Dems Bow to Bush on Funds for War
WASHINGTON - In the standoff between President Bush and Democrats in Congress led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over funding the Iraq war, it was the Democrats who finally blinked Tuesday, at least for now.
In ceding ground, Pelosi of San Francisco and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada received scorn from many in their party’s anti-war base and grudging support from others. The top Democrats said that even though they swallowed a bill far weaker than they wanted — one with no requirement to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq — they had laid the foundation for further confrontations with Bush over the unpopular war. 
“I’m going to vote against it,” Rep. James Moran, D-Va., said on MSNBC after the leadership explained the deal to the House Democratic caucus. “It seems to me that Congress should exercise the power of the purse, reflecting the will of the people. I think the will of the people is that this war be brought to a conclusion.”
Pelosi and other top Democrats argued that they will gain even Republican support for that position in future showdowns with the president on the war, which has dragged into its fifth year, has cost more than $500 billion and has caused more than 3,400 U.S. military deaths.
The House Democratic leaders, who announced the deal in a grim-faced press conference Tuesday evening, maintained they had forced a stubborn president to accept benchmarks with potential repercussions in the fight over the bill to provide nearly $100 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30.
Not wanting to leave town for their weeklong Memorial Day break being accused of failing to support the troops fighting in Iraq, the frustrated Democrats dropped any withdrawal timeline from the final version of the bill worked out among House, Senate and White House negotiators. In the bill — expected to be released today — Democrats will drop readiness standards for units being deployed to Iraq, which were part of the first war spending bill approved by Congress but are opposed by the president.
Bush vetoed the first version of the spending bill on May 1, in large part because of language that called for an almost total withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by late 2008. Democrats, who hold narrow majorities in both houses of Congress, couldn’t come anywhere near to getting the two-thirds votes needed to override Bush’s veto.
The new version of the spending bill is likely to gain Republican votes while it loses those of anti-war Democrats in both houses. It is expected to include benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet on political reconciliation and war efforts in order to receive about $5.7 billion in U.S. economic and reconstruction aid. The language proposed by Sen. John Warner, R-Va., however, would allow the president to provide the money even if the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki fails to meet the performance goals.
A somber-looking Pelosi, a longtime opponent of the war, said she might not even vote for the war money when it comes to the House floor later this week.
“I’m not likely to vote for something that doesn’t have a timetable or a goal,” Pelosi said.
Still, she claimed a victory for those who oppose the war.
“It is a new direction in Iraq that the American people called for. The president is finally conceding he has to be accountable,” she said.
Asked if the new bill constitutes a defeat for the Democratic leadership, Reid said, “I don’t think there’s any way you can stretch what we’ve done in this supplemental as a defeat. Look how far we’ve come. … Nobody can say with any veracity that we haven’t made progress. Even with the Warner language, the president is conceding to 18 benchmarks and two reporting requirements.”
Pelosi’s top deputy, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said the three-month fight over war funding had changed the terms of the debate in Washington.
“Neither side can do something without the other. Democrats cannot adopt a policy without the president vetoing it … and the president cannot ignore the Congress as he did in the first six years” of his presidency, Hoyer said.
Democratic leaders still insisted on about $20 billion in nonwar domestic spending as part of the deal. That includes money for military and veterans’ health care, Hurricane Katrina relief, military base closure costs, drought aid for farmers and medical coverage for poor children. Also part of the deal is the first federal minimum wage hike in more than a decade.
Still, the leadership expects opposition from rank-and-file Democrats.
“I am looking at it closely right now,” said Rep. Mike Honda, D-San Jose, an anti-war Democrat who has voted with his leaders so far. “I want to know what the rationale is.”
Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., another strong anti-war voice who has stuck with Pelosi so far, also was doubtful. “I’m not for it. I’ve got to look at it carefully before I decide.”
But he said the Democratic effort has been valuable. “What Democrats have done so far is assert what needs to be done, and the president refused it, giving another demonstration of this administration’s irresponsibility,” Hinchey added.
Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, a leader of the House Out of Iraq Caucus who has never voted for any Iraq war money, said it was clear that passage of the new spending bill will depend on Republicans.
