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House Pressured to Pass Stripped-Down War Measure
The Senate rejected the House measure, passed earlier this month, by a 46-51 vote that fell short of a majority, much less the 60 votes required to defeat a filibuster.
Instead, the Senate on Thursday stripped out the $20 billion in House add-ons and returned to the House an almost $60 billion measure passed by a bipartisan vote in May. The Senate measure is limited chiefly to war funding, foreign aid, medical care for Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange, and replenishing almost empty disaster aid accounts.
It would bring the amount of money appropriated for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan above $1 trillion.
Eleven Senate Democrats and Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut voted against the House version of the bill. Not a single Republican supported it.
The moves repel a long-shot bid by House Democrats earlier this month to resurrect their faltering jobs agenda with $10 billion in grants to school districts to avoid teacher layoffs, $5 billion for Pell Grants to low-income college students, $1 billion for a summer jobs program and $700 million to improve security along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Senate measure is likely to be grudgingly accepted by House Democrats next week despite opposition from liberals who oppose the war in Afghanistan, which many of them view as unwinnable.
A spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wouldn't comment on whether the House will simply approve the Senate measure and send it on to Obama for his signature.
But the pressure to do so is intense, especially after Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned lawmakers this week that unless the measure is enacted into law before Congress leaves for its August recess, the Pentagon could have to furlough thousands of employees.
The House bill also attracted a White House veto threat over $800 million in cuts to education programs to help pay for the additional domestic spending under a "pay-as-you-go" culture that the administration itself advocates.
The Senate measure blends about $30 billion for Obama's 30,000-troop surge in Afghanistan with more than $5 billion to replenish disaster aid accounts, as well as funding for Haitian earthquake relief, and a down payment on aid to flood-drenched Tennessee and Rhode Island.
The measure contains $13 billion in benefits for Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange, but does not provide more than $4 billion requested by the administration to finance settlements of long-standing lawsuits against the government, including $1.2 billion to remedy discrimination by the Agriculture Department against black farmers and $3.4 billion for mismanaging Indian trust funds.
The measure contains $1.1 billion for mine-resistant vehicles, $657 million for military bases in Afghanistan and $6.2 billion in foreign aid for Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Haiti.
58 Comments so far
Show AllDid anyone notice that they allocate $30 billion for the troop surge, but the Pentagon says that without the money they will have to furlough employees. Does this show where the money is really going?
Get rid of the filibuster and the senate (er, House of Lords)and chase the Wall Streeters out of the White House
Until then MAKE THEM FILIBUSTER!. Just threatening a filibuster takes no effort at all. MAKE them talk non stop, make them work! If they had to actually filibuster everything time the threatened, they would never have stopped talking in the Senate since Obama took office.
Of course that is what would happen if we REALLY had a functioning two party system, instead of this ridiculous charade.
Make them filibuster. Film it, it will make great ads for November. At least Nero fiddled dammit!
But the pressure to do so is intense, especially after Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned lawmakers this week that unless the measure is enacted into law before Congress leaves for its August recess, the Pentagon could have to furlough thousands of employees.
The Senators think nothing of the millions of the unemployed who lost benefits for a couple of months, but God forbid that Pentagon employees should be furloughed.
I'm so sick of these simpering, weakling Democrats, who are led by the three stooges: Barry, Harry and Nancy. They caved in once again to the Republican-Fascist elements of the government claiming they had no choice because of a filibuster threat.
These cowards (the Democratic wing of the Amerikkkan Fascist Party) are supposedly in charge. So why don't they simply change the rules to prevent filibusters if the really want to affect change? On the other hand, let the fascists who call themselves Republicans filibuster against education and other social programs that the vast majority of voters want.
And what is this nonsense about "pay as you go"? The only things under that rubric are social programs. Certainly, these idiotic and endless wars don't follow any pay-as-you-go plan. The off-budget programs for wars and tax cuts for the rich would be described as Enron economics by anyone with the slightest notion of proper accounting procedures.
["The off-budget programs for wars and tax cuts for the rich would be described as Enron economics by anyone with the slightest notion of proper accounting procedures."]
The "off-budget programs" are funded by China and other countries buying US securities, especially bonds. This means that had the "world financial system" completely collapsed in 2008 when it was threatening to do so (and indeed it did partially collapse at the time) the US would have been forced into real deficit control and specifically would have been forced to heavily cut the “off budget programs”.
