The nation’s top military officers formed a solid front in the Senate on Tuesday and called on members of Congress to stop passing temporary spending measures and avert the automatic budget cut known as sequester.

“We should resist kicking this can further down the road,” said Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a rare hearing featuring nearly all of the Joint Chiefs, who lined up before the Senate Armed Service Committee and demanded budget clarity in the name of national security and military readiness.

Many Republicans are calling on Congress to keep the sequesteration threat on the table to pressure the White House into accepting additional non-defense federal spending cuts. But military leaders long ago lost their patience for the sequester threat. Republicans last spring got into trouble when Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) claimed the generals did not really agree with President Obama's defense budget despite their testimony to the contrary. The Joint Chiefs publicly pushed back, arguing they stood by their testimony, and Ryan walked back his allegation. But the message carried through the presidential election campaign — the generals were not backing conservatives seeking to keep defense spending at historically high levels.

Ah, so it IS possible to get Paul Ryan to give up him lies. Brilliant.