“I think they’re leaving it up to the Republicans to find their own water level. The president has prevailed at this point,” she added.
But Republican Rep. Ray LaHood of Illinois, one of 11 GOP House members who recently went to the White House to warn Bush that support for his war policy is weakening, said the new bill was a win for the president.
“This shows the power of the president’s bully pulpit. He would not blink, and they did. He took a firm stand and stuck to it,” LaHood said.
But he agreed that progress in Iraq must come quickly.
“There is very, very thin patience on the part of the American people,” he said.
Asked if the Democrats had lost, the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said: “There’s no cheering yet. We haven’t achieved the goal. But I’m optimistic we’ll achieve four months’ spending without a surrender date.”
Susan Shaer, co-chair of Win Without War, a coalition of more than a dozen groups, said when the fight is joined this fall on next year’s military spending bill, the atmosphere in Congress will be different from today.
“The more often any member of Congress goes home and hears from constituents, the more likely they are to return wanting to end this war,” Shaer said.
Bottom line on war spending bill
Congressional leaders have a tentative agreement to provide about $100 billion in spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of the federal fiscal year Sept. 30.
President Bush and his Republican allies won by:
- Forcing Congress to strip any U.S. troop withdrawal timetables from the bill.
- Being able to deploy troops without the rest and training rules pushed by the Democrats.
- Gaining the ability to waive any consequences for the Iraqi government’s failure to meet performance goals.
Democrats say they won these concessions:
- Setting war accountability measures for the first time on the White House, the Pentagon and the Iraqi government.
- Putting pressure on the president to show progress by September, when the bill to cover the costs of the war for next year reaches the House and Senate.
- Providing $20 billion for veterans’ and children’s health care, victims of Hurricane Katrina, military base closures and farm disaster programs.
- Gaining an increase in the federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour in three phases over 26 months.
© 2007 Hearst Communications Inc.
Why don’t the Dem leaders send the same or similar bills setting timetables for withdrawal of troops back to Bush?
Why don’t Dems agree to fund all non-combat operations for the year, everything from logistics and transport to healthcare and the VA, including funds for redeployment, but not for the war itself?
What’s the point of an opposition party if it doesn’t oppose on the biggest issues?
Where’s the peace, where’s the peace dividend, where’s the backbone?
Why can’t the Democrats say to Mr. Bush Jr. something along the lines of “If you want the money to destroy Iraq you have X amount of days, weeks, months whatever to “win” by your own definition (By the way what does “winning” mean in this context Mr. Bush Jr.) and if you are unable you won’t get the funding?” I don’t get how the Congress is agreeing to all of this? I bet the reason is that George is unable to compromise and Congres is just giving in to an obstinate person. Well George if you are not able to compromise with Congress, you should not be President of the United States. You just shouldn’t be ok?
Nancy “Impeachment is off the table” Pelosi strikes again.
She and Reid are following an agenda set by Democratic party political consultants who want to be sure that the war is going full blast in 2008 so they can run against it again. Like any morally bankrupt path, this failure of leadership will also backfire politically.
Well, gee. 70% of Americans want our troops out of Iraq as soon as is feasible. The majority of Iraqi’s want our troops out the their country as soon as possible. The majority of the rest of the world doesn’t think we should be in Iraq in the first place.
Indeed, the only people who overwhelmingly want our troops to stay in Iraq is Al Qaeda.
And yet — this is the best our ‘democracy’ can do? Scold Emperor Bush and then give him all the money he needs for his sure-to-accomplish-little escalation (aka ’surge’)? Fuck that.
Some democracy we have. In Nov 2006, the people spoke, and in May 2007, the Dems did … um … well, nothing of any significance.
Clearly the Bush Administration, at this point, is only interested in playing out the clock until Nov 2008, leaving this big stinking turd called the Unilateral Iraq War as a mess for their successor to clean up. We all know that Iraq will devolve into even more bloody sectarian mess for at least a while when U.S. troops are pulled out; the Bush Administration’s last remaining ‘bright idea’, I suppose, is to stave off that inevitable mess until the next president can be left holding that stinking bag.
