Discussion for article #230658
Facing diminished budgets, three defense secretaries â Robert Gates, Leon Panetta and Chuck Hagel â have insisted that the cost of personnel benefits have become unsustainable and threaten the Pentagonâs ability to prepare the military for fighting a war. Military pay and benefits account for the largest share of the budget, $167.2 billion out of $495.6 billion.
Oh, is it the âif only we could have foreseen,â routine? Halliburton, KBR and all the private contractors got theirs. Those who fight need to be put in front of the line.
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Read this somewhere: anything that passes the next two weeks will be considered as coming from the âDemocratic Congressâ, and look for the GOP to complain about the âlame duck sessionâ during 2015 and 2016. Hmm, is it time for some filibusters by Democratic senators, so that the âRepublican Congressâ can pass laws in January?
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This Congress had weeks and weeks (snark of course) when they were in session during the year to get things done and didnât act. They canât possibly feel the imperative of acting now especially if it moves the presidentâs agenda forward. Making Christmas shopping lists, warm climate vacation planning, golf junkets, you name it.
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The hypocrisy is just stunning.
I thought these people claimed to honor our vets. I certainly donât agree with the specifics of most of the missions theyâve been handed over the last several decades, but a deal is a deal.
They were promised the world to get them to serve. Leave it to conservatives to welsh on the deal. Of course, itâs what they always do.
If this country really had to pay itâs gold to honor our commitments and obligations we might learn to make better decisions.
Oh, and before thereâs any pushback about the lack of specifics in this (or any) article, let me be clearâŚconservatives are behind things like this (slowdown, shutdown, defunding, cutting deserved benefits, defaulting), always and without exception they originate with conservatives. You donât see this with liberal politicians (and spare me any spun exceptions please). That was not always (just mostly) true until they let these radicals take control, starting after Barry Goldwaterâs defeat.
Itâs been building ever since then - and now itâs all theyâve got. They used to be better at hiding itâŚ
Donât even get me started on all the other things wrong with this article. Iâve got to keep my blood pressure down 
Count on it - nothing of importance will be decided, but the money will flow. Unless youâre not among the .1% of course, in which case {say it with me now}âŚ
The Beatings will Continue until Morale Improves.
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Sad to say, you might be on to something thereâŚ
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Anything but actuallyâŚyou knowâŚworking.
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Oh, and that specific detail the AP did choose to share, about the percentage of coverage that would change for off-base housing?
You can bet thatâs just a trivial example, carefully selected to ensure that the whole thing appears reasonable to the beltway stenographers and entourage.
Seems like we should have a lot of less-than-full military bases now, should be plenty of beds available (only partly snark)âŚ
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Bless you, Sir.
Donât you just get that fuzzy feeling that all will be well?
As it has been for the last 6 years with the gop helping to move the country forward for all who live here, fight for us and all those jobs created by the job creators to improve the nation as a whole.
The nightmare continues.
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I think that we need to get some of these republican stalwart heroes
to defend this country. They can do it by playing a more active role, such as ms. Lindsey throwing
a hissy fit at them and threatening to cut their appropriations, the beasts! And McConnell can
strike a telling blow for freedom by flinging all his 999 chins in their direction. They should explode
with at least one megaton of force. Ted Cruz can hit them with the mighty power of his lies and
threats and John Boehner can pour the shot heard round the world. Yeah, that will show them. We can
call them, âThe Barking MoonBats.â
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Sorry to dis\sappoint but the republican bible says members are only in office to obstruct, not to govern. Donât believe me? OK. here is what their unelected âleaderâ Rush Limbaugh said the day after the election:
âIt is to stop Barack Obama. It is to stop the Democrats,â Limbaugh said on his show Wednesday about Republicansâ agenda. âThere is no other reason why Republicans were elected yesterday. Republicans were not elected to govern.â
âHow can you govern with a president that is demonstrably lawless when he thinks he has to be?â Limbaugh continued. âThe Republican Party was not elected to fix a broken system or to make it work. The Republican Party was not elected to compromise. The Republican Party was not elected to sit down and work together with the Democrats.â
I got this quote here on TPM. I find it shocking but not unexpected. And it clearly describes what the republicans have been doing. Now they have majorities in both chambers and it is now incumbent upon them to actually do stuff. You knowâŚgovern. Or be seen as utterly incompetent.
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Talk about insulting. The GOP MFers sit on their thumbs all year long and then basically cram in the last two weeks, which prevents discussion for one thing and makes everything a crisis for another.
This is the most overpaid, useless group of blowhards ever assembled and we would all be shitting in tall cotton (a Dad saying) without them.
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Iâll take odds on Republicans being seen as utterly incompetent.
that would be âdemocrat congressâ ⌠thankyouverymuchâŚ
and you can bet that there isnât one member who has read any of the legislation they are cramming thru in the next couple of weeks. and just imagine what shiny (and costly) little trinkets theyâve inserted as amendmentsâŚ
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I heard on Diane Rehmâs show on NPR this morning that Boehner and Obama negotiated in the Oval Office over immigration. Obama asked if Boehner would bring an immigration bill any immigration bill to the floor of the House ⌠that he would sign it. Boehner couldnât respond that he would (because his caucus was so radical). So, Obama had no other choice but to act unilaterally. I think Boehner knew that this would put the GOP in an untenable corner there was no good way out of.
And yes, the GOP cannot but help to look incompetent ⌠mainly because they are.