of these plots aimed to make changes in America through the use of political violence. Most contemplated the deaths of large numbers of people — in one case, as many as 30,000, or 10 times the number murdered on Sept. 11, 2001.Here are the stories of plots, conspiracies and racist rampages since 1995 — plots and violence waged against a democratic America.   

See details at SPLC

With living in Norman just south of Oklahoma City, have been to the Bombing Memorial and Museum countless times.  Also was at the University of Oklahoma Football Game when the 'lone suicide' bomber blew himself up instead of the stadium when they wouldn't let him enter the stadium at halftime.  It took 18 trips to ammo dump by the City of Norman/Cleveland County Sheriff to remove all the explosives from his apartment.  I live five miles away ammo dump but when they blew up the chemicals, it rattled my windows.  They made 18 trips because if it blew it up in one trip, it would have taken out at least a city block.

With that in mind, I am probably a little more tuned in then some people about the possibility of homegrown terrorists but it is a fact they exists and the hard right media is helping rile them up along with hard right of the Republican Party.  This needs to stop now which is not going to happen when there is money to be made from sale of guns, etc.  However, it is our responsibility as American citizens to try and keep any more domestic terrorists attacks from happening.  Implore everyone to be aware of your surroundings and not be afraid to report something that is not right.  Honest people are not going to be arrested but you could maybe save a life including your own by asking law enforcement to please check out a situation that could get out of hand.

Maybe everyone should be required to visit the Bombing Memorial and see the cubicles of the people murdered that display their treasured items with pictures and see the children that were murdered in that bombing.  Children have a right to expect protection from harm but as we saw at Sandy Hook Elementary when those first graders were gunned down, there are some sick people in the world with guns in their hands or in the case of the Murrah Building - bombs.

Enough of my lecture for one day, but I am not through as you will be hearing this same theme over and over again.  We need to stop the HATE NOW!

Republicans the Loser on Sequestration

The very idea that Republicans are refusing to even hear of raising revenue by closing tax loopholes on the wealthy says all you need to know about this Republican Party - bought and paid for by wealthy donors!

Update, 2:35 pm, 2/21/2013:

Republicans whine the President never reaches out which is not true but in this instance when he reaches out to McConnell and Boehner, they bite off his hand with remarks.  Those two among others on the GOP side are classless human beings with zero integrity.  Sorry I cannot say what I would really like to say.  Here is the story from the Hill:

President Obama on Thursday phoned Republican leaders in Congress to discuss the impasse surrounding $85 billion in automatic spending cuts set to hit the government on March 1. 
Obama made phone calls to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) eight days before the cuts are implemented and one day after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned they would lead to the furloughing of 600,000 civilian defense workers.  

White House press secretary Jay Carney declined to give details of the call, while Republicans picked at Obama for not calling Democrats, a criticism that suggested they saw the calls as a political stunt. 

"He placed calls earlier today to Senator McConnell and Speaker Boehner, had good conversations, but I have no further readout of those calls for you," Carney told reporters at his daily press briefing. 

The calls appear aimed at demonstrating Obama is engaged in trying to avert the sequester — which the president has described as a "meat cleaver" approach to budget cutting — and to answer GOP criticisms he hasn't reached out to them on major policy disputes. 

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) suggested Obama should instead focus his efforts on Senate Democrats, noting that while the House had passed a pair of sequester replacement bills, the upper chamber had not.  

"If he wants to avert the sequester, shouldn’t the President be focused on the House of Congress that HASN’T acted, and where his own political party holds the majority?," said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel in an email.  

The House Speaker has insisted repeatedly that the House will not act again to turn off the automatic cuts until a plan passes through the Senate. But the odds of a deal in the Senate seem slim, with McConnell saying that he is "not interested in an 11th-hour negotiation."  

Read More at The Hill

There is no better reason to vote out Republicans in the House then their abdication of anything to do with sequestration to the Senate.  Bunch of worthless Republican Congressman who are getting paid $174,000 a year and leadership even more to be obstructionists and not do their job.  How anyone can support this group of Republicans except wealthy donors is beyond me!
 
