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LLOYD AUSTIN HAS received US Senate confirmation to become the nation’s first black secretary of defence.
The 93-2 vote gave President Joe Biden his second Cabinet member.
Avril Haines was confirmed on Wednesday as the first woman to serve as director of national intelligence.
Biden is expected to win approval for others on his national security team in coming days, including Antony Blinken as secretary of state.
The president is looking for Austin to restore stability in the Pentagon, which went through two Senate-confirmed secretaries of defence and four who held the post on an interim basis during the Trump administration.
The only senators who voted against Austin were Republicans Mike Lee of Utah and Josh Hawley of Missouri.
Before heading to the Pentagon, Austin wrote on Twitter that he is especially proud to be the first black secretary of defence.
“Let’s get to work,” he wrote.
Austin’s confirmation was complicated by his status as a recently retired general.
He required a waiver of a legal prohibition on a military officer serving as secretary of defence within seven years of retirement.
Austin retired in 2016 after serving as the first black general to head US Central Command.
He was the first black vice chief of staff of the Army in 2012 and also served as director of the Joint Staff, a behind-the-scenes job that gave him an intimate view of the Pentagon’s inner workings.
The House and the Senate approved the waiver yesterday, clearing the way for the Senate confirmation vote.
Austin describes himself as the son of a postal worker and a homemaker from Thomasville, Georgia. He has promised to speak his mind to Congress and to Biden.
At his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Austin said he had not sought the nomination but was ready to lead the Pentagon without clinging to his military status and with full awareness that being a political appointee and Cabinet member requires “a different perspective and unique duties from a career in uniform”.
As vice president, Biden worked closely with Austin in 2010-11 to wind down US military involvement in Iraq while Austin was the top US commander in Baghdad.
American forces withdrew entirely, only to return in 2014 after the so-called Islamic State extremist group captured large swathes of Iraqi territory.
At Central Command, Austin was a key architect of the strategy to defeat IS in Iraq and Syria.
Biden said in December when he announced Austin as his nominee that he considered him “the person we need at this moment,” and that he trusts him to ensure civilian control of the military.
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Impossible to have an impartial debate on Irish media when Irish journalists must as a rule promote a liberal abortion regime. It’s an agenda driven by the NUJ.
@David Sinclair: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
@David Sinclair: are you that bored that you feel the need to be a total arse at this hour if night?
@Liberal Larry:
Don’t be a dick larry.
@David Sinclair: Answer his question.
@Michael Knight: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
Michael your last few comments about how Extreme some of the pro-life people are, and at the same time showing your extreme side in not excepting that other people have opposing views than yours. It’s going to get really nasty because of the people you have mentioned on the pro side and people like you on the pro choice. I hope you remember what ever way it goes there will be no winners.
@David Clarke: wrong
Women who have been denied choice in even circumstances where there is no possible way of he foetus surviving or in rape cases and more will finally be free from a fundamentalist and sinister regime that tortured them in order to appease the minority fringe Holy Joes. And if u think they are not sinister by all the twisted lies the anti choice side tell then tell me this,what business did they have interfering in the CIVIL marriage debate ,which of course had absolutely nothing to do with their very Catholic version of matrimony ??
@Osean Drive: eh many of us on the marraige equality side and liberals last time are on the life equality pro life side now . Marraige equality was a great and beautiful thing. The ending and destruction of a human life is hardly a good thing now is it? Its a human rights thing to protect human life not end it!
@Greg Kelly: it’s not human life until birth. Irish women are having abortions. Irish women are buying abortion pills on the internet and taking them unsupervised. We need to trust Irish women. Repeal the 8th
@Brian Madden: not human life until birth? Says who? The whole of the medical profession is in agreement that the fetus is human life. What DNA do you think the fetus has, alien? It’s this kind of ignorance and denial on the pro abortion side that is simply astounding.
@Brian Madden: try saying that her baby is not human inside to an expectant mother at 12 weeks and see how you get on!
From NHS at 12 weeks:
All the organs, muscles, limbs and bones are in place, and the sex organs are well developed. From now on, the baby has to grow and mature.
Your baby’s skeleton is made of tissue called cartilage and, around now, this starts to develop into hard bone.
@Greg Kelly: years later and Greggers is still copying & pasting that emotional bs …
can the human foetus survive at 12 weeks outside of the woman’s womb..
@Greg Kelly: at 12 weeks it’s 14grammes and 2 inches long. It is unable to survive in it own. Yes it can develop but at 12 weeks is like the size of a rolled up slice of ham.
@Brian Madden: “rolled up slice of ham” haha..
@Brian Madden: you were once that ‘slice of ham’. Way to dehumanise soon to be children.
