GOP Rep: I ‘Absolutely’ Voted To Cut Funding For Embassy Security
Posted by Michelle Moquin on October 21st, 2016
Good morning!
Ken: I really despise when people are stupid and write comments in all capitals as if that is going to make what they say the truth. It is people like you who are either 1) Stupid 2) Lazy because you can google the truth or 3) Racist. I really don’t know if you’re # 3 but you’re certainly #1 and if you’re not going to do some research to find the truth and promote that, then you are definitely #2.
For you and all of those who are still blaming Clinton for the killings of Ambassador Chris Stevens and 3 other Americans in Benghazi, let’s get the story straight once and for all. Just like Clinton who can barely talk about the issues because she has to constantly defend what is true and call out what is a lie, I too am exhausted of educating those that choose to be lazy and remain ignorant for whatever personal reasons they may have. (Could be you are #3 too.) It is just irresponsible.
But because I am dedicated to getting the truth out there the best way I know how, I push past my frustration, anger, and exhaustion, and do my research. Here it goes.
From Think Progress:
GOP Rep: I ‘Absolutely’ Voted To Cut Funding For Embassy Security
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) said today that he voted to cut funding for U.S. embassy security amid political attacks from Republicans that the Obama administration did not do enough to secure the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya that was attacked last month.
Republicans and their allies have been trying to politicize the attack — which killed four Americans, including the U.S. Ambassador to Libya — suggesting, without evidence, the Obama administration may have ignored intelligence that the attack was imminent, didn’t properly secure the Benghazi compound and is now trying to cover it up.
But hidden beneath the GOP campaign is the fact that House Republicans voted to cut nearly $300 million from the U.S. embassy security budget. When asked if he voted to cut the funds this morning on CNN, Chaffetz said, “Absolutely”:
O’BRIEN: Is it true that you voted to cut the funding for embassy security?
CHAFFETZ: Absolutely. Look, we have to make priorities and choices in this country. We have — think about this — 15,000 contractors in Iraq. We have more than 6,000 contractors, private army there for President Obama in Baghdad.
And we’re talking about can we get two dozen or so people into Libya to help protect our forces? When you’re in tough economic times, you have to make difficult choices how to prioritize this.
CNN has the clip:
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank breaks it all down:
For fiscal 2013, the GOP-controlled House proposed spending $1.934 billion for the State Department’s Worldwide Security Protection program — well below the $2.15 billion requested by the Obama administration. House Republicans cut the administration’s request for embassy security funding by $128 million in fiscal 2011 and $331 million in fiscal 2012. (Negotiations with the Democrat-controlled Senate restored about $88 million of the administration’s request.) Last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that Republicans’ proposed cuts to her department would be “detrimental to America’s national security” — a charge Republicans rejected.
[GOP vice presidential nominee Paul] Ryan, [Rep. Darrell] Issa and other House Republicans voted for an amendment in 2009 to cut $1.2 billion from State operations, including funds for 300 more diplomatic security positions. Under Ryan’s budget, non-defense discretionary spending, which includes State Department funding, would be slashed nearly 20 percent in 2014, which would translate to more than $400 million in additional cuts to embassy security.
“It’s also important to note,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said last week, “that the Republican appropriation in Congress gave the administration $300 million less than it asked for for the State Department, including funding for security.”
!!!!!
Obviously the republicans’ “priority” was not to protect. Now you know the men who were behind the cuts. VOTE THEM OUT.
OK – Are we done with this now? Can we move on and deal with the current issues at hand that are going to have an impact on our country?
John: Nice rant. I think that pretty much sums Trump up.
Carrie et al: I too thought for a few minutes that he was human but then remembered that his jokes were written with him in mind and then of course, it all went downhill. No surprise. As we all know from the life lesson spoken by Maya Angelo: “When people show you who they are, believe them.” And adding Oprah’s amendment…”…believe them the first time.”
It’s Friday…
Peace & Love & Good health.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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October 21st, 2016 at 10:58 am
For those of you voting by mail – please be aware that you need TWO STAMPS – two first class stamps on those envelopes. (They only say extra postage may be needed). Don’t let your vote get lost!
I think its pathetic we can’t provide free postage on the envelopes for voting. Seems like more voter suppression to me.
/SB
October 21st, 2016 at 9:26 pm
Yes there’s that budget cut…
and there’s also who knew what and when bc sending a plane or a fast security detail comes down to that knowledge. And clearly we won’t know who knew what when. I’m not blaming her exactly bc I firmly believe that there’s much bigger back story involved and she’s been left to hold that bag.
