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War Funding Would Break Dem Promises
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is about to lead her party into a major showdown over Iraq funding by violating two Democratic campaign pledges in one fell swoop.
To the critics, whether anti-war activists or House Republicans, Pelosi has made her feelings clear: Get over it.
This week's maneuvering over a $200 billion war spending bill has revealed Pelosi self-confidently playing what she believes - with increasing evidence - is a strong hand.
Strong enough that she is expected to break one promise - her 2006 pledge for a more open and inclusive committee process - by circumventing the powerful House Appropriations Committee on the Iraq bill.
And when the final Iraq bill reaches the president's desk, any troop withdrawal conditions are likely to be gone from the legislation. That is another 2006 pledge that has fallen by the wayside.
Pelosi's calculation, say political analysts, seems clear. Democrats are using the Iraq bill as leverage for billions of dollars in domestic spending priorities. As for anti-war activists, they seem to accept the speaker's logic: More than 40 previous Iraq votes have left Democrats maxed out in terms of legislative efforts to dictate an end to the war over a veto-wielding President Bush.
Most of all, the early signs are that there will not be a backlash from voters. Democratic victories in recent special elections - Don Cazayoux in Louisiana and Bill Foster in Illinois - suggest that individual candidates are not suffering from the low public approval ratings that are afflicting the Democratic Congress.
House Republicans, protesting the bypassing of the Appropriations Committee, promise floor theatrics, with numerous floor votes when the Iraq bill comes for a House vote.
Explaining the threatened tantrum, Jo Maney, spokeswoman for Republicans on the House Rules Committee, said: "You said you were going to do something and you didn't. They are using process for political objectives."
Democrats countered that Republicans wanted to slow down progress on the floor. "Voters are frustrated about Iraq, but they know Democrats have pushed to bring the war to a responsible end," said Pelosi spokesman Nadeam Elshami.
Some important voices in the anti-war movement, meanwhile, are not blaming Democratic leaders for the inability to move war policy despite the 2006 campaign promises.
"People appreciate the leadership of the party have pushed this issue and advanced this cause," said Tom Andrews, the head of Win Without War. "Are we frustrated? Yes. But do we understand the dynamics [of Congress]? Yes. We're doing everything we can."
Political analysts also say voters don't care about procedural power plays, and those who care about the war realize that Democrats have stymied filibusters and vetoes when they tried to force troop withdrawals.
"In general, the public associates the war with Republicans and the president - there doesn't seem to be any political fallout for Democrats," said Julian Zelizer, a political science professor at Princeton University. "This [election] is not about the will of the Democrats to stop this war. ... And Republicans can't focus on Democrats' abuse of power. Democrats have only been in power two years."
Even so, the next few weeks will be a tightrope walk for Democratic leaders as they negotiate what is essentially the last major bill of the year and the last big fight with the Bush administration.
First, Pelosi will have to soothe the egos of committee chairmen like Dave Obey (D-Wis.) and John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) if she bypasses the committee process and strong-arms a bill through the House.
In her campaign pamphlet in 2006, which is still posted on the speaker's website, Pelosi declared that "bills should be developed following full hearings and open subcommittee and committee markups, with appropriate referrals to other committees."
If that promise is not upheld, Republican strategists say the GOP will be justified in creating as much procedural havoc as possible over the next few days, and California Rep. Jerry Lewis, the top Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, has warned of GOP floor protests.
"The Democrat leaders of the House and Senate are attempting to jam a 200-plus-billion-dollar spending bill through the Congress, with absolutely no oversight or scrutiny by the vast majority of members, senators or their constituents," Lewis wrote Monday in a letter to Obey. "Never in my 30 years in Congress has there been such an abuse of the processes and rules of the House."
When Republicans ran the House, however, they frequently bypassed committee, engineered strict procedural rules and, most notably, once held a vote open for three hours on a landmark Medicare drug bill. Still, Lewis points out that the GOP never skipped committee on an Iraq funding bill.
Democratic leadership aides don't dispute the fact that the majority has been unable to keep this promise of open committee debate, yet they lay the blame on Republicans in the House who have crafted one poison pill after another to wreak procedural havoc on otherwise noncontroversial bills.
