Armando keeps haranguing me and filling up my email box with posts about how the bloggers are endorsing doing nothing about the war. Here’s his latest. And he has developed a mantra that he flogs like a dead horse. Here it is.
I ask for three things: First, announce NOW that the Democratic Congress will NOT fund the Iraq Debacle after a date certain. You pick the date. Whatever works politically. If October 2007 is the date Dems can agree to, then let it be then. If March 2008, then let that be the date; Second, spend the year reminding the President and the American People every day that Democrats will not fund the war past the date certain; Third, do NOT fund the Iraq Debacle PAST the date certain.
Some argue we will never have the votes for this. That McConnell will filibuster, that Bush will veto. To them I say I KNOW. But filbustering and vetoing does not fund the Iraq Debacle. Let me repeat, to end the war in Iraq, the Democratic Congress does not have to pass a single bill; they need only NOT pass bills that fund the Iraq Debacle.
But but but, defund the whole government? Defund the whole military? What if Bush does not pull out the troops? First, no, not defund the government, defund the Iraq Debacle. If the Republicans choose to shut down government in order to force the continuation of the Iraq Debacle, do not give in. Fight the political fight. We’ll win. Second, defund the military? See answer to number one. Third, well, if you tell the American People what is coming for a year, and that Bush is on notice, that i t will be Bush abandoning the troops in Iraq, we can win that politcal battle too.
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?
Here’s my question. What do you want me do about it? Nancy Pelosi pushed for the strongest bill that she could get. It has no chance of being reconciled with anything that might pass the Senate. If the defense appropriations bill cannot be passed in a form acceptable to Armando, then he wants us to simply not pass a defense appropriations bill. Fine. We can lobby the Democrats to not pass a defense appropriations bill.
Armando wants us to announce that we will not fund the Iraq War after a date certain. Pelosi attempted that. It was a partial success, as far it goes, but it won’t be ratified by the Senate, so who cares?
Here’s the problem with Armando’s plan. First we have to announce a date certain and then we have to keep reminding people about that date certain over the six to twelve months so that the American people are mentally prepared for a shutdown of the government or a sudden cut-off for money for our troops. When are we going to make this announcement? Where are the votes to make this resolution?
Armando is flailing around attacking people like Matt Stoller and David Sirota for ‘doing nothing’. He has a plan, but the plan cannot be initiated. What can we do? Tell Pelosi to try again? Tell Reid to whip Lieberman and nine other Republicans into shape? We don’t have the votes.
What can we do to get the votes before the end of the Bush administration? That’s a good question. I don’t have an answer. Weakening the Bush presidency so that more Republicans find their self-interest lies in distancing themselves from Bush and his war is probably the best strategy that we can pursue. The more Senate Republicans, like Gordon Smith, that come out against the war, the closer we get and the more cover is provided for worried Blue Dog Democrats.
I don’t understand why Armando is interpreting a lack of embrace for his wishful thinking as an endorsement of the status quo or a home-team mentality. His plan isn’t going to happen, so it doesn’t do any good to keep flogging it.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid cannot just announce that they will not fund the Iraq War after a date certain and that they are prepared to shut down the government or abandon our troops in the field if they are not recalled by that date. To make such an announcement they would have to have the support of their houses of Congress. And they don’t have that support. It does no good to blame them for that. It does no good to ask them to do something they cannot do.
It’s not Pelosi and Reid that have to be convinced, but individual members of Congress. There are people down at the Pentagon right now that are protesting against the war. There are people writing letters, and on their blogs, and talking to their friends. The people want this war over. But it is not going to end from a lack of funding this year. No announcement that it will end next year from a lack of funding is going to be forthcoming this spring.
It’s frustrating, I know. It’s tragic. There is one thing that we can rely on, however. The Iraq War is going to eventually drag everyone down with it. The votes will eventually be there. We can hasten that time, but we can’t force that time to be right now.
The beauty of Armando’s plan is that it doesn’t require the House or Senate to pass anything. Simply that the caucus have the discipline to not even bring it up or let it out of committee. Even better they can approve money for the troops to transport home, and money for the VA and Walter Reed.
