“We saw the ugly face of Islamic terrorism in my home state of Texas, in Garland where two jihadists came to commit murder. Thankfully one police officer helped them meet their virgins.”
— Sen. Ted Cruz, quoted by the Washington Post.
“We saw the ugly face of Islamic terrorism in my home state of Texas, in Garland where two jihadists came to commit murder. Thankfully one police officer helped them meet their virgins.”
— Sen. Ted Cruz, quoted by the Washington Post.
“A federal appeals court ruled the National Security Agency’s controversial collection of millions of Americans’ phone records isn’t authorized by the Patriot Act, as the Bush and Obama administrations have long maintained,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The ruling by the three-judge panel in New York comes at a delicate point in the national debate over government surveillance, as Section 215 of the Patriot Act is due to expire next month and lawmakers are haggling about whether to renew it, modify it, or let it die.”
“It’s OK to question your government. I do it on a regular basis. But the military is something else. Our military is quite trustworthy. The civilian leadership, you can always question that, but not the men and women in uniform.”
— Rick Perry, quoted by the Dallas Morning News, on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) questioning of Jade Helm 15 military training exercises.
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Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that “he’d been hearing concerns about Jade Helm 15, a domestic military training exercise that has become a fount of conspiracy theories, and that he wanted questions about it to be answered,” Bloomberg reports.
Said Cruz: “My office has reached out to the Pentagon to inquire about this exercise. We are assured it is a military training exercise. I have no reason to doubt those assurances, but I understand the reason for concern and uncertainty, because when the federal government has not demonstrated itself to be trustworthy in this administration, the natural consequence is that many citizens don’t trust what it is saying.”
“Republican presidential hopefuls, including two prominent critics of the Obama administration’s drone program, held their fire on Thursday after the White House disclosed strikes in which American citizens were killed, instead offering condolences and focusing on the continued threat posed by terror groups,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
First Read: “If you’ve been following American politics over the last six years, President Obama could sneeze, and it would produce a flurry of negative statements and reactions from his political opponents. That’s what makes yesterday’s silence — or backtracking — from Republican 2016 presidential candidates regarding the accidental drone killing of two hostages so striking.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) “introduced a bill Tuesday night to extend through 2020 a controversial surveillance authority under the Patriot Act,” the Washington Post reports.
The move comes as a bipartisan group of lawmakers in both chambers is preparing legislation to scale back the government’s spying powers under Section 215 of the Patriot Act. It puts McConnell and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the bill’s co-sponsor, squarely on the side of advocates of the National Security Agency’s continued ability to collect millions of Americans’ phone records each day in the hunt for clues of terrorist activity.”
Mike Huckabee (R) suggested that young Americans planning to join the military should wait until President Barack Obama leaves office to do so because his administration has an “open hostility toward the Christian faith,” the Huffington Post reports.
Said Huckabee: “I’d wait a couple of years until we get a new commander in chief that will once again believe ‘one nation under God,’ and believe that people of faith should be a vital part of the process of not only governing this country, but defending this country.”
House Speaker John Boehner said it will be “virtually impossible” for Congress to approve President Obama’s proposed authority for military force against Islamic State militants, the AP reports.
“In a meeting with a handful of reporters, the Republican leader said Obama’s proposal for new authority is stalled months after Obama requested a three-year authority that bans ‘enduring offensive combat operations’ for U.S. troops. Boehner said it made no sense for Congress to give the president less authority than he already has to combat Islamic extremists, who have captured parts of Iraq and Syria.”
“David Petraeus, the best-known military commander of his generation, has reached a plea deal with the Justice Department and admitted providing his highly classified journals to a mistress when he was the director of the C.I.A,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Petraeus has agreed to plead guilty to one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material, a misdemeanor. He is eligible for up to one year in prison but prosecutors will recommend two years of probation and a $40,000 fine.”
Politico: “The deal struck between Petraeus and the Justice Department would save Petraeus from the scrutiny of a public trial where details of his personal life and affair would be made public. He remains married to Holly Petraeus.”
Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald apologized for misstating that he had served in the military’s special forces, CBS News reports.
Said McDonald: “While I was in Los Angeles, engaging a homeless individual to determine his veteran status, I asked the man where he had served in the military. He responded that he had served in special forces. I incorrectly stated that I had been in special forces. That was inaccurate and I apologize to anyone that was offended by my misstatement.”
New York Times: “Now, six months after he sent the military back into combat to take on the terror group calling itself the Islamic State, Mr. Obama has acquiesced and sent a measure to Congress asking it to formally authorize what he has been doing all along. And now that they have gotten what they asked for, few in Congress seem all that enthusiastic about the prospect.”
“One side thinks the president’s request for war-making powers is too brazen and even reckless. The other side thinks it is too spineless and probably ineffectual.”
A new NBC News/Marist poll finds 54% to 32% support for Obama’s measure.
A new Fox News poll finds an overwhelming 73% of Americans don’t believe the Obama administration has a clear plan for defeating the Islamic State, up from 64% in September. Just 19% think the strategy is clear.
President Obama “asked Congress for new powers to wage military operations against the Islamic State militant group, kicking off a renewed national debate over the scope of wartime powers that should be afforded to the commander-in-chief,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The new powers must be approved by Congress, where a debate quickly began taking shape as both Democrats and Republicans voiced sharp concerns. Democrats advocated for stricter limitations on presidential war power, particularly on the use of ground troops; many Republicans said the president needs greater flexibility in the fight against the group in Syria and Iraq than Mr. Obama has proposed. The U.S. has the authority to keep fighting while Congress debates the proposal.”
The New York Times notes Obama “did something that few if any of his predecessors have done: He asked Congress to restrict the ability of the commander in chief to wage war against an overseas enemy.”
“The U.S. bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria has failed to slow the pace of foreign fighters flocking to join the Islamic State and other extremist groups, including at least 3,400 from Western nations among 20,000 from around the world, U.S. intelligence officials say in an updated estimate of a top terrorism concern,” the AP reports.
“You go to war with the president you’ve got, which would give us all pause.”
— Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), quoted by the New York Times, on President Obama seeking war powers to fight the Islamic State.
“White House chief of staff Denis McDonough suffered a slip of the tongue Sunday when he offered the first name of an American woman held hostage by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” Politico reports.
“Under the original plan, this was to be the State of the Union address in which President Obama would be able to go before the nation and declare that he had fulfilled his vow to end two overseas wars. Only the wars did not exactly cooperate,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Obama pulled American troops out of Iraq in 2011 and ordered all “combat forces” out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014. But before he could seize the mantle of peacemaker in Tuesday night’s speech, the rise of a terrorist group called the Islamic State prompted Mr. Obama to send forces back to Iraq, and security challenges in Afghanistan led him to leave a slightly larger residual force.”
The late Rep. C.W. Young (R-FL) kept $10,000 in his desk “because he believed the terrorists were going to attack the grid … and no one would be able to get to the banks,” his widow told Roll Call.
“Per a hand-written note her husband left for her, the money (theoretically seeded with $100 notes and $2 bills), was tucked into an envelope marked ‘Closing – Morning Dew’ — a cryptic reference to the home they sold in Arlington, Va., that the congressman apparently hoped would camouflage the loot from prying eyes.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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