The US elites would have been forced to reallocate away from empire building because money would be completely inadequate to fund empire following a world financial system collapse. So then some domestic money would have been more or less automatically transferred from (or reallocated from) empire building to the domestic economy. There is much more bang for the buck available from investing in a domestic economy as compared with empire building (unless maybe if you are Genghis Khan, laugh out loud.) In the wake of a financial system collapse, the highest real return on investment would become a necessity.
This reallocation would in turn have eventually led to some improvement in US economic prospects, with the outlook for the civilian labor market sooner or later dramatically improved from what it is now, for example.
Whereas the way it is now, many sectors of the domestic, civilian US economy are paralyzed in extremely low, zero, or negative growth modes. You have to keep in mind that it takes serious, deliberate economic mismanagement (by wealthy elites) to make an economy perform as badly as the US economy is now. The normal or default growth rate of an economy that is not intentionally mismanaged is at least 4 percent even for a mature economy whose standard of living is high by world standards.
The US could have maintained this minimal growth had it not become a rabid far right country where all the resources go the rich who in turn invest mostly in China and other low wage countries.
People don’t naturally want to sit around doing nothing and investing little or nothing. Yet this is what economically speaking Americans are doing these days: not much of anything. They are just sitting around watching the old river flow I guess.
In other words and in summary, what unemployed civilians need in America is a world financial system collapse, something which despite all the bailouts is still most likely in the offing, the problem being that it will take an unknown number of years (or decades) to get here.
=======
It’s always nice to take a break and get real at Common Dreams.
It's all part of the elaborate SCAM!
Democrats have the power to stop all of it, but they won't.
People are responding to all of this as if the Republicans had won the White House and the two chambers of the House!
Hello? Democrats are in power! They can pass any damn thing they want.
"$5 billion to replenish disaster aid accounts, as well as funding for Haitian earthquake relief"
Somehow I couldn't help reading this as "Haliburton earthquake relief." That's where the money for relief is going these days. If we don't replenish the accounts, the private contract relief agencies will just pack up and leave the disaster to the no-longer functioning government.
It goes without saying, but a nation with these kind of priorities cannot be a world power for very long. The powers behind the throne are siphoning off our national resources through exorbitant military expenditures that only weaken our standing in the world, leaving behind an empty vacumn of a nation.
Something is rotten in our nation's capital, and the stench is overpowering.
I agree. History is littered with the corpses of war savvy empires.
Phew! We sure can smell it in Wisconsin.
"The Senate measure is limited chiefly to war funding, foreign aid, medical care for Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange, and replenishing almost empty disaster aid accounts."
Now, if they could strip out the foreign aid, Agent Orange and disaster aid accounts, they could make it an honest vote.
Make the bastards vote for war funding...no embellishments.
As it is, they can say they had to vote for the veterans and the poor Haitians.
I've got an idea for a constitutional amendment, if anyone's interested. Is there an American Hercules who can divert the Potomac through the Capitol?
Wow, let the Pentagon furlough employees instad of the schools!
DUH !
151 members of Congress have investments in the military industrial complex !
International war crimes can be very profitable for the few at the expense of the many.
And the rest have been bought and paid for by the MIC.
If we're not fighting in the combat zones overseas, we're pushed into working for jobs tied to the MIC. No green jobs, no teaching jobs unless you wanna do private for less, companies refusing to prioritize in projects on helping local businesses but instead funding more time and projects for war related plans, etc... A great individual, Sioux Rose, always says "Mars rules" and she's right. If you still don't believe the metaphor, read this article again and see for yourself !
Mars, shmars, most of the women I know voted for our current warlord-in-residence.
So,
$30 Billion for escalating War.
$13 Billion for continuing effects of previous War.
$1.1 Billion for War vehicles.
$0.7 Billion ($657 Million) for Warmaking centers in Afganistan.
$6.2 Billion for "foreign aid" (?) to Afganistan (War-zone), Iraq (War-zone), Pakistan (War-zone), and Haiti (economic War-zone).
$0.0 for education.
How many "christian" politicians does it take to prove Jesus was a fool?
