Way To Go: GOP Blocks Ideology-Laden Defense Bill

When I heard that the Democrat leadership was playing politics by inserting the amnesty-granting DREAM Act into a bill ostensibly to fund our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, I hoped Republicans would block it.  And then the Democrats decided they weren’t being ideological enough in their partisan politics, and added a provision forcing the military to embrace homosexuality whether it hurt national security or not.

What Democrats wanted to do was force Republicans to either vote for the bill, or be the side that “opposed funding our troops.”

And the fact that Democrats started a game of political chicken with our troops’ lives would get conveniently overlooked by the mainstream leftwing media.

Thank God, our Republican Party stood up to this vile game and said no to frankly vile measures that had nothing to do with troop funding.

Republicans block bill to lift military gay ban
By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer Anne Flaherty, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked an effort by Democrats and the White House to lift the ban on gays from serving openly in the military, voting unanimously against advancing a major defense policy bill that included the provision.

The mostly partisan vote dealt a major blow to gay rights groups who saw the legislation as their best hope, at least in the short term, for repeal of the 17-year-old law known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

If Democrats lose seats in the upcoming congressional elections this fall, as many expect, repealing the ban could prove even more difficult — if not impossible — next year. The Senate could take up the measure again during a lame-duck session after the elections, but a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he hasn’t decided whether to do so.

“The whole thing is a political train wreck,” said Richard Socarides, a White House adviser on gay rights during the Clinton administration.

Democrats included the repeal provision in a $726 billion defense policy bill, which authorizes a pay raise for the troops among other popular programs. In a deal brokered with the White House, the measure would have overturned the 1993 law banning openly gay service only after a Pentagon review and certification from the president that lifting the ban wouldn’t hurt troop morale.

But with little time left for debate before the November ballot, the bill had languished on the Senate calendar until gay rights groups, backed by pop star Lady Gaga, began an aggressive push to turn it into an election issue.

Reid agreed to force a vote on the bill this week and limit debate, despite Republican objections. A Nevada Democrat in a tight race of his own this fall, he also pledged to use the defense bill as a vehicle for an immigration proposal that would enable young people to qualify for U.S. citizenship if they joined the military.

Republicans alleged that Reid was using the defense bill to score political points with the Democratic base.

“This is not a serious exercise. It’s a show,” said Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

You read it right.  The intellectual and moral power behind the Democrat Party is Lady Gaga.  The Democrat Party reached the sewer, and just kept right on digging.

I don’t doubt for a second that Republicans have done this themselves in the past.  But it is vile.  And it is the kind of thing that any party that is worthy of the title “reformers” will pledge to stop doing and then never do again.

The funding for our soldiers – and most especially during time of war – should be off-limits to anyone who would politicize it.  Because every time a soldier is wounded or killed in action, he is wounded and killed for every American; not merely Democrats or Republicans.

And our politicians damn well better start respecting that.

You want your ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal?  Then have the simple integrity to vote for it straight up.  Because otherwise, you are nothing more than an evil, vile weasel.  And the same thing applies with leftwing OR rightwing immigration proposals.

Both Democrat proposals would transform our society.  And to try to sneak them through under the guise of supporting our soldiers is undemocratic and in fact un-American.

Obama-Biden: Obama Not Strong, Not Ready. Just Ask His V.P.

Obama wanted to seem all “hip” and “now” but his text message system obviously totally flopped. After all the promises and all the hype, the only text anyone ever got was a fake – a suitable metaphor for the whole Obama campaign.

Barack Obama did a stupid thing by not asking Hillary Clinton to run with him. He should have publicly asked her, and then hoped like heck she said no (maybe he was afraid of having to have someone taste his food for the next four years?). Obama foolishly said that Hillary Clinton “would be on anyone’s short list” – and then clearly never put her on his. She was never even vetted. That looks bad. Hillary Clinton supporters got nothing but another snub.

Tim Kaine was a lightweight, and Evan Bayh just had that name issue: Obama, Bayh (pronounced “Bye”). You don’t want your VP pick to be metaphorically waving “good bye” to your presidential nominee.

So it’s Senator Joe Biden (D-DE).

Supposedly Joe Biden will bolster the foreign policy cred of a kid who clearly isn’t ready for prime time.

But there are problems, oh so many problems.

Ben Porrit, McCain spokesman, was able to point out the biggest one. During the primaries as a candidate for president:

“Biden has denounced Barack Obama’s poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing – that Barack Obama is not ready to be President.”