Essentially they could just start to pretend that the President is sane and will withdraw the troops given duress, and that he will do so in a way that is good for the troops. Personally I think that is asking an awful lot especially considering that the soonest that “date certain” could meaningfully be is a year from now, which puts it after the start of the primaries.
Sadly the clock has been run out on withdrawal from Iraq under a Bush presidency. The best we can hope for is bills which make the troops safer and saner, until we have a more sane President in the Oval Office.
I think it does require them to pass something. It requires them to pass some kind of resolution stating an end date for funding. This is what the house did, with all its caveats, and the Senate failed to do.
As far as I can tell, Armando wants Pelosi to just make a statement asserting that Congress will go farther than they have already gone, and he wants Reid to stake out a position that can’t even garner a majority of his chamber.
It’s pie in the sky.
Now, Murtha could refuse to deliver a defense appropriations bill, I guess, but he’d probably be overruled by his own subcommittee.
I don’t see any beauty in this plan.
It isn’t a plan.
The first step is to announce a date certain. How can they do that? And if they can’t announce a date certain, then how can they move on to the second step?
By way of example, they could announce that we will have single-payer national healthcare by March 2008. But it wouldn’t mean anything if they didn’t have the votes.
Or by another example, they could say that they will not pass another appropriation bill for the Department of Health & Human Services until a national healthcare plan is adopted, but it wouldn’t work unless they actually had the votes to shut down all the agencies under HHS if push comes to shove.
No matter how you look at it, they must eventually get the votes to end this war. Short of that, they must get the votes to enact something like the original Murtha Plan.
But making a declarative statement doesn’t change wishes into ponies.
his idea doesn’t require Pelosi to pass a resolution. It requires enough democrats to make an announcement that after a particular date they will not allow to pass any standard funding bill on Iraq.
Or Senators. It would take not 60 but rather 41 Senators to refuse a bill.
I’m sure I’m saying anything you don’t know, or Armando has emailed you often. You don’t need a resolution that does not have the votes to pass. You need enough representatives to stand in front of a camera en masse and announce they will refuse to allow passage.
Funding bills expire. As far as I know every single approprations bill has a finite time or money cap, usually both. That is why Bush has to come to congress every year for more funding. I think that Armando’s plan would be to include a cut off date, either today or in six months or a year. Somewhat like a parent telling their college kid here is $1,000 but don’t come running to me when you use it all up.
The big problem I forgot to mention is that congress has tried tricks like that before, but if I remember correctly Teddy Roosevelt was able to convince congress to pay for bringing the “Great White Fleet” home after he sent it half way around the world.
I don’t think you have this right.
Yes, appropriations bill expire. The war is being funded on supplementals, although the Dems have talked about doing away with that and placing the funding back in the Defense appropriations bill.
Either way, the idea would be to announce in some fashion that there will be no more funding for the war after a certain date. In practice, we see how this works from the house bill.
The house bill makes the President certify that Iraq is meeting certain benchmarks, or else…that our troops are trained and equipped (or a waiver is signed), etc. Those are impossible to meet, so a date comes in the future when the funding stops, except for certain limited purposes. Blah, blah, blah.
We cannot even get this watered down version passed in the Senate. So, this cannot be the way to go.
Instead of this failure strategy, Armando proposes something else. What, exactly, isn’t all that clear to me. But it can’t simply be the process that just failed.
It appears that he wants Reid and Pelosi to just announce that funding will be cut off period. But he isn’t willing to do this through the passage of any bills, but rather through the failure to pass any bills.
Of course, we have to draw up a defense appropriations bill anyway, because we must fund the military. Even if it is doing as a continuing resolution or a supplemental, it must be voted on, and rules for amendments and whatnot must be agreed upon. The threat would be to not include any funding for Iraq in this bill and not to pass it if it does include any funding.
And then we play chicken with the President and the Republicans, basically forcing them to vote for a bill that doesn’t include funding for Iraq, or seeing funding for the whole military dry up.