The final version of the Iraq bill - the one that reaches the president's desk - will inevitably fund the troops with no strings attached, aides from both parties admit. Sure, there will be a conscience-soothing vote on a troop withdrawal timetable, but Democrats acknowledge such provisions will yet again fail to make it to the final version.
"The troops will get what they need," said one Democratic aide.
In 2006, Democrats promised to "ensure 2006 is a year of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty ... with the responsible redeployment of U.S. forces."
And even though anti-war activists have been hard on Democrats for failing to live up to this campaign promise, they believe the blame will lie with Bush and congressional Republicans for the failure to move war policy.
"Voters need to know Democrats are fighting for an end to this war," said Nita Chaudhary, a top official at MoveOn.org, a leader in the anti-war movement. "Voters are smart enough to know who really stands in the way in terms of an end to the war."
© 2008 Politico.com
84 Comments so far
Show All"Voters are frustrated about Iraq, but they know Democrats have pushed to bring the war to a responsible end,"
"Voters need to know Democrats are fighting for an end to this war,"
Bwahahaha
Republicans are gangsters and Democrats are comedians.
Evidently they're all well-paid, comfortable lackies.
When I was a schoolboy, my very first impression of the two parties ran: the Republicans are the Assholes, the Democrats are the Idiots, and together they lead our way of life. As I've gotten older, my views have become much more complex, but these simple concentrate-impressions remain disturbingly true.
No. The Democrats have not done everything they can to end the war. For all the talk about Pelosi's brazenness, she hasn't refused to fund the war, and she hasn't allowed impeachment proceedings. This is all political maneuvering by spineless Democrats, no matter how it's re-portrayed, and no matter how sympathetic to this Congress some people will get as the end of the Bush residency nears.
What's especially interesting is that most of this money is borrowed. I can be especially generous with other people's money as well, it doesn't take a financial genius to screw up a budget. Pelosi is just another government employee with her hand in the war till, making money hand over fist....I wonder how much longer this insanity will continue before it all comes crashing down around them. Talk about a house of cards.
Off the Table....????
Wimps. All the Dems needs to do is not pass the war funding bill in the House. End of story. The bill to fund the war fails--doesn't go to the senate for a vote ( all money bills must originate in the House), the president doesn't veto since there is no bill to veto!
The Dems have always WANTED to fund this war. Go back to right after the 2006 elections and you can find Reid and Pelosi firmly promising that war funding would not be cut by this Congress.
They aren't spineless. In fact, you might say they are showing great political courage. In the face of the opposition of about 70% of the American people and damn near everyone in their party, they are making sure the money keeps flowing like big contributors want. A modern Democratic profile in courage.
Stilba, I don't know who to credit for this, but I recently came across another fitting name for our corrupt duopoly:
the Party of Cain vs. the Party of Judas
Pelosi was elected to be Bush's worst nightmare. What a pisser. No wonder our troops are coming home depressed, they're pawns, who cares about them ?
If you don't like this, here's where to do something about it.
http://cindyforcongress.com/
But then again the Pentagon, the corporate rulers, the corporate politicians who work for the corporate rulers--they all want this war, the oil, the control of the middle east. and on and on...
Restore democracy--end the rule of the ruling oligarchy!
As I posted on Politico:
Breaking promises doesn't matter anymore ---- this charade is thankfully over.
The Democratic Party is rightly recognized as part and parcel of the two-party 'Vichy' government, simply acting as a facade for the ruling-elite 'corporatist Empire'. The Democratic Party is fully exposed for the treason to democracy that it is, and for the pawn to Empire that it is.
Christopher Hitchens was certainly right in 2000 when commenting on Nader breaking the two-party duopoly of the 'corporatist Empire', when he said, "The Democratic Party is not so much dead as actually, visibly, palpably rotting on the slab."
The first level stupidity of the Democratic Party, involved in its own suicide, was Bill Clinton's DLC losing bet of trying to triangulate with corporatist fascism.
And the second level, self-inflicted coup de grace was provided by MoveOn.Org trying to triangulate, like a DLC-lite, against imperialist war without standing up to the 'corporatist Empire' behind these imperialist oil-wars abroad (and economic tyranny and looting at home).
As Hannah Arendt presciently warned decades ago about the Nazi Empire, the twin pillars of slavery to empire are that, "Empire abroad (always) entails tyranny at home."
