IMPERIAL PRESIDENT! WHY DOES HE USE SO MANY EXECUTIVE ORDERS! WHY WON’T HE GET AUTHORIZATION FOR MILITARY STRIKES:
“A lot of people would like to stay on the sideline and say, ‘Just bomb the place and tell us about it later,’ ” said Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia, who supports having an authorization vote. “It’s an election year. A lot of Democrats don’t know how it would play in their party, and Republicans don’t want to change anything. We like the path we’re on now. We can denounce it if it goes bad, and praise it if it goes well and ask what took him so long.”
He’s not lying, and I bet there are a few Democrats who feel that way, too.
BGinCHI
If the Beltway media actually paid attention to this quote and admitted that this is the current state of politics, they would immediately change the political calculation of this country.
Pigs would also fly out of my ass.
richard mayhew
A few.. hell I bet most dems feel that way as well as most republicans. Abdicating responsibility is a hell of a drug as it allows blame to slide better than passive voice constructions
Villago Delenda Est
Yup, this is very honest. The ni*CLANG* is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn’t.
Southern Beale
And therein lies the problem.
When did Democrats stop being the party of a rational foreign policy? Republicans were always the “bomb the fuck out of everyone for fun and profit” party. Democrats used to be the rational ones. WTF happened that elected Democrats don’t know what they’re supposed to do?
MomSense
@BGinCHI:
If the beltway media is a pretty constant refrain for me. Every time a Congress critter complains that the President didn’t act swiftly enough in Syria I start yelling at the village idiot on my tv to ask the critter why Congress didn’t authorize military action in Syria when the President asked them.
Mustang Bobby
I believe it was Lily Tomlin who noted, “I tried being cynical but I couldn’t keep up.”
Suffern ACE
@Southern Beale: Ask any hippy you happen to see – when it came to the 1960s, it was the Democrats who were the crazy bombers.
srv
You know, it goes both ways. Gulf of Tonkin was during an election year.
Suffern ACE
Yeah. I read some headline over at our Newsmax feed about Rand Paul declaring that Assad Deserves Death, yet Obama keeps him around. Somehow, every leader just kind of serves at our beheast and the Senator just can’t figure out why Obama was waiting for that Syria authorization from them.
MikeBoyScout
Worth reading -https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/08/lesson-americans-refuse-learn-war/
as we get led into war against today’s hitler
srv
@Suffern ACE: Why isn’t there a USS Saul Alinsky yet?
JPL
At least Kingston is honest. He’d rather play politics than, put the country first. America, f..k yeah!
PhoenixRising
Oh, Jack.
Loud part quiet, quiet part loud. You’ve just committed a gaffe, def. ‘telling the truth at an impolitic time’.
But how often does one get to use the phrase ‘plain-speaking Republican who is right’?
Comrade Jake
They sure as hell aren’t going to be praising it if it goes well, not if recent history is any indication.
jl
Kingston some kind or RINO or commie, or what, talking like that. No wonder the mook got picked off in the run-off.
Edit: I did a search for ‘impeach’ (and, or course, ‘inpeach’) on his story. nada. Commie.
MomSense
Just to be clear,I don’t want us to go to war in Syria. I’m just really tired of the media giving the Congress critters a pass all the time.
mellowjohn
@Mustang Bobby:
“No matter how cynical you become, it’s never enough to keep up.”
Liquid
I do believe Moose have killed more people, on the continent, than some Tallarn Desert Raider-wannabes have in a decade.
max
He’s not lying, and I bet there are a few Democrats who feel that way, too.
You bet! They’d all rather someone else did. They will TOTALLY micromanage the CDC and Ebola though, by cutting the cutting for it.
It’s almost like they’re a bunch of corrupt, purely opportunistic crooks or something.
@Suffern ACE: Somehow, every leader just kind of serves at our beheast and the Senator just can’t figure out why Obama was waiting for that Syria authorization from them.
He’s got authorization to fight Al-Qaeda (and as far as I’m concerned, degenerate offshoots). He doesn’t have authorization to fight Assad, seeing as how they voted that down. Also, Assad crossed the red line, so… he doesn’t have chemical weapons anymore. I keep hearing that that has something to do with the rise of ISIS.
max
[‘Apparently, if he’d bombed Assad, ISIS would have spontaneously combusted or something.’]
D58826
@Suffern ACE: And there were darn few Republicans calling for a pullout in Vietnam in 1964. And four years later it was Tricky Dick and his tricky mystery plan.
But here we are in 2014 and it feels like the movie Groundhog day only made by Boris Karloff. The latest poll has 2/3rds of country supports an attack on ISIS and 47% of the country feels less safe now than before 9/11. Obviously the fear merchants and war mongers have won again. And in a year or so when we are bogged down in another Middle Eastern war, fight for a ’cause’ that we do not understand, then the public will grow weary and demand the President pull out. The GOP will lead the chorus in who lost whatever plot of desert it was that we were fighting over and can only be found using a GPS satellite.
