House condemns MoveOn...slipped it into stopgap funding measure..

[madfloridian]

so they can pretend they could not help it.

House Condemns MoveOn.org Attack

The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to condemn the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org for a recent advertisement attacking the top U.S. general in Iraq.

By a 341-79 vote, the House passed a resolution praising the patriotism Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and condemning a MoveOn.org ad that referred to Petraeus as "General Betray Us."

The resolution was attached to a stopgap measure funding Cabinet budgets until mid-November

Wisconsin Rep. David Obey, a veteran Democrat, recounted how he left the Republican Party during the era of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., and said that lawmakers have an obligation to criticize their allies as well as their enemies when they go too far.

I am going to donate a little more to Move On. I believe our party does not value its anti-war base at all.

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/donate.html

They are apparently also going to let a dangerous FISA bill slip through instead of fixing the mess.

To those who don't want us to criticize, what are we supposed to do?

[IndyOp]

1. !#@%@**!#@ !#@%@**!#@ (n/t)

:grr:

[sazemisery]

2. I second that emotion n/t

[madfloridian]

4. Well said.

:hi:

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. LOL Yes we know about Obey and criticizing his allies; don't we?

As far as the critics who don't want us to criticize, note that they get to criticize us. So I have decided to ignore them. :crazy:

[Cha]

10. Good point...we have

carte blanche to criticize anything we see fit.

And, obey's little weird explanation that joe mccarthy made him leave the repuke party(which is all fine and good) but condemning moveon for accuracy. Twilight Zone. It couldn't be all bad according to the House..there were some who didn't vote for condemnation.

Anyway..it's all helpful to us because Betrayus will stay in the language, hearts, and minds as this OIL War ON IRAQ regresses.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. Obey is the one who called the Marine mom

an "idiot liberal". That mom is a friend of mine. And she is far from an idiot. Far far far.

[Cha]

16. I remember..who could

forget obey for that one. :(

Now we find out he use to be a repug but changed because of joe mccarthy..how ironic.

[neweurope]

5. Would somebody explain this to a German, please?

"...slipped it into stopgap funding measure..."
"...attached to a stopgap measure funding..."

I keep reading things like this but I still fail to understand. If it means what I think it means I find this absolutely impossible and very dangerous... Why does your system allow this? I mean - there is absolutely no connection between MoveOn and a funding measure.

*puzzled*

------------------------

Remember Fallujah
Bush to The Hague!

[madfloridian]

6. It is dangerous.

I have no idea why it is done.

[madfloridian]

8. I meant to add it puzzles many of us as well.

And I for one don't even know how to explain it.

[neweurope]

9. Thanks - but I'm still hoping to find out on what grounds and

exactly how it is done.
And why, for the love of God, people don't just refuse to vote for something that has something else they don't want to vote for attached to it. That practice would stop pretty quickly, I think.

*still puzzled*

----------------------------

Remember Fallujah
Bush to The Hague!

[jgraz]

14. It is possible to add unrelated amendments to any legislation

In the House, the majority can put a stop to it if they want to, but apparently our leadership is too busy keeping their powder dry to bother themselves with such trivialities.

[neweurope]

39. Thank you. I find this a possibly very dangerous practice.

--------------------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[ProudDad]

19. It's a parliamentary trick they pull quite often...

They attach amendments to the next legislation that is going to surely pass in the House or Senate...

This is an expediency to allow them to pass something (usually something stupid or silly) quickly.

The House just did it to pass this stupid condemnation.

The Senate just did it to effectively declare impending war on Iran -- attached it to a "defense" appropriations' bill...read "defense appropriations" as more hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars for the Empire's mercenary legions...


U.S. legislation is a patchwork of dissimilar and even competing pieces jammed together in order to get enough votes to get it passed. Each of these is a pay-off to one congresscritter or another to get their vote.

It's very, very ugly stuff.