The only bright side that I can see to our current predicament — not so bright for the thousands of Iraqi civilians and U.S. troops who are stuck in the middle of this mess for the time being, of course — is that the ongoing Iraq debacle will lead to more Republican losses, including loss of the White House, in the 2008 election.
That sounds good, but if all we get from the Dems is a ‘Republican Lite’ foreign policy, then I am getting less and less enthusiastic about that sorry excuse for a political party. The Green Party is starting to look better all the time.
If only we could establish Instant Runoff Voting across America — so that votes for third parties like the Greens aren’t simply wasted ’spoiler’ votes — maybe we could actually HAVE a viable multi-party system in the U.S. Right now, though, corporate America and their neo-con allies hold most of the cards. It’s hard to win at poker when the game is so rigged.
The people’s will is clearly not being represented by our government. If they have some good reasons why they want to continue this war they should give them. Collectively they have been wrong on just about every account.
Before the war I was able to determine from my internet connection that the reasons for going to war were total bullshit. Our congress people on the other hand were bamboozled by a bunch of weak lies. Hey congress people maybe you should be seeking other lines of work comensurate with your limited abilities. All the billions spent on our secret agencies is money thrown down the toilet. They all have conflicts of interest and are not honest. They have become dagerous liabilities.
Clearly we don’t have any significant representation in Washington. The bastards pretend to care what we think, but do that just to help it appear that the nation is a democracy.
Please support the only level headed, genuine “PeaceMonger” who’s running for president.
It appears that he’s the only hope that we have:
http://kucinich.us/
The people with vision and insight have always been the ones who have pushed for and made progress possible.
Don’t be dismayed, fight the good fight! To hell with all movements that use deception, violence, & greed to achieve their goals. They will eventually find their way into history books right next to the Nazis, KKK, and other enemies of the people.
The truth (about what’s going on)will set us free (from supporting the bastards in power of both parties).
The people with vision and insight have always been the ones who have pushed for and made progress possible.
Don’t be dismayed, fight the good fight! To hell with all movements that use deception, violence, & greed to achieve their goals. They will eventually find their way into history books right next to the Nazis, KKK, and other enemies of the people.
The truth (about what’s going on)will set us free
(from supporting disgusting tyrants of both parties who are in power).
At least we can see what’s going on. It’s great that a growing number of people are learning the truth about the USA and are standing up.
=====================
Any Democrats or Fans of Bill Clinton, please listen to a great professor’s (Robert Jensen) 8 min talk about the American Empire:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zbu1o6W4sI
The democrats in congress are a bunch of cowards with no starch in their breeches. If this situation was reversed and it was Clinton or another democratic president doing things that the republican majority in congress did not like, do you think they would cave in like these democratic “so called representatives of the people? I am done with the democratic party and damn sure will not vote republican, so until such times as something for real comes along I will bide my time.
Take to the Streets this Saturday!!!!
Democrats Prostrate Themselves Before Bush
Democrats Gutless Wonders
Democrats Betray Voters
Center and Progressive Democrats Should Form Third Party
The above might be better titles for the article.
In all future elections it looks like my ballots will be all writein candidates.
It appears that the Dempublicans REAL constituents are General Dymanics, Lockeheed Martin, Exxon-Mobile, Chevron, Haliburton etc, etc, etc….
I wonder how much it costs to have an entire caucus to roll over and play dead?
The DEMS have LOST MY SUPPORT FOREVER…anyone know of any good 3rd party or independant candidates?
While we progressives slash away at the Democratic leaders in a feeding frenzy of disgust, Republican Congressmen and Senators are marching to the microphones in lock-step to repeat their rubbish about keeping a “surrender date” out of the war spending bill.
Do you get it now?
Republicans win because they stay on message.
Let me put that another way…
Republicans win because they stay on message.
Still don’t understand? Perhaps this will explain…
Republicans win because they stay on message.
It’s time to quit whining and ask WHY Reid and Pelosi flinched.
Perhaps it’s because they don’t feel they can count on the progressive community to back them up when the NeoCon sh*t hits the corporate media fan.
