"... a major concession by Democrats." - NYT

[WillyT]

The decision to free some money for the war without a deadline or goal for withdrawal would represent a major concession by Democrats.

<snip>

WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 — Congressional leaders are assembling a $500 billion package to try to resolve an impasse by providing President Bush with unfettered money for the Iraq war in exchange for new spending on popular domestic programs.

If acceptable to lawmakers and the White House, the package to be considered in the House as early as Tuesday would avert the threat of a shutdown of federal agencies and end a dispute that has lasted months and pitted Congressional Democrats against Mr. Bush and his Republican allies.

Senior lawmakers and Congressional aides said the broad outlines of the proposal called for the House to consider $30 billion for military operations in Afghanistan, as well as money for military bases and support programs for military families to quiet fears of Pentagon layoffs because of a lack of money.

The Senate would then add up to $40 billion for Iraq combat operations, with the expectation the final war spending total would produce enough Republican support to offset defections by House Democrats.

After the measure returns to the House for a final vote, Democrats opposed to the war are likely to vote against it but may not be able to stop it. The decision to free some money for the war without a deadline or goal for withdrawal would represent a major concession by Democrats. They had earlier said they would not send Mr. Bush any more war money this year unless he accepted a change in Iraq policy.

But Democratic leaders now say they have concluded that a logjam of 11 appropriations bills cannot be broken without acceding to at least some of the president’s demand for more war money.

“One way or another, there, I believe, will be bridge funding provided, and should be,” Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Friday, referring to money to pay for combat into early 2008.

Under the Democratic plan described by senior aides, the Iraq money would be voted on separately, to allow lawmakers opposed to the war to add money for health care, education, home heating programs, border enforcement and other initiatives.

The emerging proposal is similar to the way the White House and Democrats settled their initial showdown this year over Iraq spending, with Democrats’ dropping their demand for a withdrawal timeline in exchange for added spending at home.

<snip>

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/08/washington/08spend.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Yep... the spinelessness exhibited now, is very similar to the spinelessness exhibited earlier this year. And so are my waves of nausea. :puke:

:wtf:

[tecelote]

1. Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!

[Horse with no Name]

2. Stuff like this is going to hurt at election time

and those that think it won't...are fooling themselves.
When the difference between the candidates is so slight...why change?
The devil you know is better than the devil you don't know...and that shall be the resounding emotion during the next election.
We will be stuck at best with the same shit we have now...a faux majority that we can't do shit with--and majority leaders who bring crap to the floor and table stuff that might actually benefit we the people.

[Kutjara]

3. It also has the potential to send disgusted Dem voters flocking...

...to Independent candidates, which could easily hand the next election to the Republicans. It looks like Democratic Party is getting ready to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

[Toots]

10. Or to not even bother to vote as there really is no good reason.

They are all complicit and not worth my time any longer. It is fun to sit around DU and pretend Democrats will do something but eventually reality sets in...

[PassingFair]

16. That's our dems, alright!

[spanone]

13. i truly do not think the democrats have any kind of lock on 2008

[Horse with no Name]

14. Me either.

They need to shape up...or they are going to lose, and lose big.

[Cobalt-60]

4. Rubber Stamp Stooges

Frank Capra puts it that way in the "Why we Fight" series.
Our legislators have lived down to the standard of 1930s Germany,
Italy, and Japan.
If I had the gear, I would take the sound from that old army training film
and make a you tube featuring modern images.
(edited for spelling)

[opihimoimoi]

5. Yet AGAIN???? They haven't figured out How to Avoid Spinelessness yet?? OMG

How to lead with SPINE??? BA3 and we may see a diff.....

[Perry Logan]

7. Quick debunk of the "spinelessness" meme...

"President Bush's success rating in the Democratic-controlled House has fallen this year to a half-century low, and he prevailed on only 14 percent of the 76 roll call votes on which he took a clear position.

