Posted by
on Saturday, March 24, 2007 2:56:53 AM
The WaPo is not happy with the Democrats. In fact, the are busy scolding the heck out of them for putting over 28 billion in pork spending in the new legislation which is supposed to be a war supplemental, according to Captain Ed:
TODAY THE House of Representatives is due to vote on a bill that would grant $25 million to spinach farmers in California. The legislation would also appropriate $75 million for peanut storage in Georgia and $15 million to protect Louisiana rice fields from saltwater. More substantially, there is $120 million for shrimp and menhaden fishermen, $250 million for milk subsidies, $500 million for wildfire suppression and $1.3 billion to build levees in New Orleans.
Altogether the House Democratic leadership has come up with more than $20 billion in new spending, much of it wasteful subsidies to agriculture or pork barrel projects aimed at individual members of Congress. At the tail of all of this logrolling and political bribery lies this stinger: Representatives who support the bill -- for whatever reason -- will be voting to require that all U.S. combat troops leave Iraq by August 2008, regardless of what happens during the next 17 months or whether U.S. commanders believe a pullout at that moment protects or endangers U.S. national security, not to mention the thousands of American trainers and Special Forces troops who would remain behind.
The Democrats claim to have a mandate from voters to reverse the Bush administration's policy in Iraq. Yet the leadership is ready to piece together the votes necessary to force a fateful turn in the war by using tactics usually dedicated to highway bills or the Army Corps of Engineers budget. The legislation pays more heed to a handful of peanut farmers than to the 24 million Iraqis who are living through a maelstrom initiated by the United States, the outcome of which could shape the future of the Middle East for decades.
Basically, this amounts to bribery. Come on board. We will spend money in your state for your project, and we will stuff it in the supplemental war bill if you will just give us your vote. I hate to see supposed adults groveling like this. But, Captain Ed notes that it looks like they have the votes finally:
Liberal opposition to a $124 billion war spending bill broke last night, when leaders of the antiwar Out of Iraq Caucus pledged to Democratic leaders that they will not block the measure, which sets timelines for bringing U.S. troops home.
The acquiescence of the liberals probably means that the House will pass a binding measure today that, for the first time, would establish tough readiness standards for the deployment of combat forces and an Aug. 31, 2008, deadline for their removal from Iraq.
A Senate committee also passed a spending bill yesterday setting a goal of bringing troops home within a year. The developments mark congressional Democrats' first real progress in putting legislative pressure on President Bush to withdraw U.S. forces.
Even more than the conservative Democrats leery of appearing to micromanage the war, House liberals have been the main obstacle to leadership efforts to put a timeline on the withdrawal of U.S. forces. They have complained that the proposal would not bring troops home fast enough. Their opposition has riven the antiwar movement, split the Democratic base and been the main stumbling block to the legislation, which had originally been scheduled for a vote yesterday.
As debate began on the bill yesterday, members of the antiwar caucus and party leaders held a backroom meeting in which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made a final plea to the group, asking it to deliver at least four votes when the roll is called. The members promised 10.
All right. Now comes the fun part. Let the measures go through from the House and the Senate. They will arrive on the president's desk, and he is going to veto them both. Then they get to go back through this all over again, only it will be tougher because they need the two-thirds vote to get it passed. Both Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi know they lack the two-thirds majority, and because of that they know both of these efforts are futile.
I would love to give these people respect for the tenacity they have, but I cannot because they are, well, not the brightest bulbs in the box. Also, the Victory Caucus is reporting that Madame Speaker wil not be there for the vote itself. Where will she be? This evening, she will be in NY city at a $28,000 per couple fundraiser.
MarcieUPDATE: According to The Examiner the Democrats managed to pass this pork-laden thing:
A sharply divided House voted Friday to order President Bush to bring combat troops home from Iraq next year, a victory for Democrats in an epic war-powers struggle and Congress' boldest challenge yet to the administration's policy.
Ignoring a White House veto threat, lawmakers voted 218-212, mostly along party lines, for a binding war spending bill requiring that combat operations cease before September 2008, or earlier if the Iraqi government does not meet certain requirements. Democrats said it was time to heed the mandate of their election sweep last November, which gave them control of Congress.
"The American people have lost faith in the president's conduct of this war," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "The American people see the reality of the war, the president does not."
I guess they moved up the vote so it did not interfere with Madame Speaker's flight to New York this afternoon. Still though, they should know that this will be vetoed by the White House, so it is all for naught. In fact Byron York @ The Corner picked this up from the White House pres room:
THE PRESIDENT WILL MAKE A STATEMENT TO THE POOL ON THE IRAQ WAR EMERGENCY SUPPLEMENTAL AT 1:45 PM EDT TODAY, MARCH 23, 2007, IN THE DIPLOMATIC RECEPTION ROOM AT THE WHITE HOUSE.