*******
Speaker Boehner getting mad at Obama while on his vacation was a joke.  If he cared about the American people instead of big donors. the House would be in DC working on a solution not on vacation.  It is a vacation which they want the voters to think is a recess.  How many of you have seen or heard of your member of Congress having Town Halls during their vacation?  We do know McCain held a Town Hall on Immigration that got out of hand. Then McCain got mad at a reporter so everything is back to normal. Most of the ones that did hold a Town Hall it was for one day.  That's a vacation in my book.

Senator Rubio (R-FL) went to Jordan and Israel on his boondoggle. Rubio wrote on his website that he was coming to the Middle East on an official trip in his role as a member of the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees. With sequestration looming, Rubio spends our tax dollars to go to Jordan and Israel in a very transparent move to run in 2016.  Maybe the #1 cut should be travel of members of Congress overseas unless it is absolutely necessary and is approved by a bi-partisan group in order to spend taxpayer money on a boondoggle.

Then there is the little matter of Boehner blaming Obama for sequestration when slides were uncovered with Boehner telling his GOP Caucus that they got 98% of what they wanted out of Obama.  Yet they say Obama doesn't bargain in good faith. Always keep in mind that many Republicans/conservatives accuse others of what they are doing.  Seems to be a trait among the hard right that now runs the Republican Party so members of Congress are marching to their drums.

John Avlon of The Daily Beast Uncovered the July 2011 Power Point:

The PowerPoint That Proves It’s Not Obama’s Sequester After All
by John Avlon Feb 20, 2013 4:45 AM EST 

Republicans have taken to calling the deep cuts that could reverse our hard-won economic recovery ‘Obama’s Sequester.’ But a July 2011 PowerPoint obtained by John Avlon shows the opposite may be true. 

With deep sequestration cuts just days away, Congress is on vacation. But they’ve still got plenty of time to play the blame game. 

The latest semantic spin is to call the looming $1.2 trillion in cuts, which could throw the whole economy back into recession, “Obama’s Sequester.” House Speaker John Boehner indulged this approach half a dozen times in a floor speech before he went on break, establishing its place in the talking-points firmament. 

There are a couple problems with this tactic, as my colleague Michael Tomasky pointed out Tuesday. Congress passed sequestration before the president signed it, and the whole self-defeating exercise was carried out in response to Tea Party Republicans’ insistence that we play chicken with the debt ceiling, which ultimately cost America its AAA credit rating.
But here’s the thing. I happened to come across an old email that throws cold water on House Republicans’ attempts to call this “Obama’s Sequester.” 

It’s a PowerPoint presentation that Boehner’s office developed with the Republican Policy Committee and sent out to the Capitol Hill GOP on July 31, 2011. Intended to explain the outline of the proposed debt deal, the presentation is titled: “Two Step Approach to Hold President Obama Accountable.” 

It’s essentially an internal sales document from the old dealmaker Boehner to his unruly and often unreasonable Tea Party cohort. But it’s clear as day in the presentation that “sequestration” was considered a cudgel to guarantee a reduction in federal spending—the conservatives’ necessary condition for not having America default on its obligations.
The presentation lays out the deal in clear terms, describing the spending backstop as “automatic across-the-board cuts (‘sequestration’). Same mechanism used in 1997 Balanced Budget Agreement.”

 Read More at The Daily Beast 

Boehner deserves a liar, liar pants on fire designation for his comments this week.  When he put Rep Cathy McMorris Rogers out to speak using his talking point papers, all she did was grin.  This is serious business and the woman he showcases only knows how to grin as she talks.

Guess which woman is Rogers?

One thing that makes me glad after Boehner speaks, is to realize we are not as dumb as he thinks we are with his condescending remarks and his unfounded attacks on the President.  We recognize him as someone who has trouble with the truth.  If Boehner and GOP in Congress would quit attacking the President and take up his offer of working together, they might accomplish something.  Chances of that happening are slim to none since in 2011 when they come up with this dumb idea of sequestration that Democrats in the House all voted against, Boehner said he got 98% of what the GOP wanted out of Obama.  How is that deal working out for the GOP now as they are on the hook with taking a one-week vacation and their obstructionists agenda to stall the economy.

