WASHINGTON (CNN) — Speaker Nancy Pelosi will present a plan to House Democrats for a war funding bill that won’t include a timeline for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq but will feature benchmarks with consequences, according to Democratic leadership aides…
Leadership aides said the benchmarks would be tied to Iraq reconstruction aid and would require President Bush to present to Congress 18 reports before August.
They said Democrats won’t give up on a deadline for pulling troops out of Iraq, hoping to write language into defense appropriations and defense authorization bills over the summer.
Meanwhile, the Bush “surge” multiplies like a warren of busy wabbits:
The Bush administration is quietly on track to nearly double the number of combat troops in Iraq this year, an analysis of Pentagon deployment orders showed Monday.
The little-noticed second surge, designed to reinforce U.S. troops in Iraq, is being executed by sending more combat brigades and extending tours of duty for troops already there.
The actions could boost the number of combat soldiers from 52,500 in early January to as many as 98,000 by the end of this year if the Pentagon overlaps arriving and departing combat brigades.
Separately, when additional support troops are included in this second troop increase, the total number of U.S. troops in Iraq could increase from 162,000 now to more than 200,000 — a record-high number — by the end of the year.
I guess we just found out who told who FU, didn’t we?
We certainly did find out who told who FU.
First, Bush said FU to the Democrats, and then the Democratic Leadership turned around and said FU to their base.
Way to go, dipshits. I’ll be changing my registration back to “Independent” sometime this week.
Oh, and all that junk mail you send to my house? It’s coming back with a letter explaining why you’re not getting any money from me.
Fact is, I can say FU too.
hey, man, I did that very thing way back after the 04 election. I decided it was not worth the h/a of trying the help the dems who are spineless and just won’t listen to anyone. I can honestly say it has been an experience that I will never forget! I have even stopped the emailing and the phone calls. It is not worth my time or effort or money to do those kind of things, just so they will ignore me and will not listen to what the public wants. God forbid, I have a blue dog democrat as my rep!…;o) I am so damned depressed, as of late, that I can not even listen to any news, even local.
I read here and online, but take what the dems are saying with a grain of salt. They along with the republicans have made me very bitter and hateful and I am not like that at all. I call them all shitless for brains. I personally think that we are all being played for fools…..along with some blogs that play their game. The media and the congress is bought and paid for by the wealthy…so that leaves me and those like me out in the cold. I just get so nauseated thinking about it. I will always be an independent and I will not belong to either party what so ever. To me they are all alike.
If the Dems were serious about ending the war, they would avoid a veto not by submitting something that will not get vetoed, but by getting rid of the vetoer. They are indeed telling us—the American people, not just their base—FU. They are also insulting our intelligence.
David Lindorff wrote in a piece that was posted today:
The Dems can end the war very quickly, by impeaching Bush and Cheney. Thus, refusing to impeach them is an affirmative act continuing the war. By not impeaching, Dems are defying the will of the American people, and contributing to the pointless slaughter of Americans and Iraqis.
We need to hold a netroots vote of no confidence in the democratic leadership.
Or is the following just more propaganda to deflate and alienate the antiwar base?
“Speaker Nancy Pelosi will present a plan to House Democrats for a war funding bill that won’t include a timeline for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq but will feature benchmarks with consequences, according to Democratic leadership aides.”
Yes, they will send a sternly worded letter, and when that’s ignored… they’ll send ANOTHER sternly worded letter.
What a fucking joke.
I feel well and truly effed and I didn’t enjoy it a bit.
It’s too bad. I’ve not read anything for quite some time over at MyDD, but felt the need to see what sort of stuff they would come up with considering this failure. Well, as could be expected, Bowers does one of his “it’s not so bad” raps. Well, I hate to break it to the boy, it is that bad. The Dems caved & people will continue to die for NO GOOD REASON. What is it with these Democratic, what are they, strategists, advisers, whatever, who continue to try to show that politics is just a game, something to diddle with? Something to compromise with? I wish that Bower’s self-professed real politik would just take a long, long vacation.
Do we want to start the anti-New World Order party yet? We believe corporate owns everything including the governments worldwide. They get together every June at a place called Bohemian Grove to worship Satan and have ceremonies celebrating something called the Cremation of Care. Sounds totally plausible to me.
