Nancy Pelosi Threw Down the Gauntlet On Face The Nation This Morning!

[Mark E. Smith]

It appears that the Iraq "supplemental" budget will now be split into two
parts. The first for the maintenance of those troops already on the ground
in Iraq, the 2nd for any of Georgie's cockamamie add ons. Which would seem
to include any cash for that 'surge' he's been cryptically mumbling about
these last few weeks.

Now how will the Imperial War President be able to conduct his Battle of the
Baghdad Bulge without the necessary funding?

Constitutional crisis!!

Mark (heart) Nancy

[neoblues]

1. Very wise...

Otherwise they'd be open to the proposed fear that the troops in the field would be left swinging in the wind...

[speedoo]

2. So far, Nancy (and Reid) have been brilliant.

"Brilliant" is an overused word, but it applies well to this situation, IMO.

They are confronting * in exactly the right way. The joint letter laid out the dem position very clearly and this budget move is extremely clever.

[aquart]

18. They've had a lot of time to plan. They aren't improvising anything.

Do you think that Bush feels like a noose is tightening around his neck? Oh, what I wouldn't give to know he's having sweaty nightmares where he's Saddam and we're yelling "Nancy! Nancy!" instead of "Muqtada!"

How many deaths does a coward die, again?

[bluerum]

21. Yes - it is called sanity. Something dick-tater george is lacking. nt

[goforit]

44. Agressive offense is th only way!!

[Skidmore]

3. W won't get a raise in his allowance.

Didn't do his chores.

[countingbluecars]

4. Smart move! eom

[ChairmanAgnostic]

5. easy answer. signing statements on the budget bills.

"the money authorized by congress can and will be used as I, the commander in thief of the US Armored forces, wish, without regard to any unconstitutional limitations illegally created by Congress."

[BushOut06]

7. Sadly, you are correct

He's already proven that he doesn't care what Congress does, and that he'll use his "signing statements" to basically write new law.

[Monkeyman]

14. Waxman said he will fight all signing statements

He wants to review all of them

[MN ChimpH8R]

29. That warms my heart

Waxman is exactly the sort of bulldog-tenacious, take no bullshit guy to smoke out the nefariousness of Chimpy's dictatorial rule. Go, Henry!

[NYC Liberal]

20. GOOD! Let him do that because THEN it will finally give us a real chance

to challenge these in court. They have yet to be, but this is gonna give us an immediate reason to do so.

[Guaranteed]

27. That would be misappropriation, though, which is a really bad word

to corporatists.

[Occulus]

38. Let him try

Pelosi can come back and say emphatically, "George W. Bush has placed his own impeachment back on the table, and he has done it all by himself."

And smile the whole time.

[madokie]

6. Wait until this lady gets her bearings, it's going to be hell to pay for the whig

she is as serious as a heart attack

[Roxy66]

8. She has certainly been very impressive

[kentuck]

9. Brilliant !

Now, when he asks for $1 billion for a jobs program in Iraq, she can ask for $1 billion for jobs program in America... :)

[spanone]

11. and we know how the rethugs HATE funding social programs.

Of course, unless they are for foreign nations.

[B Calm]

42. That's what gets me about their support to fund the military! The

military is the biggest social program we have that's funded entirely by the tax payers.

[mrcheerful]

10. Get ready for another Drugs deals for Contra aid scams.

If GW and the neo cons don't get their funding from congress they will try to get it else where regaurdless of laws. Do you expect them to get turned down and they will lay down and not try something illegal?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

15. that was for peanuts. This is real money

Iran Contra dealt with a couple of hundred millions. this involves BILLIONS each week. No, he'll have to steal it somehow from another program

[aquart]

16. You betcha. Go, BushCo! Let's see those felonies!

See, the fun thing is that you can get away with this crap when you're riding high. As Bush has. When you try it at low ebb, your own people rat you out. Nixon didn't do time, but his faithful servants did.

[ChiciB1]

12. Heard Something About This Yesterday.... Keeping My Fingers

crossed because I think she really has what it takes. While I didn't get on the IMPEACHMENT band-wagon in the beginning, I NOW would LOVE to see BOTH of the Ogres put out to pasture!

Just think about it! Pelosi, NOT Hillary would be the first WOMAN PRESIDENT!! Yes, I know I dreaming, but WOW what a thought!

[MannyGoldstein]

13. Excellent Idea

We'll see if the Dems have the fortitude to hold the line on this.

[leesa]

17. Well, they do have that heroin cash crop in Afghanistan for emergency purposes.

[nebenaube]

24. yep...

