Dec 19 2007
Democrat Congress Backs Iraq War
Success has many fathers and mothers, failure is an orphan. After a year of votes to hold money until America surrendered Iraq to al-Qaeda, we end the year with Congress giving a clear signal they support the war in Iraq:
Ending dual spending battles with President Bush, the Democratic-controlled Congress passed a $555 billion bill Wednesday that funds the Iraq war well into next year and government agencies through September.
Bush was expected soon to sign the measure, which includes $70 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, after winning concessions from Democrats on Iraq policy and the budget.
The bill, sent to the president after a 272-142 vote, funds 14 Cabinet departments and foreign aid for the budget year that began Oct. 1.
The vote in the Senate was an even bigger landslide:
Earlier, by a 70-25 vote in the Senate, President Bush and his GOP allies won a major victory in passing a measure providing $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — without restrictions that Democrats had insisted on for weeks.
Want to know how bad it really is? That is a veto proof vote in the Senate. And the House vote is just shy of a veto proof vote (my calculation shows 287 is the mark to override a veto). Not that Bush will veto getting everything he wanted on the war funding, but it is as clear a signal as one can see that Congress backs an effort when it votes funds by these enormous margins.
The votes by Congress to authorize the Iraq war were only slightly higher than these latest numbers to keep fighting it: House 296-133, Senate 77-23. Seems somebody has been seeing some powerful and amazing polling numbers.
Finally!! Their capitulation also includes the AMT fix, as far as I can see on The Hill (http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/congress-finally-wraps-07-2007-12-20.html). Now, we should be able to electronically file your tax return by February 10th or so.
Wait to see the media backlash about this (tax articles usually start on Jan 2) – we are usually able to file by Jan 15 or so. Hopefully my tax software vendor can do the fix so I can show true tax return results in January when the actual tax season begins. THIS IS A MESS.
Oh, and does this sound familiar?
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/12/19/video-duncan-hunter-slams-congress-for-gutting-the-border-fence/
Lied to again – why am I SURPRISED? Fits the pattern. Lie, lie, lie and expect the gullible to fall for the “comprehensive immigration reform”.
LOL!
You folks on the far right will dig up any excuse to keep the current screwed up system!
Sorry, the fault is lies at the feet of those whose sole desire was to keep current laws! They will work – right???
ROTLMAO! Yeah, Tancredo and his ilk left a pile of BS for everyone to admire.
BTW,
In case you are wondering why no one cares is because all the RINO, treasonous moderates who were secretly anti-American could care less what the name callers whine about on immigration. Without support of the moderates nothing gets passed.
Maybe the lie is the far right had a clue what they were doing when they waged the civil war inside the GOP.
You got what you asked for! You folks are pure – and impotent. Sort of like sterilized…..
But it has come at a price ..
Does Harry Reid Need a Psychiatrist?
AJ, check this out. Go to this page at the USMA (West Point) and hit the link that says:
Al-Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq: A First Look at the Sinjar Records
And read that PDF
How appropriate – the Democrats, in love with surrender, are only good at one thing…. Surrender!!!
Ah, the final refuge, name calling.
I agree completely with you that something must be done about illegal immigration. However, your gullibility in believing what the opposition says in order to get your support is what I question.
They are lying. They will get your support to push through “reform” and then they won’t enforce the laws. I’ve watched this happen since 1986 and I no longer believe them. We’ve tried it their way. It’s time for something new.
“LOL!
You folks on the far right will dig up any excuse to keep the current screwed up system!
Sorry, the fault is lies at the feet of those whose sole desire was to keep current laws! They will work – right???
ROTLMAO! Yeah, Tancredo and his ilk left a pile of BS for everyone to admire. ”
I’m left scratching my head on this one.
What does Congress watering down the fence building have to do with the rest of immigration system?
To me border security is completely independent of immigration policy.
Congress reversing itself on the fence is EXACTLY why we don’t want border security coupled with immigration reform. We all knew that the commitment to border security was only a ploy to get amnesty… and we knew once amnesty was enacted that they would reverse the border security… That’s why we said no to reform.
We said “prove to us you’re serious about security.. then we talk about amnesty”
Our suspicion is now confirmed.
Vince,
It is simple. When you don’t have the support you can’t protect funds from being raided.
And to get the support to protect your project’s funds you need allies.
And you don’t keep allies by calling them names.
And that is why the border funds were exposed to raiding – they were sacrificed because (a) the border enhancements are fine single string and (b) there are more pressing needs (like Iraq and Afghanistan).
When this civil war broke out I warned this would happen. And now it is and the folks who started the civil war are shocked the only result was losing ground. What did folks think would happen under the Dems????
Not to worry – CURRENT laws will do all that is needed! LOL! I love that fairy tale. Being a native of the DC area that one was the funniest because people actually believed it.
CDTaxLady,
Again, as long as you don’t trust enough to try something nothing will get done. Nice little old self fulfilling prophecy there.
All I can say is enjoy the status quo – you folks wanted and earned it and get to savor it. And we have all of you to thank for it too!
I remember, AJ, that at the time you were one of the only voices pointing out that the Status Quo was the worst of all possible choices – one could argue in favor of several different plans of action, but doing nothing at all would be catastrophic. And yet doing nothing is what the far right chose, and it’s been astounding to read pieces where different supporters of that defend that “do nothing” policy. Now they are reaping what they sowed, and are pissed. Big surprise.
It also astounds me that the right has let themselves be conned into thinking that a fence is the same as security. Here’s news – it isn’t. Sitting here in my desk chair I can think of a dozen ways to beat it easily, most involving our unguarded and unguardable coastline. (like Padre Island in Texas, which runs for hundreds of miles and is completely unpopulated for most of its length.) We could spend billions of dollars to build a physical double fence along our entire border and blanket it with minefields – and at best it would slightly impact immigration levels, nothing more. The fence is a billion dollar monument to political pandering that in actuality will do very little, it’s only meant as a political sop to a certain noisy political class. So why should I care whether it goes forward or not?
Actually, the places they “have” built the fence in it IS working. The towns that used to be completely overrun as illegal border crossings are no longer so..where the fence has been put up. They can and “do” go around it. But it has worked, in terms of slowing them down as well as redirecting their flow away from some border towns that were previously over run with illegals using it as crossing point..and into dedicated enforcement sites. I would also say that the fact that some people will find a way round some eforcement or deterrent measure has never been an excuse not to do them. (ie..the fact that criminals find a way around the law is not a reason therefore to not enforce those areas or insist on compliance in those areas, or stop trying to do something about the problem, or to even more bizzarly…applaud when they remove the police from your town).
Yes…lets be careful not to do anything that might actually do something about reducing the number of people who come here illegally….like…slowing them down or making it more difficult for them to get here. God forbid!
AJ
The funding bill was over 3400 pages and was only released to the website at 5pm the prior evening and printed out a 730 am the day of the vote.
No body found the fence changes until AFTER the bill had gone through.