Two Buck Chucked

The first post-midterm Obama cabinet head to roll is apparently going to be that ofDefense Secretary Chuck Hagel. NY Times:

The president, who is expected to announce Mr. Hagel’s resignation in a Rose Garden appearance on Monday, made the decision to ask his defense secretary — the sole Republican on his national security team — to step down last Friday after a series of meetings over the past two weeks, senior administration officials said. 

The officials described Mr. Obama’s decision to remove Mr. Hagel, 68, as a recognition that the threat from the Islamic State would require a different kind of skills than those that Mr. Hagel was brought on to employ. A Republican with military experience who was skeptical about the Iraq war, Mr. Hagel came in to manage the Afghanistan combat withdrawal and the shrinking Pentagon budget in the era of budget sequestration. 

But now “the next couple of years will demand a different kind of focus,” one administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. He insisted that Mr. Hagel was not fired, saying that he initiated discussions about his future two weeks ago with the president, and that the two men mutually agreed that it was time for him to leave. 

But Mr. Hagel’s aides had maintained in recent weeks that he expected to serve the full four years term as defense secretary. His removal appears to be an effort by the White House to show that it is sensitive to critics who have pointed to stumbles in the government’s early response to several national security issues, including the Ebola crisis to the threat posed by the Islamic State militant group.

Take that as you will. Holder resigning, now Hagel out. Looks like the GOP Senate is going to be able to cause a lot of damage blocking cabinet appointees with the President no longer able to make recess appointments except for a narrow window after the midterm lame duck session.

Where The Hate Comes Sweeping Down The Plain

The recent decision by the Pentagon and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to extend military same-sex couple benefits to National Guard personnel has not been received very well by bigoted Republicans in red states.  Mississippi recently told the Pentagon that its state constitution enshrining bigotry into law apparently supersedes any federal measures so neener neener, and now Oklahoma is one-upping the Team Hate Bus by ending all benefit applications for Oklahoma National Guard couples rather than extend benefits to same-sex couples.

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R) announced earlier this month that state-owned National Guard facilities will no longer allow any married couples to apply for spousal benefits, regardless of whether they are same-sex or opposite-sex. The Supreme Court’s decision overturning the Defense of Marriage Act means that servicemembers with same-sex spouses are now eligible for federal benefits. Fallin’s unusual tactic is designed to avoid having to recognize those couples, which she asserts would violate Oklahoma’s constitutional amendment limiting marriage to one man and one woman.

Charming.  Her reasoning:

Oklahoma law is clear. The state of Oklahoma does not recognize same-sex marriages, nor does it confer marriage benefits to same-sex couples. The decision reached today allows the National Guard to obey Oklahoma law without violating federal rules or policies. It protects the integrity of our state constitution and sends a message to the federal government that they cannot simply ignore our laws or the will of the people.

Change the words "same-sex" to "negroes" and "marriage" to "voting" or "attending schools" or "owning property" and you have the same arguments made 50, 100, 150, 200 plus years ago as to why people who looked like me had no rights because of "the will of the people".  It's easy to say that when, as Gov. Fallin apparently believes, you're not dealing with "people" to begin with.

Supreme Court kinda made this clear.  Those who were against civil rights then lost.  They will continue to lose.  Human rights are never subject to the will of the people.

Next time an EF5 tornado roars through Oklahoma City, I want Gov. Fallin to personally tell me that it matters if the National Guard members deployed to help Oklahomans are LGBTQ or not, and that the people who serve no longer deserve spousal benefits because of it.

Mississippi To Hagel: Drop Dead

The SCOTUS decision on DOMA and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's Pentagon directive requiring all states to issue ID cards allowing same-sex National Guard couples to claim federal marriage benefits apparently doesn't matter to Mississippi that much.  Their response to Hagel?  Begins with F, ends with "and the horse you rode in on."

“We must continue to abide by the state constitution, and we will continue to refer applicants to active duty installations in Mississippi,” Mississippi National Guard spokesman Tim Powell said. 

Mississippi and the other states won’t provide the ID cards but will refer same-sex couples to federal installations to receive the identification. 

Mick Bullock, a spokesman for Gov. Phil Bryant, said Mississippi’s position is in line with state law. 

“The Mississippi Constitution clearly defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman and expressly prohibits the recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions,” Bullock said.

This is a losing battle, of course.  It was 50 years ago, and 150 years ago.

But Mississippi College Law Professor Matt Steffey said, “The most basic principle of our system of constitutional government is that federal laws trump state laws whenever the two conflict. So, certainly, the federal law prevails over the Mississippi law.” 

Steffey said the text of Article VI of the U.S. Constitution requires that all state legislators and executive and judicial officers take an oath to support the Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land.

Why, it's our old friend, Mr. Supremacy Clause!  So good luck with this one, guys.  Nice way to waste taxpayer money too when you decide to take this to court and lose, too.

Enjoy the cultural inevitability, boys.

Air Farce, Or Into The Wild Blue Slander

The USAF general who unilaterally overturned a lieutenant's conviction for sexual assault last year is speaking out about the case, and frankly, yeah he's just as awful as you could imagine.

Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin drew headlines and outrage in March for overturning Lt. Col. James Wilkerson’s sexual assault conviction, nullifying his remaining prison sentence and returning him to service in the Air Force. In his letter to Air Force Secretary Michael Donley defending his decision, Franklin explained that he was acting fully in compliance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and that he would be “entirely remiss in [his] sworn military duty and responsibility” if he had not overturned the jury’s findings.