Anyopne care to wager what the president will say? We are guessing something along the lines of "You idiots. I am geting my veto pen ready," or something to that effect.
Marcie
UPDATE II: President Bush says that "this is not going to happen:"
A sharply divided House voted Friday to order President Bush to bring combat troops home from Iraq next year, a victory for Democrats in an epic war-powers struggle and Congress' boldest challenge yet to the administration's policy.
Just over an hour later, Bush appeared at the White House alongside veterans and family members of troops to accuse Democrats of staging nothing more than political theater that delays the delivery of resources to soliders fighting in Iraq. If the spending bill is not approved and signed into law by April 15, Bush said troops and their families "will face significant disruptions."
"A narrow majority in the House of Representatives abdicated its responsibility by passing a war spending bill that has no chance of becoming law and brings us no closer to getting the troops the resoures they need to do their job," the president said. "These Democrats believe that the longer they can delay funding for our troops, the more likely they are to force me to accept restrictions on our commanders, an artificial timetable for withdrawal and their pet spending projects. This is not going to happen."
J-Pod @ the Corner has this amusing little joke about Andrew Sullivan:Q: What is the sound of one hand clapping?
A: Andrew Sullivan giving himself a standing ovation.
Heh. While that is amusing for Mr. Sullivan, I would like to offer it up for the Democrats who voted for retreat, defeat, and a ton of pork in a war supplemental bill that has less than a snowball's chance in Hell of making it through the Senate. And if my some miracle it does, there is no way -- NO WAY --the president will sign it. He will not alow Congress to micro-manage the war, and he sure as heck will not sign a bill with so much pork spending in it; that WAS a part of his SOTU address back in January -- reigning in such spending.
Did the Democrats really thihnk that they were going to be able to pull this one off? Seriously. MAYBE if Nancy Pelosi could have mustered up something larger than the slim majoirty this passed by, and if Harry Reid could miraculously pull sixty votes in the Senate, then they may have had a case for the president to sign it. If President Bush saw that they had pased it by the two-thirds necessary to override his veto, then he may have consigned himself to defeat. (Though we explicitly and sincerely doubt that would happen.) President Bush would have vetoed it, and forced Congress to do it all over again.
These nuts in Congress really do not understand the war. They keep proving it time and again with these defeatist votes. Worse, what can one say about a party that basically has to resort to bribery to get their votes?
Marcie
UPDATE: Chalk it up to Hugh for the new nickname for the new majority in Congress BUT make sure you mark the response to this defeatist resolution to Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani. Romney's up first:
"Capitol Hill Democrats have once again proved their inability to make Washington work in the right manner.
"The Democrat Congress' maneuver to micromanage our military efforts from their offices on Capitol Hill, along with the fiscally deplorable action of loading up a wartime spending bill with pork barrel earmarks unrelated to our military's fight against terrorism has provided the American people with yet another example of the Washington mindset run amok.
"Democrats in Washington have established a dangerous policy that essentially provides the enemy a planning calendar with a date certain surrender. By voting for such a policy, they have jeopardized our chances for success and endangered the mission of establishing democracy and defeating the terrorists in Iraq.
"All Americans want our troops out of Iraq, but we should never do so in a way that would jeopardize American security. Setting a public timeline without consideration of future circumstances, as they may exist at that time, is reckless and irresponsible.
"I urge President Bush to veto this measure and send a clear message to Washington Democrats that they must not and will not undermine the efforts of the United States military."
Now, it's Rudy's turn, and while not as long as Governor Romney's blast, it's equally potent:
"I think it is a very big mistake to put a timeline on getting out of Iraq. It signals to your enemies what your plans are. I think in a war, you never tell your enemies what your plans are."
The antiwar, fever swamp cut and runners in the new Democrat majority should be ashamed of this sort of manuever, especially given the fact that it's sure to be vetoed. They lack the votes to override the president's seal of disapproval. Worse, it sends a clear message to the nation that these people were willing to do whatever it took -- loading the bill up with approximately $28 BILLION in pork and earmarks (by my lovely and intelligent wife's calculations) that have absolutely nothing to do with the war itself. The president said it was time to end this sort of spending back in January. I see that, as usual, the Democrats continue to act like little children ignoring the adults, and not listening to what they're told. ENOUGH partisan politics. This is a war. It's time America cals up these nuters and tells them to knock this off, or promise to make them suffer the consequences come November of 2008. That means tossing some of these worthless @$$ hats out of Congress once and for all if this is the way they wish to treat their office and their constituents who put them in office.
Publius II