The gamble is that we can win this game of chicken. And maybe we could win it. But there are a lot of procedural considerations that go into a strategy like that. And it does require, at the end of the day, that we pass something.
And before we can pass it, we need a lot more votes than we have today. So, I come back to my original point. We don’t have to convince Reid and Pelosi. We have to convince congress. And we are nowhere near convincing congress to go along with a game of chicken where we threaten to not pass an defense spending at all unless it precludes spending for Iraq.
What we need is something like the Boland Amendment:
But, to pass an amendment, you need the votes.
We’re not there yet, so I don’t see how criticizing the leadership is helpful. We need to criticize the membership.
The point is that at some point the funding you have authorized in the supplemental is all gone. Then you do nothing. Absolutely nothing. If you are really sure you have the votes you can debate doing noting for a while and then you pass nothing.
Inaction does not require a vote, telling Bush that you will not act does not require a vote. Just like it doesn’t require a vote to shut down the government when the congress and the president cannot agree on a budget. I don’t think I agree with Armando that it is a good idea, but the point is that money for the Iraq war requires a majority vote of both houses. Failing that there is no more cash.
I don’t really know what that would mean in practical terms, chances are Bush would just have them keep fighting and dying and tell the country that the Democrats are withholding our brave soldier’s paycheck.
You know perfectly well that he is proposing a sit down strike, for which no one needs permission. Hell no, I won’t go. If they can’t find 41 people to sit down for the troops, then Amando’s plan is even more brilliant because it exposes the black mold within. I also don’t know why you had to pick “Armando’s Snit” for a title.
Someone needs to tell Armando that Congress is not the only field of battle.
I’m with Armando. Just vote no on any military money bills.
Will there be a cost? Perhaps, although now the polls say No.
If there is a cost, when did we ever expect that ending this war would be cost-free? Kids are sacrificing their lives. The least our representatives can do is risk their comfortable offices.
Here is the deal. Senate Joint Resolution #9.
And here is the vote:
60 votes not being reached, the resolution was returned to the calender. So, what can Reid do?
Do you think he can convince the Armed Services committee not to vote out an appropriations bill? Do you think he can maintain a filibuster against an appropriations bill?
I suppose that is his only option right now. If he can make sure that at least 41 Senators will promise to filibuster any more defense appropriations bills until the President agrees to a time certain for withdrawal…then he can go that way. I bet he doesn’t have anywhere near 41, and if he did, we’d be talking about impeaching the President instead of filibustering.
Ah, nevermind my above comment. Yes, that’s the issue precisely.
There is also another problem, which maybe someone can explain for me. Their is a Senate rule called reconciliation which makes it possible to get around filibusters for bills that have to do with the budget.
Normally, this would empower the majority to pass an appropriation bill with a mere majority. In this hypothetical case, it would empower the minority to pass an appropriation bill with a mere majority (which Lieberman and Cheney could provide).
The question I have is: can the minority initiate or force a concurrent resolution, or does the majority leader or rules committee have to allow it?
…filibuster a bill that doesn’t exist?
so, there just would be no defense appropriations bill. All our ships would go to port, all our soldiers would be laid off. There would be no supplemental or continuing resolution? No amendments would be allowed? Reid would magically hold together the caucus with what magic wand?
If you have an idea how this would actually work then I am interested in hearing it.
Nothing has to be voted down. Nothing goes to the Senate. There is no veto to override. There is no “supplemental appropriation”. There is already plenty of money to get the troops OUT of Iraq . . . don’t give them the money needed to stay there. Do not pass out of the house any bill that funds permanent bases in Iraq.
It really is that simple . . . if you really want to end the occupation.
And if there are enough good for nothing scum sucking warmongering Democrats in the House to join with the Republicans and force an appropriations bill (not all that easy if decent Dems control the appropriations committee) make them do it. Make them vote to keep on killing . . .
And even then . . . even it there are enough Dem warmongers who will run with the Republican dogs . . . that is, if peace is going to lose anyway . . . There is no reason not to do the right thing.
Armando is, for once, right. If you don’t want the war DON’T FUND IT. To hell with any “Democrat” that votes to continue this war.