@Sean @114: I was once a child that was wanted. If I wasn’t wanted I wouldn’t be here. I respect a woman’s choice. Ten Irish women are travelling to the UK for abortions today and many more (perhaps including school children) are going to open packages and take abortion pills bought on the internet. Abortion is here and it will continue. Most women are excited when finding out they are pregnant and a minority aren’t. Those women may continue with the pregnancy as the don’t want to have an abortion but some will chose abortion. That’s the way it is.
@Brian Madden: Abortions that are carried out on UK women before the 10th week -over 80% choose the medication abortion -but for the Irish women that procure the abortion before the 10th week -over 70% will choose the surgical procedure -and the reasons given for this -getting back home to family or for financial reasons..
@Brian Madden: it’s life or death. I don’t want a child is not a good enough reason for ending life. 80%+ of abortions in the US are for convenience reasons. You’re not suggesting that this a progressive move I presume. Dehumanising the life because of it’s development phase does not take away from the fact that this act is ending human life.
Glad to hear them say that. There’s nothing worse in a debate than an antsy host looking to cut off a speaker in the middle of their point.
@Rochelle: The so-called ‘Pro-Life’ representatives have been trained to interrupt anyone giving an opposing view, or should I say, facts. Maria Steen is a case in point, absolutely obnoxious and vile treatment of Catherine Noone on TV3 last week. Just shows money can’t buy you class.
So, name calling, personal insults and running down those who disagree with you is still the stock in trade of those who have no real argument against the real issue: what about the baby ? Waffling on about women’s choice and body integrity while never recognising the choice or integrity of the baby is the only response they have to a very straight forward life issue. Their “argument” will always be given prominence by the skewed editorial policy of most media organisations.k
No doubt mc loughlin is pro choice doesnt want truth to be told. He should resign or be sacked asap
@Jim Kenny: Resign for defending half of his constituents human rights? I hope you don’t have a daughter, niece or sister.
@Michael Knight: human life inside has no human right? Yet supreme court judges have just agreed that the only right said human life has is the right to life. The very thing that pro abortionists like yourself wish to take away via termination.
@Sean @114: The woman has a right to protect her life,yes ? An embryo has got no right whatsoever to get to the next developmental stage in the womb…
@baltimore lad: it has the right to life.
@Sean @114:how long does that right to life last ?
@baltimore lad: until it is born at present. Future should be until born or rape, FFA or mother’s life in danger.
Things like this make you understand why so many people are switching to a more free-flowing conversations online such as Joe Rogan’s podcast.
No specific time slots in which the speaker has to squeeze they’re best bits into, which in turn stops it from being a conversation in the first place.
@Michael Knight: If you want to see a map of the inter-changing fundamentalist family tree, go here, it’s at the bottom of the article http://bocktherobber.com/2013/06/what-exactly-is-the-iona-institute/
@Michael Knight: doesn’t Iona falsely attain charity status and so are in breach of law by their very existence? Why doesn’t this group of zealots pay its fair share in tax to the Irish state?
It will just leave the situation that any complaint will not be addressed until after the referendum is over, whatever the result. The BAI has done itself no favours by this. TV and radio stations can stuff panels with pro choice advocates if they wish, as RTÉ did last weekend, and pro life advocates can dominate discussions at will, ignoring any moderators calls for balance just by referencing this statement. It will make for a debate on the topic with much more acrimony and argument and much less clarity. A poor decision.
@Michael Knight: Same as Amnesty International Ireland so. n’est-ce pas?
@Osean Drive: They do, number of charitable acts by Iona since their foumdation = nil. Also, if these charlatans were operating in the UK they would be banned from calling themselves an ‘Institute’. Imstitute of what exactly?
RTÉ seem to wheel self-appointed moralists from IONA at every opportunity!
The fact that such guidelines are needed at all is a sad indictment of the standard of Irish journalism.
What do BAI expect? They should not have interfered in the first place – instead of promoting and rewarding fair, unbiased coverage, they have taken the chastise approach – why does every authority in Ireland, including government, use the stick approach?
http://www.thejournal.ie/broadcasting-coverage-referendum-1104064-Sep2013/
BAI have doomed Irish media and themselves in doing so.
It is long accepted that CNN represent democrat opinion, FOX republican – It is expected that the viewer decides which channel they wish to listen too depending on which view point they subscribe.
@Osean Drive: *and if not in breach,why
The Irish Media especially RTÉ are biased.
Anti Catholic
Anti Christian
Anti life of the unborn.
The corrupt Irish Media
Want
A. To destroy the Catholic Church
B to destroy Christianity in Ireland
C. To destroy Marriage
D. To slaughter innocent babies in their mothers wombs!
What a bunch of idiots!
Let’s clean that dirty swamp!
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