What we’re going to see is a whitewashing of that record. But let me just quickly demonstrate that the McCain camp is telling the truth.

But The Associated Press story is, “Analysis: Biden pick shows lack of confidence.”  So apparently at some level Obama agrees with Joe Biden and John McCain that he just isn’t really ready.

Beyond the fact that Biden is angry, he’s arrogant, he thinks he knows everything, he’s condescending, he’s aggressive and bullying, he says one stupid thing after another, and he absolutely positively will not shut his mouth, his foreign policy credentials actually serve to actually denounce Obama’s own puny record. That can’t be good.

Biden said Obama wasn’t ready to be President:

Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) Reaffirmed That Obama Was Not Ready To Be Commander In Chief. ABC‘s George Stephanopoulos: “You were asked is he ready. You said ‘I think he can be ready, but right now I don’t believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.'” Sen. Biden: “I think that I stand by the statement.” (ABC’s “This Week,” 8/19/07)

Sen. Biden: “Having talking points on foreign policy doesn’t get you there.” (“Biden Lashes Out At Obama,” ABC News’ “Political Radar” Blog, blogs.abcnews.com, 8/2/07)

At the same time Joe Biden acknowledged that John McCain was more than ready to be president, even saying of McCain that “I would be honored to be running with or against John Mccain, because I think the country would be better off.”

Biden voted to authorize the Iraq War Resolution. He voted for the Patriot Act in 2001. He voted to re-authorize the Patriot Act in 2006. But there’s another issue that looms even larger: troop funding, especially troop funding for armored vehicles. Barack Obama repeatedly voted against troop funding, marching in lockstep with the Democratic Party line in willingness to cut the troops off.

Our soldiers and Marines were dying due to IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) and needed armored transports.

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of U.S. Marines have been killed or injured by roadside bombs in Iraq because Marine Corps bureaucrats refused an urgent request in 2005 from battlefield commanders for blast-resistant vehicles, an internal military study concludes.

Biden demanded those vehicles, voting against the radical-left Democratic lock-step:

In [the Des Moines Register], the author explains that the Democratic leaders are not happy with the MRAP program. Even when it was not tied to Iraq War Funding, Senators Clinton and Obama voted against it. Dem. Senator Biden voted for it and has said the vote made him “the bastard at the family picnic.” Anti-war activists held “Impeach Biden” signs when he visited Iowa City. His staffers warned he would “get his skin ripped off” if he attended an event in Council Bluffs. All because of the vote. And he says he doesn’t care.“As long as there’s one American kid over there, I’m voting the money for these things,” Biden said in a chat the other day during a stop in Des Moines. “It’s the one way we can save lives before getting them out.”

Biden literally said it was a matter of life and death for the troops:

“I have never begun a discussion of an amendment,” Mr. Biden told his fellow senators, “by saying something as graphic and as drastic as ‘this is literally a matter of life and death.’ But it is. This is not hyperbole. This is not an exaggeration.” He was right on all counts.

Biden’s supporters said the refusal on the part of Biden’s rivals for president – which very much included Barack Obama – “would come back to haunt them”:

“Just as Beau Biden, a captain in the Delaware National Guard, had predicted in August at the Iowa Democratic Party Veteran’s Caucus Presidential Extravaganza in Des Moines, the vote on the emergency funding for the war in Iraq war has come back into play. Beau, the attorney general of Delaware, spoke on behalf of his father, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, and told the room full of veterans that his father’s Democratic rivals’ “no” vote on the funding, despite the attached Biden amendment to fast track funding and production for the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles, would come back to haunt them.”

During the Democratic primary debates, Joe Biden accused Barack Obama of cutting off support that would save the lives of thousands of troops. Biden very articulately pointed out that, in effect, Obama had voted for our soldiers and Marines to continue to be killed by IEDs. Barack Obama voted against funding armored vehicles even when the whole focus of the bill was providing such armor (as opposed to some larger appropriation).

Interestingly, Joe Biden – who dropped out of the race early because the Democratic base wanted a candidate who would promise to cut and run from Iraq – somehow never really got around to endorsing Barack Obama.

If Joe Biden is the Vice Presidential selection because of his knowledge and experience, we might as well listen to what he said earlier, when he was looking at Obama critically, and take his words seriously.

Barack Obama isn’t ready. Even his own Vice President says so.