I guess you don’t take Medevore, anymore.
{waves back}
Not since the recall.
but it was deft.
who would have thought?
Hey Armando, get your own blog. In the meantime, some of us are sick and f*king tired of hearing from you what other people should do.
Pax
at this point.
“What can we do to get the votes…?”
back up a bit– is the next two years to be NOTHING but what to do about the quagmire– just like the last two years?
what about the OTHER pressing issue our nation has? this is turning out exactly as I thought it would, my friends– i.e. the congress now has a convenient excuse to not work on the thirty pressing issues we face– and that’s great for them since they do not have any real answers— just like they don’t have a real answer to the Iraq/Afghanistan fiasco.
guess now that he put down the megaphone in a huff, he’s jonesing for an audience.
I’ve become very pessimistic about the Dems taking the charge. You’ve got H. Clinton talking about keeping forces in Iraq for like forever. The fact of the matter is, few Dems really want to find a real solution to the mideast that does not include maintaining a heavy american presence. We want the oil and the global position (the mid-east is prime real estate for waging future wars) and we want to make sure that we get first dibs. That means no pulling out of Iraq and letting the whole region decide what they want. It means continuing our imperialistic ways and continuing to exacerbate the anti-western feelings. As another poster said, the only way out for us is to eliminate our need for foreign oil. No politician is really willing to do that.
So Armando’s idea is hopeless, but so is what most progressive’s want. We will not leave Iraq. At best, we will retreat to our million dollar bases and hope that Americans will forget we are there.
I want nothing more than an end to this whole war economy and oil dependency and american imperialism, but that is simply not going to happen until global warming or some other disaster destroys the world economy.
armando is the posterboy for someone suffering from surplus powerlessness…issue after issue, the personal and political…..his reactions are of someone who just doesnt know how to act to empower himself with grace.
I thought that Armando/BigTentDemocrat went away in a snit. What is this, like incarnation number 6 or something?
Isn’t Mr. Big-Tent also the one who told us not to fight strongly on other issues because we couldn’t win?
I’m all for vigorously opposing the war in any way we can even if the first, second and fifth attempts fail. I think we take a stand. But then I was silly enough to think we should fight the Supreme Court nominees as a matter of principle.
Is Armando’s suggestion the way to go? I don’t know. It is ironic that he is just as intolerant of those who want to take a different tact now as he was of those of us who wanted to fight more strongly on other issues earlier.
There is a Web site that is circulating a petition for Dems to filibuster funding for the war: Filibuster for Peace. I don’t see why Armondo doesn’t embrace this idea.
Here is the petition:
This idea was diaried at dKos: Only 41 Senate Votes Needed to End the War? In that thread, Armondo wrote that you can’t filibuster a budget bill. I replied to him with this post, saying that I did not think that an authorization bill counts as a budget bill when it comes to reconciliation. He replied that “I’ll have to check”, but there is no indication that he did.
I explained why I think an authorization bill for supplemental funding for the war can be filibustered in this post:
That last bit I don’t understand. But anyway, I think that what Bush needs right now is a supplemental authorization bill, and I said, I think those can be filibustered. If this is so, when the Dem leadership says they “don’t have the votes”, they are being disingenuous, to put it kindly.
It would be nice if someone could clear this up. A lot of people are signing that petition.
Try to figure it our from this (warning: .pdf). I can’t for sure.
Basically, Armando was talking about a provision called ‘reconciliation’. Basically, it applies when the Senate passes a budget resolution at the beginning of the year, and then a committee or appropriation in not in compliance with that budget resolution at the end of the year. The whole thing must be ‘reconciled’,
And you can’t filibuster a budget reconciliation bill.
A supplemental bill would not be covered by any budget resolution (by definition it is outside the normal budget process) and therefore it is not clear whether a Senator can try to turn a supplemental bill into a reconciliation bill. Probably not, but perhaps, since it does effect the budget.
The Republicans could try, but the chair would ultimately rule, and it would take 60 votes to sustain an objection.