Jesus was a fool because the bastards in the government promote wars? I must have missed something.
"John Mitchell"
No.
What I am saying is that the people who call themselves chistians and who would promote war over education (and so many other worthwhile endeavors) either do not believe Jesus was god or they believe he was either a fool or a liar. I was actually trying to give the hypocrites the benefit of the doubt (pun).
I'm sure the so-called "Christians" you speak of have never read Jesus's teachings. If they did, they would go into shock.
Unfortunately (in my view), the term "Christian" has been appropriated by people who know nothing about Jesus's radically pacifist and non-materialist teachings. Their worldview is diametrically opposed to the way of life that Jesus taught. This distinction seems to be lost of most liberal critics of religion, who attribute the vices of pseudo-Christians to Jesus.
But then, Jesus's none-too-bright disciples didn't seem to get it either. That's why, near the end of his life, he tried to boil it down to one simple sentence that they might finally understand: "I give to you a new commandment: love one another."
Birdbrain, Christian politicians have nothing to do with Jesus. If they drop his name once in a while, it's because they are using him to pick up contacts. Some self-proclaimed "christians" these days have nothing to do with Christ, or his actual teachings. Don't get all mad at Jesus, he was no fool, he was an ascended master, and there is honestly nothing wrong with his teachings...you got a problem with virtue?
"rev.charity"
1. I did not say that I thought Jesus was a fool. My point is that is what those who support wars of aggression and simultaneously punish educators believe. They are sadistic liars and frauds.
2. THE christ is a concept. I think Jesus (if we believe what he was said to be like) had some truly beautiful thoughts. I don't believe he was a god, but it amazes me that so many (the majority, I suspect) of the people who say they believe he was god do not believe in his teachings.
3. The word "virtue" is derived from the same word as virility. It is all about being a man and, in that accurate interpretation, it is nearly impossible for a woman to be virtuous and I happen to think that is a good thing!
4. There are no superior people.
Thanks for responding. I am not being sarcastic.
"... it is nearly impossible for a woman to be virtuous and I happen to think that is a good thing!"
Now I'm trying to figure out if that makes it more likely that you're a man, or a woman.
Jesus never gave any indication he came to start a new Religion. There are stories from within Tribes that Jesus lived with them long ago in this land. The Mormons in their book say he lived with Tribes, too.
That would mean he was out from under the Rule of the European Gentiles that called themselves Romans, out from under the rule of Herod, and out from under the rule of the Dictatorial religious system of Israel.
That would mean he not only lived at one time in one land but at another time in another land. That would mean he would have the ability to travel between dimensions, and take on human flesh more than one time.
So if the stories are true at all then from outside this dimension he and Creator and and living Beings in Creator's dimension would have been able to watch the coming of Columbus and the Pilgrims into the Hemisphere and watch them set up their European style Beast Kingdoms upon the earth that Jesus spoke about in the prophecy he gave to John.
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.
"ShadowDancer"
I don't mean to belittle your very interesting response, but (I'm feeling silly right now) maybe he just used his Ipod.
Oh, you can belittle me all you want in this world, but only in this world.
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.
The S.American writer Eduardo Galleano once wrote that "Revealed truths live outside the realm of doubt." There is no talking to such people.
Living outside the realm of doubt isn't only popular among dogmatic religious types. For example, try persuading the liberals you meet that Obama is a war-mongering, self-serving corporate lackey.
SOS - Different Day. (Sanity on Stay)
I like this, WhenThen. Sanity on Stay is nicer than my SOS, but I've been saying, SOS - different decade.
The Pentagon should be forced to furlough at least half of that bloated anti-productive agency. The can't even catch 100 Afgan Qaeda in 9 years of trying. But the pentagon has made lots of new enemies to assure them their permanent wars and assure permanent war profiteering by the MIC.
Remember, no totalitarian government supports real education. If you learn to think, you learn to question, you learn to evaluate.
Totalitarian governments like schooling to be by-rote memorization and endless propaganda. Then, you wind up with the equivalent of the Hitler Jugend or the Soviet Young Pioneers, who know that whatever the government does is OK because the government knows much more than you do, and the government is always right. So just salute the flag and go kill on demand to feed the empire.