Will we be seeing immediate results from the sequestration or will they be phased in over time?  Retirees of the federal government and social security along with medicare recipients will keep receiving their checks and benefits.  Our military will not lose any pay as they shift money to make sure they get their pay and benefits.

In the federal government, the furloughs will be one day a week until September 30th in order to keep the Government working so I imagine a certain amount of people will be off each day.  Looks like Government workers even though losing money will fair better then their counter parts outside the Government who will be on furlough until further notice if this lasts past 1 April.  Private sector will be required to notify their employees of an upcoming furlough in advance so from most accounts 1 April is when the sequestration goes into full affect.

The Reuters article posted on Huffington Post gives one of the best synopsis I have seen on Sequestration:

Senior administration officials said Republicans would be blamed for cuts that did come into force. 

If allowed to run their course, the austerity measures could cost 750,000 jobs and keep weak economic growth stunted for the rest of 2013, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office warns.

These spending cuts, decided in 2011 amid a fever in Congress for deficit reduction, were meant to be so painful that they would goad Republicans and Democrats into reaching an alternative agreement on where to cut back. The cuts "will visit hardship on a whole lot of people," President Barack Obama warned on Tuesday. 

And they are only the first installment in a decade's worth of required cuts totaling $1.2 trillion.
While some furlough notices will be issued to government workers, there will be few outward signs on March 1 that the cuts have been launched.

Under the law, retirees are shielded and so their Social Security checks will arrive on schedule at the beginning of March and every month thereafter. Similarly, the elderly and the disabled will not see their federally backed Medicare healthcare curtailed at all over the seven months.
Every U.S. soldier will get paid and the Defense Department will be allowed to shift funds to ensure that combat operations and "critical military readiness capabilities" are not degraded, according to the Obama administration. 

LAYOFF NOTICES 

And so on March 1 and in the days immediately after, while no dramatic shakeup is anticipated, there will be some early tremors.

* Government agencies are likely to issue 30-day warnings of impending furloughs of government workers. They could be told that starting on April 1 they will have to stay home for a maximum of 22 days between March 1 and Sept. 30.
* New government contracts could slow in anticipation of no deal being reached to replace the sequestration. This would hit defense contractors and road and bridge builders alike.
* Members of Congress, who are not exempt from the spending cuts, will be advised to begin preparing their staffs for either salary cuts or layoffs if they have to shave funds from their approximately $4 billion in annual appropriations.
* Medical research labs at universities that rely heavily on federal funds will begin deciding which projects to abandon or curtail, if they haven't already.
* Every federal agency will have to finalize their plans on how to execute the across-the-board spending cuts. 

At this stage, most planned furloughs are being held to 22 days per federal employee. Anything longer is considered a formal layoff and requires more complex legal hurdles, some involving seniority, to be met. 

In some cases, furlough notices won't go out until terms are negotiated with employee unions after March 1. Not all union-government contracts cover such actions, said Carl Goldman, executive director of AFSCME Council 26, which represents 8,500 federal workers from building engineers to librarians. 

"The biggest thing we can do is to negotiate over the scheduling of furloughs, how much choice employees will have in selecting days furloughed," Goldman said.

Over the seven-month period, a 22-day furlough would roughly equal about one day per week, reducing workers' income by about one-fifth.

LAID-BACK CONGRESS (aka Do Nothing Congress)

Congress, showing little sense of urgency, is now on a week-long "Presidents Day" recess. 

When members of the Senate and House of Representatives return next week, they will begin feeling each other out for a remedy by March 27, when another budget deadline hits: the need to replenish federal funds for all government agencies. 

That is a separate fight in Congress but it might become mixed in with the sequestration battle as fiscal issues come to a head. 

Last week, Senate Democrats unveiled their plan to replace the sequestration with a combination of agriculture subsidy cuts and higher taxes on the richest Americans.
Senate Republicans, warning that they will reject any new tax increases, have not yet settled on a plan. But several are circulating, including replacing the sequestration with different spending cuts, giving federal agencies more flexibility in how they would carry out the existing $85 billion in cuts, or reducing the federal workforce by 10 percent through attrition. 

Before going forward with any plan, Republicans might have to quell an uprising within their party that has some conservatives hoping that the meat-ax approach stays, thus ensuring some serious deficit reduction this year.