The Wikipedia article on reconciliation is helpful, too. It lists instances of reconciliation from after that report you linked to was published. (I do not feel up to wading through that report at the moment, and am not sure it could answer this question anyway.)
Your remarks were very helpful: thank you. I think that you are probably right that the problem turns around the issue of whether a senator can “turn a supplemental bill into a reconciliation bill”, and that the answer is probably not. I base this largely on the reconciliation acts that have been passed—a supplemental defense bill would look very out of place in that list—and on the remark in the Wikipedia article that “Senate Republicans have repeatedly tried to use reconciliation to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.” Evidently, they were unsuccessful at this. That suggests that using reconciliation to overcome a filibuster of a supplemental defense bill would be to abuse reconciliation, so that they probably wouldn’t be successful in that case, either.
So it appears that reconciliation can’t be applied to a supplemental defense bill, which means that anti-war Senators could filibuster it. (The idea here would be, of course, to by-pass the Dem Senate leadership, which is not willing to use the power of the purse to stop the war.)
So my question is: can you see anything wrong with this petition? Why shouldn’t anyone who wants to bring the occupation to a speedy end embrace it?
An article explaining the filibuster idea is available here. It concludes:
I think that that is what it comes down to. Are we willing to put as much pressure on Dem Senators as the hard right regularly brings on “their” Senators?
If we are talking strictly about the supplemental bill, it would be nice if the Democrats could muster the votes to filibuster it, but it won’t obviate the need to pass something.
So, we defeat the first bill (that we created) and then what? Sure, we should pressure the Senate to not pass a supplemental without at least as many teeth as the house version. But, we can delude ourselves into thinking we can avoid passing a supplemental in the near future. The real objective is to pass a supplemental with conditions and deadlines.
The key is to try to get a better bill, and if threats of filibusters can accomplish that, then I am all for it. I doubt we will win that game of chicken though…mainly because the GOP knows we have to pass something eventually, and they have the filibuster too.
To quote from the petition again:
Congress has the power of the purse, and because of the filibuster, the 41 would have the final say. Thus, if they are sufficiently determined, the 41 will win this game: that is the way the game is set up.
Of course, the anti-war coalition would have to manage public perception of what is going on effectively, making it clear that the troops will not suddenly run out of MREs and bullets if the bill’s passage is delayed. Furthermore, it must make clear that since a substantial majority of the public wants us out of Iraq and that “victory” in Iraq is impossible, the people that are putting the troops at risk and not supporting them are the people who want to keep them in, not the ones who want to get them out.
There is a lot of frustration now among people against the war (like Armando) that Dems aren’t making much headway at winding the occupation down. The Dem leadership is trying to convince the public and the netroots in particular that it is doing the best it can. But the argument presented in this petition shows that Dems could bring the occupation to an end very quickly if they really wanted to. All they would have to do is play hardball, the way the Republicans do as a matter of second nature. But they would be doing it to save lives.
This is the way the war in Vietnam ended: by the public putting pressure on Congress. It was a slow and gradual process. I think this filibuster idea could be an important part of bringing the occupation of Iraq to an end: it makes clear that the Democrats are still passively supporting the war, making it possible.
All of these resolutions they keep debating and getting voted on are nothing but a kabuki play. It is an old game. They pretend they are making an effort to get done what we want, but it is just a sham to distract us and make us keep on hoping that they will finally get it done this time, so that we don’t finally reach the breaking point and stand up to force them to do what the people demand.
I wish the filibuster idea were widely circulated in the progressive blogosphere. (I can’t understand why so far it has been restricted to radical sites like Counterpunch and Antiwar.com.) If it were, the Dems would no longer be able to play good cop to the Rethugs bad cop, and the netroots would be able to put more pressure on the Dems.
even have to submit a supplemental? Why not “none at all” to Bush’s supplemental funding request? There’s already a 400 billion plus “defense” budget (that defends us against nothing). That’s three or four times the military we “need” even without a “supplemental” for Iraq.
They’ve certainly got enough for buss tickets to Jordan or Kuwait or Turkey . . . what more do they need to get out? Just. Pick. Up. And. Go. Leave everything behind. Just get every American out of Iraq . . . they never should have been there to begin with.