"So far this year, Democrats have backed the majority position of their caucus 91 percent of the time on average on such votes. That marks the highest Democratic unity score in 51 years."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1728952&mesg_id=1728952
http://public.cq.com/docs/cqt/news110-000002576765.html

Don't let the media rhetoric fool you. The Democrats have acquitted themselves quite well--especially given their bare majority in both houses, and a relentlessly obstructionist Republican minority.

this 110th Congress has had more roll call votes this year than any
other Congress in history, almost doubling the number under the previous Congress overseen by Boehner
and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL):
The House last week held its 943rd roll call vote of the year, breaking the previous
record of 942 votes, a mark set in 1978. The vote was on a procedural motion related to a
mortgage foreclosure bill. When the House adjourned on Oct. 4 for the long weekend, the
chamber had reached 948 roll call votes, putting Democrats on pace to easily eclipse 1,000
votes on the House floor in 2007.
Last year, the Republican controlled House held 543 votes, and for historical comparison,
the last time there was a shift in power in Congress, Republicans held 885 roll call votes in
1995. The Senate, which has held 363 votes this year, isn’t on pace to break any
records, but has already surpassed the 2006 Senate mark of 279 votes.
Much of the lack of progress can be traced back to obstructionism by conservatives. Approximately “1 in
6 roll-call votes in the Senate this year have been cloture votes,” noted a JulyMcClatchy report. “If this
pace of blocking legislation continues, this 110th Congress will be on track to roughly triple the previous
record number of cloture votes.”
It’s interesting that Boehner is criticizing the 110th Congress as doing nothing. After all, the House, under
his leadership, met for just 101 days during the second session of the 109th Congress, setting the record
“for the fewest days in session in one year since the end ofWorld War II.”

[ixion]

8. it's not the rhetoric, it is the 500 BILLION they're shelling out for the illegal invasion

of Iraq. That bothers the crap out of me.

It's the fact that impeachment is off the table that bothers me.

Spineless and capitulating are two words that seem entirely appropriate.

[MADem]

9. Oh, stop making sense. Doncha know that glass is half empty?

The main course here is cheese and whine?

I am frankly amazed at what they have been able to do, what with a razor thin majority in the Senate, four Presidential candidates on the road from that body half the time, AND a Blue Dog contingent that straddles the road.

[tom_paine]

12. Ugh. More cut and paste. I have come to respect you, Perry, even when we disagree

but not these cut and pastes of yours.

Of course it the Bushies who are primarily responsible for this, but on virtually every issue that really matters, especially on prosecuting criminality and protercting the coinstitution, our Democratic Leadership repeatedly cave and surrender. This is not bullshit.

Can you possibly spin the disgraceful FISA episode, in which Bushler threatened them with an attack if they didn;t pass his stuff would be blamed on them...they scurried back to town to give Bushler a "quickie" then dahsed off to vacation. For some unfathomable reason, given we are in the MAJORITY, slim or otherwise, WE control the Congressional Rules & Procedures, yet every Democratic intitiative took 60 votes to pass (yes I know how filibusters work, so spare me the lecture) while every Bushie vote required 50.

Ok, if we were in the minority I could see ramming through that Orwellian Madness becaue THEY controlled the rules and procedures. How do you explain what happened considering we have majorities in both houses of Congress. And the slimness of majority has nothing to do with the rules & procedures, especially as the Bushies have abused it these last years.

SPIN THAT! Do you have the audacity to message like a Bushie "Up is Down" "Defeat is Victory"? If so, go right ahead.

Here's an analogy to your tiresome cut and paste:

Your cut and paste is like reminding us of the very good job the Democrats have done at distributing earmuffs during a recent crisis, and they stayed very focused and concerned that the earmuff supply to average people.

Unfortunately, the crisis in question was that our town is burning down, and the earmuffs which our Democratic Leadership worked so hard to stay unified did nothing. However, whenever the "let the town burn" contingent asked for anything, our Democratic Leadership gave it right up.

I'm sorry Perry, but fuck them and their soutness on the earmuff issue. We need help preventing the whole thing from burning down.

End rant.

Keep it up with the cut-and-paste. Stay on message and don;t let the facts get in your way. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition.