…though one does has to wonder how 4 people were left there regardless.
Luv, Zen Lill
October 22nd, 2016 at 7:17 am
Did you notice he said “absolutely,” as if being aggressively accretive about his disgusting behavior makes it okay. Another typical republican ploy.
Someone needs to say to him, then you don’t get to claim that the Obama administration didn’t do all they could to protect the embassy when you undermined those efforts.
October 22nd, 2016 at 7:29 am
Zen Lill#2, it is not that complicated. I worked in embassy security for more than 30 years. Everything takes money. So when you cut the budget, security suffers along with everything else.
If there is not enough to fully staff the lines and levels of security, you will have gaps. If nothing happens to test those gaps okay, but in a situation where, but for the lack of nearness or having the proper speedy transportation to get security to the location needed, security can not perform the what they were trained to respond to that type of emergency then you can most definitely expect what happened to happen.
We in security of embassies know what happened. We also know that the republicans know that Hilary can’t say to them in the public arena, ” you bastards have short staffed the security of all our embassies” lest they experience an unprecedented degree of attacks because then the world will know that American Embassies are not properly secured.
So she has to keep her mouth shut and pretend it was some tactic or strategy that was not used that caused the lost of life and the embassy.
The truth is the republicans have set up just about every embassy in those countries to be over run. They know it and are just waiting for it to happen so they can blame the democrats. It is deplorable, pun intended.
October 22nd, 2016 at 7:36 am
Michelle, it’s your blog because you ALWAYS nail it the first time. My husband tried to give trump an excuse for his atrocious behavior at the dinner by saying “it was his writers.”
I said what you said, they wrote what they knew he stood for. You write creepy shit for a creep, or as you so astutely put it, “his jokes were written with him in mind…”
I have been a prosecuting attorney for 13 years. You know how to target the issue and frame it in a manner that is both succinct and poignant.
October 22nd, 2016 at 7:36 am
Yes, Michelle, we should definitely believe the bastards the first time.
October 22nd, 2016 at 7:43 am
Hafa adai:
Those of you from the Free States need to get this down.
Changes to public housing programs prioritize US citizens
Neil Pang | Post News Staff 21 hrs ago (0)
Changes to the U.S. Housing Act of 1937, which became effective earlier this year, include a provision only applicable to Guam that grants U.S. citizens and nationals preferential access to financial assistance through the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher and public housing programs over non-citizens covered by Section 141 of the Compacts of Free Association.
Section 141 established provisions for citizens of the freely associated states to freely enter, work and establish non-immigrant residency.
The changes come as a result of the passage of the Housing Opportunity Through Modernization Act of 2016 that was enacted as Public Law 114-201 by President Barack Obama in July.
The law introduces a number of changes to currently established law, but while most of them will not become effective until the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issues applicable notices and regulations, five of the proposed changes, including a change that applies only to Guam, became effective immediately following the July 29 enactment.
Section 113, titled “Preference for United States Citizens or Nationals,” stipulates provisions that give priority to U.S. citizens and nationals when considering the order in which applicants will be granted admission to public housing programs including the Section 8 housing voucher program.
“(Section 113) only applies to Guam and establishes a preference in receiving financial assistance (e.g., admission to public housing and the housing voucher program) for any citizen or national of the United States over aliens covered by section 141 of the Compacts of Free Association between the United States and the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and Palau,” according to a statement from Lourdes Ramirez, principal assistant deputy director of HUD.
Norma San Nicolas, the Section 8 administrator for the Guam Housing and Urban Renewal Authority, said that because it only impacts those applying for assistance, it will not affect anyone currently on the Section 8 waiting list because GHURA has already selected and is processing the remaining 200 families still awaiting housing assistance.
“It will however, impact those on the next list, which we will be establishing in January 2017,” San Nicolas said in an email.
She added that she was currently working with HUD officials to get guidance on how the law should be implemented in order to avoid any fair housing issues.
GHURA Mike Duenas, executive director of GHURA told the Post that Section 113 would not affect any real change for Guam and added that COFA citizens would still be eligible to participate in the Section 8 and public housing programs.