That and the casualty flights from the war zone. I can imagine many 200lb bodybags stuffed full of opium landing every eight minutes at the Mayo airport in Mn...

[sammythecat]

30. That's very interesting.

I never considered that "we" might actually be using this to "our" advantage. I don't know if this is true, but it's certainly believable.

The pity is that it wasn't too long ago when I would have read your thought and considered it absurd. Now, it's not an absurd thought. Not at all. It's such a shame what has happened to this country. We could be so great.

[Morgana LaFey]

35. And to some of us

it's just a reminder of what we already know.

[ThomWV]

50. We're Talking A Sustained $Billion Per Week

Even bringing American agricultural science and methods to Afghanastan couldn't make that much dope.

[liberal renegade]

19. We all know this war is a crock of shit

so why not just bring the soldiers home? Use the next bazillion dollars this piece of shit for a pResident is going to ask for and send them all to New Orleans. REBUILD THAT CITY. If he was smart enough to do such a thing, perhaps he could save himself from being such a sorry ass pResident. JUST BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW, FOR CHRISTSAKES! I damn tired of being so pissed off about this whole Bush nightmare. This country has lost it's fucking mind!

[Generator]

22. She's such a broad!

Yes, she is. I have in fact loved everything she's done since the election. She walks the talk. And she looks smart doing it. She reminds me of Ann Richards even tho she was one in a million. I haven't felt this good about any pol is so long. (This is to me a compliment because a broad is a real woman that gets things done-and I'm a woman though not always good enough to be a broad)

[Peace Patriot]

23. Excellent woman! I admire her more and more every day!

And I don't say that lightly. I got stung long, long ago. My first vote for president. 1964. Voted for the "peace candidate." LBJ. And what did I get? Upwards of TWO MILLION PEOPLE slaughtered in Southeast Asia.

So I am the one who frequently posts, "Beware of Democrats bearing peace."

Lesson learned.

However, as William Butler Yeats believed, history does not really repeat itself. History is more like gyre--a spiral--in which certain themes keep coming back round, in different form, and we are given new opportunities to redeem ourselves (or fuck up). And what went before is never quite the same as what is happening now, and what is happening now is very much influenced by what we know of what went before.

For instance: In October 2002, when the Iraq War Resolution was passed, one hundred and twenty five members of Congress voted against it. Do you know how many members of Congress voted against the "Gulf of Tonkin" Resolution (Vietnam War) in 1964? Two!

The gyre is turning. We are forced to learn it all over again. And people were changed by that first terrible thing (Vietnam) and now have the opportunity to prevent this terrible thing (Iraq) from getting even worse.

Of course the Dark Lords are trying their best to keep ahead of our learning curve--and have thought up all sorts of perverse ways to disempower us, for the very reason that we learn and remember. And I'm certainly worried that their control over our elections leaves us with inadequate representation--insufficient strength of numbers, not to mention of character--to face this great crisis, not only of the escalation of the war on Iraq, but also nefarious plans to spread the war to Iran. What will this Congress do if the Iranians get scared and pop a missile at one of our battleships, which Bush is assembling in the Persian Gulf--or what if Bush lies that they did (i.e., the Gulf of Tonkin)? We do learn and remember, and we have Bush's previous lies, and the Gulf of Tonkin, on previous spins of the gyre, to judge it by. But is Congress too compromised by war profiteering (or by Diebold) to learn and remember, as we do, and to act in our true interests? Do they have the strength to resist, and to restore Constitutional order?

All open questions. We are in need of Thomas Jeffferson and Tom Paine, of James Madison and Benjamin Franklin. We are in need of greatness. And I have been seriously wondering if it is even possible for greatness to rise to positions of leadership and power, in current circumstances--our gravely compromised vote counting system, our filthy campaign contribution system, our out-of-control "military-industrial" complex, our war profiteering corporate news monopolies, and all the rest. I also feel that this turn of the gyre presents We, the People, with a fundamental fact--that we ARE our democracy--and if WE don't rise to the challenge, neither will our leaders. They cannot be great without a great people behind them. I do think we are capable of it, and are showing that in many ways. But, as Bush keeps us tensely poised over a horrible future--one in which we may see the end of the human race, and of all life on earth, through even limited use of nuclear weapons, or global weather catastrophe, or both combined--is it possible to muster the people power needed to head off these dire threats, in time?

It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of the world may hang on the "balance of powers" that our Founders wrote into the US Constitution, and whether or not it can be re-asserted, and whether or not our leaders in Congress are up to that difficult task.

Well, all I meant to say was that I am beginning to think that Nancy Pelosi IS up to it. Her first moves have given me hope. And her zeroing in on the main problem--Bush and Cheney's defiance of the will of the vast majority of the country to end this horrendous war--is very encouraging.