At first I was as pissed off as everyone else. Then I waited to check my e-mail, to see if there was going to be any organized resistance to the Dems. None was forthcoming. Finally, I faithfully tuned in to Ray Taliaferro (www.kgoam810.com), m-f 4a.m.et-7am et, and he angrily defended Nancy…because we don’t know how this is going to work out! We haven’t seen the bill, there has been no vote, and there has been no ‘blank check’, YET. Since there have been proposed Amendments from flag burning to defense of marriage…I suggest a popular uprising to really hold our Gov’t responsible. We should Amend the Constitution to allow recalls!!!
http://www.kgoam810.com/complexshowdj.asp?DJID=3450
As the war expands to Iran, the Democrats look ever more like the Wilsonian Democrats of yesteryear raising the flags of war.
“The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.”
- Oscar Wilde
Switch2green
Look at the won-lost list at the end of the Chronicle article. And listen to what jjohnjj said above: Republicans win because they stay on message. Exactly.
Dems are so splintered because the message centrists and progressives have to deliver is about everything ELSE that needs to be done that hasn’t even been considered in the Bush years: economy, wages, health care, emergency care (Katrina disaster), even care for the Iraq veterans who are getting NO help now. It makes me cry to think that the conversation probably went something like this: “Do you want to end the war badly enough to sacrifice all these other goodies that we’re willing to give you?” “Yes, the answer is YES–but, if we can get these other issues on the table now, maybe we can have them AND bring an end to the war with a new bill in September?”
So the Dems do what is probably the long-term responsible thing and end up looking like idiots and sell-outs precisely so the Republicans can take pride in themselves by staying on message. The problem is that this is a cynical one-note message that no one out here wants to hear anymore, and maybe that is the backlash that is coming for those currently in power, an even greater backlash than the 2006 elections.
I am desperately disappointed, too, and, actually, a little amazed that the Dems haven’t figured out that forcing an end to the war NOW will give them enormous clout in the 2008 elections, where they would be able to roll out plans to deal with ALL THOSE OTHER ISSUES that so desperately need solving, as noted above, and including public education in that list.
We have a huge, raging sea of pent-up demand out here, far out beyond the Republican one-note message, and that’s what the Dems had better start hearing, that wave of need and anger about our own issues that is swelling this anti-war wave into tsunami proportions. We are tired of being reviled in the world for our stupidity. We want to take back our country, stop the medieval holy war, and help the Iraqis come to some peaceful compromise by diplomatic means. And, most importantly, we need to clean up our OWN country again. Take that as a message, Nancy Pelosi, and those of us out here who had hope in November may come back to your side!
www.PatriciaKokinos.com
The Democrats have just condemned hundreds more Americans and thousands more Iraqis to unnecessary deaths by allowing this war to continue.
“This is a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. The broadcasters of your area in voluntary cooperation with the Federal, State and local authorities have developed this system to keep you informed in the event of an emergency. If this had been an actual emergency, (optional — stations may mention the types of emergencies likely to occurr in their area) the Attention Signal you just heard would have been followed by official information, news or instructions. This station (optional — insert station call sign) serves the (operational area name) area. This concludes this test of the Emergency Broadcast System.”
No one has any excuse being surprised by this. This is what the Democrats always do and they’re not going to change. The Democrats are full partners in the American War System. Creating real alternatives is hard, the electoral system in the US is transparently rigged, but they’re there — the Progressive Party in Vermont, the Greens, etc.
I lost it over at Al Gore’s “Assault on Reason” had a rant of frustration, reading a Vice President’s ramblings.
I really am trying to understand where everybody here is coming from, so I’m trying to read careful and fast. There are new people with great new ideas. That’s what’s frustrating; I want more time.
What I wanted to say is Al Gore, should be offering a platform of solutions. It sounded like the same old rhetoric! We know what the problems are. So; what’s the plan Al?
I’ve been trying to vote third party since 1980! A party independent of the influence of special interest, for now anyway.
The problem always is how do you promote your candidate when MSM bounces them around like a flunky. How do you get past the MSM barrier?
Gandhi once said that he could imagine a situation where the moral condition of society has become so corrupt that the only place for an upright person is in jail.
Confucious once said that in an immoral society it would be shameful for someone to have status and wealth.
I’m beginning to feel that my lack of a criminal record is a badge of shame. Perhaps it’s time to wash away this shame….