As one GOOPER said we don’t want to look back and rehash old mistakes. We want to look forward to …… hmmm. He never did say what we should look forward to. But forget the past and we can repeat it with a clear conscience.
? Martin
Look, nobody wants to do the hard work. But we pay these people the big money to do the hard work, and they deserve to be fired when they refuse to.
D58826
@? Martin: And the ‘hard work’ includes learning a bit about the countries that you want to bomb before you start to bomb them. If they cracked a book or two they might discover that you can’t ‘just take them out’ or ‘bomb them back to the stone age’ as Calgary Cruz has suggested.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@D58826:
Obama doesn’t appear to be listening to the “fear merchants and war mongers” and he is the one they need to get. I doubt they will.
shelley
ONE point for Honesty. One teeeny, tiny point…
Dog On Porch
It’s as though the republican party views both itself and everyone else as characters in some inconsequential reality show.
Liquid
I remember catching part of an NBC bit about the operation to rescue those Yazidis from IS/IL/S. The segment included several young men having to deplane due to takeoff weight. Then it was the families breaking down in relief/anguish after leaving the danger behind along with their sons/brothers/fathers.
It was a real moment that should have gotten way more press. I always try to remember that George Carlin bit about “proud vs happy to be an American.”
Mart
How is fanatical Muslims of ISIS mudering thousands and displacing millions of folks any worse than fanatical Christians (esp. the USAF) conducting three full blown wars in two countries, murdering thousands, and displacing millions over 23 years? Cause the bad guys video tape cutting heads off, and we only see video of our crimes from 10,000 feet? (Not to mention droning folks in five or so Muslim countries becuase we can.)
Just worn out by the USA fuck ya let’s go to war and we can fix ISIS non-sense.
D58826
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I hope your right. Its just the intuitional pressures of Congress, the Village, the GOP echo chamber, the national security state are all pushing in the direction of war. Even taking a small step will make it very hard to pull back. Even the ‘simple’ closing of GITMO has gone nowhere due to that pressure.
Just imagine if some fool with an ISIS bumper sticker breaks a few windows in Washington. The entire crowd will be demanding ACTION if not impeachment. Look at how Benghazi has been played into an event akin to the sack of Rome by the barbarians.
Suffern ACE
@D58826: well I do feel less safe than I did before September 11. I mean, who doesn’t? September 10th I remember was a very safe feeling day.
Liquid
How the fuck does “google” have an incorrect spelling red-wavy-thingie? How is that possible?!
jl
GOPer Doubles Down On Excessive Black Voting Complaint: I Prefer ‘Educated Voters’
The Georgia state senator who ranted about excessive black voting and vowed to fight a move to expand early voting in DeKalb County defended his remarks on Facebook, saying that he would rather have more educated voters than an increase in the total number of voters.
The Republican state senator, Fran Millar (pictured), wrote that in a comment responding to others on his post where he vowed to end Sunday balloting in DeKalb County because that area is “dominated by African American shippers” and has “large African American mega churches.”
…
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/fran-millar-georgia-educated-voters-more-voters
You don’t see this kind of thing that much in the US Congress. But it infests the GOP in the state houses.
Edit: Anyway, another entry in the annals of GOP outreach to put in your scrapbook.
Cervantes
@richard mayhew:
Elmer Davis:
scav
@Suffern ACE: Well, ignorence is bliss. Best by far never to go to any doctors whatsoever so as to maintain that totally healthy feeling and then, just once in a while, blast chemotheraphy at a random bodypart or take random full-dose antibiotics just in case.
eta, which I assume is your point?
D58826
@Suffern ACE: I guess the question is why do we feel less safe today than before 9/11. I understand that the feeling of the oceans will protect us from all of those bad people went up in smoke that day. But when you look at the risks that we run every day – driving a car, being in the wrong spot when some bad man with a gun shows up, even slipping on the bathmat, then being a victim of a terrorist attack is way way down on the list of risks. 35000 people die ever year in car accidents, half of them involving booze yet we don’t give up driving and live in fear to the automobile. Sure 9/11 was terrible and would not want to live thru another day like that but we can’t react to every political leader waving the red shirt of terror by turning our brains off and simply cowering in a corner. Maybe ISIS can/will launch an attack on the US homeland but an existential threat to the country’s very existence. Give me a break. But it is great rhetoric for fund raising and riling up the base. If 9/11 attacks were so easy to pull off there would not be a building over 3 stories high left in the entire country
Cervantes
@Suffern ACE:
@srv:
What on earth are the two of you talking about?
Cervantes
@MikeBoyScout: Why is it “worth reading”? Do you think it will change any minds?
Cervantes
@Southern Beale:
Not sure what period you’re referring to here.
Turgidson
@D58826:
Ted Cruz is something. He already proudly bore a striking resemblance to Tailgunner Joe McCarthy, in both appearance and the habit of questioning the allegience of political opponents. Now he’s adding Matthew Ridgeway to the mix (along with his movie doppelganger Jack D. Ripper).