Read More at Huffington Post

The American people who are honest with themselves now know the Republicans in Congress are to blame.  Boehner and GOP members of Congress are putting wealthy tax loopholes which they refuse to close for their big donors over the American people and national security.  Boehner even admitted that national security would be harmed with sequestration but why let that stand in the way? Boehner went on to call Obama "gutless" on sequestration.  Now that takes nerve, but it shows how low this Republican Party and its members of Congress have sunk.  When you think Republicans cannot get any lower in gutter, they manage to do just that.

The American people are taking note including a lot of Republicans who don't want to see this group back in Congress after December 2014.  We want a Congress that actually works for We The People not just the wealthy donors.  The Republicans were not kidding when they met the night of the President's first inauguration to plot out how to obstruct President Obama as they are still doing the same obstruction.  When the news of that meeting surfaced last April, that was the beginning of the end for me supporting Republicans in 2012 and joined Republicans for Obama.  Now I will never support Republicans again as long as they remain hard right and the Party of "NO!"  IMHO it is too late for a common sense, rational Republican Party.

Please contact your Republican Representative and/or members of the Senate to tell them to quit obstructing and work with the President on Sequestration.  Information you need for calling:

Senate Contact InformationHouse Contact Information

United States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 will also connect you to your Representative or Senator

If you are represented by Democrats, use the same contact information above to call and ask them to stand firm against Republicans wanting to protect wealthy donor loopholes and put the cuts on the backs of the middle class and poor.  Also thank them for doing a good job and tell them you will be supporting them in 2014.  Remember that House Members are up for election every two years and Senators every six years.

GOP Senators Despicable Antics at Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense Hearings

Latest from The Hill on the Hagel nomination -- they anticipate that he will be confirmed because he has more than 50 votes and do not expect a filibuster from Republicans even though some have said they might filibuster but that would set a bad precedent that a President cannot appoint who he wants to his cabinet.

Senior White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer said Friday that there was "no question" the White House had secured more than 50 votes to support former Sen. Chuck Hagel's (R-Neb.) nomination to head the Defense Department. 

"We're very confident of that," Pfeiffer told Bloomberg TV. "There's no question that there will be more than 50 votes to confirm Sen. Hagel." 

Hagel struggled through a contentious confirmation hearing Thursday, often having to correct statements or apologize for past comments. But White House press secretary Jay Carney said Friday that he believed Hagel "did fine" and helped secure votes necessary for his confirmation.
"We expect the Senate to confirm Sen. Hagel to the position of secretary of Defense," Carney said. "By my estimates and reading of press reports, there has been a net increase in the number of confirmed 'yes' votes for Sen. Hagel's confirmation since the hearing ended." 

Pfeiffer also said he did not expect Republicans to filibuster Hagel's nomination, which would increase the threshold required for Hagel's confirmation to 60 votes. 

"I would be disappointed and surprised if the Republicans were willing to filibuster one of their former colleagues for the secretary of Defense," he said.

That was good news this afternoon after what Senator Hagel endured yesterday at the Committee hearing of Armed Services.

Started supporting former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel as soon as I heard there was a chance he would be announced by President Obama as the next Secretary of State.  He knows the Defense Department and unlike most Republicans in Congress today, he is part of a small group of GOP Senators and former Senators who cannot be bought by lobbyists.

Most likely the reason the defense industry lined up against him along with Neocons as Hagel would not recommend us going into a war that is unnecessary to the protection of this Country.  The Neocons seem to have never met a war they didn't like, yet very of them have ever served.  Chuck Hagel not only served as an enlisted man in Vietnam but was wounded.  Would say he has a different perspective on what war means.

Senator Hagel has been criticized for his reaction to the Republicans Senators as being unprepared.  I have another take asking how could anyone have been prepared for the attacks by his fellow Republicans yesterday where the most important topic was Israel.  That blew my mind.  After Senator Inhofe's insulting opening remarks, anyone would have been off their game trying not to lose their cool.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who opened by arguing that Chuck Hagel’s views are far outside the mainstream, questioned the former Nebraska senator aggressively on Iran, Israel and nuclear weapons at the Senate confirmation hearing for Hagel as defense secretary.

