Posted on 01/09/2020 5:09:15 AM PST by EyesOfTX
Tired of all this WINNING yet? – Gosh, it’s been like four trading days since we were able to celebrate the setting of new record highs on the various stock market indexes. Oh, hey, that’s because it has been all of four trading days since that happened. But on Wednesday that happened yet again, with both the NASDAQ and S&P 500 closing at record high levels. The Dow closed slightly below its all-time record due only to weakness at Boeing after one of its planes flown by Ukrainian Airlines was shot down shortly after taking off from Tehran. Dow’s futures, however, are pointing to a record-high opening later this morning.
WINNING, bigly.
Speaking of WINNING, when did Rand Paul and Mike Lee, Republican senators from Kentucky and Utah respectively, become such LOSERS? This question arose late Tuesday after these two emerged from a congressional briefing conducted by the Trump Administration’s military and national security team on the situation with Iran, whining about what they characterized as the “amateurish” nature of the briefing.
Watch as Senator Lee goes absurdly ballistic upon leaving the breifing:
Yashar Ali 🐘 ✔ @yashar This is a stunning statement from GOP Senator Mike Lee (Utah) who just left a classified intelligence briefing on the situation in Iran.
Embedded video 5,816 4:00 PM - Jan 8, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 1,588 people are talking about this This seems to be Lee’s main complaint: “They [the briefers] were asked repeatedly, what, if anything, would trigger the need for the Administration to come back to congress for a declaration of war or the authorization of the use of military force? At one point I think one of the briefers said something along the lines of ‘I’m sure we could think of something.’ But they struggled to identify anything….They were asked a number of hypotheticals about situations in which they might have to appropriately have to come to ask for authorization from congress. Not once did they say yes.”
Oh, ok. Senator James Lankford (R-OK) and several other Republicans present for the same briefing completely debunked Lee’s statement, but let’s deal with that in more detail in a bit.
Before we do that, listen to Sen. Paul’s complaint as aired with the despicable Wolf Blitzer at CNN:
Aaron Rupar ✔ @atrupar Here’s Rand Paul telling Wolf Blitzer that the intel the Trump admin cited to justify the Soleimani killing during today’s briefing didn’t go beyond “generalities” and “stuff you’d read in the newspaper”
Embedded video 6,501 5:53 PM - Jan 8, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy 2,443 people are talking about this “No specific information given to us of a specific attack, uh, generalities, stuff you read in a newspaper was given to us. I didn’t learn anything in the hearing that I hadn’t seen in a newspaper already, and none of it was overwhelming that ‘x’ was going to happen. I’m not saying that, uh – the world being rid of Soleimani is probably a good thing. But in the end, how we go about it and the ramifications of it are very important. I think it’s made it much more difficult to have engagement or any kind of diplomacy with Iran. I doubt they’ll be coming to the negotiating table anytime soon.”
This is what happens when you get libertarian ideologues pretending to be Republicans. It is frankly stunning that someone as normally savvy as Rand Paul could witness the cowardly standing down by the Iranian Mullahs that has taken place since the completely justified killing of one of the worlds most deadly Islamic terrorist leaders and be so naive as to think it makes them LESS likely to want to negotiate. He is his father’s son at the end of the day.
It is also truly despicable for Paul and Lee to complain about the Administration briefers dealing in generalities and refusing to speculate about what Lee refers to as “hypotheticals.” Oh, golly, why might that be their behavior in a room filled with seditious Democrats?
Obviously, any classified details the Administration officials might have revealed during this briefing would have ended up being air by Blitzer or someone else at CNN before the briefing had ended. Both Senators Paul and Lee know this reality full well.
And Lee also well knows that any concession by anyone in the Administration about any single hypothetical tossed at them would require President Trump to seek congressional approval would immediately become just another Democrat/media narrative that would attempt to tie the Administration’s hands against taking any further unilateral action whatsoever as it relates to Iran.
This was despicable, shameful behavior by two ostensible Republican senators who know better.
Watch as James Lankford – who no one can claim to be some flunky for President Trump – completely debunks Lee’s claims starting at the 1:22 mark:
“Yeah, it has been very interesting. I’ve seen some of my colleagues come out and make comments like that. In fact, one of my colleagues stepped out and said the whole group was doing a briefing with us and when the questions got hard that they left and they ran off. That was absolutely, positively false. That did not occur. They weren’t running away. We started at 2:30 and we finished at 4:00 because they had meetings in the White House.”
Enough. Have a good day.
That is all.
The briefers were clearly from DoD and/or the Intelligence Community.
Even worse: the briefers were cabinet members, heads of agencies, etc. Hopefully, next time they send some interns to brief these useless United States Senators.
Agreed.
