Sunday Talk Show Recap April 3rd

1)      Dick Durbin (D-IL) wants US trips to start coming home from this summer as planned from Afghanistan.  Sounds nice.  Unfortunately, the only reason we are still in Afghanistan is to secure a presence to counter Islamic militants in Pakistan and prevent a nuclear powered Pakistan from becoming an Islamic anti-west state.
2)      Mike Rogers  (R-MI) Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee is spot on when he says a no-fly zone is necessary to prevent the slaughter of innocents by Gaddafi loyalists and he is equally spot on when he says we shouldn’t arm the rebels until we learn more about these guys (See Diggapedia entry on March 9th “As for arming the rebels, I refer to Butch Cassidy, as portrayed by Paul Newman, “Who are those guys?”  Do we know anything about these rebels?  What do they stand for?  Are they secular?  America’s foreign policy all too often relies on ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ theory and we saw how well that worked out for us when we armed Osama bin-laden and the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan against the Soviets.” ). 
3)      Rogers went on to say that Democrats and Republicans must stand together with the President with respect to our Libyan policy.  Well said Congressman.
4)      Don’t expect to see a government shutdown over the 2011 funding; the real battle looms over the 2012 budget which is to be submitted by Paul Ryan this week.  EJ Dionne and Doris Kearns Goodwin agree that Obama, who has been silent on the 2011 debate, must step out of the shadows a la Bill Clinton and attack Republican draconian cuts on education and services.
5)      Harry Reid discusses whether Congress will pass a resolution, because Karzai says we should, to condemn burning of Koran by a-hole Terry Jones in Florida that had lead to deaths during Afghan protests.  Congress needs to worry about budgets not worthless resolutions.  And Karzai should shut his corrupt pie hole.
6)      Lindsay Graham suddenly has found religion on spending curbs in Washington DC.  This Kabuki theater that we call Congress would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic.
7)      Graham goes onto criticize the President’s handling of the Libyan situation and says we should arm rebels and send cruise missiles into Tripoli.  How and how will that look like when we start hitting hospitals and the Arabs go on Al-Jazeera with video footage showing Tomahawk missile remnants that say made in the USA?
8)      Graham also wants to leave troops in Iraq for nation building.  This guy is a complete f-----g asshole.
9)      Former National Security Advisor General James Jones Jr., was blunt and honest with Christiane Amanpour by saying he doesn’t know who the Libyan opposition is and how to achieve regime change.  Fact is this happened so quickly and unlike old Westerns, things are rarely black and white and telling the good guys from the bad guys isn’t so easy.
10)   Jeff Sessions (R-AL) won’t give any credit to the President for recent job gains in the private sector.  Not surprising.

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