Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Army says no to more tanks, but Congress insists

It’s the inverse of the federal budget world these days, in which automatic spending cuts are leaving sought-after pet programs struggling or unpaid altogether. Republicans and Democrats for years have fought so bitterly that lawmaking in Washington ground to a near-halt.

Yet in the case of the Abrams tank, there’s a bipartisan push to spend an extra $436 million on a weapon the experts explicitly say is not needed.

“If we had our choice, we would use that money in a different way,” Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, told The Associated Press this past week.

$7.5 million for each upgraded M1A2SEPv2. Murdoc’s usually in favor of more better equipment, but pumping dollars into the good old military industrial complex while simultaneously cutting budgets to the point where the Army is planning to cut 8 brigades is a bit much.

Abrams Main Battle Tank platoons position themselves on the battlefield in order to lay suppressive fire during Hammer Strike, a brigade level live-fire exercise conducted by the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, at the Udairi Range Complex near Camp Buehring, Kuwait, Wednesday. During the mission, the brigade combined ground maneuver, field artillery, attack aviation and Air Force assets to engage and destroy targets, displaying its lethal firepower to the many Kuwait military counterparts on hand. Hammer Strike was a culmination of the training the Sledgehammer Brigade and their Kuwaiti counterparts have been conducting for the past four months.

Well, it’s clear that a lot of people in the US think very differently than Murdoc does about what government is for and how much control people should allow it have over them.

Even so, Murdoc would rather live in America than anywhere else and he’s pretty sure so would all of the others who voted for someone other than Obama. Regardless of how they feel or what they’re saying this morning.

Murdoc would suggest that this is a loud signal that Conservatives need to change their plan. But he’s been suggesting that for years and it doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

Murdoc’s seeing and hearing lots of comments about how this is the last couple of days we’ll be subjected to so many political commercials.

That’s not really the case. It’s just that we normally call it the “evening news.”

Lockheed: No Sequestration Layoff Notices This Year
Violating the law in order to not issue layoff notices before the election at the request of the White House.

McCain promises to block WARN Act payments
McCain says he’ll block the payments the White House has promised defense companies warning companies they have a choice whether to follow OMB’s guidance or follow the law.

Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr has been transferred to Canada to serve out the remainder of an eight-year prison sentence for having killed an American soldier in a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan:

This is the same Khadr who pled guilty at a military commission trial in 2010 to killing one of those 2,000 troops, Army Sergeant First Class Christopher J. Speer.

Though outrageous, sending Mr. Khadr back to Canada is consistent with the fantasy-inspired worldview on radical Islam so prevalent in the Obama administration. This mindset results in things like U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice blaming the coordinated, well-armed Sept. 11 attacks on our diplomatic posts in the Middle East on an obscure, amateur video posted on YouTube.

Despite the fact that U.S. intelligence authorities believe almost one-third of the 600 detainees released from Guantanamo are confirmed or suspected of having returned to terrorism, Mr. Obama just named 55 more who are approved for departure.

It’s almost like they’re not serious about all this.

Via Elizabeth Price Foley at Instapundit.

Instapundit seems to be keeping up with stories about the media outlets working collaboratively to turn the story of attacks on US consulates and embassies, the tearing down of flags, and the death of the US ambassador to Libya into a reason why Mitt Romney wouldn’t make a good president.

A bunch of links here, with this:

Reader Leslie Eastman writes: “The fact the elite media was more upset about Romney’s critique of the White House than our dead ambassador says all there needs to be said about our press.”

Also:

Also: Open mic catches press coordinating questions to ask Romney so that “no matter who he calls on we’re covered.”

Raise your hand if you’re shocked by this.

FWIW, the more Murdoc learn about the film that supposedly sparked the riots, the more Murdoc wonders how such a small (and apparently shoddy) work would have registered on anyone’s radar and set off such a storm halfway around the world.

U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens Killed in Consulate Attack in Benghazi

The U.S. ambassador to Libya died as Libya militants stormed the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

The death of Christopher Stevens, 52, on Tuesday came as two American State Department employees were also killed in Benghazi as an 20 gun-wielding attackers stormed the U.S. consulate, angry about an American made film that depicts Prophet Mohammad as a fraud and womanizer.

This reminds Murdoc about all the deadly attacks when things like ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ and ‘Piss Jesus’ are made.

There were about 20 attackers with small arms who stormed the consulate. There was a firefight with Libyan security officers guarding the consulate, according to the U.S. official. One of the buildings was completely destroyed by fire set by the militants.

The group that attacked the consulate is called Ansar al Sharia, according to Libyan sources. The group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but did not mention the movie as motivation. The group is close to al Qaeda ideology and exists in east Libya.

Protesters in Cairo, Egypt, also mobbed, tearing down the US flag at the embassy.

No doubt we’re going to be hearing all about how insensitive Americans caused this.

A basic difference between the sides: Rights come from government, not God

She then goes on try and pass off government restrictions on activity as “rights.”

There is a fundamental disconnect here. For all the labels, I think the basic difference between the “sides” is that one sees the government as a power for good in American society and the other sees it as a necessary evil.

Via Instapundit.

This arrived in the mail today, though there appears to have been a mix-up with the mailing and Murdoc’s not sure if it was intended for him or not.

Red Ink:
Inside the High-Stakes Politics of the Federal Budget
by David Wessel

Publication Date: July 31, 2012
David Wessel, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter, columnist, and bestselling author of In Fed We Trust, dissects a topic–the federal budget–that is fiercely debated today in the halls of Congress and the media, and yet is misunderstood by the American public.

In a sweeping narrative about the people and the politics behind the budget, Wessel looks at the 2011 fiscal year (which ended September 30) to see where all the money was actually spent, and why the budget process has grown wildly out of control. Through the eyes of key people–Jacob Lew, White House director of the Office of Management and Budget; Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office; Blackstone founder and former Commerce Secretary Pete Peterson; and more–Wessel gives readers an inside look at the making of our unsustainable budget.

Not sure about the political angle it’s coming from, but ‘Red Ink’ looks like a good read.

208 Pages. Published by Crown Business. Available 31 Jul 2012.
Also see www.davidwessel.net.

In 255-67 vote, House places Holder in contempt of Congress

17 Dems voted for. 108 didn’t vote at all.