More GOP Hagel hypocrisy 14FEB13 & UPDATE Daily News' Dan Friedman Claims He Inadvertently Started Chuck Hagel 'Friends Of Hamas' Rumor 20FEB13

MORE gop / tea-bagger hypocrisy on Chuck Hagel. These fools seem to think nobody is going to check not only their accusations but their own actions too. Here is Sen james inhofe r OK speking favorably about hamas and condemning Chuck Hagel for supposedly being soft on hamas. From Salon.....UPDATE!!!!! See the article from HuffPost on the whole Chuck Hagel-Friends Of Hamas uproar.....

The senator leading the charge against Hagel on Israel had some kind words for Hamas in 2006

BY ALEX SEITZ-WALD

Senator James M. Inhofe (R-OK) at Chuck Hagel's confirmation hearing, January 31, 2013. (Credit: Jeff Malet, maletphoto.com)

When Senate Republicans blocked Chuck Hagel’s confirmation to be secretary of Defense this afternoon by voting against a cloture motion to end debate and move to a final vote, they insisted it was not a filibuster. “This is not a filibuster. I realize that’s the headline the majority leader would like the papers to write,” Texas Sen. John Cornyn said on the Senate floor while filibustering Hagel.

The cloture motion fell two votes short, securing only 58 of the 60 votes Democrats needed to break the GOP obstruction. Republicans had 40 votes against cloture, and in the crazy rules of the Senate, that wins.

The hold or filibuster, or whatever Cornyn would call it, came as conservatives buzzed about a speech Hagel gave to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination League (ADC) in 2007. A conservative blog today claimed that Hagel suggested in the speech that Israel controlled the State Department. The former Republican senator has come under fire from Republicans for being critical of Israeli policy in the past and referring to the “Israel lobby,” so the State Department quote would be problematic, if true.

It turns out Hagel may have said no such thing, though he did talk of cooperation with Iran on Afghanistan, including the idea of reopening a consulate in the country, which may pose its own political problems.

But the increasingly unhinged campaign against Hagel has been so single-minded in its quest to dig up dirt on him that it has seized on anything that has even a whiff of pro-Palestianian, anti-Israel slant, no matter how dubious. For instance, the bogus claim that Hagel received donations from a nonexistent group called “Friends of Hamas” plays perfectly into the notion that he coddled the sometimes terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip. But it has the disadvantage of being untrue.

Applying the Republicans’ standard on Hagel to others — including themselves — complicates the situation.

Take Sen. Jim Inhofe, for instance. He’s the ranking Republican member on the Senate Armed Services Committee and has been one of the leading figures opposing Hagel’s nomination. Inhofe told Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogan that Hagel’s relatively soft stance on Hamas, among other things, meant that Inhofe could not support him. 

But in 2006, after Hamas won the Palestinian elections, Inhofe did not seem concerned. Hamas has done “some good things, even as a terrorist group,” he told the Oklahoman. He compared the group to one of the country’s largest charities, saying Hamas is like “the Salvation Army with loaded guns.”

“I would prefer that they not have won, but I don’t think it’s the end of the world,” he added.

The quote may not be damning on its own, but if there were a concerted smear campaign against Inhofe’s stance on Israel, it would be about as bad as anything brought against Hagel. In other words, using his current standard, Jim Inhofe might have a hard time voting to confirm Jim Inhofe.

Alex Seitz-Wald is Salon's political reporter. Email him at aseitz-wald@salon.com, and follow him on Twitter @aseitzwald.
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/14/more_gop_hagel_hypocrisy/

Daily News' Dan Friedman Claims He Inadvertently Started Chuck Hagel 'Friends Of Hamas' Rumor

A New York Daily News reporter revealed on Wednesday that he might have been the inadvertent source of one of the strangest rumors about Chuck Hagel, the current nominee for defense secretary.

Republicans in the Senate blocked Hagel's confirmation vote last week. Among other disagreements, the GOP said it had issues with Hagel's views on Israel and claimed the former senator accepted speaker fees from controversial groups.

The Daily News' Dan Friedman, who is a reporter in the paper's Washington bureau, published an article on Wednesday referring to himself as "the unwitting source" of what he called a "bogus" claim about one of the groups Hagel was rumored to have addressed: the "Friends of Hamas." If Hagel had actually received money from such a group, it would likely have doomed his nomination. But no evidence has surfaced that the group even exists. So what happened?

Friedman wrote that he was interested in knowing if Hagel's Republican critics knew the names of specific groups from which Hagel received speaker fees. He contacted a Republican aide and "hypothetically and hyperbolically" asked if Hagel addressed groups such as "Friends of Hamas" or the "Junior League of Hezbollah, in France." Friedman wrote:

The names were so over-the-top, so linked to terrorism in the Middle East, that it was clear I was talking hypothetically and hyperbolically. No one could take seriously the idea that organizations with those names existed — let alone that a former senator would speak to them.

Friedman also put the question into email form, presumably thinking his joke would not be taken seriously. He was in for a surprise.