And get those fleets out of the Persian Gulf. They have no business there either. None.
Why do we have to supplement a supplemental?
Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that we do not. We would then have to authorize the Pentagon to spend money that is appropriated for other purposes to pay our expenses in Iraq (even if only to help us pull out of Iraq). No matter how you slice it, we eventually have to introduce a bill that pays for Iraq.
But, we have zero chance of refusing to even bring a supplemental bill. None. Nada.
What we would have to do is have Reid bring one that cannot defeat a filibuster and then refuse to back down. It doesn’t matter which side is responsible for the filibuster.
These are all interesting theories, but they have no relationship to political reality.
Look at what the House tried to do and compare it to what they got. That’s a lot more than the Senate can accomplish right now.
They are going for requiring a certification that benchmarks are met…but that requires passing something and they can’t even do that.
Here is what I would do. Pass the strongest supplemental you can get (benchmarks, troop training, veteran’s medical care). But then put all future spending within the budget resolution system under normal appropriations. And when the end of the year comes and we have to pass a defense appropriation bill, then that is when we poison the bill and take our stand. Either vote for the appropriation or shut down the Defense Dept. Use the intervening six months to build the case with the public. If we have to we can pass some continuing resolutions to stretch out the negotiations, but by early next year, they will have to pull out.
That might have a chance.
Here is all that needs to be done. The Dems have to always make a supplemental bill available that will fully fund the troops, for a controlled but complete withdrawal. The 41 who support the filibuster make it absolutely clear that that is the only bill they will not block: they will block any bills that continue the war.
Then, Bush and the Rethugs will have only two options available: withdrawal or not funding the troops.
I don’t think this situation would be that hard to explain to the public. The Dems would just have to say that we are fully funding the troops: for withdrawal. That would show the public that what Bush and the Rethugs want to protect and save is not the troops, but their war.
If the Dems really wanted to do this, I don’t see what could keep them from doing it. Where the filibuster comes in is even if the Dem Senate leadership introduces bills to continue the war, there should be 41 votes in the Senate to block those.
We all know that the war in Iraq is unwinnable. Prolonging it will only get more Americans and Iraqis killed, and make the next president (who will be a Dem, unless Hillary is the Dem nominee) inherit this war. Therefore, I can see no moral grounds not to adopt the strategy I am suggesting.
IF (and that’s where the big lie comes from) the Democrats in the house wanted to end the war they would pass out a “supplemental” with just enough money for 150,000 one way bus tickets out of Iraq.
That “supports the troops” . . . all the way to Kuwait, Jordan or Turkey. The regular military budget can bring them the rest of the way home. 20 or 30 million (that’s million, not billion) should be enough.
If the Republicans don’t want to vote for that then it is they who are not “supporting the troops”, it is they who are “leaving them in harms way”.
But what we are finding out is that there really is no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. They both want to continue the occupation, to have permanent bases in Iraq, to expand the war to Iran.
Well, there is one difference. The Republicans tell the truth about it, the Kosocrats lie through their teeth and try to blame Bush. Well, sorry. You can’t blame Bush when you give him the money . . .
The Democratic Party as an institution is part of the military-industrial-congressional complex that Eisenhower warned us about. There might be individual members who want to defund the war in Iraq, but the party, as a whole, is unwilling and unable to do so.
Not only that, but supporting defunding is politically dangerous, and anybody who can’t see that is hopelessly naive. Pulling funding for the military opens the door for the GOP to paint the Democrats as anti-military, not just anti-Iraq War.
When Teddy Roosevelt was President, a majority in Congress opposed his plan to send a group of US Navy ships around the world (to demonstrate American sea power). The Congress threatened to cut off funding for this particular venture.
Roosevelt’s response? He said he would send the navy ships as far as current funding would allow them, and then leave the ships stranded in a foreign port…letting the American people know that it was the Congress that had stranded them there.
Congress voted for all the money Roosevelt requested for the naval expedition.
Are you sure the word is “snit”? There might be one letter misplaced.