There, we said it.

We were all very clearly already thinking it, but the U.S. Department of Defense has taken the administration’s stance to official-status with their annual report to Congress on Chinese military developments. Real talk, via the NYT: The Obama administration on Monday explicitly accused China’s military of mounting attacks on American government computer systems and defense [...]

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Heinous and cowardly.

President Obama was cautious about using the loaded word in his first address in the few hours after the bombing last night, but this morning reported that the FBI is now investigating the attack as the “act of terrorism” that it was. From the WFB: I’ve just been briefed by my national security team, including [...]

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Pain.

The White House says its hands are tied by the $85 billion sequester, but budget experts counter that it will have some flexibility to choose what to cut and what to save. The wiggle-room is inviting accusations from Congress that President Obama is mismanaging the cuts. Critics also say the flexibility could allow the administration [...]

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And so it goes.

President Obama signed the order for sequestration to go into effect on Friday evening, after his This-Is-Happening press conference in which he chided, “We will get through this. This is not going to be an apocalypse, I think, as some people have said. It’s just dumb. And it’s going to hurt.” …Uhm, let’s holdup for [...]

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He'd like that, right?

Among the complaints about sequestration coming from the White House in recent weeks has been that the sequestration is much too indiscriminate, and that its rules pretty much legally require them to implement the cuts via budgetary hack job. Well, be careful what you ask for, Mr. President, ’cause you just might get it. From [...]

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Awesome.

He’s not random, though. A truly random man wouldn’t have earned the sturdy liberal support that Hagel’s Israel-focused Jew-baiting and left-of-Obama foreign policy brought him. In the end, despite weeks of dirt being dug up, not a single Democrat voted against him at any stage of the process. (That’s not including Reid’s no vote last [...]

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Confirmation next.

I told you the yays would be closer to 70 than to 60. Final tally: 71-27. You didn’t seriously think these losers would go to the mat to block a nominee just because he’s manifestly unqualified, did you? Eighteen Republicans voted yes, according to Fox’s Chad Pergram. The roll of glory: R’s voting to end [...]

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Crunch time.

The White House plan so far is pretty much according to the Fireman First principle, the idea first promulgated by Washington Monthly founder Charles Peters: that a bureaucracy when faced with cuts will tout its most popular program. Hence a mayor faced with a budget shortfall says he’ll have to “cut firemen first” as opposed [...]

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Endorsements.

The cloture vote’s tomorrow. Confirmation seems a fait accompli. Is there no man in all the land who, through his sheer odiousness, can stop this train with an anti-endorsement — a sort of demonus ex machina? Perhaps there is, my friends. Perhaps there is. “Now wait,” Farrakhan told the crowd. “He said this to Aaron [...]

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Panic.

The automatic budget cuts set to take hold this week were roundly condemned Sunday as governors, lawmakers and administration officials hoped for a deal to stave off the $85 billion reduction in government services. Suggestions intended to instill a spirit of compromise included bringing all sides to the bargaining table, where they could act like [...]

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Posturing.

Hawaii governor Neil Abercrombie warned Congress Saturday that sequestration, the $1.2 trillion deficit reduction set to take effect March 1, would pose a threat to institutional health of Pearl Harbor, the Oahu-based headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet that Abercrombie called “the most extensive on the planet in terms of its responsibilities and consequences on [...]

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“He’s probably as good as we’re going to get.”

And so, after days of accusations about what Hagel did or didn’t say at Rutgers Israeli control of the State Department, and despite the nominee’s refusal to let reporters pick through his archives, this guy’s actually gaining votes in the Senate rather than losing them. I understand the argument that the president deserves deference in [...]

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Okay.

How can he be sure? Hagel always looks like he’s been crying. To believe that a professional politician needed it explained to him that the term “Jewish lobby” is problematic, you’d have to believe he’s an abject imbecile. So … yeah, this is actually plausible: “He struck me as sincere, and you know, you have [...]

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58/40.

He was one vote short. Republicans Cochran, Collins, and Johanns had all already committed to voting yes so the only mystery was whether Reid could find two more GOPers to cross the aisle. He found one: As expected, Murkowski ended up erring on the side of bipartisanship. Orrin Hatch voted present, which may or may [...]

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Yet.

Don’t get too excited. As I’m writing this, CNN is interrupting its round-the-clock coverage of Marco Rubio drinking water to report a sellout compromise in the offing: Sources in both parties tell me compromise in the works to delay vote on Hagel, but make it a 51 vote threshold not 60. Deal not done yet [...]

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Tax hikes and defense, ag subsidy cuts.

So what will this new plan for deficit reduction look like?  Ten years of cuts get turned into ten months of tax hikes and cuts in equal measure. The tax hikes in the plan equal that gained by Barack Obama in the January standoff for the rest of this year.  The cuts fall mainly in [...]

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Meh.

Remember when Major Garrett said yesterday that he had it on good authority Collins was a yes on Hagel? That would have put Democrats at 57 votes, assuming their caucus holds together, which means the chance of a filibuster was hanging by a thread. Then I saw this tweet and got excited: WASHINGTON (AP) — [...]

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Confirmation.

Major news from Major “Shirty Business” Garrett: I am reliably informed Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, will soon announce backing Chuck Hage. WH and Hagel backers believe they have 60 votes. — Major Garrett(@MajorCBS) February 12, 2013 Remember, to date, not a single Senate Democrat has said he/she will oppose Hagel. That’s 55 votes in the [...]

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Hope.

I’m skeptical, but if a guy who’s been reporting on foreign affairs for 30 years (with a Pulitzer to his name) is willing to go out on a limb like this, he must have good reason. I don’t think that a Hagel exit would hurt President Obama much. SecDef nominees have blown up on the [...]

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The other side of the COIN

Previously, I offered some of my own admittedly last century feelings about sending American women into direct, front line combat roles. That sparked a fair bit of discussion, including the submission of a letter from a woman who has seen action in the war and who was surprisingly sympathetic with at least some of my [...]

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Nope.

If you watched the Hagel hearing, you know why damage control is desperately needed this morning. You also know why Chuck Hagel’s the last guy you want doing it. Panetta and Martin Dempsey will pinch-hit instead on NBC and CNN. I’m curious to see if Dempsey sticks strictly to defense policy questions or if he [...]

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Smart power.

Hagel’s goal Thursday was to consolidate [his Democratic support] by getting at least one Republican on the committee to come out for him. Democrats hold 14 of 26 seats on Senate Armed Services, and none of them have hinted that they oppose Hagel. It made sense for Hagel to be demure—more sense than it made, [...]

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Yep.

Carl Levin gazes upon the future of “smart power” and sees … Chuck Hagel. “I don’t think he’s going to lose any Democratic votes, that we know of,” Sen. Carl Levin told reporters after the hearing. “I think there’s at least a few Republicans who’ve already said, publicly, that they support his nomination.” When pushed, [...]

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Bust?

Watch the clip below. He’s also been reassuring senators that he won’t have a policymaking role as SecDef, in case they’re leery of tasking an unqualified incompetent with so much responsibility. He’s basically daring Democrats to vote no, isn’t he? Question: Are there Democratic votes in play that weren’t before? A GOP Senate aide tells [...]

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“Our economy is facing a major headwind ... and that’s Republicans in Congress.”

One of the virtues of the “let it burn” strategy, in which the GOP stands aside and lets Democrats lead America to a new golden age by passing the unsustainable liberal agenda in toto, is that it would spare us this, at least. Aren’t single-payer and open borders a price worth paying to watch Carney [...]

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