The following day, an article appeared on the conservative website Breitbart.com with the headline, "SECRET HAGEL DONOR?: WHITE HOUSE SPOX DUCKS QUESTION ON 'FRIENDS OF HAMAS.'" Conservative pundits, including Mike Huckabee, and other websites also addressed the rumor. It even came up during aFox Business segment with host Lou Dobbs. Other outlets published articles questioning if the group "Friends of Hamas" even existed. Friedman wrote:

I am, it seems, the creator of the Friends of Hamas myth. Doing my job, I erred in counting on confidentiality and the understanding that my example was farcical — and by assuming no one would print an unchecked rumor. If anyone didn’t know already: Partisan agendas, Internet reporting and old-fashioned carelessness can move complete crocks fast. If you see a story on Hagel addressing the Junior League of Hezbollah, that’s fake too.

Though Republicans blocked Hagel's confirmation vote last week, they are expected to come to a vote, and likely confirm Hagel, in the coming days.

UPDATE: Ben Shapiro, who wrote the Breitbart news article, stood by it in a reply to Friedman on Wednesday:

Since the original “Friends of Hamas” story was written, the media has downplayed or ignored the myriad of borderline anti-Semitic Hagel comments regarding Iran and the State of Israel, as well as the “Jewish lobby.” They have deliberately obstructed news coverage of Hagel’s well-documented supported base among friends of Hamas. Instead of asking Hagel to release the requested documents, the media has attacked Breitbart News ... Our Senate source denies that Friedman is the source of this information.

Shapiro's defense does not include an apology for spreading the false story about Hagel.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/daily-news-chuck-hagel-friends-of-hamas-dan-friedman_n_2723951.html

Iran Uranium Mine Partner Would Benefit From Senate Land-Swap Bill 13FEB13

EXPOSING gop / tea-bagger hypocrisy on Iran and Chuck Hagel's nomination for Sec of Defense, Sen john mccain r AZ and Sen jeff flake r AZ want the American people to reward companies who do business with Iran with a sweetheart deal for a land swap that will increase all parties profits. Claims that the Iranian government will not receive any benefit financially because of sanctions in place are meaningless as long as rio tinto and bhp are actively involved in business with the terrorist regime in Tehran, all parties have to be profiting or the relationship would not exist. The Senators from Arizona should withdraw their support and this deal should be rejected by Congress unless the companies involved have absolutely no business, financial and economic relationship with Iran, period. From HuffPost....

WASHINGTON -- A bill offered Thursday by Arizona's two senators would aid a company that partners with Iran in an African uranium mine.

The bill, the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act of 2013, is sponsored by Sens. Jeff Flake (R) and John McCain (R). It would swap 2,400 acres of federal land in Arizona for 5,500 acres of land that the Department of the Interior deems as “important” for conservation.

The idea is to give the Resolution Copper Mining Co. access to land that would allow it to extract vast amounts of metal, while theoretically boosting the economy and protecting public property. A press release from the senators said the mine would generate more than $64 billion in economic activity, as well as tax revenue, and would meet as much as 20 percent of U.S. demand for copper.

But the bill comes at a time of extreme sensitivity about anything linked to Iran, under stiff sanctions because of its nuclear program. Late last year, America's ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice, was harshly criticized for her investments in firms that do business with Iran.

Resolution Copper Mining is 55 percent owned by Rio Tinto, a giant mining firm that partners with Iran at Namibia's Rossing uranium mine. The rest of Resolution Copper is owned by BHP-Billiton PLC, an Australian company that reportedly made millions doing business with Tehran. Rio Tinto is the world's second-largest mining company. BHP is the biggest.

McCain told The Huffington Post he didn't know about the mining operation's Iranian links. "I'm not sure what they do ... This is the first I've heard of it," McCain said. Brian Rogers, a spokesman for McCain, later downplayed the benefit Iran gets from its partnership with Rio Tinto.

"The issue of the Namibia mine is often used by anti-mining groups to distract from the benefits of the Arizona project, Resolution Copper," Rogers said in an email. "Rio Tinto is the majority shareholder of the Rossing uranium mine in Namibia. The Iranian Foreign Investment Company technically owns a 15 percent share that it acquired before the fall of the shah. International sanctions prevent Iran from receiving any uranium or any financial windfall from the mine."

Flake's office did not respond to a request for comment. He almost surely would know about the firm's relationship with Iran. He was a lobbyist for the Rossing mine in the early 1990s, according to a National Journal story that also noted Iran was believed to be involved in the operation as far back as the 1970s. Flake co-sponsored similar legislation in the last Congress.

The senators' press release talked up the potential benefits for America.

“We won’t let Congress overlook how important this land exchange is for Arizona and our nation,” said Senator John McCain. “This bill gives us access to the largest copper deposit in North America and creates about 3,700 jobs in an area of our state particularly hard-hit by the economic downturn. It’s shameful that some in Congress have played politics with this proposal for seven years and it is now costing hardworking families their livelihoods as the layoffs announced in December continue. I am grateful for Senator Flake’s dedication to this issue and to my colleagues in the House who are working together across party lines to breathe new life into this tremendous opportunity.”