The new third party of the working-class multitude that replaces the formerly progressive arm of the Democratic Party will do the heavy lifting/fighting to confront this empire --- not this dead Democratic Party which only offers the false 'hope' of a third candidate cloaked in the same corporatist Empire's dual party duopoly of deceit and control.
Get out of the box. There is only one political party in America. The Uncle Buck party. Which consists of the political whores in D.C. and the lobbyists who pimp the whores to corporate America. It all makes perfect sense when you look at it this way. Our empire is quickly going down the tubes and no change of the king will stop it.
Hoa binh
First of all, Win Without War is not a major "anti-war" organization, they are pawns of the Democratic Party as an adjunct to MoveOn.org. They are not going to say anything against the war funding now, because Democrats are in the leadership position.
Secondly, the true "anti-war" movement needs to make this an issue and support my campaign against Vichy-Pelosi.
Love
Cindy
www.CindyforCongress.org
(Thanks Samson)
from the article:
"Voters are smart enough to know who really stands in the way in terms of an end to the war."
show me.
If ever there was a time for the rise of third parties, it is now. There should be a third party convention, invite all alternative parties, Greens, Ron Paul Libertarians, Nader Independents, Progressives, etc. and let them hash out a plan and elect a candidate.
I know it could turn into a ruckus but so be it. The people have a common enemy, it's called their current government.
Nothing will happen until all members of the working class in America follow the example of the ILWU and walk out on strike against the war.
This kind of hit to their pocketbooks may force a change.
It's worth a try.
Democrats' words don't match up with their actions. It's all a facade with them. They're not exactly "spineless" as they are in agreement with and are complicit with the Republican agenda.
Pelosi, with her botoxed face and dyed hair is as phony as can be.
And you wonder why countries like Russia and Venezuela turn to elected strongmen, and Islamists are winning elections in the Middle East. Does this look like a functioning democracy to you? Two unwinnable wars, a collapsing economy and all these clowns can do is jockey for personal power. And the nature of our electoral system has essentially created a two-party duopoly, with no way to change it. No matter who you vote for, it seems the self-absorbed meglomaniacs always make it to the top, because that's where they want to be.
Pelosi has turned up the heat on the Washington cesspool as it boils the spoils of war in a corruption gurgling in the essence of evil as they do their dance of death.
Pardon me, but I don't get it?SOmeone is surprised the Democrats have no spinal, no moral core? This is a splendid example of why I voted for Nader three times and have NO GUILT. The Democrats are spineless corporate hacks (the Obama Christ included - look at the $3 he got from Wall Street), who have spent the last eight years cowering in a corner while BushCo sent out nation into wrack and ruin (the economy is not his fault - he just did nothing to prevent the collapse).
This is also a reason I sent Cindy Sheehan $25 for congressional campaign against Pelosi.
I'm a Leftist values voter. I vote my values not the party line. And I suspect the Democrats may well lose the Left values vote again.
Doom 'n Gloom, I like your descriptive phrases there. You're right on.
;)
Pelosi's calculation, say political analysts
Pelosi's calculation, say the informed public...
I wish the media would tell it like CD readers!
If you want change:
www.CindyforCongress.org
www.votenader.org
The sooner we dump the dems the better.
Hi Cindy! Thanks for the input. I fully support your efforts to unseat this monster. I even sent you money to do that. But I have a quick question....
Pelosi is being primaried by Shirley Golieb (sp) who is running on an impeach now campaign. I also fully support her efforts to kick Pelosi off the November ballot. Are you supporting this effort? What do you think about Golieb as the Dimwit candidate?
Thanks.
"Pelosi's calculation, say political analysts, seems clear. Democrats are using the Iraq bill as leverage for billions of dollars in domestic spending priorities."
Calculation? How do you calculate this? Is it:
("Billions of dollars in domestic spending") Divided by (The number of Deaths or Injuries to Soldiers and Iraqis between the time the bill is passed and the passage of the next 'dollars for occupation and pork' bill)?
How much for each life will we get?
Deran May 6th, 2008 12:49 pm ...Well said..my feelings exactly. Do you know for sure Nader will be on all the ballots?
Vichy-Pelosi ...love it.
