(William Lacy Clay was one of the few in the House who voted against this monstrosity. – promoted by Clark)
[Cross-posted from Out Of Iraq Bloggers Caucus] — With a Hat Tip to Libby at The Newshoggers…
The Nation, Friday, September 28/07:
The Senate agreed on Thursday to increase the federal debt limit by $850 billion — from $8.965 trillion to $9.815 trillion — and then proceeded to approve a stop-gap spending bill that gives the Bush White House at least $9 billion in new funding for its war in Iraq.
Additionally, the administration has been given emergency authority to tap further into a $70 billion “bridge fund” to provide new infusions of money for the occupation while the Congress works on appropriations bills for the Department of Defense and other agencies.
Translation: Under the guise of a stop-gap spending bill that is simply supposed to keep the government running until a long-delayed appropriations process is completed — probably in November — the Congress has just approved a massive increase in war funding.
The move was backed by every senator who cast a vote, save one.
Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, the maverick Democrat who has led the fight to end the war and bring U.S. troops home from Iraq, was on the losing end of the 94-1 vote. (The five senators who did not vote, all presidential candidates who are more involved in campaigning than governing, were Democrats Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden and Republicans John McCain and Sam Brownback.)
A massive increase in war funding. From the Democratic controlled Senate. From the Democratic controlled Congress. From the people who after last November were described best in the words of Keith Olbermann:
Few men or women elected in our history-whether executive or legislative, state or national-have been sent into office with a mandate more obvious, nor instructions more clear:
Get us out of Iraq.
- The Democratic leadership has surrendered to a president-if not the worst president, then easily the most selfish, in our history-who happily blackmails his own people, and uses his own military personnel as hostages to his asinine demand, that the Democrats “give the troops their money”;
- The Democratic leadership has agreed to finance the deaths of Americans in a war that has only reduced the security of Americans;
A Message For Congressional Democrats:
The Congress must set a date certain for ending funding for Iraq Debacle operations.
Understand this, if you want to end the Iraq Debacle, this is the only way until Bush is not President. If you are not for this for ending the war, tell me what you do support. I think this is the only way. And if you shy away from the only way to end the Debacle, then you really are not for ending the war are you?
Understand this, Congressional Democrats. If you want to avoid the looming 2008 Electoral Debacle, this is the only way.
3% of Americans approve of how Congress is handling the war in Iraq; 24% say the same for the President
Understand this:
I was just in the process of putting together a similar post, and you went and posted something much prettier.
Good to have you posting again. Hope you’re feeling better.
was an example of another monstrosity: Pelosi’s Pathetic Doubletalk On Iraq (video)
She’s getting nearly as disgusting to watch and listen to as Bush and the Republicans are.
Maybe more so…
The Republicans didn’t run last year on ending the occupation.
The thing is – on a Congressional level I see nothing but seat pickups for the Dems even with their approval of these types of bills. Sadly. I don’t think the general public will yet be to the point where they believe the Dems own the war.
So I don’t think it’s going to be a 2008 election debacle – I think the debacle will come later when the public finally catches on. When the next president, whoever that is but undoubtedly a Democrat, is keeping troops in Iraq and the democratic congress is continuing to fund that. THEN there will be a Democratic debacle, possibly of gigantic proportions.
Unfortunately, I don’t think they’ll pay much of a price next year because the public hates the alternatives more than they dislike the Dems. They may not pick up as many seats as they could, but they aren’t going to lose seats and they’ll pick up some.
Obey to the rescue.