“This bill presents Congress with a rare opportunity to approve a measure that not only allows for the creation of thousands of private-sector jobs at no cost to the federal government, but to also protect thousands of acres of environmentally sensitive land,” said Senator Jeff Flake.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/15/iran-uranium-mine-senate-_n_2689999.html?ref=topbar

Senate Republicans block Hagel nomination after Democrats force vote 14FEB13

SEN Reid D NV should have known better than to trust the repiglican / tea-bagger obstructionist in the Senate to honor the filibuster reform deal worked out in the last two weeks. The publicly stated objections to Mr Hegel are petty and baseless. The real objections are the threat he presents to the profit margins of the military-industrial complex and to the war-mongering neocons, military wannabes too cowardly to fight in the wars they are all to anxious to start. Now it is time for him to do what is best for the nation and invoke the nuclear option and get Chuck Hagel confirmed as Sec of Defense. Hang in there Mr Hagel, don't you give up and give in, we need you as Sec of Defense. Take a cue from Rosa Parks' playbook (You too Sen Reid)"People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in." -Rosa Parks   This from the Washington Post....

By Ed O’Keefe and Paul Kane

Senate Republicans blocked Chuck Hagel’s nomination as secretary of defense in a filibuster on Thursday, demanding more time to study their former colleague’s speeches and finances after he left the Senate in 2008.
It is the first time a national security nominee has ever faced a filibuster.
The 58-40 vote, with 1 present, came after Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced a few hours earlier that the Senate would push ahead, despite calls by several Republican senators to delay the vote until at least Feb. 25, when the Senate is scheduled to return from its Presidents Day recess.
By calling the vote, Reid set up the Senate to block President Obama’s choice to lead the Pentagon, a stinging rebuke for a former colleague and member of that chamber.
Reid had called for a vote on Friday -- which Democrats and Republicans then agreed should be sped up to Thursday -- to highlight what he sees as unprecedented Republican obstruction. Democrats also say the Republican push for a delay, even a brief one, is a tactic designed to allow more time to bloody the nominee and that, in fact, the GOP will never be satisfied with the amount of information released about Hagel.
Democrats said they also pressed ahead with a vote to quickly fill the Cabinet position, as Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta steps down and heads to California. But Democrats conceded that if Hagel is blocked, they will try again after the recess.
“If we don’t bring it to an end today, then there will be another vote a week from Tuesday,” Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the armed services committee, said before the vote. But, he added, “the world is too dangerous to have this period of uncertainty.”
Earlier Thursday, Reid announced that Republicans had secured enough votes to mount a filibuster on the confirmation.
“This isn’t high school getting ready for a football game or some play that’s being produced at high school,” Reid said during an angry floor speech Thursday morning. “This is - we’re trying to confirm somebody to run the defense of our country, the military of our country.”
But a number of Republicans who believe it is bad precedent for a defense secretary nominee to face a 60-vote threshold have said they would be willing to vote to end debate on the nomination if the White House provided further answers to several lingering questions.
If Republicans successfully filibuster the nomination Thursday, Democrats could return to the issue after next week’s recess, when a number of leading Republicans have said they will vote to close off debate, allowing the Senate to move ahead to an up-or-down vote on the nomination, requiring only 51 votes for confirmation.
“I think that during the break is sufficient time to get any additional questions answered,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Thursday. “And I will vote for cloture on the day we get back, and I believe that enough of my colleagues would do the same,”
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) told reporters that cutting off debate is “premature.”
“When we come back from the recess 10 days from now, senators should have had sufficient time to consider Senator Hagel’s nomination, and I will vote to have an up-or-down vote,” Alexander said. “I know of many of my colleagues who think that’s enough time. It would be better for the institution and the country if we had enough time to consider Senator Hagel and then have an up-or-down vote, so we don’t get into a habit of making it look like we’re suing the filibuster to block Cabinet nominees. That’s not the case here.”
Earlier in the day, Democratic aides confirmed that senior Republicans told them late Wednesday that GOP leaders had at least 41 Republicans to block the planned Friday vote. If, as expected, Democrats fail to muster the 60 votes needed to end debate and move to a final vote, it would mark the first time a Cabinet nominee to a national security post had ever been filibustered.
A senior GOP aide confirmed that some Republicans who had publicly opposed filibustering what has traditionally been a key national security post with bipartisan support were now withholding their votes for answers from the White House.
“The members still await the information they want,” the senior aide said, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s leadership team deliberations.
Speaking immediately after Reid in the morning, McConnell (R-Ky.) ignored mentioning a filibuster and instead focused his remarks on the automatic spending cuts set to hit March 1 — which will include $46 billion slashed from the Pentagon’s 2013 budget.
Leading Republicans, including McCain, have said they would drop the filibuster effort if the White House gives them more information about the actions President Obama took during an eight-hour siege at the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11. The attack killed the U.S. ambassador to the country and three other Americans.
Democrats, however, have suggested that Republicans are only focusing on Benghazi to slow the confirmation process so that Hagel — known for a mercurial temperament and as an impulsive decision-maker in the past — would withdraw his nomination.
A spokesman for Hagel suggested he would stay and fight, as did a spokesman for the president, who was flying to a domestic policy event in Georgia.
“We urge the Republicans in the Senate to drop their delay,” Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said. “There is a clear majority in the United States Senate for senator Hagel’s confirmation. These delaying tactics are unconscionable, and they should end right away.”
White House counsel Kathryn H. Ruemmler sent McCain a letter Thursday that largely reiterated the facts found by an accountability review board that examined the Benghazi attack. She added that then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was in contact with the Libyan leadership during the attack “to coordinate additional support to protect Americans” there, noting that Obama called the Libyan president the next day to discuss the security situation in the area.
“We continue to urge the full Senate to act swiftly and confirm senator Hagel,” Ruemmeler wrote.
McCain said Thursday that he was satisfied by the White House response to his question but that he believes other senators still have pending inquiries.
“We are working on and having negotiations now, trying to smooth this thing out and get it done,” McCain said. “I have said all along that we had to have the concerns of senators addressed. I’m hopeful that we can get those concerns addressed and still move forward with a 51-vote vote, because we have never required 60 votes on a secretary of defense.”
On the Senate floor, Reid warned forebodingly that if Hagel was not confirmed Friday, the Pentagon would be without an official leader.
“In less than two hours, our country will be without a secretary of defense,” Reid said. “It’s shocking that my Republican colleagues would leave the nation without a fully empowered secretary of defense.”
The Pentagon says otherwise. Defense Secretary Panetta “believes Senator Hagel should be confirmed as quickly as possible, and plans to stay in office until he is confirmed,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said.
Panetta did little to hide his frustration Thursday about Hagel’s embattled nomination. Hosting former secretary of state Hillary Clinton at the Pentagon for what Panetta had hoped would be his last day on the job, he said he was counting the days until he flies home to California— for good.
After calling Clinton’s visit a “great Valentine’s Day present for all of us here,” Panetta joked that there was one more item on his wish list.
“The second-best Valentine’s present would be to allow Sylvia and I to get the hell out of town at the end of the day,” Panetta said, referring to his wife. “I feel like it’s “Groundhog Day” around here.”
During his time on the Senate floor Thursday, Reid slammed Republicans for demanding more information on Benghazi from Hagel and the White House, calling claims that Hagel had not been forthcoming in his testimony during his confirmation hearing “outlandish.”
The vote is scheduled for about 11 a.m. Friday, and it is expected that Hagel would receive less than 60 votes, leaving his nomination in limbo. Reid expects all 55 members of the Democratic caucus to support ending the filibuster, and as of now just three Republicans — Sens. Thad Cochran (Miss.), Susan Collins (Maine) and Mike Johanns (Neb.) — have said they’d support ending a filibuster.
Collins announced Wednesday that she would vote to halt a filibuster but then would oppose Hagel on the final confirmation vote, which requires only 51 votes. This is a similar approach that 13 Democrats took in the 2006 filibuster vote on the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. — first voting yes to end a filibuster, then voting against his confirmation.
Until Thursday morning, most senators expected the Hagel nomination to proceed in a similar fashion, as a handful of other Republicans had expressed similar positions to Collins’s.


