The Repugs are voting on their IRAQ resolution TODAY

[_dynamicdems]

These ROTTIN BASTARDS! There was method to yesterdays madness.

"The debate will culminate today with a vote on a Republican-drafted resolution declaring that the United States must complete ''the mission to create a sovereign, free, secure and united Iraq'' without setting ''an arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment'' of U.S. troops."
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14830354.htm

So they are going to kill both Kerry's Amendment and the discussion the Democrats want to have next week.

Am I reading the wrong or is there some serious shit going to happen today?

[karynnj]

1. The Republican resolution is in the house, not the Senate

People on another thread here said that Kerry's and related amendments will be dealt with next week.

[TayTay]

2. This is action in the House

Rep Murtha floor-managed, I think, the opposition to a stand-alone resolution that says that Iraq is the front-line in the War on Terra and that we have to support a continued troop presence in Iraq in support of the current Admin's 'Stay and Die' policy.

The House and Senate passed the supplemental conference committee bill this week. It was odious, but it was emergency spending that was probably all ready spent anyway. The Senate requested, unanimously I think, that the Pres not send any more emergency spending bills on Iraq to the Congress but put the war in the actual budget. (This is not nothing you know.)

Next week will be the time when Sen. Kerry actually submits his resolution on withdrawal. The Boston Globe today predicted no more than ten votes for it, as things stand now.

[beachmom]

4. House bill just passed -- which changes NOTHING!!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/16/AR2006061600670.html

[wisteria]

6. I am curious about the vote. We do know how Murtha voted though. n/t

[whometense]

8. Roll call vote here:

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2006/roll288.xml

Good for the dems for (pretty much) standing together. I personally think it would have been better if they'd all voted "present" instead. A no vote gives the whole mess way too much of an appearance of credibility.

[_dynamicdems]

10. Thank God! I panicked before I finished reading. Whew!

The bill itself isn't as important as the debate that needs to be had about Iraq. And by submitting the bill, the senator gets to put this debate on the table.

I'm frankly disgusted though by the lack of support there is among Democrats for this amendment.

[beachmom]

3. This NY Times article gets it much better

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/16/washington/16cong.html?_r=1&hp&ex=1150430400&en=a37225ab27fe3d93&ei=5094&partner=homepage&oref=slogin

From what I read in these two articles, that bill is only in the House, not in the Senate. Instead, they pulled on Kerry what was pulled on Murtha last year. Don't the Republican idiots ever learn?

I can't find it, but there was an article in my paper, that spun it the way the Republicans wanted, saying the Senate rejected Kerry's amendment to withdraw troops, as introduced by McConnell. There was NO mention that it was done behind Kerry's back.

[wisteria]

5. This is truly a reckless resolution. It give this administration

carte blanche to continue this war indefinately. This resolution would it possible to have a never ending war on terrorism. They would never have to answer the question when is enough really enough. It says trust us, we will know when we have a victory. Very scary stuff IMO. The power to continually wage war with no opposition or debate permitted.
This needs to be defeated. Partician politics have no place in a debate as serious as this one. I don't even understand how many Republicans could sign onto this.

[TayTay]

7. It is heartbreaking and wrong.

Did you ever see how big that Vietnam Memorial Wall is?

"Half of those — let me remind you, and while you’re here in Washington, take a moment to walk down to the Vietnam War Memorial, if you haven’t done it.

As you walk down that path into the center of the V and you stand in the V, you can look up one end and you’ll see 1960 — earlier, 1959 — all the way through parts of 1968, and then the other side of the all brings us toward the end.

And half the names on that wall, half the names — stand in the center of it and look up at tens of thousands of young Americans — half the names on that wall were lost after America’s leaders knew and later acknowledged our strategy would not succeed.

It was immoral then and it is immoral now to be quiet or equivocal in the face of that kind of delusion." John Kerry, June 13, 2006

I had tears in my eyes when I heard Senator Kerry say these words. I kept thinking about a young girl from my town who just graduated from High School and has enlisted in the US Marine Corp. A girl who is a constituent of Senator Kerry's and whose family has suffered a great deal from this war. I couldn't help thinking about her and wondering if there will be a Memorial Wall for Iraq someday and whose name will be on it. We know we can't win this war, we stone cold know it. I wondered if that young girl's name might someday be on a wall, after the bend, after we knew we couldn't win it. And yeah, I cried.

[wisteria]

9. I know. I went last year at this time to see it. I wanted to find the name

of my second cousin who was nineteen when he died in Vietnam. His death so devistated his family, that it affected all of us. He was their youngest child. Nineteen, damn nineteen years old. What a tragedy. Anyway, I found the name and reached out to touch it becoming so emotional I couldn't speak. Recalling the experience still makes me emotional.

[karynnj]

12. This is quite powerful - as you wrote it.

When Kerry said nearly the same words when he was responding to Allard, at that point it looked like he may have had tears in his eyes as well (He put a finger near one eye)

[sandnsea]

13. I've been to the moving Wall

That friend of ours I mention on occasion helped bring it to our little town. I can't remember the dimensions, but that one is just as moving. The way it was set up here, you walked up to one end from the parking lot and it just kept going and going. Then, at a certain point, they had it where the space opened up more so you could get the full impact. And even here, there were flowers and poems and people crying over loved ones.

I don't think it's a matter of whether or not we can win this war in Iraq. I think it's a matter of whether there's anything to win. It doesn't appear to me that it's going to make any difference whethr Shiites or Sunnis run Iraq, or even whether they do it together. Both groups hate us, so what the fuck?? It's completely senseless for us to be over there pretending to be arbitrating between two groups that hate us.

[_dynamicdems]

11. It's inane. Totally frigging inane! n/t