Not voting for or supporting them financially is the only threat they are going to understand. If we try warning them, asking them to limit committee assignments, etc, they are not going to respond. If we are weak in our demands we will get an equal response from them. They already know that the anti-war Democrats (like myself) are threatening to withdraw support. Frankly, they don’t care. They see the polling numbers stacked so much in their favor that the gamble to them is worth it. Better to lose the fringe (so they think) than to risk being made to look weak among the centrists. They were so overhehlmed by General Petroleus’s media blitz and the right wing seizing on the Moveon.org ad that they believed it themselves. In fact, they tried silencing us with the moveon censure. Whether there was an organized effort to compel them to change or not, the end result is going to be an underwhelmed Democratic electorate. That means low turn-out, campaign contributions dwindling, and no get-out-the-vote volunteering. If they understood clearly that it isn’t just the 14% of us who were screaming before the poll numbers were released who were threatening mutiny, they might respond. Bush has us so emeshed in the war in Iraq that our party can’t find an acceptable political alternative to staying the course. If they force a withdrawl, it will exact a price from them politically. They don’t have the courage to face the consequences of doing the right thing now. They are possibly hoping to find a way to shift the negative gravity to republicans later, but the price of that is more death and debt. Soon the price will be that the Democratic agenda is unworkable becasue of the debt. No money for health care or education. Its now or never. Bush Co is beating the war drums to go after Iran. The senate voted with Lieberman in what may be used as a back door authorization for war by Bush. The responsibility lies squarely with us to make them take a new course of action. If we don’t after what we have seen, we will have no one but ourselves to blame for the outcomes.
I don’t believe Edwards or Gravel would have voted for it, had they been in Congress. Not sure about Richardson.
Putting the “ACT” back into activist media:
Don’t under estimate the power of this web site. What if we took this issue, put it front and center with the names of all Missouri Democrats (Congress and McCaskill) in an emergency appeal to stop them from voting for more war in Iraq now. List their contact info (phone and email) and appeal to all Democrats to call and email the entire list. Go to message boards all over the net, online newspapers, political sites, etc, and post the basic plan and the URL to get the contact info here. Even though I am may not be in a particular Democrats district, the numbers would demonstrate the urgency of the appeal. It wouldn’t matter what district the representative was in if he/she were getting calls from Democrats all over the state demanding they vote against funding without a serious change in course. If they knew there was a statewide movement to force them to listen to us, it would get their attention. I would email everyone in my list to please log on, read the appeal and get involved. I bet if we took this seriousley, and also posted it over at Daily Kos, we would not only find other Democrats in Missouri who feel the same way, but we might find other states willing to follow suit. This frustration is widespread. If we did this, we could probably get the press to pick up that there is an appeal…some of them anyway. It could take off. There would have to be a consequence for them not voting against the war. The threat could be that we will work toward finding other democrats to replace them in the upcoming primary if they don’t start representing us now. No votes, no money and a lot of energy put into defeating them if they don’t get with it. I realize this suggestion is lose and full of holes and I am wandering. Maybe this wouldn’t work and others know why. But I think there are a lot of us who want the same thing and don’t know how to get it. It might be a matter of offering a plan. Correct me…alter it, offer a different plan, I will assist how I can. The Missouri D- Representatives in the state are probably badly under valuing the resistance there is to the direction they have taken. We would be doing them a favor IMO.
The point certainley wasn’t about making myself feel good, although it might accomplish that. I understand that you don’t think it would work. I didn’t say or imply that Democrats would vote republican because of the war. But I believe without reservation that the Democrats support of the war will diminish voters enthusiasm for electing Democrats. If people don’t show up to vote it will affect all races. I’ll check back and see if anyone comes up with anything. As I said before, I’m willing to take action on whatever plan others might have.
maybe you are envisioning New York? 🙂
I can’t remember a time in my life when there was mob action in Missouri. At least not in the Eastern side. I can’t speak for Kansas City 🙂
action plans there can be, except to continue trying to convince enough people, and it will take tens of millions I know, to use the only power they have, collectively.
That’s what I meant by trying to move the window far enough.
I sometimes feel like I’m just repeating myself, and I am:
I believe that people would feel energized if they saw and heard enough people leading us in the right direction on Iraq, and that if leading Democrats heard enough people say to them that they will not vote for ANY Democrats next year EXCEPT Democrats who have been vocally, and by their votes on supplementals, calling for total withdrawal from Iraq they would quickly notice.
They are politicians after all, and they are concerned with winning elections.
They would notice if enough people turned the tables on them and used fear to motivate them, instead of voting simply out of fear of republicans.
If Democrats were filled with fear that they would lose Congress and the presidency UNLESS the occupation was ended before the 2008 elections, they would end the occupation of Iraq.
Across the street is represented by Carnahan.