Rachel Weiner, Rosalind S. Helderman and Ernesto Londoño contributed to this report. Discuss this topic and other political issues in The Post’s Politics Discussion Forums.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-republicans-have-the-votes-to-filibuster-on-hagel/2013/02/14/91afab0c-76c5-11e2-8f84-3e4b513b1a13_print.html

"NUKE" THEM HARRY!!!!! Republicans Mounting Filibuster Against Chuck Hagel: Harry Reid 14FEB13

THIS IS INSANE! The repiglican / tea-bagger obstructionist in the Senate are denying our nation a Sec of Defense because of questions they have about the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi last September? This has gone to far and Sen Reid needs to invoke the nuclear option and bring Chuck Hagel's nomination to the Senate floor for a vote. The Democrats have enough votes to approve Mr Hagel as Sec of Defense and if that is how the gop wants this to be played out then so be it. This from Wikipedia on the option available to Majority Leader Sen Reid, followed by the story on HuffPost....
The nuclear option is a potential response to a filibuster or other dilatory tactic. A senator makes a point of order calling for an immediate vote on the measure before the body, outlining what circumstances allow for this. The presiding officer of the Senate, usually the vice president of the United States or the president pro tempore, makes a parliamentary ruling upholding the senator's point of order. The Constitution is cited at this point, since otherwise the presiding officer is bound by precedent. A supporter of the filibuster may challenge the ruling by asking, "Is the decision of the Chair to stand as the judgment of the Senate?" This is referred to as "appealing from the Chair." An opponent of the filibuster will then move to table the appeal. As tabling is non-debatable, a vote is held immediately. A simple majority decides the issue. If the appeal is successfully tabled, then the presiding officer's ruling that the filibuster is unconstitutional is thereby upheld. Thus a simple majority is able to cut off debate, and the Senate moves to a vote on the substantive issue under consideration. The effect of the nuclear option is not limited to the single question under consideration, as it would be in a cloture vote. Rather, the nuclear option effects a change in the operational rules of the Senate, so that the filibuster or dilatory tactic would thereafter be barred by the new precedent.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans are following through on their threat to filibuster former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), President Barack Obama's nominee for defense secretary, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday morning.