[LouisianaLiberal]

26. Thanks.

A well-written and thoughtful post. Posts like yours are why I enjoy reading here.

[Silver Gaia]

37. Stellar post, Peace Patriot. Thank you.

In your words, I see hope, which is one of the reasons I come to DU.

So many political forums on the net these days are filled with such fatalistic pessimism that I can hardly bear to read them. And most days, I don't. It makes me sad to see so many naysayers, people so convinced that we are powerless to effect change that all they seem able to do is utter prophecies of doom. Instead, I come here, to DU. Every day. Here, I can always find people who, like me, have not given up, and still hold hope for a better world for ourselves and our children.

I've been watching Pelosi, too. I am impressed. My hope is strengthened daily by this woman. She strikes me as someone who is tenacious, knows how to fight the battle that must be fought, and won't back down. And as she said today, her fight is for the will of the people to be recongnized, honored, and DONE. I will do all in my power to lend her my full support. She has renewed and strengthened my heart.

[tabasco]

25. That's what I'm talking about! An itemized budget.

Welcome to the real world Busholini.

No more blank checks for your billionaire pals like this:

[w4rma]

28. The former Exxon CEO looks retarded. (nt)

[elehhhhna]

33. Nah, he looks like Jabba the Hut, and he's our new Energy Czar, btw...

November 02, 2006

Bush Names Exxon Chief to Chart America’s Energy Future

Even for an administration dedicated to putting industry lobbyists in charge of the very agencies they have devoted their careers to undermining (coal and oil lobbyist J. Stephen Griles as Deputy Secretary of the Interior is one of dozens of examples), President Bush has recently outdone himself. He has named Lee Raymond, the retired chief of ExxonMobil, to head a key study to help America chart a cleaner course for our energy needs. Raymond currently chairs the National Petroleum Council (NPC), one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington.

http://www.bushgreenwatch.org/mt_archives/000323.php

[w4rma]

34. Look at Jabba's expression. The Jabba from the movies never looked mentally disabled like that. (nt)

[vickitulsa]

31. Intelligent Democrats have the advantage

over thug Repugs who have never been known for their smarts, right?

I'm thinking this is one area -- and a very important one -- where we have it all over them. Even the cagiest, craftiest ones among them like KKKarl and Crashcart Cheney don't have what I'd honestly call great intelligence, just criminal wiles that only serve well when they're in a strong position to cover up all their thievery and other illegal acts.

They don't have that luxury anymore! Bright Dems in the majority and with subpoena power -- now THAT's a winning combination!

I do believe steps are already being taken by Dems to fully expose the criminality of this administration, too, so that the much-weakened White House "crime bosses" will be even further disabled, as Nixon was once investigations got going....

[mzmolly]

32. I'm beyond impressed.

:toast:

[DoYouEverWonder]

36. Nancy promised

she would deal with Iraq first.

She's certainly off to a good start.

[G Hawes]

39. So far, so good.

Nice job, Nancy!

[SeattleGirl]

40. Excellent!

The only thing that bothered me about the idea of stopping funding for the war was that ie could also deprive those already over there, even more than they are now.

I'm glad to see this.

[BelgianMadCow]

41. This hopeful news deserves to be top of the greatest imho - recs ppl

[Kolesar]

43. Senator Joe Biden, D-DE, said it is impossible to separate the funding

in the defense budget and parse out what is going to Iraq. That was on Russert's Meet the Press on Sunday.

[Skidmore]

45. Biden is a blowhard and in love with the sound of his own voice.

I never get why people think he such a genius because he just goes with the flow. He's been on every side of any issue you want to name.

[Javaman]

46. I love how Reid pulled the bait and switch on mclame...

first he came out saying he would support the "surge' then changed his mind. mclame was all so flustered. LOL

[leeroysphitz]

47. If congress won't fund thier war of choice then the admin could

always just sell some weapons, illegally, to Iran to fund it...

That new Sec. of defense might be able to help them out with that project.

[ZaiusNation]

48. Help us Obi Wan Pelosi, your our only hope!

Zaius Nation

[JudyM]

49. LOL! A brain, a plan and the support of the American people. Lovin the truth of that. n/t

[WHAT]

51. I hope someone is guarding from the sides and back...

I think they're attacking the flanks by proxy with schwarzenegger.

Can someone in Ca. start-up a recall? How many billions did he give-up for Enron? Now he wants to protect the middle class by kicking the poor. Make sense to you?, me neither. Well, someone needs to deal with the skirmishes on the side.