When the Democrats "took power" in 2006, we hoped that the wars and Bush's giveaways to the rich would cease. With luck the Cheney/Bush gang would be impeached and removed from office.
Unfortunately, as is now obvious to all but perhaps the Obamabots, the Democrats wanted to preserve this lawless travesty for their own use. Well, they did, ignoring the wishes of the populace who elected them. The wars widen, the giveaways and graft continue to flourish, and We the People are turning into a nation of hungry, sickly, homeless serfs. Our duty is unthinking obedience, providing low cost labor for the Oligarchy and above all, to supply an endless supply of cannon fodder for our wars.
I think the jobs will eventually return to the United States, when it will be cheaper to hire an American than to hire an Indonesian or Chinese to do the same job. Patience, we're getting there. (How long will you work for a bowl of thin soup to share with your family?)
minitrue,
Well stated.
Chelsea
Time to stop paying taxes if the people get nothing in return.
Those who don't see the connection between the decline in education in this country and the warmongering need glasses...big ones!
The more stupid the population become, the less educated and more brainwashed the young are, the easier prey they are for the MIC and the warmongering machine. They need meat, lots and lots of fresh meat for their wars for oil and what better than the public school system for the recruiting of the brrrrrains.
These are not just wars for oil,Reverend_Boomerang, these dudes are fighting a war to take the world. But I wouldn't say people are stupid, I'd venture to say that they are scared and confused. We are entering the period which is setting us up for what in the Bible, thousands of years ago, was the apocalypse, but today we can call it the ushering in of a new age. A paradigm shift.
The system of low and stagnant vibration and all of the low and stagnant people and decisions, and immorality, which have been keeping it afloat will have to fight to survive against the rising consciousness of the population of the world, and they are going to go out kicking and screaming like the little bitches they are.
They have to try to mess up everything with their stupid, obvious, and completely selfish plan that will never work. Who do they think they are? Super villains in a movie? The unprecedentedly corrupt are not going to last forever, guys, They will get ushered out as the new age is ushered in. Our higher selves, guides, and God the Almighty Creator will not allow humanity, and the glory which is our Mother, Earth to suffer the end of beauty and life. Because of these worldwide governmental villain type characters, as well as global climate change, there will be turmoil and a lot of starvation, and we'd all better learn how to fight in hand to hand combat, but in the end, the new paradigm will prevail, and it will be Peace, prosperity, Charity, Oneness; just as the holy texts describe...
Peace forever resides within us, as we forever reside within the Almighty, who gives us life eternal.
So, America devotes a still larger proportion of its diminishing revenue to the vainglorious pursuit of fruitless and meaningless war. Meanwhile, investment in its future is not put on hold, it is obliterated.
This is the tipping point. The back of the great USA is broken. You might say that America's enemies have finally won: they have ensured that the nation's wealth is bled away in foreign sand, while the nation at home rots.
Future generations of America's enemies will celebrate this decision, for it was the beginning of America's end. The baddies played the long game: and won.
I've already been laid off after my one year in education, but I remember being stunned by the attitude of worship the majority of my students had of the military. (Many in the school where I taught end up joining the service.) One day during a discussion on the economy and how many people are unemployed in the US, a good majority of the students had negative comments about people who are unemployed, insisting they are "lazy." I asked what people are supposed to do when they've been laid off, when there are no jobs, and several responded, "They could join the military." The MIC has done well to brainwash our kids.
You can thank the MSM for glorfying our ill-conceaved war efforts. Got to keep feeding the Zionist meatgrinder.
"In a tape released in 2004, Osama bin Laden stated that al Qaedas' goal was to "bleed America to the point of bankruptcy" in Afghanistan. He continued, "All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note..."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/03-10
It is interesting that we are in a re-run of the 20's. The crash of 29 was slowly planned just like the recent one.Coinsidently both times a Bush was in the picture. Prescott Bush was with the largest banks in America, and one of the wealthy who walked off with the money. They sent their children to college. our poor went to war. Bush and company set the war ball rolling and Obama was picked to keep it going. The wealthy intend to have their Empire, and it has nothing to do with freedom for the people anywhere. We here at home have to deal with the rampant crime of all one can imagine, every minute of the day, and not by the Muslims we are suppose to hate, and discriminate against, but our good supposed to be Christian Americans. Our suppose to be Christian Leaders of the Churches, rant and rave to continue instilling the negative into the criminals. The Tea Party movement have members of the KKK, Militia, and neo con nazis to push the hate, and we are suppose to be the country for PEACE?????????????????--We can't forget the Torture tactics used by Bush/ Chaney/CIA, and Blackwater. I still wonder who was really behind 9/11?