My Senator calling anyone far outside the mainstream has to be the biggest joke of the day.  Inhofe is not mainstream by any shape or form and in many instances is too hard right.  Who is far outside the mainstream today are Republicans in Congress and they go farther right by the day it seems.

This except from the London Guardian sums up the hearing by Republicans who acted like they were picking a Secretary of Defense for Israel not the United States:

• "Is Israel a great country, or is it the greatest? And if it's the former, can you explain your lack of support for America's most important ally?"
• "Why don't you think Iran is crazy, unbalanced and a military competitor of the United States, as I do?"
• "Let me tell you more about the vital national security rule played by the weapons system or military base located in my home state." 

I'm not really exaggerating when I say these three themes accounted for practically 80% of the questions asked of Hagel, particularly by Republicans. In fact, according to a tweet from Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran that made the rounds yesterday evening, Israel was mentioned 136 times in the hearing and Iran 135 times.

Even though the defense secretary nominee said repeatedly that he supports Israel, that he considers Iran a state sponsor of terrorism and that he wouldn't take military force off the table in dealing with its potential nuclear program, Republicans mined practically every statement ever made by Hagel (and often taken out of context) in an effort to assert that he doesn't hold as uncompromising a position on these issues as they do.

The day reached its point of high comedy when Senator Lindsey Graham began interrogating Hagel on whether he believes – as he allegedly said several years ago – that the so-called "Jewish lobby" causes US senators to occasionally do dumb things that harm US foreign policy. Hagel hemmed and hawed on the question when, in an ideal world, he should have said, "Yes, and this hearing is example A." 

In fact, after a while, it was hard to figure out if Hagel was the nominee for secretary of defense or "Israel's new bestie", so obsessed were Republican Senators with how Hagel views the US-Israel relationship. It was a demoralizing spectacle.

As we saw during the GOP primaries last year, the new apparent litmus test for being a foreign policy-maker in the US government appears to be the extent to which you offer unconditional support for basically everything that Israel does (even when it goes against stated US policy). 

That a hearing on the fitness of Chuck Hagel to be secretary of defense was dominated by a discussion of a country that is not even a military ally of the United States – and which, in the just the last three months, has take actions on settlement construction that run precisely counter to US policy – offered compelling evidence of the disproportionate and unhealthy role that Israel plays in US foreign policy debates.

Israel is the same country that sold some of our military weapon systems secrets to China.

One good reason why Israel should not receive billions of dollars in military assistance annually is its espionage against the United States. Israel, a Socialist country where government and business work hand in hand, systematically steals American technology with both military and civilian applications. The Israelis then reverse engineer this US-developed technology and use it in their own exports with considerably reduced research and development costs.

This is an example of the Country of Israel that Republicans in the Congress hold in such high esteem.  Do any of them get kickbacks from Israel is a question that needs answered.

Almost as depressing was the panel's discussion of Iran. It was bad enough that New York Democratic Kirsten Gillibrand called Iran an "existential threat" to the United States, or that senators kept referring to an Iranian nuclear weapons program that, according the IAEA and America's own intelligence agencies, doesn't actually exist.

But from listening to the questions, one might not know that there are currently 66,000 US troops fighting a war in Afghanistan. It was barely touched on – mentioned only a handful of times in the day's proceeding. 

Al-Qaida: that got mentioned twice. China: hardly came up. Payroll and healthcare issues, which are a huge part of the Pentagon budget: barely referenced. The growing epidemic of military suicides and sexual assault: each were raised once.

Instead, when given the chance, senators were far more interested in referencing the military spending in their own states that is, oh, so vital to national security. Thus, we were presented with Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut talking about the importance of submarines to the US fleet – subs that just happen to be built in Groton Connnecticut; or Jeanne Shaheen and Angus King inquiring about naval building – for example, at the shipyards in their home states of New Hampshire and Maine; Tim Kaine of Virginia, which is home to a huge military and contracting footprint, warning about the dangers of sequestration military cuts; and Deb Fischer, inquiring about the (false) claim that Hagel supports unilateral reductions in nuclear weapons, which, of course, coincidentally touches on the presence of the United States strategic command (USSC) in her home state of Nebraska.