"It is tragic that they have decided to filibuster this qualified nominee," said Reid. "It is really unfortunate."

The significance of Reid's announcement wasn't immediately clear, as he gave no indication as to whether or not Democrats had the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster attempt. It was only after Reid finished speaking that a Democratic Senate aide confirmed that the majority leader doesn't yet have the votes to overcome a Hagel filibuster.

It was assumed that many Republicans would vote against Hagel but allow his nomination to come to an up-or-down vote. Reid said that blocking Hagel through procedural means would be unprecedented.

"This isn't high school getting ready for a football game, or some play being produced at a high school," said Reid. "In less than two hours, our country will be without a secretary of defense."

The first vote on Hagel's nomination will come on Friday. If Reid can muster 60 yes votes by then, the chamber will begin a debate period. After that, there will be a final vote on Saturday.

It is customary for a president to be granted the leeway to choose his own advisers. But Hagel was a controversial choice among his fellow Republicans, owing to his public criticisms of President George W. Bush's foreign policy, his advocacy for confronting Iran's nuclear program via diplomatic means and his past criticisms of the Israeli lobby's influence within the halls of Congress.

Speaking on the floor, however, Reid said that Republicans were holding up the nomination because of the administration's refusal to release additional information about the September attacks on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya.

"Chuck Hagel had nothing to do with the attack in Benghazi," Reid said.

The last defense secretary who was not confirmed by the Senate was John Tower, whose admission of past personal transgressions led to his nomination's downfall by a vote of 53 to 47 in 1989. That was a defeat via regular order, not a filibuster.

UPDATE: 11:30 p.m. -- One of the issues holding up Hagel's nomination appears to be requests from Republicans in the Senate to receive specific intelligence about the Benghazi attack, intelligence that Reid insists has already been provided. In a statement issued after his floor speech, Reid said that the White House had sent Republicans a letter about the attack at 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, the latest of a series of attempts by the administration to assuage their concerns about the incident.

That letter, however, was "not enough" for them, according to Reid.

They "are moving the goals posts at the last minute," he said. "This is no way to operate."

CNN's Dana Bash, however, spoke to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) -- one of the senators who has most vocally demanded answers about Benghazi but who has also said he was against the idea of filibustering a cabinet nominee -– and got a different explanation. The letter, McCain said, was sent to Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin (D-Mich.), not Senate Republicans.

Hagel's own spokesman, meanwhile, acknowledged on Thursday that he could end up being rejected by the Senate.

“He could be defeated, but he’s not withdrawing," Aaron Dowd told National Journal. "It’s not something anyone is discussing."

UPDATE: 11:50 p.m. -- The White House has now weighed in.

"We urge the Republicans in the Senate to drop their delay," said spokesman Josh Earnest, briefing reporters en route to the president's speech in Georgia. "There is a clear majority in the United States Senate for Senator Hagel's confirmation. These delaying tactics are unconscionable, and they should end right away."

Meanwhile, an official working to help Hagel get confirmed offers the following whip count:

We have 55 Dems and Independents on board for cloture, plus Senators Johanns and Cochran (the Republicans who’ve announced they’re voting for Hagel’s nomination). Add onto that Susan Collins saying she will vote for cloture yesterday, and we need two more votes to get to 60. That’s the state of play right now.

UPDATE: 1:15 p.m. -- Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sen. Lamar Alexander(R-Tenn.) have reportedly said they will also vote for cloture -- but only after the President's Day recess, which lasts through the end of next week.

Sam Stein's wife works for the Obama administration on matters of congressional oversight.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/14/chuck-hagel-filibuster_n_2686093.html?utm_hp_ref=daily-brief?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=021413&utm_medium=email&utm_content=NewsEntry&utm_term=Daily%20Brief

Voting Along Party Lines, Senate Panel Approves Chuck Hagel Nomination 12FEB13

CONTINUING their recent policy of obstructionism the repiglicans and tea-baggers on the Senate  Armed Services Committee voted in goose-step fashion against Chuck Hagel for Sec of Defense. Some have threatened to try a filibuster when his nomination comes to the Senate floor for a vote. What a brilliant move, considering n korea just exploded their third nuclear devise and we are still at war in Afghanistan. Hopefully Chuck Hagel will be Sec of Defense within the week. From NPR...

by MARK MEMMOTT

Update at 5:04 p.m. ET. Committee Approves Confirmation:

Enlarge image

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who has been nominated to be the next secretary of defense.

Ron Sachs /DPA /LANDOV

Voting along party lines, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to approve the nomination of former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel to be the country's next defense secretary.