Isn't this the way the Bushies have set for us? Isn't that the way so many unwittingly adopt such tactics "because the work".

Way to stay down inthe forest looking at the individual trees, Perry. I'd better stop now. Cookie cutter cut-and-paste, no matter who it comes from, just makes me so :grr: and :puke:

[dsc]

17. Name one, just one, Bushie vote, that wasn't a budget vote

which required only 50.

[tom_paine]

18. FISA. Any other questions?

Democratic amnedments and options, all defeated, required 60 to overcomethe filibuster.

When the Bushie version came along, 50 votes was all that were required for it's passage. I believe it wound up getting 60, in the end, but unlike ALL the defeated Democratic Amendments and alternatives (which required 60 due to repeat-filibustering), it only required 50, because the Democratic Leadership decided not to filibuster it, keeping the deadlock anddebate going.

That was sooooooo nice, polite and bipartisan of our German Social Democrats, wasn't it? I'm just sure that THIS TIME Hitler and the Nazis will understand and respect us for it. This time, for sure!

:rofl:

Sorry, but what a funny question that was, and so easy to answer.

Thanks for the softball question to help me prove my point.

[dsc]

25. It got 60 votes, your words, not mine

If it gets 60 votes that is why no filibuster was held. There is little to no sense in filibustering a bill which has 60 votes, sot try again.

[tom_paine]

28. No filibuster was attempted, big difference

How is it that the Buhsies can manage to easily arm-twist almost anyone hwo starys off the reservation, but our Leadership can't twist one arm?

The Bushies might ave gotten 60, in the end, but the point is they didn't need to.

Sorry, I am well beyond where I can make excuses for dericliction of duty to the nation on this scale by the people I worked so hard for and donated so much to.

Also, I am reasonably certain there were votes on the way leading up to that, procedural votes and other, in which 50 were needed and mid-50s was what they got.

You want to look it up? Go ahead.

The point is, you are grasping at reasons for why it was smart to roll over, scurry home when Bushler shook his fist and made a threat, probably hollow.

But no matter how you spin it or slice it, it is yet another occasion when Democrats in the majority show they wield not just less but FAR less power the the Republic minority.

Say, but maybe if we give them veto-proof majorities and the Imperial Throne, maybe our Democratic Leadership can upgrade to behaving with the unity and intensity the Bushies did when they had equally slim majorities in 1994-8, and forced the 2/3rds of the nation who were against it to endure the nonsense of a Phony Impeachment in which more felonies were performed to maneuver Clinton into the perjury trap than those he committed falling into it.

No more excuses for our Democratic Leadership. None.

[dsc]

30. Filibusters are virtually never attempted when they can't win

I think FISA was a stupid vote but I also think filibusters for show are stupid too.

[tom_paine]

31. Again I ask, how is it that the Republics use them so effectively

and we Democrats, when we do use the filibuster, is seldom used for issues of major Constitutional import or tactically, with success.

How is it, with the roles reversed in the mid-90s, the Republics got their way on almost everything, hijacking the nation at will?

I have tried to point this out from a couple of different angles, but you don't want to hear it.

Fine, we agree to disgree. You can move along now. There's nothing to see here and never was anything to see here.

And this is how great nations die. It certainly is, minus the mass violence and overt racism, how the Weimar Republic.

But there is nothing to see here, though. Looking at historical patterns on the premise that human beings keep repeating history is obviously a foolish endeavor.

History never repeats. Never.

[dsc]

33. In the 1990's the GOP wanted to eliminate medicare

privatize social security, change the bankrupcy code, and ban partial birth abortion. None of which happened. That is to name just four things.

[tom_paine]

34. And now the bankruptcy code has changed and partial brirth abortion is banned

Puh-Leeze! Your denial is twisting you into a pretzel. Rationalize cowardice, rationalize serial-surrender, rationalize deriliction of duty, rationilze the contempt for people like you and me FROM BOTH SIDES (yes, I know the Buhsies are worse, but at least they are honest about how they feel about us...while Nancy Pelosi keeps it hidden until the one day the fact that disgusting vagrants like us with our filthy impeach bush shirts who should be swept off the street like the refuse we ARE comes out) comes out in public.