It's almost as if the nation's actual wars, actual troops and actual national security challenges were of little concern to the assembled senators. 

One must be careful about romanticizing the past glories of the Senate and the armed services committee, but still, there did used to be a time when there were senators who approached national security concerns and issues related to the military with some level of seriousness and sobriety. Such attributes were in meager presence on Thursday.

A little background on that explains even when he was young, he was given anything he wanted whether qualified or not which has led to a perception you don't cross John McCain or he pays you back which is what I see was on display yesterday - pay back for not supporting Sarah Palin as VP.  Hagel wasn't alone as a lot of us didn't support her.  

John McCain graduated near the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy as the son of an Admiral.  Anyone who knows the academies know that pilot training goes to those closer to the top of their class, but when you are the son of an Admiral, you get special privileges so off to pilot training he went.  He crashed more planes then most of us could have imagined but he graduated from pilot training and then was assigned to a carrier group in SEA where he was shot down and became a POW.  Will not go into his TV appearance, etc., but will state that when the POW's were released and flown back to the states McCain's Father met him at the plane and whisked him away.

One of the big problems I have with with his Father is that McCain is that when he was returned from North Vietnam as a former prisoner of war, McCain never went through debriefing or any other medical tests that other POW's went through.  My boss at the time of the POW release was named by the AF Surgeon General as he representative for returning POWs as USAF Medical Center Wright-Patterson AFB was one of the centers where POW's were returned.  The information on McCain is not second hand but first hand from the message I delivered to my boss from the Command Post.

Have I calmed down at Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee?  Not even close.  Thought Senator James Inhofe of OK would do a good job as the ranking Republican on Armed Services but I was 100% wrong if yesterday was an example.  As for John McCain I have to wonder why he is still in the Senate after his antics in the last few months starting with Benghazim as he has turned into a bitter old man part of which could go back to the fact he never received the medical treatment like other returning POW's and in some way he may also have regrets about some of his actions.

This exchange with McCain was like a 2-year old throwing a tantrum because the question could not and should not have been answered with a YES or NO and McCain knew it -- bitter to the end.  Guess he hasn't gotten over Romney losing and him not being named Secretary of Defense which would have set off a rash of retirements by senior officers.

The nominee's fiercest exchange came with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a fellow Vietnam veteran and onetime close friend. Politics and Hagel's evolving opposition to the Iraq war caused a split between the two men that was on full display. 

McCain suggested that Hagel and his critics were not quibbling over small matters.
"They are not reasonable people disagreeing; they are fundamental disagreements. Our concerns pertain to the quality of your professional judgment and your worldview on critical areas of national security," he said.   

McCain pressed Hagel on whether he was right or wrong about his opposition to President George W. Bush's decision to send an extra 30,000 troops to Iraq in 2007 at a point when the war seemed in danger of being lost. Hagel, who voted to authorize military force in Iraq, later opposed the conflict, comparing it to Vietnam and arguing that it shifted the focus from Afghanistan. 

"Were you right? Were you correct in your assessment?" McCain asked 

"I would defer to the judgment of history to sort that out," Hagel said as the two men talked over each other. 

"The committee deserves your judgment as to whether you were right or wrong about the surge," McCain insisted. 

Unable to elicit a simple response, McCain said the record should show that Hagel refused to answer. And he made it clear that he would have the final word – with his vote, which he said would be influenced by Hagel's refusal to answer yes or no. 

"I think history has already made a judgment about the surge, sir, and you're on the wrong side of it," he said.

This is just more proof that McCain should step down as a Senator and allow someone who has a more even demeanor/temperament to represent Arizona.  His attacks on UN Ambassador Susan Rice on Benghazi were also over the top.

Then you have the new Texas Senator Ted Cruz who never should have been elected.  He is coming across as a good old boy Tea Party but his wife is a VP at Goldman Sachs.  His questions to Chuck Hagel yesterday were an insult to every person who wears the uniform which Cruz did not by taking his comments out of context which is a typical Tea Party ploy.

During Republican Chuck Hagel's defense secretary confirmation hearing on Thursday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) chose to use a large portion of his five minutes of questioning to play a YouTube video of Hagel in an Al Jazeera interview from 2009. 