Having betrayed all the people who depended upon them and their word, the Democrats have shown their true colors.
It is comical to read the goodies they say they picked up in this massacre.
I quit the Republican Party after 40 years of membership to help get this country on the right (no pun intended) track. I thought the Democrats had the momentum and the desire to do it. I failed to realize what a bunch of wimps they are and how useless they are to the people of the U.S. They have let Bush and Cheney take another vital step in the subjugation of the U.S. and the loss of all our rights.
This complete collapse by the Democrats makes them seem like they are willing to let more Americans and Iraqis die just to say, “I told you so.” By September there will have been more dead and wounded soldiers and civilians and the Democrats will say, “See, we knew this would happen.”
The only solution is complete withdrawal NOW.
Has anyone hypothesized about what the ultimate nature/structure of globalism will be?
The trend is for economic integration of countries with profoundly different political systems. This will tend to homogenize politics according to an authoritarian model as corporations curry favor with authoritarian governments to gain market access and favors a la Rupert Murdoch.
Since capital can move freely, the capitalists will seek to maximize profit by any means including bankrupting the US government and society. They’ll loot the US Treasury and run off to tax havens like Dubai a la Halliburton.
The US citizenry will be left helpless, voiceless and broken….
And now we get the Democrat spin. Five years of spin from the Republicans which was vomit. Now we have vomit from both sides of the aisle. Where is courage? Does anyone including the voters have the courage to save out Country?
This is so depressing. I try to give it a spin of my own looking for the smiley face but see nothing but corruption.
Don’t place your hopes in the Democrats, the dems. are as useless as tits on a boar.
the democrats as usual…
“full of sound and fury
signifying nothing”
A war by and for the corporations.
An immigration bill by and for the corporations.
Tax cuts by and for the corporations.
Another day older and deeper in debt!
The good news is that 43% or more are now registered as Independents. If Howdy Doody was running as an Independent in the 2008 election, he would probably win!
There is a strange irony that we have to trade what still seems like endless war and all its suffering for decent wages, healthcare for children and awareness for necessitating peace.
We each own a piece of the peace puzzle. Let’s work our magic and let it ripple out including awareness and participation in our political systems as they are and as we need them to be.
Nancy Pelosi is the RICHEST member of Congress and that’s saying something when you figure out how many of these swine are millionaires. To stand up with a straight face and say that voting against war funding will WEAKEN the Democrats is the height of hypocrisy. What a preposterous shill for the ruling class.
Well.. you can see how scared Bush is of the democrats. By gosh, he’s shaking in his boots. I can’t help but believe now that Bush somehow KNEW he was going to get his way. This is getting so strange.
Reid and Pelosi are doing exactly what they promised they would do. Make sure Bush isn’t impeached, and make sure the war stays funded. They both clearly said this is what they would do. They made the promise about no impeachment publicly months before the last election, and the promise not to cut funding to the war publicly the day after the election. This is no surprise.
What’s been all bs and smoke and mirrors and theater has been all the non-binding resolutions and votes on bills they knew weren’t going to pass that created the illusion the Democrats opposed the war. Fully funding this war has always been the aim of the Democratic leadership. They face the minor problem that only about 25% of the country still supports this policy, so they had to wrap it up in a lot of bs to make believe they opposed the war. But this was always their goal.
We’ll see more bs. Now that the war is fully funded in both the supplemental AND next year’s Pentagon appropriations that’s already passed the house, we’ll see another round of BS that can’t possibly change anything, but where the Democrats play make-believe like they haven’t supported this war in every funding bill every year since it began.
But do not forget this. What counts is what they do. Not what they say. And what really counts in any government is where the money goes. This money isn’t going to health care. It isn’t going to relief for families with outrageous heating bills from the winter. It isn’t going to education. It isn’t going to building infrastructure in this country. Our tax money is going to the other side of the world to pay for death, destruction, maiming, and torture.
With love and kisses from the Democrats.
Do NOT vote Democrat in 2008!
Don’t give me that garbage that Republicans win because they stay on message. The Republican message is all lies. It’s been repeated so many times and with so many threats and bribes, that the message seems credible. But it isn’t.