“When we close our waitlist, U.S. citizens and nationals move to the head of the line,” Duenas said. “After U.S. citizens and nationals have been housed we then begin housing COFA citizens on the waitlist. If we have a two-year waitlist, we will be housing U.S. citizens and nationals during the first 12 to 16 months. We then end up housing COFA citizens until the waitlist is exhausted and we cannot accept new applications until we have exhausted the (previous) waitlist.”
Duenas said that the bigger priority is to increase the overall size of the budget allotted to public housing and the Section 8 program because Section 113 merely dictates who gets served first after the line has been created.
Limited resources
Section 113 was included at the behest of Guam Delegate Madeleine Bordallo, who is running for re-election, to manage the limited resources available to GHURA for housing assistance.
According to Adam Carbullido, Bordallo’s communication director, the provision was originally requested by GHURA in 2012 following guidance from HUD that GHURA’s past practice of prioritizing U.S. citizens over non-citizens was incompatible with federal law.
“While Congresswoman Bordallo fully supports providing housing assistance to non-citizens, she does believe that U.S. citizens should have a priority when they apply,” Carbullido said in an email.
He added that Bordallo has continued to work with her colleagues and GHURA to appropriately manage the limited resources available to the public housing programs.
===========================
I know many of us have friends who are not citizens of the US. Please make sure you tell them about this new change in the law.
Thanks Michelle for allowing me to use one of the most read blogs on Guam to disseminate these notices.
October 22nd, 2016 at 7:59 am
Michelle, your comment to Ken is generous. He, like most of trump’s basket of deplorables are racist masquerading as populists. I think Alycedale put that bullshit to rest very nicely the other day.
For those of you not too sure, here is a sample of the sentiments of those deplorables.
Emmett Till memorial sign scarred by bullet holes. Remember he was a 14 year old boy accused of looking to long at a white woman when he was taken and lynched. http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/22/us/mississippi-emmett-till-sign-bullets/
As Alycedale said the change trump’s deplorables want is to bring those days back.
October 22nd, 2016 at 8:34 am
Michelle, we have OTW, LSOS, DT(donald trump) why not jus reverse those initials and add TD for Trump’s Deplorables.
October 22nd, 2016 at 8:40 am
“It is extremely distasteful that some ill-informed Democrat staff are using the instability and violence abroad to score cheap political hits,” said Jennifer Hing, communications director for the House Appropriations Committee.
Are you kidding me? All the GOP has done is use this situation to score cheap political points.
October 22nd, 2016 at 8:43 am
This is all because bush lied the country into going to war with Iraq, and the price will continue to be paid in US treasure and blood for years, if not decades to come.
October 22nd, 2016 at 8:46 am
Perry, thanks fr the explanation. Since everyone has been expecting some kind of explanation from HRC, why wouldn’t this info in the article explain it? This isn’t the first time this is posted, look at the years in article excerpts and it was obviously public info (also alerting those who may want to strike). Are you inferring that people (possibly HRC) knew and they just said, ‘don’t send anyone we don’t have the money to pay for that right now’? If That’s the case, that’s just pathetic and since it is public knowledge as it must be now, why not call them out on this glaring error (or maybe she and Obama have behind closed doors?) …
~ ZL
October 22nd, 2016 at 8:46 am
Republicans are always blaming Obama for the fiscal cliff. What they fail to mention is that they voted for it.
Ryan is such a coward and a liar. The same guy that voted for everything Bush. He knew that it would increase the deficit and the national debt. He lacked the courage to stand up to Bush, Cheny, and of course Tom Delay. He knew Delay would cut his gonads off if he voted against them.
Other profiles in courage, like Cantor, Bonehead, did likewise. Cantor’s wife’s bank got 267 million in Tarp 1 funds, not one penny has been paid back. You repukes write to Cantor and demand our money back. We can help reduce the national debt with that money. You won’t.
October 22nd, 2016 at 8:52 am
Zen Lill#12, you would be surprised how many people don’t know this. Hell, in this country more than half the voters don’t know. The republicans count on that when they take these stands.
As for our enemies abroad, having an Official in charge say it is tantamount to aiding and abetting the enemy. I know it is seems ridiculous, but it is what it is.
Moral is everything when you have people serving abroad. That would be destroyed if it is officially stated that “protection” of personal abroad is a budgetary item.
October 22nd, 2016 at 8:55 am
JP#13, You liberals should give back your gubmint checks too!
That would help reduce the national debt.
If you really won’t to reduce the debt,
Spay and Neuter the Liberals!
October 22nd, 2016 at 9:02 am
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