Hagel's original statement at a Senate session held on July 31, 2006 described the conflict in Israel as "a sickening slaughter on both sides" that Hagel said "must end." However, Cruz highlighted Hagel's "sickening slaughter" remark and his agreement with a caller who referenced "war crimes."

From Crooks and Liars -- Fox's Hannity Lauds Sen. Cruz' Deceptive Attack On Chuck Hagel:

Color me not shocked that Fox is carrying water for wingnut Sen. Ted Cruz and his dishonest attack on former Sen. Chuck Hagel during yesterday's confirmation hearing for Secretary of Defense. Sean Hannity opened up his show by replaying part of Cruz' cheap shot at Hagel earlier that day.

Hannity and Cheney called Hagel about every name in the book and implied that he was feckless after hearing his testimony today. That's pretty rich coming from Bush administration cheerleader Hannity and the daughter of someone who likely qualifies as one of, if not the worst Vice Presidents -- someone who dishonored the office in which he served. Both of them actually believe that Donald Rumsfeld did a good job as Secretary of Defense

If that wasn't enough on Cruz here is more from the London Guardian:

Ted Cruz tried to link Hagel to a speech given by Chas Freeman, a former US diplomat who has been publicly critical of American support for the Jewish state, and in particular, the domestic lobbyists that defend Israel. 

When Cruz could not identify an obvious link between the two men, he backed off. But the moment was chilling because the implications of Cruz's questioning wasn't hard to deduce: simply having a relationship with Freeman and his controversial views on Israel would have been enough to indict Hagel.

This is quite frankly modern-day McCarthyism: guilt by association with those who hold differing views. It was the low point of the day in which the depths of practically every valley of squalid foreign policy discourse was plumbed

Cruz is showing himself to be a grandstander and a unethical Senator and only in his first month, but then he comes from the Tea Party which should be a warning to voters not to support any Tea Party candidates for any position.


Cannot leave out NH's  Kelly Ayote who is  the puppet of McCain and Graham showing off her stupidity and why she should not be on Armed Services.  More from the perspective of

My (Michael Cohen)  personal lowlight came when Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire pushed Hagel to answer why he thought a nuclear Iran might be containable or even worth talking to, considering that, in her words, the country's leaders are not "sane". Consider the implications of such a comment. If Iran is not sane, not containable and not able to be reason with, then we might as well bomb and invade them tomorrow because, clearly, there is no negotiating with "crazy" people. Ladies and gentlemen; your United States Senate.

I want to know how McConnell assigned committees to some of these people because Cruz and Ayote don't belong on Armed Services.  Did he choose people he knew would be puppets to what Defense Contractors wanted.

The Republican Senators I have seen for two days, first on gun control and then on the nomination of Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense are bitter, whiney, and full of themselves like they are in charge because they won the election -- delusional and failure to face reality are bad signs.  Majority Leader Reid should be ashamed for giving into this bunch.  People I once admired, I wouldn't give you two cents for after what I witnessed with my own eyes.

The first question that pops in your mind is how much money are these Senators being paid not only above the table but under the table because they don't normally act like what I have seen.  Know Hagel couldn't do it, but I would have loved to see him tell McCain to his face that he was a bitter old man who needed to sit down and shut up.  With the attacks on his character and statements, I thought Hagel did pretty good because the Republicans were so far out of line, they don't belong in the Senate.  May not vote for a Republican for anything for a long time after what I am seeing out of the jerks in Congress.  They don't seem to care about the American people and the Country by putting Party and donors over Country day in and day out.

There is a whole list including former Secretary of Defense/State like current Sec Def Panetta, former Sec Def Gates, General Colin Powell, former Sec of State George Schultz and Henry Kissinger, and the list goes on who support Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense which far outweigh the GOP spoiled brats in the Senate where Hagel served and was friends with a lot of them.  Their reason for the attacks seems to be that Hagel dared accept an appointment from President Obama plus he stood up that the Iraq surge and the War in Iraq after finding out the facts they were given on Iraq were wrong.  He is right -- he was lied to like others in order to go into Iraq.

