afternoon all

Iowa Democratic Party

Last week at Firebaggerlake:

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USA Today: President Obama announced a new military strategy on Thursday that will cut the Pentagon budget by hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade.

Speaking from the Pentagon, Obama said the plan is “smart, strategic” and sets priorities.

…. The new military strategy includes $487 billion in cuts over the next decade. An additional $500 billion in cuts could be coming if Congress follows through on plans for deeper reductions. The announcement comes weeks after the U.S. officially ended the Iraq War and after a decade of increased defense spending in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

More here

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President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta after the president spoke on the Defense Strategic Review at the Pentagon

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Washington Post

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Dana Milbank: If this is Mitt Romney’s idea of a victory rally, one shudders to think what would have happened if he had lost the Iowa caucuses. The day after his impossibly thin eight-vote victory …. he flew here for a town hall meeting at Manchester Central High School, where he was to bask in the endorsement of his 2008 arch rival, John McCain.

But the senator grimaced when he was introduced, and as Romney delivered his own stump speech, an increasingly impatient McCain pulled up his sleeve and checked his watch. McCain gave his endorsement address without mentioning Romney’s Iowa win until the end. “By the way, we forgot to congratulate him on his landslide victory last night,” he said, laughing. Romney ignored him.

….. Romney continued to wrestle with words when he took the stage … “What a, uh, big night we had last night, or what a big morning we had, uh, last morning, this morning, in, uh, Iowa,” he began…..

Full article here

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Randall Enos

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Ah, the Firebaggers just keep on embarrassing themselves …. from Firebaggerlake:

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Raw Story

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Washington Monthly: What If Obama Loses? … there’s a widespread assumption that extreme positions taken in the (GOP) primaries will fade in the general election as candidates “move to the center,” and will disappear entirely once the serious business of governing begins. Surely President Newt Gingrich would not get rid of child labor laws. Surely President Perry would not seek to eliminate three cabinet departments.

We don’t think that this year, with this GOP, those assumptions are warranted. And so we asked a distinguished group of reporters and scholars to think through the hitherto unthinkable: What if one of these people actually wins?

Full post here

Thanks BWD

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Chart of the Century:

Steve Benen (thanks Meta)

an early heads up – chat away

White House live

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Link

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Reuters: Israel’s defense minister extolled what he called Barack Obama’s resolve and risk-taking on Thursday, remarks likely to help the president’s re-election bid after the Pentagon beefed up warnings to Iran over its nuclear program.

….Citing Obama’s ideologically tinged 2009 speeches in Cairo and on the occasion of winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and this month’s U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, Barak said: “Ultimately you cannot deny he has a certain degree of consistency.”

“You may not like what he does (but) you discern a man who is capable and ready to undertake the fiercest of political risks to his survival, in order to make good on what he believes in,” said Barak, who met Obama in Washington last week.

“We are asked, sometimes, whether Obama is really a soft appeaser. To that, I say: ‘Go ask Osama bin Laden.'”

More here

morning ;-)

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Today: 12:45 President Obama visits the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center

Tomorrow: The President visits Pittsburgh to promote the American Jobs Act before flying to Orlando for campaign events

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Steve Benen: In a speech on Friday, Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney made an important vow: “As President …. I will reverse President Obama’s massive defense cuts. Time and again, we have seen that attempts to balance the budget by weakening our military only lead to a far higher price, not only in treasure, but in blood.”

…. Here are the Pentagon budgets over the last six years, with the red columns showing defense spending under Bush, and the blue columns showing defense spending under Obama:

I realize Romney can be a little slow on the uptake, but when the Pentagon gets more money – in some cases, even money it didn’t ask for – that’s not a “cut.” If Romney wants to be taken seriously on these issues, he should probably take the time to brush up on these pesky details.

Full post here

change ….

TPM: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday ordered the federal government to stop enforcing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” …. citing the government’s recent opposition to policies that discriminate based on sexuality.

…..In the decision, the panel also cited the Department of Justice’s decision in February to no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act because it is unconstitutional. “The President has also concluded that Section 3 of DOMA, as applied to legally married same-sex couples, fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional,” Attorney General Eric Holder wrote at the time.

The DOJ also filed a forceful brief last week in support of a female federal court employee who was suing the federal government for denying her access to equal benefits for her wife. In the brief, the DOJ acknowledged that “the federal government has played a significant and regrettable role in the history of discrimination against gay and lesbian individuals” and that DOMA “was motivated in substantial part by animus toward gay and lesbian individuals and their intimate relationships.”

In its decision Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit cited that brief. “In the context of the Defense of Marriage Act,” the Ninth Circuit wrote, “the United States has recently taken the position that classifications based on sexual orientation should be subjected to heightened scrutiny.”

“The circumstances and balance of hardships have changed,” the Ninth Circuit wrote, “and [the government] can no longer satisfy the demanding standard for issuance of a stay.”

Full post here

Thank you Loriah

reshuffle

President Barack Obama speaks as Leon Panetta, Army General David Petraeus, Marine General John Allen, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, listen during an event to announce national security personnel changes. The President has tapped current CIA Director Leon Panetta to succeed Robert Gates as the next Secretary of Defense, General David Petraeus to be the next CIA Director, Ryan Crocker to be the next U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, and General John Allen to succeed Petraeus as commander for ISAF and commander for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Text of remarks here

‘obama action against DOMA coming’

Washington Post (Jonathan Capehart): A well-placed and trusted source tells me that, any minute now, Attorney General Eric Holder will issue a statement announcing that it will no longer defend so-called Defense of Marriage Act lawsuits in court. The source believes DOJ had come to the conclusion that heightened scrutiny would apply, and that these cases cannot be defended in court. A 530d letter has been sent to Congress informing it that, if it wants to defend the statute, it is free to do so. A case is pending now that has a filing deadline of March 11.

This is huge, folks. By definitively stating that gay men and lesbians deserve heightened scrutiny, the Obama administration is declaring that there is no government interest in perpetuating the discrimination aggrieved parties are trying to redress.

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The Attorney General made the following statement today about the Department’s course of action in two lawsuits, Pedersen v. OPM and Windsor v. United States, challenging Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage for federal purposes as only between a man and a woman:

In the two years since this Administration took office, the Department of Justice has defended Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act on several occasions in federal court … After careful consideration, including a review of my recommendation, the President has concluded that given a number of factors, including a documented history of discrimination, classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to a more heightened standard of scrutiny. The President has also concluded that Section 3 of DOMA, as applied to legally married same-sex couples, fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional. Given that conclusion, the President has instructed the Department not to defend the statute in such cases. I fully concur with the President’s determination.

Thank you Hachikō! This is a seriously BFD!