Actions speak louder than words.
And yet without the Democrats, we would have not invaded Iraq. Without their votes they would not have the supplemental funding for the last 4 years. Without their compliance and complicity there would not be the structure in place now for Bush to declare himself Maximum Leader for life.
Why. Why is ANYONE here surprised that the Dems caved? What actual hope did any of you have? Actions are louder than words, and the actions of the Democratic Party in the last five years are “We made a good show of this but we’re going along because dammit, we want the power Bush is accumulating. We like his soft fascism. We want to use it against our own people because they don’t know best…we do.”
And they will keep taking us for granted, because our other choice is letting the GOP keep control.
Russ Feingold’s statement:
It seems the Democrats aren’t willing to take a political risk even when it’s clear that it’s what the people who elected them want. They let the Bush Administration control the message, rather than seizing the opportunity and the message to stand up to the stubborn little brat in the White House.
I think too many of them feel that it’s better for them politically to let Bush drag the Republican Party down with him with his idiotic surge and escalating war. Either that, or they are secretly more in favor of the long-standing US policy of imperial power and All Your Oil Really Belongs To US And We’re Not Leaving Until We Get It than they will admit. I suspect for some of them, it’s both…
And of course, very few of them have sons or daughters in Iraq. (Are there others beside Webb?)
Cowards. Too busy worrying about their political futures to stand up to the bully in the Oval Office — afraid of how they’ll be talked about on FOX News or CNN, rather than standing up for what is just and right.
We’ll read that roll call vote, and see who, like Feingold, still stands for what is right.
The Dems are taking a political risk. That risk is that if they don’t impeach Bush and Cheney, voters will desert them in droves. Removing Bush and Cheney from office would end the war very quickly. And a vote on impeachment could be taken tomorrow, if there were the will among Congressional Dems to do so: there is so much evidence against them in the public record that no more investigations are required.
As I said in an earlier post today, I think that the fundamental reason they are not impeaching is that ending the war by impeaching the President would destroy the current political order. If it became politically possible to end the war just because the people want it to end, then other things would become politically possible that we are told by the Democrats in Washington and the corporate media are politically impossible, like single-payer health care. This is all about keeping the public in check, about proving to it that what it wants is of no importance as far as the government is concerned; that the public is powerless.
ya all wanna know who was told FU?
US!!!!!!!!
We don’t count and that is the bottom line. Well– as far as I am concerned- FU to the GOP
FU to the DEMS
VOTE GREEN or don’t vote!
taken accountability off the table.
Remember this, from an NPR interview on April 30:
The Dem leadership is simply trying to con the American public when it says it can’t do anything about Bush’s intransigence and veto threats, so it has to cave if “the troops” are to get “funded”.
Why didn’t the Dem leadership hold a veto threat over Bush to get him to compromise?
It’s like, as someone said at BT before, the Dems and Bush are playing good cop/bad cop with the American people.
Really, what is the alternative? Vote green=give the whole thing right back to the GOP=kiss the constitution goodbye. Vote Dem and someone in a leadership post might write someone in the executive branch a nasty note or two. Someone tell me why I should still believe the ship can be turned around! Somebody….Anybody??
You ready to listen to the lunatic fringe yet ? First go to CathyfromCanada and look at her lovely shots of military bases in Iraq. Then saunter to Dissent at WordPress for the lowdown on the missile shield. Perhaps you can check out some of that wonderful Intel at Global Research and see what’s deployed in the area. And if you check out the contractors, you might start to realize the real scope of numbers. Just for garnish, read some TomGrams or ‘Desert Crossing’ Post-Iraq Invasion evaluation.
The Project for the New American Century is rolling right along. The UN is calling it genocide now. Wait till the party really gets going. BTW WTF happened to the DU post ? Need links ? Well, what are Blogrolls for ? http://opit.wordpress.com/
What DU post?
There hasn’t been enough, in your face, let’s end the war protest. This could strengthen the grass roots efforts. May have a positive fall out. I know I’m contemplating more involvement in direct, anti-war action.
The one linked to on my Blogroll !
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2007/5/20/63438/5564#5