Excerpts from the Huffington Post on the Hagel hearing:

WASHINGTON — Bruised and battered, Chuck Hagel emerged from his grueling confirmation hearing with solid Democratic support for his nomination to be President Barack Obama's next defense secretary and increasing Republican opposition to a former GOP colleague. 

Mathematically, Hagel has the edge as he looks to succeed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta as the nation's 24th Pentagon chief, with Democrats holding a 14-12 advantage on the Senate Armed Services Committee. 

That vote, which could come as early as next Thursday, looks increasingly like a straight party-line count as committee member and Republican Sen. Roy Blunt said Friday he will oppose the nomination.

"Senator Hagel's answers before the committee were simply too inconsistent, particularly as they related to Iran and Israel," said the Missouri lawmaker. "The idea that we can contain a nuclear Iran and his view that we should not have unilateral sanctions are just wrong and are too dangerous for us to try." 

In fact, Hagel corrected his statement about containment of Iran and said all options, including military action, should be on the table to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. 

While Blunt announced his opposition, he signaled he would not support any effort to block the nomination, a looming question as Democrats have the votes to confirm Hagel in the full Senate but would need five GOP senators to end a filibuster. 

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., expressed optimism about Hagel's prospects after nearly eight hours of testimony Thursday. 

"I think his answers were honest and forthright and he did very well," Levin told reporters. "I hope that there will be some, who maybe were skeptical but who are undecided before this hearing, will maybe now look at him in a more favorable light. But I think there are a whole lot of folks who basically decided before the hearing that they were going to vote against him." 

Hagel struggled at times as GOP senators hammered him on issues ranging from his support for Israel, opposition to Iran, stand on Hamas and Hezbollah and his backing for a group that advocates the elimination of nuclear weapons. 

They repeatedly pressed him on past statements, votes and even letters he declined to sign. Refusing to show any frustration or anger, Hagel defended his record. 

The former two-term Republican senator from Nebraska described his views as mainstream and closely aligned with those of Obama, the Democrat who nominated him. But several GOP members of the committee sought to portray him as radical and unsteady. Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., called his ideas "extreme" and "far to the left" of Obama.  (My NOTE:  Fisher is the most hard right person elected from NE to be a Senator and was not supported in the primary by NRSC because she was so hard right - she is Tea Party all the way) 

Hagel said he believes America "must engage – not retreat – in the world" and insisted that his record is consistent on that point. 

He pointed to Iran and its nuclear ambitions as an example of an urgent national security threat that should be addressed first by attempting to establish dialogue with Iranian rulers, although he said he would not rule out using military force. 

"I think we're always on higher ground in every way – international law, domestic law, people of the world, people of the region to be with us on this – if we have ... gone through every possibility to resolve this in a responsible, peaceful way, rather than going to war," he said.
He pushed back on the notion – first raised by one of his harshest Republican critics, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma – that he favors a policy of appeasement.  (My NOTE:  A man who was wounded in Vietnam was attacked by Sen Inhofe as favoring appeasement which Hagel has never done.  Another Senator who could not be honest who has let his hatred of Obama cloud his judgment IMHO) 

"I think engagement is clearly in our interest," Hagel told Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., who denounced the idea of negotiating with a "terrorist state."  (My NOTE:  Obviously Chambliss has a comprehension problem as engagement is not negotion or appeasement or surrender)

"That's not negotiation," Hagel said. "Engagement is not appeasement. Engagement is not surrender."  

(snip)

Hagel, 66, would be the lone Republican in Obama's Cabinet, the first Vietnam veteran to be defense secretary and the first enlisted man to take the post.

In my analysis of reading stories around the internet about how nasty the Republican Senators were towards Hagel yesterday have made me more convinced than ever that the real reason for the hatred is that Chuck did have the nerve to accept an appointment from the President to be Secretary of Defense.  He was roundly criticized earlier when he accepted an appointment as co-chairman of Obama's President's Intelligence Advisory Board.  He was heavily criticized for taking that post.  Republicans have so much hate for this President that it has totally clouded their judgement in Congress and has been hurtful to the Country IMO.

At the end of the day, looks like Hagel can be confirmed and the Republican Senators can then focus on how they are going to derail other parts of the Obama agenda no matter who it hurts.