Mak reports: "The Senate Armed Services Committee plans to vote Tuesday on Chuck Hagel's nomination to be the next secretary of Defense, but Republican aides suggest that some GOP members could walk out in protest."
Senator Chuck Hagel at a hearing on Iran. (photo: Joshua Roberts/Getty Images)
GOP Threatens Walkout on Chuck Hagel Vote
11 February 13
he Senate Armed Services Committee plans to vote Tuesday on Chuck Hagel's nomination to be the next secretary of Defense, but Republican aides suggest that some GOP members could walk out in protest.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) has scheduled the vote after committee members have discussed the nomination during a committee meeting set for 2:30 p.m., after a previously scheduled morning session on sequestration.
Levin is "fed up" with Republicans after a boisterous hearing last week with outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Democratic sources told POLITICO, and wants to move Hagel's nomination out of committee, with only Democratic votes if necessary, and on to the Senate floor for a final confirmation vote.
Two Senate Republican aides have said, though, that some GOP senators were considering the possibility of walking out during a committee vote.
Levin faces a conundrum: He has the ability to force a Hagel vote through the committee on a party-line vote, since Democrats outnumber Republicans. But doing so could damage the committee's longtime bipartisan spirit.
Last Thursday's hearing with Panetta alarmed Levin, Democrats said. Levin worries the aggressive, pointed questioning that Republicans directed at Panetta over the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, could signal some Republicans simply will not compromise on the issue of Hagel's nomination.
"Fed up is the right term for [Levin's mood]," said a Democratic source. "After the Benghazi hearing, it showed what we are dealing with on the Republican side."
One Armed Services Committee member, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, has made clear that he considers Benghazi and Hagel to be one issue - "no confirmation without information," he said Sunday, threatening to block both Hagel and CIA nominee John Brennan. Graham is demanding more details from the administration about its response to the Benghazi attacks, particularly the direct involvement of President Barack Obama.
It was only his latest threat over Hagel. Last Thursday's Benghazi hearing that irked Levin had been convened partly to mollify Graham, who initially said he would hold up Hagel's nomination process if Panetta didn't testify. Sunday's comments showed Graham was not mollified.
Democratic aides were unhappy with the week's turn of events. The Armed Services Committee has traditionally been collegial; it has passed a defense authorization bill for over 50 consecutive years, as defense advocates like to point out. But Republicans' grilling of Panetta on Thursday seemed to indicate that the bipartisan feeling has diminished, and Republicans signaled again Sunday they were playing for keeps.
"There are two options: If Hagel doesn't fully disclose all the things in the letter [in which Republicans made requests for more disclosure] ... either you will see a party line vote or Republicans will stand up and leave the room in protest," said a senior Republican Senate aide. "Does Levin really want that to happen on his watch as chairman? ... It would really debilitate the committee."
Democratic aides were unhappy with the week's turn of events. The Armed Services Committee has traditionally been collegial: It has passed a defense authorization bill for more than 50 consecutive years, as defense advocates like to point out. But Republicans' grilling of Panetta on Thursday seemed to indicate that the bipartisan feeling has diminished, and Republicans signaled again Sunday they are playing for keeps.
"There are two options: If Hagel doesn't fully disclose all the things in the letter [in which Republicans made requests for more disclosure] ... either you will see a party-line vote or Republicans will stand up and leave the room in protest," said a senior Republican Senate aide. "Does Levin really want that to happen on his watch as chairman? ... It would really debilitate the committee."
The response of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to the prospect of a walkout, the timing of a committee vote and a potential filibuster will be critical. As a former ranking member, McCain is still a leading voice on committee issues.
McCain and his staff have been working to determine whether Hagel has met the standard of disclosure required of all previous defense secretary nominees. The committee's minority staff working for Inhofe has confirmed to members that Hagel has met these requirements, a Republican Senate aide told POLITICO.
And while McCain reiterated his opposition to a filibuster Sunday on Fox News, he said he was learning toward voting against Hagel's confirmation.
"I think we need all of the information from Sen. Hagel, but the fact is we have never filibustered a Cabinet appointee and that is why I do not believe we should filibuster his nomination," he said.
Elsewhere, opponents showed little sign of softening their campaign against Hagel.
Senate Republicans are currently demanding that Hagel disclose the sources of all substantial compensation over the past five years - and that he make assurances that organizations he's been affiliated with have not received foreign funding over the past decade.
"Hagel has gone above and beyond what the committee has ever asked of any other nominee," a Hagel aide told POLITICO. "He deserves an up or down vote."
On Sunday afternoon, Inhofe demanded a 60-vote threshold for the Hagel nomination, saying he didn't trust the president to choose his own Cabinet.
"I would threaten to cause a 60-vote margin, yes I would. If it took a filibuster, I'd do it that way," Inhofe said Sunday on Fox. Inhofe added that he doesn't "trust this president to make the right appointments" and that he didn't "see anything wrong with requiring a 60-vote margin" for the important job of secretary of defense.
"I know he is popular, and I know that he is going to do his best. I am going to do my best to see that he is not going to be secretary of defense," he said.
The administration, meanwhile, is standing by its nominees.
"We believe the Senate should act swiftly to confirm John Brennan and Sen. Hagel," said National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor. "These are critical national security positions, and individual members shouldn't play politics with their nominations."
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So much for accountability.
What a farce this latest Republican hissy-fit is!
We need a new House of Congress made up of civil and common-sense, democratically centric representatives!
Let 'em walk.
Oust THE BUMS!
N.
What a bunch of drama queens these (R) are!
They are supposed to be there to do the work of the people, they certainly queue up fast enough to take our paychecks!
If they can't or won't do the work of the people, pink slip the bastards; we won't miss them!