For the entire history of this country, the peace movement has stayed on message. Money for human needs, not for war! That’s our message. It’s the media that decides which message gets to the people, and that media is owned by the military-industrial complex.
It’s no surprise that Pelosi and Reid support the Bush Administration’s criminal wars in Iraq and elsewhere.
Bill Clinton had Democratic congressional support when he enforced the embargo against Iraq that killed more than 600,000 Iraqi children.
Pelosi, Reid and their friends couldn’t care less about the half million Iraqis they’ve helped kill since 2003, either.
Pathetic, and completely foreseeable.
The Dems may not have enough votes to beat a veto, but they COULD just say “no” to funding. Wouldn’t that take courage - to do what they were elected to do: get us out of Iraq!
I’ve signed a pledge to never, ever vote for anyone who goes along with a bill that does not include a deadline.
Perhaps it’s true that Kucinich - or Edwards - or Gore - cannot get the nomination nor win the presidency. But it is also true that no Dem will get elected without the support of Progressives. So, if the Dem Party wants to make me vote for someone else, then that’s THEIR choice.
I’ve held my nose and voted with “the best we can get” two too many times. Never, ever again.
The biggest reason that we are in this huge mess in that the Dems have absolutly no balls what-so-ever. The actions of the Bush administration comes as no suprise. After all they are the evil Republicans. That is what they do. The Dems are supposed to be our last line of defense against the mad men. If they are our only hope, then we truely have no hope. God help us as we spiral ever deeper into this black hole.
“Pelosi and other top Democrats argued that they will gain even Republican support for that position in future showdowns with the president on the war…”
And then Elvis Presley, JFK, The Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot will all appear at the Capitol Building and break out into a rendition of “You Make Me Feel Mighty Real”
The Democrats have demonstrated clearly that they are complicit in Bush’s illegal war against Iraq and that they will not take any sincere and meaningful action to end it. In fact, they have yet to keep any of the promises made in order to get themselves elected. It’s time for us to turn elsewhere for remedy of the nation’s ills, to abandon the current political parties and form one (or two or three) willing to act fearlessly, with honesty and compassion. The citizenry, if it cares at all, must act, and act now, if change is ever going to occur.
Vote out the incumbent. Set term limits for congressional members. Get rid of the ridiculous political aristocracy.
This may give people that want to make a difference a chance to make some changes. Something needs to change, because our system is broken.
So the Democrats don’t have the balls to represent the people. Really, what else is new. Just wondering when the people will have the balls to vote the right way. Wouldn’t be in this fucking mess currently if you all would have voted for Nader.
And really, I like Kucinich, but what I can’t figure out is WHY he stays with the Democratic party? Same goes for the other handful of Good Democrats.
I see a third party as having a platform promoting a simpler, downsized lifestyle, with a social safety net. I think we need a CCC type program to make improvements to our infrastructure. I believe people naturally; don’t want something for nothing. (I do)
If we leave Iraq, there will be consequences; like the price of oil going up in the future.
We should offer assistance for whatever Iraqi government emerges as long as human rights are observed.
State clearly to the world that we do not want to be a nation to be feared; but respected.
Whatever we do, folks, let’s not act surprised.
Fund the withdrawal.
Up until a few days ago I was advocating for voting for “the best we can get”, but I’m wavering. This funding bill took me to the edge and the lobbying and immigration “reforms” about pushed me over.
Speaking against a two-year wait before an elected official could join a lobbying firm, a rep from Massachusetts (!) whined that they would be taking away his livelihood. Boo-hoo; I guess his gov’t pension won’t cut it. With 50% of our reps going to lobbying firms expecting them to cut themselves off is a pipe-dream. Their argument is that running for office is so expensive they can’t pull the rug out from under themselves. That’s the whole point! We want the money out of the process - lobby money, union money, soft money - to take back our democracy from the super-rich and give “fringe” candidates a chance to win on their ideas, not their wallets.
Maybe I’ll wait and see who the Dems pick for ‘08, but I will not vote for Hillary.
Democrats and Bill Clinton fans might enjoy this 8 min recording of a recent talk by Robert Jensen (he’s like a young Howard Zinn/Noam Chomsky):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zbu1o6W4sI
If you think that the Republicans are the bad guys and the Democrats are the good guys, then you’re mistaken.