What a guy.
Mike E
@Cervantes: It’s about somebody not doing something right, somehow. I think.
Mustang Bobby
@mellowjohn: Thanks. That sounds better.
Belafon
I kind of understand what he is saying regarding Democrats. If they decide they should vote against attacking they open themselves up to the usual weakness attack. If they vote for it, a number of Democrats will be disappointed. And as the polls show, there are a lot of Democratic voters who believe we should attack.
D58826
@Turgidson: Rideway? I thought it was Curtis LaMay. Ridgeway was army, LaMay was SAC commander.
But Ted looks and acts way to much like tail gunner Joe for comfort
Turgidson
@D58826:
Derp. You’re correct, brain fart on my part. Those two are actually extremely different; not sure why they were mixed up in my head.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Turgidson: Ridgway? Why Ridgway? While he was a member of the Committee on the Present Danger in the ’70s, he opposed deepening involvement in Vietnam in both the ’50s and 60s. Also, he was not a zoomie like Ripper. Were you thinking of Curtis LeMay?
ETA: It’s been addressed already. Never mind.
Howard Beale IV
Q: What do you call a plague that kills 99% within a 50 mile radius of Washington DC?
A: Overdue.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Howard Beale IV: Hyperbole much?
Dog On Porch
@Belafon: “..they open themselves up…”(?)
You speak of war as though it can be calculated in mundane, political terms. It’s that mentality that led to the great tragedy of March, 2003.
Turgidson
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):
I’m too young to be going senile, so hopefully this was an aberration and not an omen.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Turgidson: I am unaware of any association between Matthew Ridgeway and Jack D. Ripper. And what it would be isn’t obvious to me.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): That’s what I get for digging around trying to figure out the association.
Howard Beale IV
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): As a infamous wingnut has been known to opine:
Heh.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): He’s a proud graduate of the Villago Delenda Est School of Idiotic Rhetoric.
Mike in NC
45 years ago a lot of ignorant Americans were talking about bombing a certain country “back to the Stone Age”. Didn’t turn out so well in the end.
Turgidson
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
I regret the several minutes of your life you’ll never get back because I’m a space cadet.
Cervantes
@Turgidson:
Think nothing of it.
Re Cruz, one should recall that he was a debate-club star and still thinks of himself as being in that milieu — and the king of it. Anything goes. Winning is everything. A sense of decency has no place in his calculus, not before and not now at long last.
Elie
The President is a tough cookie; in mountaineering terms he has both ice axes in to the hilt and it will be all he can do to keep the m—f–ckers from dragging all of us into the crevasse.
I like his chances though. He knows that American people are fickle and (unfortunately also) stupid. As soon as things don’t go well, they want out. He just has to talk tough but give them controlled and directed intervention. And sit tight.
Hillary will be putting out her “thoughts” I am sure in a few days, as soon as the risk to her is near zero and she can kick him in the balls again for fun.
Dog On Porch
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): It’s slander. Ridgeway was a brilliant guy, a West Pointer whose cultivated talents were exploited to help defeat Hitler’s Germany. His service in Korea wrote another chapter in a full life.
Jack T. Ripper was Curtis LeMay on steroids.
JGabriel
Our Congress – Profiles In Courage.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Dog On Porch: It wasn’t a slander. It was a mistake. People make them.
Dog On Porch
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): Harrumph…
dww44
@JPL: @PhoenixRising: @jl: @ Belafon: Presumably everyone knows by now that Kingston, who was among the saner of our Congress persons, lost in the runoff to David Perdue for GOP position to take on Michelle Nunn. IMO, Kingston was the far superior of those two candidates;certainly as a human being he seems to be. Being an insider did him in and Perdue ran truly mean and altogether disingenuous ads against him. So, perhaps, Kingston is truly being honest here because he can afford to be, but can’t really chastize his fellow Congress persons as I am sure he probably has some sort of job promised to him after December. related to his longtime position as a Congressman.
@JGabriel: There’s really a dearth of Profiles in Courage in the halls of our Congress. That’s what way too much money in our political system has bequeathed to us. Think how many more Graysons (and I do think he’s courageous) we could have if we really were able to pass a Constitutional Amendment restricting and removing money from our elections.
LosGatosCA
@Southern Beale:
Yup, about the time they decided that every Democratic administration should have a least one Republican Secretary of Defense (you know to keep the heat off the party) , make a Democratic Fed chair rarer than a liberal Southern Democratic senator (in the past 14 years of Democratic presidential terms, we have yet to celebrate the first anniversary of a nominal Democratic Fed chair), plus Republican FBI chiefs, NDI’s, etc. The Republicans are bipartisan over in Transportation.
If it’s one well earned reputation the Democrats have it’s passing the buck to the Daddy party to make the tough decisions on the Daddy issues.
Democrats really are gutless, it’s not an image problem.