And your weak rationalizations have to go a long ways back to even do that bit of rationalizing.

Guess what? I would GIVE them the bankruptcy laws and their partial birth abrotion ban, just to have a Congress that knew how to stand up for something besides their own privilege and power. Just to witness ONE of the DOZENS of openly performed felonies by The Inner Court of the Royal Bushies, be investigated so that the criminals can at least see there is the tiniest chance, more than ZERO, anyway, of being convucted for a crime they shamelessly performed quite openly, then simplyu denied the felony was a felony.

Listen, you keep doing what your doing, it's obviously working well. :sarcasm: It protects your ego and keeps the despair from becoming too great, because, you know, Nancy Pelsosi will save us vagrants...by giving in and letting the Bushies arrest us for vagrancy.

But you are not the first person, or millionth person, to seek refuge from the coming storm by covering your eyes and ears to it.

Want to read about you, me, and everyone we know?

http://www.amazon.com/Defying-Hitler-Memoir-Sebastian-Haffner/dp/0312421133/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197208607&sr=8-2

Enough. This conversation is over. We must agree to disagree. You are wrong and your examples the pathetic grasping of straws of...oh, just read the book.

You stick with the German Social Democrats, because they sure delivered on their 2006 "election" promises and have always had a history of fighting tyranny.

:puke: :puke:

Sorry, my patience for the ostrich game is running thin, and our time is running out.

[spanone]

15. yet they cave on Iraq funding time after time after time after time

[Warren Stupidity]

22. Gee that is such a relief.

Thanks for posting this again. I had completely forgotten what a triumph this session of congress has been.














: obligatory sarcasm smiley ommitted :

[Bright Eyes]

6. So is Congress going to make Bush* promise not to

veto those appropriations bills after giving him all that money?

Are they going to make him pinky swear? Cross his heart and hope to die?

Seems foolish to make a deal with the devil.

[Robbien]

11. The Dem leadership is not being spineless. They want this but had to

make some sort of concession to the Progressives in the party and the public at large.

Now that the Dem Leadership put up its dog and pony show for the masses, it can go with what it really wants to do, provide money for the indefinite occupation of Iraq.

Devious yes. Spineless no.

[lovuian]

19. democrats were voted in to end the war and they

continue to fund it



Very sad state of affairs

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. Water is wet. Sky is blue. Democrats cave. And, in other news..

[Warren Stupidity]

21. I fucking hate my party.

I wake up every morning knowing that the fucking spineless corrupt idiots will once again demonstrate their idiotic corrupt spinelessness. Every morning they exceed my expectations.

I fucking hate my party.

[Individualist]

23. The complicity continues.

:mad:

"The Democratic Leadership Council's agenda is indistinguishable from the Republican Neoconservative agenda," http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Kucinich_DLC_agenda_undistinguishable_from_Neocon_0813.html

[WillyT]

24. All Over Our Favorite Blogs Too !!!

BuzzFlash - It Appears that House Democrats are About to Cave in and Continue Funding Trillion Dollar Iraq War, Yet AGAIN! http://www.buzzflash.com/

DailyKos - Democrats Caving On Iraq...Again http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/12/8/85013/5442/596/419427

RawStory - Democrats cave on war funding http://www.rawstory.com/

Huffington Post - Dems Plan To Cave On Iraq Funds http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Huff comes with a picture too !!!



:shrug:

[MadHound]

26. Why should I continue to support a party that refuses to support the people of this country?

Both parties continue to support an illegal, immoral war, both parties are bought and paid for by corporate America, and frankly, unless the nominee turns out to be Kucinich, both parties are going to continue to work against my interests and the interests of the working stiff. Why should I continue to vote and support for a party that is against my best interests and doesn't share my goals?

[stimbox]

27. This cartoon sums it up...

[kath]

29. Some call it a "major concession". Others call it "keeping the powder dry".

:puke: :puke: :puke:

[deacon]

32. Disgraceful. n/t