Franklin’s memo listed 18 points of contention he saw in the evidence presented during Wilkerson’s court-martial, including several points that either were ruled inadmissible in court or specifically shifted the blame of any assault on the victim.

Yeah, because the victim deserved it, so he had to overturn a conviction by jury.  Among the general's reasons:

• The victim turned down three offers of a ride and seemed to have differing reasons why she wanted to stay.
• The victim had trouble identifying and describing parts of the house, didn’t remember the attacker’s mustache and didn’t correctly describe her path out of the house.
• Wilkerson’s wife’s account of the events differed in some details from her husband’s, but Franklin said the conflicts suggested that the two didn’t collude on a manufactured story.


• Testimony from the friend who took the alleged victim to the hospital the next day was not admissible in court, but Franklin said it indicated there could be a reason the woman might be less than candid.

Yeah.  His mustache.  That must be totally exculpatory evidence.  Luckily, Chuck Hagel is fixing this idiocy:

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on Tuesday proposed a change in the current law that would strip the convening authority of their ability to overturn verdicts in most cases as the first step in correcting the military’s sexual assault problem. Currently an estimated 19,000 instances of military sexual trauma take place in the U.S. armed services every year, the vast majority of which go unreported for fear of reprisal or scorn. 

US Air Farce strikes again, but all the armed services need a long, hard serious look at sexual harassment policies.

The Right's Hagel Finagle

Jen Rubin is a meta-hack, but she's a pretty reliable barometer of the winger zeitgeist, and the wingers are pretty pissed off that senators like John McCain and Lindsey Graham seem to be crumbling on Chuck Hagel.

In any event, McCain and Graham shouldn’t fold when the going gets tough. If this nominee is as bad as they say, they should, and indeed must, filibuster him if the White House (unlike the Bush White House) and the Democrats (unlike the GOP senators of yesteryear) won’t do the right thing.

Here's the thing, when Susan Rice was floated for Secretary of State, Republicans readily had John Kerry's name at hand because they wanted a shot at his seat.  But have you heard Republicans mention a possible replacement for Chuck Hagel?

Not to my knowledge.  We hear how awful, incompetent, and even anti-Semitic Chuck Hagel supposedly is, but nobody seems to have a name of somebody who would be an acceptable replacement.

Funny how that works.

Last Call

To recap, Republicans are unleashing unprecedented obstruction against President Obama: for the first time in American history, a Cabinet secretary nominee will face a filibuster.

Sen. Roy Blunt signaled Wednesday that there may be enough votes in the Senate to delay debate on the nomination of Chuck Hagel to lead the Pentagon.

Blunt (R-Mo.) said he believed there were 40 votes in the Senate that indicated “it’s too quick to end the debate on this nomination.”

The GOP, which controls 45 votes in the Senate, would need 41 votes to block former Sen. Hagel from hitting the 60-vote threshold that some Republicans have threatened.

“I don’t think we’ll move forward for a few days on that,” Blunt said at POLITICO’s post-State of the Union event. “And there’s been requests for more information. I think ultimately Senator Hagel will provide that information.”

In particular, Republicans on the Armed Services Committee have asked for more detailed financial disclosures from Hagel – a demand dismissed by Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the committee’s chairman.

“We’re not going to accept a change in the rules that applies to one nominee,” Levin said earlier this week as he defended Hagel. “We are not going to accept your suggestion and innuendo that there’s some sort of conflict of interest.”

This has nothing to do with Chuck Hagel, and everything to do with Republicans who despise this President.  Indeed, Republicans filed their motion to filibuster Chuck Hagel's nomination this afternoon, requiring a cloture vote on Friday.  This means Democrats have to come up with 60 votes, and at least 5 Republicans, to proceed.   So far only Susan Collins has committed to this, and it's entirely possible that Republicans will be able to delay Hagel's nomination indefinitely.

The question now is, considering this means the Republicans have completely scrapped the filibuster deal they worked out with Harry Reid less than a month ago (surprise, right?)  what will Harry Reid do?

I know what he should be doing right about now.  Will he go back to the filibuster and blow it up?

Last Call

And now the Syrian/Israeli dustup is getting a nasty response.

Syria warned on Thursday of a possible "surprise" response to Israel's attack on its territory and Russia condemned the air strike as an unprovoked violation of international law.

Damascus could take "a surprise decision to respond to the aggression of the Israeli warplanes", Syrian ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul-Karim Ali said a day after Israel struck against Syria.

"Syria is engaged in defending its sovereignty and its land," Ali told a website of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Syria and Israel have fought several wars and in 2007 Israeli jets bombed a suspected Syrian nuclear site, without a military response from Damascus.

Diplomats, Syrian rebels and regional security sources said on Wednesday that Israeli jets had bombed a convoy near the Lebanese border, apparently hitting weapons destined for Hezbollah. Syria denied the reports, saying the target had been a military research center northwest of Damascus.

Hezbollah, which has supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as he battles an armed uprising in which 60,000 people have been killed, said Israel was trying to thwart Arab military power and vowed to stand by its ally.

It's not much of a surprise if you announce it beforehand, guys.   Still, with Russia now involved in this mess, Israel is not exactly helping things.  Odds really are pretty good that the Syrian convoy was going to Hezbollah, but jumping borders in order to bomb it still rather counts as a belligerent act, even in the era of drones in my everywhere.

At this point getting a Secretary of Defense confirmed to help America formulate options with this festering pile of crap now on SecState Kerry's plate would be a good idea, yes?