D.C. Comics

I'll be as brief as possible, because I had a long night last night reporting on a local meeting . . ..

Congress passed in its infamous continuing resolution (CR)/omnibus bill, or "Cromnibus bill," and it was the cromnibus of the century.  It cuts money for aid to the poor while spending more money on the military - for planes the Air Force doesn't want - and allowing more money into the campaign finance system, and it also slashes the Environmental Protection Agency's budget.  Oh yeah, it also allows banks to take risks with other people's money on derivatives but with taxpayer guarantees for their losses.  All in the name of keeping the government open, which the White House wanted . . . at any cost.  The White House got it . . . at any cost.  To the rest of us.

This is all happening as Chuck Hagel becomes the third secretary of defense under President Obama to resign because the White House keeps trying to micromanage the Pentagon and make the defense secretary little more than a glorified errand boy.  Which is likely why Michelle Fluornoy, who could have been the first woman to head the Defense Department, refused the nomination - she doesn't want to be a glorified errand girl.  Good luck to Ashton Carter, who was chosen to succeed Hagel - he's going to need it.  But what will he do with those extra planes?    

That sound you hear in the background is progressives silently weeping.