The vote was 14 to 11 with Sen. David Vitter, a Republican of Louisiana not casting a vote.

Our Original Post Continues:

The most-contested, so far, of President Obama's nominations for his second-term cabinet — that of former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel to be defense secretary — is due to be voted on this afternoon by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The conventional wisdom in Washington is that the committee will approve Hagel by a party-line 14-12 vote. That would send the nomination to the full Senate.

Then what?

Some Republicans, such as Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, have said they'll attempt to hold up a vote. They'll try to insist that 60 senators must first agree that there should be a vote on the nomination before there can be a vote. In other words, they'll demand a vote on whether to vote.

But The Associated Press notes that Democrats control 55 Senate seats (two are held by independents who caucus with the Democrats) and that:

"Two Republicans — Sens. Thad Cochran of Mississippi and Mike Johanns of Nebraska — have said they will vote for the nominee. At least five Republicans, including [Arizona Sen. John] McCain, have said they oppose a filibuster despite their reservations or opposition toward the nominee."

So, it would seem there's a fair chance the push to delay a vote won't work — at least not for long.

That could mean, The Atlantic Wire says, confirmation of Hagel by the full Senate as soon as Thursday.

We'll watch for news from today's committee vote.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/02/12/171803224/hagel-three-step-committee-vote-floor-fight-then-confirmation?sc=nl&cc=brk-20130212-1715

UPDATE: Defense Contractors’ Profits Can Weather Military Budget Cuts 13AUG12 & Amid dire predictions, Sen. Mark Warner says defense industry shares blame for sequester 8FEB13

AS it seems we are going to actually experience sequestration, thanks to gop / tea-bagger obstructionism, the military-industrial complex's propaganda campaign is approaching hysteria, and the pentagon is throwing fuel on the fire by calling ships back to port, delaying their deployments, and warning that hundreds of thousands civilian military employees will be furloughed. Note they have not called for reductions in unnecessary weapons systems or cuts  defense contracts or endorsed the calls for excess profits taxes on defense contractors. Once Chuck Hagel is confirmed as Sec of Defense I think things are going to change, and this time those serving in the US Military and not the defense contractors will benefit. Check out my earlier post Excess-profits tax on defense contractors during wartime is long overdue 31DEZ12 http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/excess-profits-tax-on-defense.html
and this from ThinkProgress.....UPDATE! Sen Mark Warner D VA actually called out the military-industrial complex and actually accused them of being responsible for the sequester mess too! From the Washington Post.....

By Lawrence J. Korb, Robert Ward, and Alex Rothman

With sequestration set to happen in early 2013 if Congress fails to make a deal on deficit reduction, the defense industry has mobilized in a major way to stop the cuts to the Pentagon budget. The main thrust of the offensive has been a huge public relations campaign aimed at convincing Americans that the cuts would devastate defense contractors and the broader economy, causing the loss of about a million jobs. To be fair, the cuts that would be made under sequestration are far from trivial. But, when viewed in their proper historical context, they start to look much less threatening –- and the largest contractors appear to be well positioned to weather them.

The last ten years have seen massive growth in defense industry profits. In 2002, the combined profits of the five largest U.S.-based defense contractors were $2.4 billion (adjusted for inflation); by 2011, that figure had increased by a whopping 450 percent to $13.4 billion (according to net Income TTM data from ycharts.com for five largest U.S.-based defense contractors). This success applied both to companies with large civilian sections of their businesses and to those almost wholly dependent on defense funding. In short, the largest defense contractors have prospered to a degree that would have looked very unlikely just eleven or twelve years ago.

Unsurprisingly, this growth in profits has been fueled in part by massive increases in the U.S. defense spending. In the decade since 9/11, the total Department of Defense budget (PDF) increased by about 55 percent in real terms, from $460 billion in FY 2002 to $715 billion in FY 2011. And the portions of the budget most relevant to military contractors -– the money allocated to procurement and to Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation –- kept pace, growing 55 percent from $139 billion in 2002 to $216 billion in 2011.

The defense industry has continued to enjoy this prosperity during a recession that has had a devastating effect on both businesses and families across the country. For example, median household income, a broad indicator of economic prosperity, was hit hard by the recession, with more than a decade of growth being wiped out between late 2007 and 2011. Defense profits dipped slightly at the recession’s start, but unlike household income, they rapidly recovered, rising over 40% between 2008 and 2011 and nearly returning to their 2007 peak.

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, DaveManuel.com, Sentier Research

In other words: after ten years of exponential growth in profits, defense contractors are much better positioned to weather prospective budget cuts than they claim to be. And they are certainly in a better position to deal with the cuts than the millions of hardworking American families who would be impacted by domestic sequestration and its cuts to health care, education, child care, food stamps, and other programs.

