Can't imagine why ANY GOP/TPer would be proud to have this on her/his resume ~ ~ Sooz

BREAKING: Senate Defeats Republican Filibuster Of Hagel Nomination
By Ben Armbruster on Feb 26, 2013 at 12:37 pm

The Senate on Tuesday voted to break the Republican-led filibuster of Chuck Hagel’s nomination to become the next Secretary of Defense, clearing the way for his confirmation.

Senate Republicans made history earlier this month by successfully filibustering a president’s Defense Secretary nominee for the first time in U.S. history.

But a number of Republicans who voted to uphold the filibuster — including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Lamar Alexander (R-NE), Roy Blunt (R-MO) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) — joined Democrats in breaking the filibuster on Tuesday. Overall, 18 Republicans voted for cloture, which ultimately passed by a vote of 71-27.

The neocons, later joined by Senate Republicans, spent two-and-a-half months trying to prevent Hagel’s nomination and eventual confirmation, mostly by promoting false claims and smears that Hagel is an anti-Semite, anti-Israel and pro-Iran, all of which with either debunked or lacked credibility to stick. Hagel’s detractors then turned to a kitchen-sink strategy by distorting his record and making wild claims, for example that Hagel accepted money from America’s enemies and that the former Republican senator has ties to, as it turns out, non-existant terror groups.

According to Senate rules, a final up-or-down vote on Hagel’s nomination will take place no later than 30 hours from today’s cloture vote. Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) said today that he hopes the vote will take place later on this afternoon.

Update: The final confirmation vote on Hagel is expected at 4:30 pm on Tuesday.

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/02/26/1639361/senate-cloture-hagel/

And how much does the Senate cost per day?

Done deal ~ several "live links" to more/corroborating info in the original ~ Sooz

BREAKING: Senate Confirms Chuck Hagel As The Next Secretary Of Defense
By Ben Armbruster on Feb 26, 2013 at 5:02 pm

The Senate on Tuesday voted to confirm Chuck Hagel to become the next Secretary of Defense, just hours after the upper chamber of Congress broke the Republican-led filibuster of Hagel’s nomination.

The final vote was 58-41. Four Republicans joined the Democrats in voting for Hagel: Sens. Mike Johanns (NE), Thad Cochran (MS), Richard Shelby (AL), and in a surprise move, Rand Paul (KY), who voted against cloture earlier today. Eighteen Republicans supported the cloture motion to bring about the up-or-down vote this afternoon.

Once sworn in, Hagel will most likely first face the looming budget crisis, particularly sequestration, which is set to kick in at the end of the week absent any deal. Hagel will also face other pressing issues like the coming drawdown in Afghanistan and the focus on Asia, none of which were debated much during the run-up to Hagel’s confirmation vote.

The Republicans and their neocon allies threw everything they could — however false, misleading, petty or shameless — at Hagel to try to prevent him from leading the Pentagon and TPM’s Josh Marshall may have stumbled across one of the main reasons why. “The real driver of this drama is that it signals a real closing of the door on the Bush era,” he wrote last week.

http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/02/26/1643071/senate-confirms-chuck-hagel/

I hope Hagel remembers those voting against him when they call to plead against their State's base closings.

i hope Hagel sends them facsimiles of his ass cheeks.

I watched this today and was so happy to see this confirmation.

The GOP/TP has again successfully protected its resume and reputation perfection for their near-lockstep childish lack of comprehension and reverence for bullying ~ they just refuse to get out of their own way ~ ~ Sooz

GOP challenges Chuck Hagel one last time
By Steve Benen - Wed Feb 27, 2013 8:29 AM EST

Defense Secretary-designate Chuck Hagel will take the oath of office later today, which will likely be a satisfying resolution to a difficult confirmation process. But before he's sworn in, Senate Republicans issued one last challenge to their former colleague.


This has to be one of the more amusing things I've heard from Senate Republicans in quite a while. In effect, the line from the GOP minority is, "We smeared Chuck Hagel, we questioned his patriotism, we questioned his loyalties, and we accused him without proof of having ties to America's enemies. Now that he's confirmed, we expect Hagel to start mending the relationship we destroyed on purpose as part of our partisan scorched-earth campaign."

Even by Republican standards, this is pretty nutty.

Stepping back, I'm still not altogether sure what the GOP strategy was on Hagel -- all the public saw was a Republican tantrum over President Obama nominating another Republican to his cabinet -- but the party's tactics are not without defenders.

Aaron Blake, for example, argued that the Republicans' anti-Hagel campaign may have come up short, but "it was worth it."


There's nothing especially wrong with this in terms of factual claims. Hagel was largely unknown to the public before the confirmation fight, and he appears to be slightly more controversial now. Of course, unless the Nebraska Republican intends to seek elected office again, polls like these are likely to be inconsequential.

And it's true that the Senate minority "served notice" that it'll fight against nominees they don't like, but I'm fairly certain Democrats knew that anyway, and it's unlikely to affect President Obama's nominating decisions in any way going forward.

After all, Hagel won. As partisan fights go, this was a brush-back pitch from the GOP that didn't come close to the batter.

So, ultimately, what was the point of Republicans launching a half-hearted war against Hagel? Steve M's take rings true:


http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/02/27/17116502-gop-challenges-chuck-hagel-one-last-time?lite