Of course the Democrats caved. Saying they didn’t, certainly doesn’t make it so.
John Edwards seemed to have the best advice: keep sending the same one back.
What is truly bizarre is the idea that Pelosi, one of the architects of the so-called agreement, now is saying she’ll vote against it!
I guess we can take serious notes of how all of them vote today.
Congressman Henry Waxman received many calls in both his DC and LA offices from his constituents asking that he vote AGAINST this bill. I’m told that he “listens” to his constituents….so we’ll see if it’s made any differencc this time around.//
###
With this bill…those idiots are now not only going to fund the Iraq war, but one for Iran as well. So what I suggest…is to stop funding/donating to the democratic party. They fund the wars, we don’t fund them, period. Tit for Tat. How many of you still donate to the democratic party, caving in, just as they do with the criminal in the White House that seems to hold this country as hostage. It has GOT to STOP somewhere!! Well, set an example you nillies! Stand firm and don’t give one cent, nor budge one inch till those idiot Dems do exactly what we voted them in to do….and THAT IS, to pull OUT of Iraq!!
pelosi is a filthy rich pig who is making money off this war too, why would she pull the plug?
aum:
Thanks for the Robert Jensen link. We need teachers like him.
Dems Bow To Bush?
More like “Dems Blow Bush, Seen Afterwards With Messy Faces.”
As this unjustifiable concession exemplifies, our political “system” suffers from a disconnect wherein the representatives who serve their communities in the “mode of a Republic” are too often eschewing their duty to voice the majority decision offered up by all citzens who directly elect them in the “mode of a Democracy.” Hence the American mode of governance grows more and more hegemonic - in service of the politically powerful - and moves away from anything like our sacred ideals: ‘Freedom’ and ‘Duty,’ that, in a conjunction overseen by ‘justice’ we call “Liberty.” The have’s wave the flag and feed the have-nots their ideals in big spoonfulls of media pap and rhetoric fashined to pronounce what the hearers want to hear.
The ‘Democracy’ we, allegedly, are bringing to Iraq is lethal, unremittingly evil, and non sequitur to anything vaguely like what our Constitution purports to sanction and enforce. Unspoken agendas - especially those that see human life as tangential and trivial to the real issues - do not merit tax payer support. The arrogance of representatives who patronisingly handle things with “insider knowledge” on the QT, pork-belly trade-offs, personal inclination, or anything other than the absolute standard of “majority rule” is corrupt and repulsive. Hollow threats of impeachment keep cropping up, but impeachment means little and is valuable only in putting the arrogant, covert leadership we have suffered most all of this already historically dreadful century in a place where criminal charges can be brought and prosecuted. Another one not to hold your breath for.
Maintaining this current weak, conciliatory performance on the part of Democratic Party “leadership” may quickly put that “once-for-the-people” party back into the role of a repository for aimless weak versions of the more commanding Reublicans. It’s not a bad deal. It helps convince those voters outside the beltway that that we really do have a two party system. The Republican leadership feigned apprehension when the Deomcrats took the majority in both houses; but they are shameless in their support of the people, the people who matter, that is: the players who can make threats, tell tales, and jerk their weaker versions tails around so that the genuine intent of a healthy democracy is eviscerated.
So we’ve got the folks we voted for still in their covering up the oil issues with the color of blood, American, Iraqi, human.
It’s not a new story. Melville pretty well defined the political norm for the balance of freedom and duty during wartime when he had Billy Budd utter, “And good-bye to you too, old Rights-of-Man.”
This is chickenshit. Are any of these professional representatives of the corporate interests aware of the deaths they have caused as they ‘Dance around Bush’s Maypole’? They should all be required explain their actions to the families of the kids they are killing as they dither. Shame!
They suck! Will never vote for a democrat again!
their is only one reason why democrats cannot vote against this bill, america’s economic survival depends on the billions spent on this war. If you stop funding militaro-industrial complexe, then the only productive industry of the country right now will collapse and the rest of the economy with it. Nobody in the elite wants that be they’re elephants or donkeys.
The sooner you let your economy collapse the quicker you will recover, one thing is for sure, tough times are just around the corner. No if but when.