This does not mean that defense sequestration is a good policy: the automatic, over-broad, and sudden cuts that it mandates are not a smart way to reduce defense spending. But against this historical backdrop, apocalyptic claims like those of House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon, who has argued that sequestration would “cripple our economy and our defenses in a single blow,” look painfully exaggerated. Defense contractors seem to be in a good position to withstand the coming cuts, whether they come through sequestration or a Congressional deficit-reduction deal like that recommended by the Simpson-Bowles Commission. The defense industry can and should absorb its fair share of the spending reductions that will be necessary for this nation to get its fiscal house in order.

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/08/13/680481/defense-contractors-profits-cuts/

Amid dire predictions, Sen. Mark Warner says defense industry shares blame for sequester

By Ben Pershing and Lori Montgomery

As the Obama administration rolled out a fresh round of dire warnings about the impact of looming budget cuts, Sen. Mark R. Warner delivered a message of his own Friday to the defense industry: This is your fault, too.

The threat of automatic reductions to defense and domestic spending on March 1, known as the “sequester,” has prompted Democrats and Republicans to trade blame for the impasse.

At a Northern Virginia Technology Council breakfast in Reston with Warner and Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, the audience of local business executives let both Virginia Democrats know how concerned they were about the cuts and the ripple effect they would have.

But when Cord Sterling, a vice president at the Aerospace Industries Association, asked why it’s taken so long for Congress to get serious on the subject, Warner turned the tables.

Acknowledging that Congress had “muffed this thing” by not striking a bipartisan deficit-reduction deal, Warner said the defense and technology industries share some responsibility.

“Yeah, we ought to get 80, 90, whatever percent of the blame,” Warner said. “But you ought to take some of the blame, too. Because every time there’s been efforts to try to build a broader coalition, to say let’s go ahead and take this on and get out of our individual political foxholes and get out of our individual industry foxholes, most of y’all have said, ‘Well, I don’t want to piss off this guy or that guy or this chairman or that chairman.’ ”

Warner complained that many in the defense and technology communities had failed to support the Campaign to Fix the Debt, a nonpartisan group seeking to mobilize support for a debt deal.

When chief executives of many Fortune 500 companies came together to back the group, Warner said, “the thing that just blows my mind . . . the industry that was most absent from that list was the defense industry. . . . It would have been great if you’d been in the fight in more than an ‘attaboy’ way over the last couple of years.”

Sterling said he was “very surprised” by Warner’s remarks, as his group recognizes that defense spending needs to be part of the broader deficit-reduction solution.Sterling said he thought at least seven chief executives who belong to his group had signed on to the Campaign to Fix the Debt effort.

“To say that we are not participating in it, I would say the facts do not agree with the statement that he made,” Sterling said.

Warner’s remarks came as the White House offered new details about the sequester, which could push 70,000 children out of Head Start, eliminate 2,100 food inspections, yank research grants out of the hands of 12,000 scientists and students, and jeopardize the jobs of 1,000 federal law enforcement officials.

The sequester will require cuts equal to roughly 9 percent for domestic programs for the remainder of the fiscal year and roughly 13 percent for defense programs — “large and arbitrary cuts [that] will have severe impacts across government,” according to Danny Werfel, federal controller at the White House Office of Management and Budget.

In a briefing for reporters, Werfel and other administration officials also offered some nuggets of information about how the sequester might be implemented. Under the law, Werfel said, agency spending must be reduced by $85 billion by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. And each agency will have to determine how to execute that reduction.

“In some cases, you’ll see immediate impacts. And in some cases, agencies will work out those changes to their programs and their structures over time,” Werfel said. “There’s no easy answer to say what the world is going to look like on March 2nd.”We just know that these impacts — while not all of them immediate — if we don’t take action, they will take place.”

Moreover, the sequester requires agencies to cut every account, subaccount, program, project and activity equally, which makes it difficult to avoid cuts to critical services.

“So, for example, FAA, they have to cut resources in a way that’s going to impact the air traffic controller workforce. There’s no way to basically say, well, we’ll move — we’ll try to take all the cuts in this area, like maintenance or custodial work,” Werfel said. “It’s not possible to do that.”

One thing that is clear is that agencies have yet to issue furlough notices, which means federal workers would not be sent home immediately if the sequester hits. Typically, Werfel said, agencies give workers 30 days notice before implementing a furlough.

Ultimately, however, hundreds of thousands of workers are likely to be affected, he said: “If we go past this date, there’s certainly — there’s no way to implement the sequester without significant furloughs of hundreds of thousands of federal employees.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/amid-dire-predictions-warner-says-defense-industry-shares-blame-for-sequester/2013/02/08/1b730860-7235-11e2-a050-b83a7b35c4b5_print.html

The plot to derail Chuck Hagel 7FEB13

MORE on the repiglican/tea-bagger opposition to Chuck Hagel because of the threat he poses to the profitability of the military-industrial complex. I was amazed and disgusted by the senators who questioned Hagel about his views on bush's Iraq surge, Israel and Iran while not caring enough to even mention the troops serving in Afghanistan as well as the troops suffering from physical and mental injuries from the Iraq and Afghan wars and the US military suicide rate. E mail your Senators and tell them to vote for Chuck Hagel for Sec of Defense at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm The Senate should hold a vote on his nomination now. Pres Obama must keep Chuck Hagel as his nominee for Sec of Defense and demand the Senate approve him. Go to http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/6676/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=12404
to sign VoteVets petition to Pres Obama supporting Chuck Hagel. And see my earlier post 

SIGN PETITION SUPPORTING CHUCK HAGEL & Chuck Hagel Nomination Draws Praise From Veterans' Groups, Adding Pressure To GOP Opposition 6FEB13 http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/sign-petition-supporting-chuck-hagel.html

This from Salon.....