[neweurope]

40. Thanks. I'm certainly glad we don't have that here in Germany!

-------------------------

Remember Fallujah
Bush to The Hague!

[aquart]

7. Any chance we can get them to do it again?

As fundraisers go...

[ShortnFiery]

11. Disgusting - term limit these lemmings! We are being ruled by a "big brother" government

Filled with errand boys and girls for the prosperity of ONLY The Military Industrial Complex. :puke:

KICK THE BUMS OUT - ALL OF THEM - AND START ANEW! :grr:

[ProudDad]

21. Unless the "SYSTEM" is changed

Unless we can get Public Financing of elections instead of elections bought and paid for by the corporate capitalist masters...

We'll get the same errand boys and girls doing the same job for the same masters...

[Zandor]

12. Supporting MoveOn IS supporting Democrats

[jgraz]

15. Pelosi once again shows she has no capacity for leadership

What a sad legacy she's assembling. :banghead:

[madfloridian]

17. I posted this about the FISA bill train wreck that is coming.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1910874&mesg_id=1910874

I am really getting nervous about some of this going on.

[jgraz]

22. Thanks for the pointer. Excellent post.

People don't pimp their own posts enough around here. There's a lot of good stuff being posted that just flies right by.

[OHdem10]

18. Keep on, Keeping On. Check out individual Candidates

carefully --here I am talking Candidates in House and Senate
before donating to their campaigns.

[lwcon]

20. I just donated $25 to MoveOn. I hope you all will, if you can.

Let's fund the shit out of MoveOn as a response to Congress's insult to the Constitution and to the troops who are stuck in this unnecessary and disastrous war.

I voted with my wallet. How about you?

---

http://www.correntewire.com/blog/vastleft

[OneBlueSky]

23. does anyone have a link to the list of ayes and nays? . . . thanx . . . n/t

.

[madfloridian]

24. Ooh....they edited the "stopgap" measure wording out of the article!

See what I posted in the OP?

Now see how it reads:

House Condemns MoveOn.org Attack
By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

(09-26) 11:04 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --
The House on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to condemn the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org for a recent advertisement attacking the top U.S. general in Iraq.

By a 341-79 vote, the House passed a resolution praising the patriotism Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and condemning a MoveOn.org ad that referred to Petraeus as "General Betray Us."

The liberal group's full-page ad appeared earlier this month in The New York Times and has served as a rallying point for Republicans. President Bush called the ad "disgusting" and criticized Democrats such as Sen. Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the party's nomination, for being afraid of irritating the group.

They edited out the sentence that read:

"The resolution was attached to a stopgap measure funding Cabinet budgets until mid-November"

Why in the world would they do that?

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/09/26/national/w095848D93.DTL

[ChenZhen]

25. Symbolic resolutions would be funny if not so pitifully sad.

Can't we give congress members all blogs so they can put their symbolic and useless ramblings there instead of spewing it forth in resolutions?

[John Kerry VonErich]

26. Yet very little outrage here when a congressman said he will defund Columbia University...

if they don't withdraw Ahmadinejad invite to speak. That is more dangerous than the MoveOn resolution they passed which really does nothing to anyone. Shame!

[madfloridian]

27. I posted about a Democratic assemblyman in NY doing that.

It got no attention.

I am not sure what you are saying....but the MoveOn Resolution was a thing of shame and portends of the future.

[John Kerry VonErich]

28. The resolution does nothing to MoveOn

Just words on paper that the senators voted for. They don't get penalized at all. But to threaten to federally defund, that is more dangerous than any resolution.

[madfloridian]

30. First off Congress was given that right to fund or defund wars constitutionally

That is a DLC/PPI/Third Way policy not to do so. They want to keep spreading democracy.

Defunding would take courage.

Censuring MoveOn was cowardly.