A defeat of Pelosi at home would be highly symbolic and send a clear message to all of the presidents lackies. Please send some money to Sheehan's campaign. If Pelosi can go, then anybody can have their ass kicked out.
Vichy-Pelosi
This would be a good bumper-sticker
"Get over it."
Thanks, I needed that. I have voted Democratic for half a century - no more.
I'll deny food, water, air and votes to both political parties (PBOT) that's Pox Be Upon Them. Call me when the revolution starts as I'm out to spend my 'stimulus' check on grapeshot for my blunderbuss...
"The troops will get what they need," said one Democratic aide.
The generals will get what they need. Hang the generals, and the Democrats, and the fake anti-war orgs like Win [What, exactly?] Without War and MoveOn.org.
Michael Foley
Don't let a day go by without doing something concrete to replace your Congressperson.
Somebody posted the "bandanna movement" the other day. The idea was taken from ancient Rome. A senator suggested that all the slaves wear white arm bands and another said, "No, if we make them do that, they'll see how many of them there are and they may revolt."
The writer said everybody who is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore should wear a bandanna, hang one on their car, their mail box, etc. Perhaps if we see how many of us there are, we'll wake up and do something.
I wear a red one. Seems appropriate. Let's try to make this work. If you couldn't walk down the street or drive on the freeway without seeing a sea of bandannas, perhaps we'd wake up and do something!
It is worth a try!
It's obvious that Reid is gaga over Pelosi, fawning over her every chance he gets. Pelosi acts like the strutting prom queen, assuming every guy in the room wants her while she flirts with the class president. A pathetic bunch.
I'm putting a red bandanna on my truck antennae.
"A Democratic aide said, 'the troops will get what they need.'" WTF? They need to go home! They need treatment for their physical and mental wounds! They don't need more funding for this never-ending nightmare!
I am voting Green.
Democrats are so useless. We'll never get peace and sustainability with these corporate lackeys.
How do you stop a war?
Don't pay for it!
No, see, many are still clearly confused -
Liars cannot break promises. Because, you see, they're liars, which makes their promises, well, lies.
The ones who have the problem are those who believe promises made by liars. And we're not just talkin regular liars here, but some of history's most notorious, and most expensively bought-off, liars.
Leave the liars alone. They're just doing what they do. Instead, stop believing anything they say, and then act accordingly.
Pelosi and the dems are such miserable failed fools I went to the registration office and un-registered. I will vote no more for lying fools!!!
Cindy, a vote for a third party candidate for Prez would only help McSame keep the war goin.
Would your son like that no matter what your good intension?
I call them the shameless and the spineless.
It makes no difference who you vote for, the war will go on unimpeded (it's actually an occupation). This is why I have no guilt about voting for other parties and independents.
I believed Nancy Pelosi's lies back in 2006, was actually happy when the Dems won (much like I felt back in '92, which turned out to be the biggest ripoff ever!) - but NOW i want Cindy Sheehan to WIN!
Jim Glover, you shouldn't speak for Casey. That is hurtful to Cindy.
Casey's ability to speak for himself was taken away by the Republican and Democrat rush to war.
What bull ... both Obama and Hillary have PROMISED to keep the war going through 2012.
The only difference between Obillary and McCain is the rhetoric. There's damn little difference in policy. Both talk about trying to reduce the number of troops. Both promise to keep our troops in Iraq.
Face it, the Democrats are professional liars. They have to be, because they have to try to con the people who oppose this war into supporting their candidates that continue to support the war. So, they spread this constant lie that McCain is the evil bogeyman who must be defeated, when they have damn near exactly the same policies.
Go back and read the article that spawned these comments. The Democrats are shepparding through the Congress a bill to pay for the war. The Democratic leadership are the people making sure that this bill gets passed. In doing so, they are bypassing a chance to end the war right now. They don't have to pass anything, overcome any filibusters, nor override any vetoes. All they have to do is to refuse to fund the war. The Democrats have made it very, very, very, very plain that they won't do this. Thus they've made it very, very, very, very plain they won't end the war.