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., asks a question of former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013, during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on his nomination. (Credit: AP/Susan Walsh)

There are two ways of looking at Senate Armed Service Committee Chairman Carl Levin’ssurprise decision to postpone an expected vote on Chuck Hagel’s nomination for Defense secretary.

Most likely, Levin is simply trying to deny Republicans an excuse to vote against Hagel, whose confirmation had seemed assured earlier this week when John McCain and several other influential Senate Republicans ruled out the use of a filibuster. With a committee vote on Thursday looming, though, 25 Republicans – including all 12 GOP members of the committee –signed a letter demanding that it be put off.

At issue are requests that several Republican senators made during Hagel’s hearings last week for transcripts of all of his paid speeches and for records of any foreign funding received by businesses or organizations that Hagel has done work with. On Tuesday, Hagel informed the committee that he had made his best effort to provide the speech transcripts, but that some of his engagements had been private off-the-record affairs for which no texts or recordings are available. And he maintained that he’s not in position to provide any information about the funding for the companies he’s worked with, citing an “obligation to maintain the confidentiality of non-public corporate information.”

This prompted the GOP senators to write their letter, and late Wednesday Levin announced that “the committee’s review of the nomination is not yet complete” but that he still intends to hold a vote “as soon as possible.”

The information that Republicans are demanding, it should be noted, has never been required of previous nominees and sets an almost prohibitively high standard for Hagel – and, potentially, for future nominees. As Steve Clemons explains, it’s hardly unusual for a senator (or a former senator or any other public figure) to deliver an off-the-cuff speech to a small or private group and for no prepared text or recording to exist. And the expectation that Hagel or any other nominee would have the power to force a large company or organization to make its financial relationships public is both unrealistic and unreasonable.

Chances are that Levin isn’t pleased with the GOP’s stubbornness but is simply maneuvering to make it as easy as possible for Republicans to vote for the nomination. Right now, only two GOP senators have said they’ll support Hagel, while many more have indicated opposition. But around two dozen haven’t said anything. Pushing ahead with a Thursday vote in the face of the GOP senators’ letter would have given their colleagues an easy excuse to vote “no” in committee or on the Senate floor. By putting off the vote instead, Levin can take a few days and then claim that a more than reasonable effort has been made to address the senators’ concerns. This could be the difference between a party-line confirmation vote – which would be enough to get Hagel confirmed but wouldn’t exactly read like a vote of confidence – and a more lopsided final tally.

Another possibility, though, is that Levin is acting out of fear of a filibuster. While McCainreiterated his opposition to one even after Wednesday’s developments, the situation is still a bit delicate. There is vigorous opposition to Hagel on the right – enough that it’s not hard to imagine conservative opinion-shapers treating an effort by Democrats to push through Hagel’s nomination this week as a scandalous act and ramping up the pressure on Republican senators to use a filibuster to stop him. McCain alone wouldn’t be able to break a filibuster; four other Republicans would have to join with him. Theoretically, a Hagel opponent in the Senate could also place a hold on his nomination; in fact one Republican practically volunteered to do so in aninterview with Defense News on Wednesday:

Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Ranking Member James Inhofe, R-Okla., when asked by Defense News whether he would place a hold on Hagel’s nomination should it be approved by the panel, played coy.

“That could happen,” Inhofe said with a smile. “I’m not sure who would be doing it.”

For Republicans to derail Hagel’s nomination with a filibuster or a hold would set a troubling precedent. Except in the rarest of cases, presidents have traditionally been granted wide latitude by the Senate in choosing their Cabinets. All nominees get votes, most sail through easily, a few are subjected to intense grillings, and only once every generation or so is one actually rejected. For Hagel to be denied a vote on such flimsy grounds would alter that tradition.

And even if Republicans do ultimately allow a vote, it could set a new precedent if it’s a party-line affair. After all, President Obama’s party has enough senators to win a party-line conformation vote, but what if it becomes routine for Cabinet nominations to be party-line votes? What happens when a future president’s party doesn’t enjoy a Senate majority?

Hagel is still very likely to be confirmed as Defense secretary. But Democrats would prefer that the process be as smooth – and bipartisan – as possible. Which is why Levin’s decision on Wednesday, no matter how frustrating it might be for the White House and its supporters, probably makes sense.

Steve Kornacki writes about politics for Salon. Reach him by email at SKornacki@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @SteveKornackiMORE STEVE KORNACKI.
http://www.salon.com/2013/02/07/the_plot_to_derail_chuck_hagel/