We need not just a new HOUSE of congress. We sure need a NEW SENATE too. While these spoiled brats are throwing temper tantrums. They are ENDANGERING THE COUNTRY.
We are facing so many grave threats, and it is IMPERATIVE that Hagel gets into his job A.S.A.P!! The problems are not just Syria, Egypt,Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
But we need to move double time on preparing to prevent Syber attack. We are woefully unprepared as Rodgers, the chairman of the intelligence committee said on the Sunday shows.
These idiot republicans are TRAITORS and should be thrown out of office for treason, for we MUST WORK TOGETHER or we are truly SUNK. Who can BEAT sense into their stupid heads????
MONEY MONEY MONEY! in POLITICS is what is KILLING OUR PLANET! and OUR ECONOMY!
Even the few moral reps can't help themselves and that effects EVERYTHING!!!
The "Supremes" ridiculous finding around these issues are fantasy in assuming free speech equivalence between the eye dropper sized letter to the Politician, to the Ice Age Flood from Montana that created the Columbia Gorge in Oregon, to the "Speech"of a Global Corporation.
Hagel has the attitude to stop the Pentagon and they're afraid of him!
They've even bought a couple of Senators to keep bleating about Benghazi, which has nothing to do with him, and then tried personel attacks on his finances when that didn't stick.
THEY ARE GETTING THAT DESPARATE!
eating their own for money!
MONEY MONEY MONEY!
Gawd yes ! In the 21st Century we have learned to "Out-Russia" RUSSIA ! We will soon be taking human rights lessons FROM Russia.
Seriously, what planet are we on? Isn't this a bit like the pot calling the kettle black?
Oh, even worse. They are attacking this candidate because he does NOT "Sing the Party Line", because he has always been willing to Speak TRUTH to Power, and because he does NOT Kowtow to the neocon Chicken Hawks OR see himself as a lackey to Israel. Hagel, as a sitting Senator once famously said "I am a U.S. Senator, not an Israeli Senator". This is payback.
This confirmation has almost nothing to do with 9/11, that's just the only thing the neocons dare bring up without exposing their OWN first fealty to Israel rather than to the U.S. .
Treating Hagel like an Al Qaida suspect is just payback for Chuck having accused what he called "The Jewish Lobby", (fronted by Lindsey Graham) of trying to intimidate everybody in Washington. This was, of course, and IS the absolute truth. But neocons HATE to be "outed" after their obviously STUPID calls in getting the Nation to invade Iraq, so Hagel takes the Hot Seat.
.
1. McCain had slated Hagel for HIS Sec of Defense!!
2. And the Democrats are concerned about spoiling the "bipartisan spirit of cooperation"??
Smells like Rove to me, throwing another temper tantrum, threatening to take his toys and go home. He's got to do something with the Repubs to redeem himself, and just throwing the Tea-baggers under the his psychotic bus the way he did recently is only the beginning.
N.
That's certainly a hint.
Too True.
Throw their pouty obstructionist asses out in the street!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6tsv0d1NCg
GOP = crazy and baggers = more crazy.
FAUX news should be put to rest! or called something other than "news" - liars and perversioners of facts
Nope! ain't got that!
We've got the decline the Republicans have been planning since REAGAN!
M.Roget
"Hagel knows who he is...does McCain know anymore? The AZ senator seemed during the hearing to be a man comsumed by jealous rage and denial. Hagel was neither stumped nor intimidated by McCain, Graham, et al., but was carefully prepared not to give offense. Not to do so required a tremendous effort on his part, and I think you could see this in his face.
That the pain you saw in his face was not so personal as it was a deep embarrassment about the display of stupidity, and lack of decency and sick toadying to foreign influence on display by McCain, Graham and the like. Hagel knows that it is a danger to his country that such powerful people are so infected with this sickness."
There's nothing like a show of pique to say that "All arguments are exhausted but I want my own way anyhow!
Let 'em walk and keep going until they disappear over their own fiscal cliff, another fabrication by the "Grand Overstayed Punks" cabal of pretenders calling themselves a party.
It might also be the beginning of a light shining on their activity.
American voters wll be THROWING the GOP out on its ear on every level, starting this year.
The atrocities against labor, the middle class, and women, by the governors and legislators' Fascist March in the midwestern and southern states has been even more onerous than the despicable -and quite honestly *Cuckoo*- behavior in DC.
And there is no one as angry as a voter who has been as duped as were the astroturfed 2010 "tea Partiers." Presumably by now they see that the Boston Tea party - like WWII- was not against a country, or even a dictator or monarch, but against government as a corporation's corrupt profit Bag Man and Enforcer; in that historic case, The East Idia Tea Company's "Charter" by Elizabeth I. Mussolini had a word for government helping business to fleece the public, and rape the Commons. So did Bastiat. Those terms were: Fascism - and Plunder, respectively.
And don't argue with me on Keystone XL, or any policy advocating export of energy products from the USA. I can already tell you NO.
We're all screwed. Yet again.
Benghazi is their rallying cry? What happened to the Marine barracks in Lebanon? Note that that was under Reagan's watch. Neither of these bastards had a thing to say about that issue. Where are the weapons of mass destruction that McCain was so sure would be found in Iraq? How many innocents were lost in that foolhardy exercise in executive hubris?
McCain, Graham, Kyl, Imhofe, and the rest of that crew of paid-off bums should be arrested and tried for crimes against the American public.
.
The American people voted for President Obama because THEY TRUSTED THIS PRESIDENT TO MAKE THE RIGHT APPOINTMENT. So who the heck does Inhofe think he is to try to second guess the American people?
Why should common working people be shy on just so some fat cat can take ALL the money? We have little blood but after 1st march this too will be countable red cells I tank you Firozali A.Mulla DBA
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