"Wonder"??? Just follow the money and ask yourself who benefited. Follow
that trail and it only leads to one place. The CIA and the MOSSAD..Nobody
else had the means and opportunity in addition to a massive motivation..
It's all about whose ox gets gored. Rightists own the government partly because of a horrible mistake our founders made: they never should have agreed to an institution like the Senate, a governing body that equates California with Wyoming, favors rural areas over urban, gives whites the advantage over minorities. Besides its inherently undemocratic nature, it chooses to operate by undemocratic rules: forty percent of the body can thwart the wishes of sixty percent.
In fact, for all their whining about Big Government, the right gets all the perks: bags of money for their pet projects at the Pentagon, plenty of cash for Big Ag, a blank check for bank bailouts, a credit card for all the contractors they love to support with tax dollars. I'm about ready to say: OK, downsize government to nothing, but your sorry asses are getting kicked, too. If nobody gets anything, then no more money for war and the oligarchs. We'll all go down together that way, anyway.
hey what about us? The folks who are paying this money? DON'T WE HAVE A SAY????? How long are we gonna let them SCREW US??????
The democrats have a golden opportunity here but they are too stupid and
too corrupt to grab it. The republicans have put their stake in the ground
on opposing social spending. They are too arrogant to concede. The
democrats should refuse to capitulate and refuse to remove the social
spending items. The democrats are going to get wiped out and lose both
houses for sure in November unless they do something profound for the
American people, NOT the corporations. If they hold fast and the wars
are defunded and start to wind down, they can blame the republicans. The
vast, vast majority of Americans, particularly democrats oppose the war.
Reducing the deficit by killing the wars would be a huge PR coup for the
democrats. When the everything collapses in Iraq and Afghanistan they can
blame the whole stinking mess on the republicans. Unfortunately they are
too stupid and too corrupt to grab the opportunity.
It is not a case of stupid. The Democrats and the Republicans are simply a two backed beast. One back has an "R" on it the other a "D."
If you look closely at the middle, you will see a very small group of the very wealthy and powerful pulling the strings. They don't care which party is in power because they own both of them. They pull the strings and the marionettes dance to their tune.
Now they own the Supreme Court, too. Watch what happens to the civil rights we worked so hard for during the last century. Little by little, they are already being declared unconstitutional, They interfere with profits, so they must go.
There may come a time when we will look with great envy at the "Third World" Nations.
To figure their job approval ratings, the elites directing federal resource allocations will have to note that many of us simply stopped paying federal income taxes.
"$6.2 billion in foreign aid for Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Haiti."
"foreign aid"?? The abuse of language is MIND-BOGGLING.
"After a take-it-or-leave-it vote by the Senate, House Democrats face little choice but to drop billions in aid for schools, college students and others that they had hoped could ride on legislation paying for President Barack Obama's troop surge in Afghanistan."
The Senate should be very concerned with the 800,000 warrant less surveillance analysts earning 70000/year, that could not catch the underwear bomber , and thats after his father reported him to the FBI as a potential terrorist threat.
76 billion in salary's, 2000 private contractor, and 1000 government offices, 200 billion in infrastructure, per year.
They cant stop the underwear bomber from getting on a plane, and now the new body scan equipment at airports.
We are not the land of the free, we are paying our government to keep us in fear, and crush the constitution, we are cowards, and stupid ones at that.
No oversight, no accountability, and impunity from prosecution. I live in Tampa Florida, I have been followed for over 3 years 24/7 by fusion center , tax payer paid , warrant less surveillance spys.
And after 3 years they dont know I am innocent , then not only are they torture freaks, but they are inept at their jobs, and its obvious that its about money , power , lies,slander, and deception.
The longer we stay in this illegal wars of occupation , the more power these private security agencies will grab, at our expense.
But the Senate knows what they are doing, they want us stupid and afraid, thats why they are cutting education, and not the Patriot act and the Pentagons budget.