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.
Paul=expected...Mike Lee, a surprise to be. Coming out if the never-Trumper closet?
There is no end of tiny little people who think they are somebody in that accursed sh!thole, and Mike Lee and Rand Paul are two of worst.
In fact, I am utterly disgusted with everyone in Washington not named Trump, and I don’t see any further need to retain or replace any of them.
I understand Paul’s schtick. I’m a Kentuckian and agree with a lot of his oddball positions, but he crossed a line on this one. There is a pretty strong Christian presence in our state. I’m one of them. I like Ecclesiastes. There is a time for war and a time for peace. I don’t think Rand gets that. Not that we went to war, but anyone that understands the concept of negotiation and risk, understands that a president has to sometimes risk war or you let the other side walk all over us.
What the president did was prudent. Frankly, it reminded me of what happened to Yamamoto. It’s nice to have an adult in the White House. They seem to be a rare commodity in DC.
“ Paul=expected...Mike Lee, a surprise to be. Coming out if the never-Trumper closet?”
*
Yeh, happens every time. Just when Republicans have things going their way they shoot themselves in the dick.
FOX News was still displaying handsome portraits of the dead terrorist leader three abreast across the TV screen yesterday evening. They may need extra time to assuage their grief.
Lee has done a complete 180 since he got to the Senate.
One would think he may still be miffed that his brother didn’t get SCOTUS consideration. But the more time passes, the more it seems he’s been infected by Romney the same way Ryan was.
Very odd...…...and very disappointing.
I wonder if we are about to see gas prices below $2 soon.
Way to go, Utah. /s
“Lee has done a complete 180 since he got to the Senate.”
... Compromised?
Partial revealing of highly classified information. They were in a SCIF and discussed thx e briefing with the media. Prosecutable?
Rand Paul sometimes aggravates but he is consistent with his views. Lee is puzzling but he is most likely a closet never Trumper now showing his true colors.
It was simply embarrassing, Lee totally unhinged.
Utah you can do better than NeverTrumpers Lee and Romney.
“...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?”
Having done these briefings MANY times myself, this is an entirely improper question for a member of Congress to ask of a briefer. The briefers were clearly from DoD and/or the Intelligence Community. That question is a matter of policy, NOT intelligence and is not the purview of the IC and those two assholes should know that.
Senators Paul and Lee, you make me want to puke! Who owns your votes?
“Mike Lee, a surprise to be. Coming out if the never-Trumper closet?”
Well, what does he have in common with Jeff Flake, Mitt Romney, and Harry Reid? There is a common thread there. And it isn’t just TDS.
Absolutely agree
Lee is a Never Trump cheap shot artist. Never forget he did not vote for POTUS and preferred HIllary Crimminal and her SCOTUS to POTUS, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. He knows POTUS can not afford an intra GOP food fight as we get into the meat of 2020 campaign season and feels free to take shots at Trump.
Both Lee and Rand are libertarians. They both want minimal state intervention in the lives of citizens. They are against the FISA court, intelligence agencies spying, and foreign wars.
While they should not have been as outspoken and drama queens, in principle there is a lot we and president agreeds with them on. There are going to be presidents after Trump, can we really trust the next Obama like president to do the right thing? There does needs to be some kind of lease on the president’s ability to start a war.
Someone needs to send them a couple of turbans and robes. Their little rant yesterday did more to help the Mullahs then the Russians do. It was disgusting.
Dumb and AntiAmerican
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