The sheer gall of the Democratic liars is amazing in that under the very same article that firmly announces that they support this war they then come out here and try to scare people into thinking that they have to vote Democrat to end it. Amazing the crap that comes out of that evil party these days.
link to AFSC-FCNL map of bases and other information:
http://www.fcnl.org/iraq/bases.htm
If you can do it, start planninn now on how to get to CA and help Cindy's campaign. Picture thousands of anti-war volunteers flooding the district in the weeks before the election.
One of the things that Cindy's campaign will need is 'momentum' towards the end. The left has an built-in attitude that says we will lose such races. This will be a major obstacle this campaign will need to overcome at the end of the campaign.
Lots of voters in the SF area may be very sympathetic to Ms. Sheehan's cause, and very upset with Ms. Pelosi's actions. But they will also be thinking that voting for Sheehan is a wasted vote. Even in a race where the Republican will probably finish third behind Sheehan and Pelosi. Remember, the Democrats will be out with a flood of lies and propaganda at the national level about how its a wasted vote if you don't support their pro-war candidates. Some of that will filter down to this race just by osmosis.
So, having thousand and thousands of volunteers in the streets of the district in the weeks building up to the election will be critical. That's what will deliver the message to the voters in the district that this campaign will win. When volunteers for Sheehan are constantly knocking on their doors. When ever street corners has volunteers out with signs supporting Sheehan, that is what will build momentum and a 'we-can-win' attitude amongst the voters in the district.
Build that attitude, and it can be a landslide for Ms. Sheehan in this race. Ms. Pelosi's policies are not going to be popular in this district. Thus, if it becomes clear in the weeks before the election that the Sheehan campaign is strong, then a lot of momentum will be going that way.
Think of the message that will be delivered if the sitting Speaker of the House is defeated in an election by an anti-war candidate. That's the political equivalent of the 'big-one'. That's the 'shot-heard-round-the-world'.
So, make plans now to go to California in Oct and the first week of Nov. Earlier if you can of course, but the key days are always the days before the election. That's always when there's never enough volunteers, when more people are always useful.
Take that picture of Pelosi, then picture a look of 'what the heck just happened?' on her face. You can make that so.
What's new? Dems are complicit. This war could not have been started by Bush without Dems' complicity, and could not drag on for so long without their continued support.
And yet the American Sheeple keep on cheering for Obama/Hillary......
This article obfuscates the reality of Palosi and where her power base and direction comes from, and her duplicity. She is out of the closet as a duplicitous unconscionable hawk with emotional ties by virtue of my grandchildren having a Jewish father who sang to her in Hebrew bring tears to her eyes. But, beyond that is the mole from the Clinton White House who most likely engineered her into the becoming House Speaker, here is a few hints from Wikipedia.:<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel"<
Emanuel was chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for the 2006 elections. After the Democratic Party regained control of the House, he was elected as the next chairman of the Democratic Caucus. He is the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House
His father, the Jerusalem-born Benjamin M. Emanuel, is a pediatrician and was a member of the Irgun, a Revisionist Zionist paramilitary organization in the 1940s.
Rahm "Emanuel was so angry at the president's enemies that he stood up at a celebratory dinner with colleagues from the campaign, grabbed a steak knife and began rattling off a list of betrayers, shouting 'Dead! ... Dead! ... Dead!' and plunging the knife into the table after every name."[4] His "take-no-prisoners attitude" earned him the nickname "Rahm-bo".[8
Emanuel's knowledge of the top donors in the country, and his rapport with potential donors within the Jewish community helped Clinton amass a then-unheard-of $72 million
So honestly, AIPAC and Rahm Emanuel got her there, and in his position of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he made sure that antiwar demoncrats didn't get a cent in the primaries. So, the new house majority of new democrats was not representative of public demands whatsoever, and it was a covert operation to continue the wars of aggression, and I hope this will be check-out by those that read this. I think it is treason for Palosi, and an achievement for the dual US-Israeli citizen Rahm Emanuel.
Hopefully Cindy Sheehan will make an issue of this treachery and hidden hand of the war machine and premeditated vicious war criminal in her imperial purple, the signatory of death that only the Emperor could ware at pain of death for anyone else. And that is the arrogance and disgusting real face of an otherwise beautiful woman, what a waste and national disgrace, and danger to the lives of millions in the Middle East.
Impeachment would have been a distraction from the very important business the congress has to do. Thanks to the fact that impeachment has been off the table congress has been able to......