[John Kerry VonErich]

33. First this was not censure

It was a resolution, a waste of tax money because it does nothing, no punishment. But when you threaten to defund Columbia University because of an invitation of a national adversary to speak, thats far more cowardly than any frown from the government. Columbia has a major medical reasearch facility (leaders of immunology) that needs federal funding and that maybe gone and hundreds of people that need advancement medicine may lose if "Hunter's Law" passes. I find it scary that people think a worthless vote of condemnation would be more of an outrage than total defunding of a university because they refused to withdraw the invite of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Would you be mad if your university gets threatened with total defunding if they won't withdraw the invitation of people like Hugo Chavez and other controversial figures?

[madfloridian]

34. It was worse...they condemned their own activists.

Don't try those word games today. We all know what went down.

The big bad right wing told them to have a chat with their base, and they did.

They condemned MoveOn.

[John Kerry VonErich]

35. There was no punishment

If I ran MoveOn and got a condemnation from the government, I say kiss my ass and keep doing it and that resolution is meaningless and a waste of time and tax money. If they say they are going to put MoveOn in jail or fine them, then thats where the outrage would be. But there is no such. There wasn't even a sanction against them. So what if they condemned them, it don't mean shit. This was actually nothing that some are turning into a huge thing, which is not the case. Just laugh at the feable attempt, not be offended by it. As I said before, no one is and cannot be going to jail, be fined, etc.

The reason I am so preturbed that this is getting more attention than the possibillity of government totally unfair defunding of Columbia is that Columbia had a right to invite a controversial figure but a government official and GOP Presidential candidate gave Comlumbia U president Bollinger an ultimatum with government interference by ENTIRLY defunding the university if the school doesn't withdrawl Ahmadinijad from speaking. I ask again, where is the outrage?!?

[madfloridian]

36. You don't get it.

I don't know why you are tying this into other things so much.

It is quite frankly, about the Democrats allowing a resolution to the floor to bully their own base.

That is what it is about. It is about putting the left wing of the party in its place. They have done it for years.

[John Kerry VonErich]

37. And you are right on that

But my problem with this worthless resolution is simply, what is the big deal?

Name me one consequence MoveOn is gonna suffer because of this and don't say they lost free speech, because they said they would do it again.

[Progressive Friend]

29. Note how this "Democratic Congress" condemns MoveOn.org, but does not condemn the war/Bush!

It shows which side most of these "representatives" are on.

[jmp]

32. "They don't have the votes!"

ad nauseam ... ad infinitum


You don't have to believe it. You just have to repeat it.

[jmp]

31. I would call the House Dems "Benedict Arnolds" ...

But I wouldn't want to disparage the honor and integrity of an American general and war hero. ;)

[madfloridian]

38. TPM's Greg Sergent claims the Republicans made them do it.

I don't want to go there because that should never have happened in the House.

Let's not pretend.

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/house_votes_overwhelmingly_to_condemn_moveon_majority_of_dems_votes_aye.php

"As late as this morning, it was unclear whether the House Dem leadership was going to even allow a vote on the measure. The leadership, however, was coming under conservative criticism for not taking up the measure -- and now, obviously, it has done just that.

An astonishing number of House Dems -- 146 -- voted to condemn the antiwar group, versus only 79 who didn't. That's two-thirds of House Dems voting for this thing. No Republicans voted against it.

The vote drew a sharp response from MoveOn chief Eli Pariser: "It is unconscionable and outrageous that instead of doing the people's work and ending this war, Congress chooses meaningless and distracting gestures."

Late Update: A House aide writes in to say that the Dem leadership did not in fact allow this vote. Rather, it was forced by a GOP procedural maneuver:

"Democrats had given no signal of allowing a vote, but using a `motion to recommit' procedural motion, which they are automatically allowed on every bill and which does not need to be announced beforehand, Republicans forced a vote to attach the language to the continuing resolution that funds the government as a stop gap while the Senate passes the final appopriations bills."

I won't even attempt to comprehend that.

The Democrats control the House by too wide a margin to allow this stuff to happen.