Rand Paul is often a strong voice promoting President Trump’s policies and can be a dissident voice that enriches the conversation but his inability to see the big picture on Iran wasn’t helpful. Made him look loopy.
No surprise about Lee who is a very prideful, hypocritical man. He puts donor interests above the American people and is consistently working for K Street. Lee is one who gets worse the more I see of him.
Lee has been known to be an anti-Trumper from the beginning.
Mormon Mafia
It is also truly despicable for Paul and Lee to complain about the Administration briefers dealing in generalities and refusing to speculate about what Lee refers to as “hypotheticals.” Oh, golly, why might that be their behavior in a room filled with seditious Democrats?
Obviously, any classified details the Administration officials might have revealed during this briefing would have ended up being air by Blitzer or someone else at CNN before the briefing had ended. Both Senators Paul and Lee know this reality full well.
And Lee also well knows that any concession by anyone in the Administration about any single hypothetical tossed at them would require President Trump to seek congressional approval would immediately become just another Democrat/media narrative that would attempt to tie the Administration’s hands against taking any further unilateral action whatsoever as it relates to Iran.
Thanks David for spelling it out just one more time, but forgetting to apply the seditious moniker to some REPUBLICANS as well as democrats.
A grandstanding performance by a couple of Trump haters, that will be forgotten except on the day they hopefully face a primary election by someone a bit more comfortable with OUR PRESIDENT, and who can beat their pants off.
Mike Lee has been a Judas for a while now. He needs to be destroyed. However, that is difficult when Utah is obviously full of idiots.
Go figure: two ideologues, neither of whom understands ideology. Mike Lee’s faux steam-out-the-ears interviews were shamelessness on parade.
Where do we get these numbnuts?
Shut the hell up. Lee and Paul should be treated with nothing but disrespect, which is what they deserve. I am looking forward to the next “disrespectful” Trump tweet in their direction. May they choke on it!
I don’t think Rand Paul’s issue is with killing Solemani...it’s the bigger question about War Powers and where is the line when the President can act unilaterally or where Congress gets to say? Frankly, I’m glad there are those in Congress who question this. Congress has abdicated their role greatly in this and really has no one to blame but themselves. We are supportive of Trump’s actions, yes, but what if Trump wasn’t President? What if it was someone else (Hillary, a Bush, or some other Neocon) who wanted to take us into another nation building war costing billions or trillions and thousands of American lives with no end strategy? No thank you. Going to war is supposed to be debated by Congress...otherwise why do we put them there?
“They [the briefers] were asked repeatedly, what, if anything, would trigger the need for the Administration to come back to congress for a declaration of war or the authorization of the use of military force?”
Wait, I thought this was a military / intelligence briefing. Why would those briefers be prepared to opine upon constitutional law?
I don’t understand this reflexive bashing of Lee and Paul. What if, in fact, the DOD briefing was amateurish and vague and insufficient? Why should incompetence at the DOD get a pass?
Rand is at least a bit consistent, but still DEAD WRONG on this case. Rand got on Obama’s case because Rand believes that carry a blue passport (American) gives you the right to go to foreign countries and openly train, and teach others, for Jihad back in the US. And since his dad is still alive, there’s a bit of that too (think Lindsey Graham before and after McCain ‘left the Senate’).
Lee is just nuts. I guess his point is that if the leader of more terrorists than anyone else in the world has some symbolic government position, he should be allowed to continue running operations that include planting roadside bombs to kill Americans - perhaps unless we see him actually holding up a couple of TNT sticks, or something.
What neither of them seem to understand is that THEY are the reason we have to fight these irregular wars, as the terrorists know that we’ll play by the old rules (think WW2). Thankfully, Trump plays by different rules, the rules of the terrorists.
You are to be commended for withholding the common thread, and I’ll give you an Andy Biggs Rep. AZ, as a direct contrast when one thinks there is a common thread. In my humble opinion the four mentioned are a most uncommon four if one was into historical comparisons of We the People and not their Representatives. I can see where you might take issue with that statement considering Bennett, Hatch, etc. The three you named, act more like the party of the wheel chair bound Mr Reid and not Republicans.
So he’s using this as an opportunity to talk about something else?
I agree that Congress acquiesced way to much to the executive branch on war powers - many decades ago. That should be fixed.
Yes, more so with Rand Paul.
Did Lee vote for Trump? No. He has not earned the benefit of the doubt. Frankly, he should be grateful POTUS sent cabinet members to brief the useless United States Senate.
LDS ??
Yup, they represent three states that are Ground Zero for leftist infiltration from California.
I had forgotten. Not sure why Utah has so many never Trumper.
I had forgotten. Not sure why Utah has so many never Trumper.
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